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Under The Ring Interview With "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase

Posted: Aug 22nd 2011 By: CMBurnham

Ted DiBiase has led such an interesting life, they ought to make it into a book or a movie. Wait, that?s already happening.

Already the subject of two biographies, DiBiase, now 57, will be the subject of Kalliope Films? Wrestling with Faith, which is presently in post-production. DiBiase came by Collector?s Realm in Poughkeepsie on Sunday and spoke to me at length about myriad topics. Thanks to DiBiase, Gregory Louis Carter of Kalliope, as well as Joe Sinforoso and the whole staff of Collector?s Realm for their assistance.

For more information on what DiBiase is doing these days, you can click here for his wrestling site and here for his ministry site.

Phil Strum: What are you doing these days and what are you working on these days?

Ted DiBiase: I?m a minister now. I travel. I don?t have a church. I don?t pastor a church, but I travel on a regular basis, so I guess you?d call me an evangelist. I minister in places I?m invited and I develop relationships with churches all over the country. I?ve been going to Canada a lot for an organization called Promise Keepers Canada, which is ministry that?s specifically geared to minister the needs of men. The next thing I?m doing is Tuesday I?m leaving for Scotland. I?m going to be on a three-week crusade all over Scotland, speaking in churches. I still speak to a lot of kids, youth groups. I go into a lot of prisons as well and speak to a lot of men. My wife has started to join me as well, since my boys are grown. We have started to do some couples ministry as well. It?s kind of evolving as we go. It keeps me pretty busy. I?m a minister and in ministry, there?s no set income. It?s one of those things where you trust God and you go. You have places where you go and they?ll set an honorarium. There?s places where you go and you don?t know until they take up a collection for you. It?s a genuine walk of faith. I?m not the Million Dollar Man, that?s a character on television. My needs have been met. I have peace in my life. I have peace in my family. Yet, I?m still involved on a part-time basis in what they call a nostalgia contract or Legends contract with WWE. If they call on me, and they?d like me to make a cameo appearance on the show, or make an appearance on behalf of the company, I?m more than happy to do it based on my availability. That helps me keep my name out there as well. That?s the platform. The reason that pastors and churches invite me to speak to their people is they see in me, a guy who?s had success in the world, has had just about everything the world has to offer and yet, I came to a place in my life where I realized that all that stuff was not filling the void. Like so many other entertainers, I went the way of drugs and alcohol and other women. The biggest problem in my life was women. I was never a drug addict or an alcoholic. I did those things. I partied a lot. I guess the vice would be the women. That culminated in my being caught in adultery and a big part of my story is the unbelievable reconciliation with my life and my wife, based on her enormous faith in God, her ability to even attempt to forgive me and yet when she began to see the fruit in my life ? in other words, she saw the priorities in my life shift. It?s one thing to go in and fall on your face and beg for forgiveness and cry your eyes out. Anybody can do that. The fruit is in what you do after that. Where?s the evidence that you really meant what you said. As she began to see my priorities shift from the business of wrestling to the business of family and being a man of principle and character and integrity, that?s when the trust and respect and all those things came back. Now we?re using that to minister other hurting couples.

PS: That has to be very satisfying work to help so many other people.

TD: Absolutely. Wrestling fans are some of the greatest fans because they?re so loyal. It?s an opportunity to give back as well. Even when I?m here, I have people come up to me all the time and say, I hear you?re a minister. They?ll say, can you pray for me? There?s always an opportunity.

PS: What did you think of the wrestling business growing up with two parents as pro wrestlers (Helen Hild and adopted father ?Iron? Mike DiBiase) in the business?

TD: By the time I was old enough to understand, my mother wasn?t wrestling anymore. I just barely remember that. When she married Mike DiBiase, that was how they met. He was Italian, Italian family, the man?s the breadwinner. I knew my mom as mom at home. I barely remember her as a wrestler. I use that as a joke. I was a kid who didn?t get much trouble because I had two parents who were both wrestlers. My dad was a huge influence in my life. Mike DiBiase was a national amateur wrestling champion. A standout athlete at the University of Nebraska. One of four athletes, unless it?s changed, in history of that school to letter seven times. Four in football, three in wrestling with a national title. He was my hero. I wanted to be just like him.

PS: You worked in this (Poughkeepsie) all the way back in the late 70s for the WWWF.

TD: ?79. The first time I came here, I worked for Vince Sr. I came in and Vince brought me in as the North American champion, which later became the Intercontinental champion, that was the program that I had with Pat Patterson. My thing with Patterson set him up to go with Backlund and then we came back and had rematches. I?ve been coming to Poughkeepsie since ?79. I was a hunk.

PS: What do you remember about that first run with Vince Sr.?

TD: It was great. It was my first time here. I know that when Vince Jr. called me and asked me to come back, by that time, Pat Patterson was his right-hand man. Based on what they saw in me and the ability I had. I had from ?79 to ?87, I had much time to mature. I think that the first run set the second one up. It was amazing because I picked up a newspaper and saw the results of WrestleMania III. I said, man that?s where I need to be. I had no idea when I saw that headline that at the next WrestleMania, I would be the headliner.

PS: And you headlined another, the one at Caesar?s Palace

TD: Right with Hogan (and Brutus Beefcake) and me and IRS.

PS: And it?s not like you were doing nothing in the meantime, you were working for Mid-South Wrestling.

TD: Mid-South Wrestling has a cult following. In my opinion, one of the greatest territories was Mid-South. Bill Watts was brilliant. A lot of the stars that came to the WWE came out of there including me, Junkyard Dog, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Jake ?The Snake? Roberts.

At this point, we took a break because the signing began and DiBiase had a huge line of folks coming in?

PS: I was talking to your associate here and he said you guys were making a documentary.

TD: Yes. I met Greg (Gregory Louis Carter) several years ago. He?s friends with a friend of mine on Long Island. A fellow by the name of Bobby Rydell, who at times books some of the appearances that I have on the East Coast. Through their relationship, Greg came and heard me speak at one of my church events. That was the catalyst as he got to know me, he just called me one day and said ?your story is such a compelling story.? A transformation from being raised in a wrestling family and ending up in the ministry. He said I?m a publicist, would it be OK if I did a documentary about your life in the ministry. I said sure. That?s how it got started.

PS: I thought that was great earlier you were telling the story of the young boy and the basketball. How did he end up finding you and how did you end up finding him?

TD: Of all the stunts that we did to get the people to understand that I was a scoundrel, was that one. When we rehearsed, I wasn?t really hardcore harsh. When we did it live in front of the crowd and it got to the place where he dribbles the ball, he supposed to get to 15, he gets to 14 and I stick my foot out and the ball bounces off my foot. Everybody knows I just screwed this poor little kid. I say to him, I?m sorry son, but at a young age, you?re going to have to learn a harsh lesson of life. When you don?t get the job done, you don?t get the money. My loud voice and deep voice scared him. He had these great big crocodile tears. He ran to his mother. In reality, he couldn?t have done it any better. We couldn?t have rehearsed it. It wasn?t that good when we rehearsed it. I look like the biggest heel because I just made this little boy cry. I remember going in the back and everyone?s saying, oh man, that was great. I said, it might have been great, but you guys are going to need an armored car to get me out of this building tonight. Those people want to lynch me right now. People always want to ask, did you do that? Did you really do that to that kid? I tell them of course not. I said, the last couple of years I said, that kid was like 4 or 5 or 6. Somewhere now, he?s got to be somewhere in his mid-20s, 24-26 years old. With my luck, he?s probably 6-6 now. He?s going to walk up to me in an airport, tap me on the shoulder and say hey remember me. I just laughed. I actually flew to Omaha, which is where I?m from originally. I was going there to do a speaking engagement. I rented a car and I walked out to where they had the cars. They had another place where I had to pick up the keys. Just like I said, jokingly 50 or 60 different times, this guy walks up to me, taps me on the shoulder and there he was. Six-foot-six. He said, ?Do you remember the little kid with the basketball?? I said, ?No way.? He goes, yup it was me. I said, what did you do with your life? He said well, I went to Colorado on a basketball scholarship. (DiBiase said the man he went on to play professional basketball, but never made it to the NBA. DiBiase also said he never looked it up to confirm that the man was telling the truth. I was able to find one player who played for Colorado in the middle of the last decade who was from Milwaukee, where that segment was filmed).I told him it would be unbelievable to recreate that on one of the shows and have me put the screws to some other little boy and have him actually walk up and tap me on the shoulder and I turn around and he goes, ?not this time.? (laughs).

PS: Later on, you actually went back to WWE in an agent-type role?

TD: In ?05, I went back for about a year and a half. In the capacity of?well they call them producers now. One of the guys who helps produces the matches for the shows and as part of the creative team. Not really so much as a writer, but more as kind of like an adviser to the writers. I tried to tell them when they asked me to come back and do this, I said, look I?m not Clint Eastwood. Writing and that creative thing is a gift. Back before the WWE, we called it booking. Whoever the booker was the guy who came up with the angles. The stories. How you keep the story going. That?s a gift and it?s not a gift I have. My gift is you tell me what you want and I can go in the ring and make it happen. So, to make a long story short, it took them about a year and a half to figure out that I was right. I had been gone for 10 years and it?s different now, how the matches are produced. They lay out more now than they ever did before. That just wasn?t my way. I did it for a year and a half and then I left. I?m still on good terms with them. It was just not my thing.

PS: Were you glad that you tried it?

TD: I?m glad that I tried it. It was very difficult in that I was back in a business that I?m passionate about and I always prided myself that I was very good at. I found myself in a position in this business where I wasn?t very good. You live and you learn. You don?t know unless you try.

PS: What?s Vince McMahon like to work for?

TD: Vince McMahon is not the ogre that everybody sees on television. He is a shrewd businessman or he wouldn?t be where he?s at. Nobody in the company works harder than he does. I?ve heard the stories. The guy probably doesn?t get four or five hours of sleep a night and not only that, with the schedule he keeps, he?s 65 or 66 now, and he?s in the most incredible shape. When I first met him, it was 1979 when he was working for his dad. He always, even then, in excellent shape. He?s always loved that. I really believe that that aspect of his life is what?s kept him going. Training is a tremendous way to relieve stress. He trains daily. I tip my hat to him. Where does it come from? How do you have so much stamina? The other thing I admire about Vince is that it takes a lot of guts. You don?t become that successful unless you?re willing to lay it all on the line. My understanding is that there was a time in his life, even before I met him, where he did file bankruptcy and lose something. When his dad handed over the reins to him and he took off to the point of where he is today, there was a point where he said if WrestleMania hadn?t been a success, it was over. He had the intestinal fortitude to lay it all on the line. There?s been other things that Vince has tried to do, but he keeps going back to what he knows the best. I know even when I went to work for him the first time, I came up in the old-school mentality. I understood that educated people and athletes could watch wrestling..if you?ve ever been in a real fight, you watch wrestling for 10 minutes and go, wait a minute. You know there?s no such thing as magic. It?s sleight of hand, it?s illusion, but you don?t know how to do it. If you knew how to do it, it wouldn?t be as fun to watch. That was the attitude about wrestling. We?re going to try to make the public believe that we?re really having these feuds and that people know today that it?s sports entertainment. I was mad when Vince came out and told everybody, but it was a stroke of genius. Basically, what he was standing up and doing was saying, yeah, we are sports entertainment, so what. We?re good and we?re filling arenas all over the country. The only thing that happened that he didn?t anticipate was that he got that big, all the regional territories slowly died. That was where he got all his talent from. Baseball has their farm clubs, guys go to the minor leagues and work their way up. Most guys don?t come right out of college baseball. Now, there?s only one real place where they have a school and you have to understand the art of our business, where you really understand to learn what we do, is in the ring, in front of a live crowd. But you?ve got a guy on the other side of the ring that?s a pro and he can lead you. I can sit down with somebody and I can go over a match that he?s already had and stop the tape and say, why did you do this, why did you do that? It?s going to mean more to him if we are in the setting, when it?s live and he can feel it. Vince said this to me one time, He said, you know what Ted? For somebody who had so much success, I was frustrated I couldn?t contribute more. He said, you?re just like Ray Stevens. And Ray Stevens was one of the greatest wrestlers in the business. Ray was one of the greatest, but if you ever asked Ray why he did what he did in the ring, he couldn?t tell you. I said that?s exactly how I feel because I felt everything. It was in the moment and it made it more real.

PS: What?s it like watching your sons now in the business?

TD: I?m very proud. It?s not really well-known right now, but my youngest boy (Brett) has been in developmental for about three years. The reason he was there so long was that he kept getting hurt. Just recently, Brett had his fourth knee surgery. I personally believe that the knees are as an extended result of high school soccer. He had never had a surgery before, but there were times when his knees were bothering him. Soccer?s really hard on the knees. Four knee surgeries and a neck fusion. He kept going. He realized after the neck thing, even though the doctors cleared him and said he?s good to go and it?s safe for him to wrestle, there was a pain element after he would bump for a couple of days that they couldn?t explain, but the doctors said it was common. They said everybody reacts differently. When he realized he couldn?t wrestle without being in pain, well maybe we can go the referee route. Well, then we have a fourth knee surgery. I got to thinking about that and referees are actually up and down even more than wrestlers. Usually when we go down, we?re going down on our back. When they go down, they go down on their knees. Brett will really officially be released at the end of this month. He?s come home now. He?s in great spirits. He?s sad that it hasn?t worked out for him. But on the same token, he was very frustrated and the frustration?s over. We got closure. Where Teddy?s concerned, I think Teddy got off to a bang-up start. The movie had great reviews. What I was told, Marine 2 was better than Marine 1. He had a lot of natural talent. I?m not really sure why this second year, based on coming out of WrestleMania in Phoenix a year ago, it looked like the sky was the limit. Then all of a sudden, it just didn?t go that way. I know the business and the business takes weird turns. I?m not there every day. It?s like I told Shawn Michaels one time when Shawn was frustrated, I said, the one thing this business can?t deny is talent. I said eventually, the cream always rises to the top. If you can work, you?ll be there. They even have admitted to him they did some things they probably shouldn?t have done. He?s moved over to SmackDown now and he?s doing this thing with Cody (Rhodes). It appears that they are going to start something with the two of them. I think that?s a good thing. I only say it because I hear it so much from fans, I get tired of answering the question. They go, what are they doing with your son? Why aren?t they doing more with him? A part of me thinks they?re just asking me because he?s my kid. Even guys in the business, some of my friends, have shared that frustration. I understand the business. I?ve been in that room. I?ve been in those writing meetings. I understand the stress and the pressure. I understand you get an idea and you go with it. I?m not boo-hooing and why aren?t they treating my son better. Teddy, if he sticks to his guns and just stays true to the gameplan, in time ? it?s going to happen.