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My Tribute to My Friend ?Dr. Death? Steve Williams

Posted: Dec 31st 2009 By: mikeiles

I am proud to call ?Dr. Death? Steve Williams a friend. Sadly, he passed away Tuesday night due to a very long battle with throat cancer. I am happy to know that he is no longer in pain and now resides in Heaven, but I cannot help but to be sad from it because I wish he were still here so I could go back to Colorado and see his eyes light up with a nice joke on his mind to say to me at my expense. Not to brag, but I am blessed to have earned his respect and to have sat under the learning tree of his knowledge as have so many other blessed people have to whom he has graced his comforting presence to over the years.

The first time I met ?Doc? was at a Ricky Morton benefit show in Tulsa, OK on February of 2006. He had won his first battle with cancer at that time and was ready to show the world that he is now ?Dr. Life.? I briefly spoke to him for a minute while he stood near his trainer ?Cowboy? Bill Watts.

The second time I met ?Doc? was on June of 2006 at a Star Trek Convention in Tulsa, OK. My friend Justin Lee (comic book nerd) dragged me to it. There right next to the man who wore the Chewbacca suit in Star Wars and the man who played ?Jaws? from James Bond was ?Doc.? I stood there and talked to him for a while. He remembered me from the Ricky Morton Benefit show and told me that Ricky Morton should have booked the show instead of Tracy Smothers. He gave me advice about which company in Texas to stay exclusive with when I moved out there later that Summer. I decided to help him out by buying one of his 8x10 photos. He spelled my name wrong, lol. But I was not going to correct him because I did not want to get beat up. So from now on, my name is ?Micth.?

The third time I met ?Doc? was on July of 2006 in Ft. Worth, TX at a Christian wrestling show put on by a mutual friend Travis (Mace). In the main event at the show, Travis (Mace) and I tagged up with ?Dr. Death? Steve Williams and won the match. It was truly a unique and awesome experience to be wrestling on the same team with a man that had so much history in the business we were in.

I emailed ?Doc? a few times over the next couple of years and even read his autobiography while I was on my second trip to South Africa.

Then in June of 2008, I got to see ?Doc? once again in person when we were both booked on the same show in Colorado Springs, CO. It was such a delight to see him again and the weird thing about ?Doc? is that he always remembered me every time I saw him ever since the first time I met him. So that was cool that he remembered me even after not seeing him for almost two years considering all of the different types of people he comes in contact with.

Throughout 2008, I got to see ?Doc? on a regular monthly basis and spent a considerable amount of time with him. Whether it be me saying ?Hey ?Doc,? how does this look?? while training in the ring, joking around with him backstage, getting advice from him backstage, or sitting by him backstage at shows while viewing the monitor of the show. Of course, before and after every show I got to sit by him and eat meals next to him.

There were many times that I wondered if I had bothered him or if I were a pest to him because of my humor and joking with him. He laughed at all of my jokes and joked back with me every time with the exception of a time he and I were trading the chops to the head that the Great Kali does. We poked fun at the chops and ?Doc? thought those chops Kali does are ridiculous. I then laughed and said ?Yeah and Giant Baba did them too!? ?Doc? then laughed for one second then stopped and gave me a very stern look and said ?Baba was a great guy?? Then quickly walked out of the bathroom this conversation took place at.

Speaking of bathrooms, there was a time ?Doc? was supposed to go out and cut a promo during the show we were on and nobody could find him. His music as playing, the announcer announced him, and there was no ?Doc.? The promoter of the show then asks me if I can find him. I quickly remembered hearing him talk about how he had to use the restroom, so I ran to the bathroom, looked under the stalls, and saw ?Doc?s? boots and said to myself ?Crap!?

?Uhhh, ?Doc????I sheepishly said.
?What????Doc?
?Um, you?re on man. You gotta go out and cut a promo right now. Your music is playing.??I said fearing for my life.
?Who is this????Doc?
?It?s me, Mitch.??I said.
?You?re bullshitting me, I?m not going out there!???Doc?

?Doc? knew I was a joker so I had ?Boy Who Cried Wolf? syndrome. After ?Doc? took his time in the bathroom, he finally came out and then took his time wrapping his wrists in athletic tape just to cut a promo. Finally, he came out to the ring and held up two fingers to represent why he was late to the ring.

There was one time in 2008 when I somehow had a fire lit up under my butt and I bursted out at the lunch table at ?Doc? that I challenged him to a ?Wing?Off? after the show that night. The video below represents what happened with that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cebGdNTX3BI

?Doc? taught me some valuable advice when it came to the art of professional wrestling. He also gave me some good spiritual advice as well. He brightened my mood every time I saw him.

In April of 2009, he got to meet my girlfriend Veronica for the first time. He was happy that I had found someone special. He also ripped on me for wearing the same shirt he bought his son at Khols, lol.

There was a time I was standing by several people who were smoking and he saw me from a distance, stopped what he was doing, walked up to me, pulled me away from the smokers, and said ?YOU better not be smoking!? I had to reassure him that I was not a smoker. That solidified the fact that I knew he cared about me.

I admitted to ?Doc? a few months ago that I am currently attending Oklahoma State University and not Oklahoma University to which his response was a wrestling punch to my face.

He poked me in the eyes a lot at some of the dumb things I would say to him.

There was a time I hugged him when saying goodbye and he jokingly stopped me and said ?I didn?t say you could hug me?? The reason I say ?jokingly? is because the last time I saw him in his last match in the United States, he hugged me. He also told me that this calls for a beer.

I am definitely going to miss him. I am truly honored to have spent so much time with him and got to know the guy as not some wrestling superstar legend in a locker room but as a friend that I can be a real friend to. He was very approachable, honest, funny, smart, and extremely kind.

I feel for his family because I know he was loved and will forever be loved.

He was a truly great man.

I spent many hours today creating this tribute package for ?Doc.?

The following is a link to the video package I made for my friend ?Dr. Death? Steve Williams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKwhNZbElok

I have a lot of friends on myspace who have met ?Doc? (including my girlfriend). So if you would like to, please add a comment to this blog about your favorite memory and/or time you have shared with the one and only ?Dr. Death? Steve Williams.

Steve Williams
May 14, 1960?December 29, 2009

?Mitch

Tags: Mitch Carter, Steve Williams, Ricky Morton, Bill Watts, Justin Lee, Tracy Smothers, Mace