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The World According To Dutch: Fans Who Cross The Line

Posted: Jun 5th 2010 By: CMBurnham

Wrestling fans. I love wrestling fans. Fans have allowed me to live a life of fantasy and make a living out of it for years and years. Fans are the backbone of the wrestling business...but sometimes, as you've read, fans go too far. I got a lot of stories about fans...most of them were stories where I actually had physical battles with them. But there were other ways for fans to CROSS THE LINE.

My story this week concerns the time I spent in Florida and the interaction I had with one fan. I was just starting out in the wrestling business only having been actively working for around 2 to 3 years in the mid 70's. It was a great time not only to be in the wrestling business but to just live the lifestyle that wrestling was affording me. Even though we traveled a lot, business was excellent and the money was good plus the fans in Florida were some of the best I'd ever worked in front of. Plus, the weather and lifestyle in Florida at the time was the best and the most enjoyable I'd ever seen up to that point. I was living in Tampa with my wife and little girls and things were good.

Every day of course, we'd go to a different town for that night's matches and every town I've ever been to had a certain dynamic attached to it. Every place was different. Memphis had its own unique dynamic, San Juan had its own, Miami had a different feel and vibe to it. Every city and ever different arena was different from all the other ones. Fans who react one way in one town would react another way from the fans to their reaction to you to just the general feel of the entire experience. Jacksonville, Florida is the subject of this weeks The World According to Dutch blog.

Since ever arena was different, one of the most important areas of difference was the fans. I could pick out fans in every arena and know exactly who to go to if the match wasn't getting the reaction I wanted. If the match was slow or needed a boost, after awhile, I could almost handpick what fan to go to. Fans were then, and still are today, the backbone of the wrestling profession and I've seen fans who were much more entertaining than the guys in the ring. A lot of times, the fans became the SHOW.

Jacksonville, Florida had such a fan. If you've never been in the Jacksonville Veterans Coliseum, it was a spitting image of Memphis' Mid South Coliseum with only one difference. The Jax Coliseum had a stage on the end where the wrestlers made their entrance. Memphis didn't have a stage. The good thing about a stage is that the other wrestlers could peek out from the stage areas or behind the curtains and watch the matches during the night.

The Jax Coliseum was a great atmosphere for wrestling. It was built in 1960 and seated 11.000 and achieved a a rich and varied history. The venerable old building hosted dozens of concerts including Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Leg Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, WWF and even WCW's last ever PPV, Greed in 2001. At the time I was there, wrestling was held every Thursday night for years. If you add all the other dates together, I would say that pro wrestling was in the building more times than any other entertainment form.

The good guys can in from the right side of the arena and the bad guys came in on the left. The Jacksonville Coliseum probably seated and held 12,000 people but to be honest, I never saw it sold out. Never. The best I ever saw Jacksonville was maybe half full. There was really no rule of thumb in Florida like I had seen before in Memphis. If Memphis sold out, all the other towns would as well. Not true in Florida. Tampa could sell out, Miami could sell out, Orlando could sell out but I never saw Jacksonville SOLD OUT. That's not to say that it has NEVER SOLD OUT, all I'm saying is that when I was there, I didn't witness a sell out.

On the front row, right on the aisle, on the bad guy side, EVERY WEEK, there sat a young guy close to my age...maybe 24/25 years old. He was a SUPER FAN. He loved the good guys and hated the bad guys. But, as time went on, he seemed to develop a real particular dislike for me. He hated the bad guys but he really hated me more. Before this tour of Florida was over, he would really remember me.

I was only in Florida for about 8 to 9 months but I was in Jacksonville almost every week which was plenty of time for me and this SUPER FAN person to develop a severe hate relationship. I even found out his name..and for the sake of identification, his name turned out to be Nesbitt. Yep, me and ole Nesbitt...we started off on the wrong foot and walked backwards.

Nesbitt was a plain looking guy...but he wasn't little. He was tall, maybe 6'2, on the slim side and weighed in at about 190. He had a weird look to him that I can't accurately describe other than to say, he looked a bit off to me for some reason. I'm sure you've seen people for the first time and they have this odd look and demeanor about them? This guy had that look. To be more honest about his appearance, he looked as though he couldn't get laid in a whorehouse if he walked through the door with a handful of hundred dollar bills.

Since I was just starting out in the business, I was always in the 1st or 2nd match. The first match was always one of the most important matches on the card and, even today, it still is because it sets a tone for the night. Actually, being on first was a compliment in that the booker thought highly enough of my talent that he felt comfortable giving me the leadoff spot. Of course, I always got pinned.

Ole Nesbitt started in on me about the 3rd week I was there. The first two times I was in Jacksonville, he had seen me lose which somehow empowered his ego to the point to where he thought he could actually beat me, the silly bastard. If he were still around today, he would be one of those people that even the WalMart Greeter wouldn't say hello to. I could see that Nesbitt could be a problem and it got worse.

In those days, weekly programs were always sold at the matches which listed the lineup and the participants for that particular night. Fans knew exactly who was on the card, who was coming up next and so forth. Below, for your viewing pleasure is a actual program from that period of time in Florida.

Since Nesbitt was a SUPER FAN, he was one of the first to buy the program. As you can see, ole Nesbitt knew exactly when I was coming out, the asshole. So on the night it first started, I made my way down the aisle and as I looked ahead, this Nesbitt guy stood up. As I got to where he was standing, I completely stopped because I could tell by his stance and his look that he was issuing a serious challenge to me. We squared off like two gunslingers at the OK Corral. None of the other fans were standing at ringside...just him but all eyes were on us. This was the first match on the card and I was the first wrestler out. No music...no nothing.

As we stared at each other, Nesbitt took the offensive and verbally started blasting me right to my face. Well, I'd seen this BS before and knew how to handle it because I loved fans when they got on you. That meant you were doing your job. So Nesbitt began his litany of insults which sounded as though he had seriously practiced his delivery. He began to tell me what a bum I was, how I could never win a match, how I'd never win a match, how bad I was, how this I was, how that I was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK...I got it Nesbitt..I got it brother. For a minute there, I thought I was listening to my first wife talk. But hell, even she wouldn't have talked to this jackoff.

During his prolonged dialogue, I just stood there with my hands on my hips listening to him. Since we were right at ringside, the entire Jacksonville Coliseum had a great view of this standoff. We may as well have been in the center of the ring doing an in ring segment.
So as he speech wound down, without me reacting to it, he finally ran out of things to say. I calmly stepped closer to him and said in my most authoritative voice, "Excuse me sir. Do you really believe what you're saying?"

I could tell, he didn't expect such a formal reply as his eyes widened and he was surprised but he stammered back with "Uh...uh...yes I do".

I said "What? I didn't hear you...what did you say?" as I stepped closer to him.

He seemed to be getting a bit nervous now as it was clear that he hadn't anticipated so much attention but again, he stammered out his reply but a little louder this time, "UH...Yes I DO!"

Finally in my kindest, nicest voice I asked again, "Hey, listen, I can't understand a word you're saying. Get those marbles out of your mouth and SAY IT LOUDER" as I stepped right in front of his face. Our faces were about as close as you can get without being charged with sexual assault and this time he worked up enough courage to fire back at me, "YES I BELIEVE WHAT I SAID!!!!"

As the entire Jacksonville Coliseum watched in anticipation of what was going to happen and as soon as the words came out of his mouth, I stepped back and and waved my hand in front of my face as if to say, WOW, YOUR BREATH WOULD KNOCK A HORSE DOWN!!!

The Jacksonville crowd exploded because they didn't expect a reaction like that and truthfully, I've never seen a more embarrassed person. Wrestlers are like comedians...you have to have a great comback. I used it for the first time that night but I've used it a lot of times since then. I had taken a situation that looked like it could have turned confrontational and turned it into something funny that the fans could relate to.

Old Nesbitt tried to recover from the BAD BREATH insult and humiliating gesture but it was too little too late. Actually, it was my best humiliation act I've ever done in a wrestling setting. I was proud of myself...you couldn't have scripted in any better.

I just turned abruptly and left him standing there like an idiot, to which he arguably was, and entered the ring because I had a match to do. But even during the match, I would look over at Nesbitt and pinch my nose and the people would roar again. That was the reason Nesbitt hated me. I had embarrassed him and he never forgot it. I had turned the tables on him and he hated me, I'm sure, more than any other wrestler ever to appear in the Jax Coliseum.

So that's how it started. And every week, Nesbitt and I would go to it. And every week, the fans expected a little more as they started to get into this 'unscripted' dialogue between a wrestler and a real fan. They knew that maybe it might be set up in the ring, but what me and Nesbitt had going on was real. Every time I went to the ring in Jacksonville, he would be there and as he was talking, I would grab my nose and make a face and walk away. It was funny...for me.. and for fans...but for Nesbitt, it wasn't so funny.

As every week passed, Nesbitt got a bit stronger in his response to me. Finally, in what I am sure was an epiphany, he apparently had an IDEA that he thought he could regain the upper hand. He made a sign....and I can't even remember what it said..but it was something like Dutch Stinks or something simple like that and as I approached his end seat, he stood up and flashed the sign. Some of the fans around popped for it...and he looked at me to see how I would react.

I acted like I was mad...and he laughed knowing that finally, maybe, he had gotten me back. I could tell that Nesbitt was very pleased with himself and completely got lost in his euphoria and didn't realize I was stepping closer to him. I acted like I was going to hit him which was exactly the response he was looking for as he got brave and said, "Come on, hit me..I dare you to hit me" as he screamed it right into my face. We found ourselves, once again, face to face and I reverted back to the first thing that had won the battle for me to begin with. As he shouted at me, I stepped back and did a repeat of the BAD BREATH routine as though his breath would kill the AIDS virus. . Immediately, Nesbitt realized that I had suckered him once again into an embarrassing situation. I even laughed myself because this guy was apparently about as close to stupid as was legally possible.

Well, for the next couple of weeks, I laid off Nesbitt. I called it off. I had embarrassed him more than I had intended so it wasn't fun anymore so I stopped.

I didn't think much of it because I had heard that stuff before. That was nothing more than a fan talking. I'd heard it a thousand times. But, he was right. But just because I stopped playing the game didn't mean ole Nesbitt was ready to stop.

On the way to the ring, I just completely ignored him and actually didn't even look his way on the way to or from the ring. I would yell and make gestures to the other fans but not to Nesbitt and I could tell, he didn't like it. I think he enjoyed all the attention and the fact that I was no longer singling him out for attention apparently was not going over too well with him. One night as I was coming back from the ring, as I neared Nesbitt's seat, he stood up and started yelling at me...and I gave him the no-sell. I completely dismissed him and continued walking. But I do remember his parting words to me as I left, he said, "Hey, you're gonna remember me."

As I prepared to leave that night couple of hours later, I grabbed my bag and headed out the door. As I neared my car, I could see that something wasn't right and it didn't take me long to spot it. My left rear tire was flat and I knew that it wasn't that way when I had pulled into the parking lot 4 hours earlier. But, that's the price you pay for traveling a lot. I just thought that I had run over something right before I had gotten to the building in Jacksonville. So, I had to change my tire and as I was doing it, a group of fans congregated at a chain link fence that cordoned off the "wrestler/performer" parking lot from the street and were watching me. It took me about 10 minutes to complete the job.

When I removed the flat tire, I inspected it to see if there was a nail or any broken glass in the tire and I found nothing So after storing the tire, I got into my car to leave and happened to look at the spectators who had been watching my tire changing activity and guess who was standing there?

Yep, you guessed it.

Ole Nesbitt was right there with a big smile on his face.

I'm not CSI Miami but it doesn't take a police detective to connect these two dots. I had never seen Nesbitt out back after the matches and the first time I do...I have a flat tire. Hmmm...just some things to make you ponder.

The next day I took the tire into a shop to get it repaired. They examined it and told me that all the tire needed was...AIR. There was no leak, no puncture, just that the air had somehow escaped from the tire. They said that they thought the air had been deliberately released. Now I fully knew what had happened.

Now the dynamics changed between Nesbitt and me. I thought to myself, OK you little bastard...we got us a situation here. I thought we had just been messing around...but he took the situation to a personal level. Now it was OK to boo me or try to embarrass me but when it came time to where it could cost me money or worse, then I surmised that two could play this game. I wanted to get him back but I couldn't figure out a way to do it.

I noticed that over the next couple of weeks, Nesbitt demonstrated his newly found empowerment as he was a little more aggressive toward me. He also knew that he had won a slight battle...that he had 'forced' me to notice him. Once, when we verbally jousted back and forth, I told him I knew what he had done. He replied that he didn't know what I was talking about but that I had three other tires that 'could go flat' so I needed to watch out. Well , he might as well have come out and confessed to the crime, but I had no way to get him back short of beating the crap outta him and for that I'd be arrested and that's always been one of my priorities, to stay out of jail. Jails were bad places for boys who couldn't play nice with other people.

Thus it went back and forth between us for the entire summer. Every week, that brain dead redneck looking peckerwood and I would joust back and forth. My brain was spinning but I couldn't quite figure out a way to get him back. If I didn't know better, this guy knew the other asshole in Frost Proof, Florida that I had gotten into a skirmish with a few months earlier. Damn, I was beginning to think Florida was covered up with these buttholes.

But alas, all good things must end. In those days, to keep talent fresh, territories turned over talent at least twice a year. When bookers thought particular talents had run their course, it was time for them to go and new talent to come in. It was a way to keep the roster fresh and keep from burning the fans out on the same wrestlers every week. Plus it was a system that worked. That was what happened with me...my shelf life in Florida had expired. But for young guys like me, it was the perfect system actually because it exposed me to a lot of other bookers/wrestlers and to a lot of different styles.

In today's market, fans read about wrestlers getting released but fans then had no way of knowing. Most fans never knew when a wrestler left a territory unless they had an inside source or knew the other wrestlers personally. There was no such thing as the Wrestling Observer Newsletter or the Torch or the ProWrestling.net. and when a wrestler left, the company never advertised they were gone.

The big difference in those days was that the different promotions worked together to keep guys working. I was called by Eddie Graham one day at home and he told me that he needed to move me out for awhile but not to worry because he had already booked me in Texas. I still had a job in the wrestling business but just in another place. For 95% of the guys in the WWE today, when they're released, they're pretty much done in the wrestling business.

So I knew I was leaving but Nesbitt didn't. On my last week in Florida, as I rode to Jacksonville for the last time for this run, I had an idea how to get even with that asshole. As I knew that night in Jacksonville was my last day and I either did something tonight or ole Nesbitt would win the battle. I hate assholes that win.

We had been doing a finish for the last week in one of the last matches of the night which involved a huge, intricate layered run in and almost everybody on the card would be involved. You know the one...one heel would go in and then a babyface, then a heel, then a babyface and so forth. The finish would have so much going on with and the crowd would be going nuts that nobody would be watching me. Finishes like that were sort of new in the wrestling game then and meant so much more than if it happened today. Hell...fans today have seen that finish a thousand times but then, it created havoc and got exactly the response that the bookers wanted. The finish would be chaotic and wild and the fans would love it.

Before we were to do the big layered run in match, I had to have my single match. As I made my way to the ring that night for my match, I deliberately went out of my way to really get under the skin of Nesbitt. I noticed he was wearing a nice shirt and looked particularly dapper.

As I left the ring after my match, ole Nesbitt stood up and and started giving me a hard time. One thing I can say about that bastard is that he was an asshole from beginning to end. As we slung insults back and forth, I told Nesbitt that I was going to get even with him and he gave me a smug smile as he said, "No you ain't. You aint' gonna do s**t and you know why? Because they ain't no shit you can do!" Little did Nesbitt know what was coming his way a little later on.

In those days, a lot of guys dipped tobacco. Why? Hell, I don't know. Something to do I guess. But I used Red Man tobacco all the time and, if anybody knows anything about tobacco use, well its a nasty habit really. You just sit around and spit the tobacco juice out...because you can't swallow it. I swallowed that juice once...GOD DAMN...I seriously thought I was gonna die. But after I got better....I went back and did it again. I'm not a Mensa candidate by the way.

But you just can't spit tobacco juice on the floor or all over the place, unless you've been raised in a barn, which I think I've seen some wrestling fans that may have, so I had to have what they call a spittoon or a spit cup. So then my plan started to come into play.

I was supposed to enter the ring as the 5th guy and Steve Keirn would be my counter from the other side. He and I were supposed to fight all around the ring while all the other fights were happening at the same time. Nobody would be really watching us...even Nesbitt...but, unbeknown to his silly ass, I would be watching him. So before all of this went down, I called Steve over to the side of the dressing room and told him what I had planned. I didn't tell anybody else...not the refs, not the other guys and damn sure didnt tell the booker. Steve had heard the story of an asshole that had flattened my tire. I told Steve exactly what he needed to do and he replied back, just tell me when. He laughed and if you know Steve Keirn, he loved set ups like this one.

The BIG MATCH started and the people were on their feet...in went one bad guy...the fans screamed for help..in went a good guy...now the fans loved it. Next wash, rinse, repeat....bad guy...good guy in...now the fans understood it. I was watching through the curtain...ole Nesbitt was chomping at the bits. Finally, I was the 5th guy out...and I made sure I took my old spit cup with me. If anybody noticed, it would look like I was so taken by surprise, I didn't even notice the spit cup in my hand. As I ran by Nesbitt, he looked like he was literally having an orgasm...and who knows..,he might have been. He was kind of a spastic bastard to begin with. But right before I entered the ring...I sat my spit cup right at the edge of the corner post right in front of Nesbitt.

The crowd was going wild...and as soon as I stepped into the ring...here came Steve to counter me. Steve and I squared off and I took the big obligatory bump to the floor...and as I hit..I looked up and Nesbitt was having a complete mental meltdown. I almost laughed because he was throwing the phantom punches and he was totally enraptured in the moment. Steve followed me to the floor and the plan was for he and I to fight all the way back to the dressing room. As we made our way close to where Nesbitt was, I blinded Steve and placed him right in front of Nesbitt. I then took about three steps and grabbed my spit cup which had about 8 ounces of pure, nasty, ugly brown tobacco juice in it. I started back to Steve as he was getting up...and as I went to throw the cup's contents right at Steve, who was standing right in front of Nesbitt..wouldn't you know it...that damn idiot Steve ducked and the juice went all over poor Nesbitt!!!!

Nesbitt was wearing a nice light colored shirt and I couldn't have asked for a better comeback. His shirt was ruined...and before he could react, Steve and I fought back to the dressing room.

That to me was victory. A SWEET VICTORY!!! Now I could leave Florida with a clean slate know that this jackleg didn't get one up on me. Oh, I could have taken the easy way out and punched him or something but that would have brought the police into it...and cost me money and time plus maybe a fine. But it was so much better seeing him soaked in that nasty tobacco juice in his nice shirt than anything physical I could have ever done to him.

After that wild scene was over and the arena had calmed down for a second, I was ready to leave Jacksonville but I just couldn't step out the door without seeing my handiwork. As I stepped out on the stage to see what ole Nesbitt was up to, I half expected to see him gone. But no, he was still there and he looked a mess. He had a handful of people surrounding him and apparently, he was telling anybody that would listen, the spastic bastard, about how I had intentionally thrown tobacco juice on him. Of course, he probably never told them that he had jacked around with my car to jumpstart this entire episode.

As he was talking, he glanced up and saw me looking dead at him. As our eyes met, I made a gesture as if to say, YOU AND ME....WE'RE EVEN. I then waved goodbye, gave him the peace sign and walked out the door.

I didn't come back to Florida for several years after that but when I did, I never laid eyes on ole Nesbitt again. Bastard. But I did stop using Red Man. That stuff is nasty.

Tags: Dutch Mantell, WWF, WCW