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Abdullah still pro wrestling?s Butcher after all these years

Posted: Jul 26th 2010 By: mikeiles

STOCKBRIDGE, GA. ? Abdullah the Butcher hobbles into a middle school gymnasium, where a few hundred patrons await a night of professional wrestling?s choreographed mayhem.

A sturdy cane supports the 400-something pounds that fill out his cartoonish 73-year-old (or is it 69-year-old?) body, which is badly in need of a new hip, among other repairs.

It?s another night on the job for Abdullah, wrestling?s legendary blood-letting brute, who competed as the card?s headliner. He can no longer split open opponents? heads with a swinging chair or stalk them across the ring; in fact, he rarely even enters the ring anymore.

But the Butcher can still mete out embellished punishment with forearms, fists and his signature prop: a dinner fork, which he removes from his costume and stabs away, drawing opponents? blood.

Abdullah, after all, has a reputation to maintain as the man who popularized, if not instigated, what is known as hard-core wrestling. When he is not appearing before crowds at middle school gyms like this one outside Atlanta, he is big in Japan, performing before thousands.

Just as the blood keeps trickling down from the four ribbony scars on his bald pate, the revenue keeps trickling in from appearance fees, signed photos, DVDs ? even the fork he tries to sell after the show.

?Ten bucks,? he says. ?I love this business.?

Wrestling?s Methuselah was born Larry Shreve, a Canadian of African descent, some seven decades ago. (Fudging on age is a common wrestling practice.) He has endured in the game for a half-century, give or take a year or three. No one knows how many times his act has enthralled or enraged audiences.

?Abdullah the Butcher, as a character, is one of the most memorable in history by far,? the wrestling historian Greg Oliver said. ?He lived the character. He didn?t want to be called Larry. He carried that fork with him everywhere.

?He was all about the violence. He brought a lust for blood that hadn?t been popularized. His mass and his look made it easy for him to be scared of.?

How large is Abdullah?s legacy? His stage name has its own stage name, the Madman From Sudan, and the affectionate abbreviation Abi. The respectful refer to him as Mr. Abi.

By any fake name, he has ridden through wrestling?s peaks and valleys, becoming a hit in far-flung places. Closer to his Atlanta base, the Southeast circuit once offered him up to 10 gigs a week.

But he endures, and on this June night, Abdullah is, as usual, the oldest person in the building, the Charlie Watts at the Rolling Stones concert.

Scattered about the audience are children, brought by fathers, just as they have done for generations. (?Son, I remember when Abi...?) In character, he dresses like a shirtless shepherd, with a ragged head cover and baggy trousers that rise to his chest, exposing rolls of blubber.

There are some codgers in the crowd. One rises from his wheelchair, steadies himself on the nub of a right leg lost to diabetes and shakes his fist at Abdullah.

As Abdullah and his 53-year-old opponent, Tommy Rich, lock arms and slow dance away from the ring, a middle-aged man predicts gleefully to two youngsters in his care, ?This one?s headed to the parking lot, boys.?

Not quite. Soon after the ring announcer, on cue, describes Rich?s mug as ?a crimson mask,? though the substance that has turned him into a slasher movie victim is a half-shade lighter than what trickles from the standard cut, Abdullah disappears. The referee, whom both wrestlers whaled on when they took a break from each other, has recovered enough to declare an old-fashioned double disqualification.

Rich was a teenager, fresh out of Nashville, when first pitted against Abdullah in Atlanta.

?He beat me in 30 seconds,? Rich remembered, implying that Abdullah went against script with a quick, though agonizing, match. ?I got back to the locker room and said, ?I?m headed back to Tennessee.??

Three years later, Rich was body-slammed by the Butcher like never before, or since.

?That whole building went whomp,? Rich says. ?It ain?t easy going against Abdullah. He?s a big ol? man.?

About the notion of Rich?s wrestling in 20 years, when he reaches Abdullah?s current age, Rich says, ?I hope I?m still alive.?

After the double disqualification, Abdullah sits on an overwhelmed bench in the dressing room and dispenses wisdom to a small, rapt audience. He is their Buddha, the triple-plus-size version.

?Get your hands up! Look mean!? he scolds some Generation Y rasslers. Their poses for the cameras are not menacing enough to suit him. They passively clench and raise their fists, eliciting a stare that drips concern about wrestling?s next generation.

He motions to a 20-something masked man from Japan ? stage name Tiger ? to step forward for consultation.

Later, Tiger explains through an interpreter that his matches in Japan are bloodless, with less show biz. The interpreter speculates that Tiger might incorporate shtick in which some baddie cuts off the mask with a knife. Perhaps leaving a scar.

The next night, at a no-frills restaurant on Atlanta?s southwest side, Abdullah explains what motivates him. ?Money,? he says. Then, for emphasis: ?Money.?

Currency is a constant in his conversations. Another wrestler, who has relied on Abdullah for promotional duty, says: ?Everything?s business to him. He charges for everything. Doesn?t need the money, either.?

When first approached for an interview, Abdullah demands payment. ?Everything has a price,? he says. ?I?ve got to make a living.?

On the night of his match, before an interview is mentioned, Abdullah?s first words are, ?Where?s my money?? When reminded that he will receive no compensation, he points to a stack of autographed photos that sell for $10 apiece and says, ?Buy one of these.?

A $9 dinner at Abdullah the Butcher House of Ribs and Chinese Food in Atlanta, which he founded and operates, loosens his tongue somewhat. He cuts short most answers, reminding himself not to disclose too much before the imminent release of a DVD that unspools his life story.

Each visit to Japan, he says, is worth $10,000 for a series of matches. The middle school gig paid him $1,500.

?For what, two minutes?? he says, exaggerating to point out that the workload is not taxing.

While most wrestlers peddle bric-a-brac, from action figures to masks, to supplement their ring income, only Abdullah would think of marketing the fork with which he jabs his foe.

His cellphone rings. His son conveys Father?s Day wishes. Abdullah says he will call more often if the son sends him money.

Then he imitates his own father by opening a greeting card and shaking it, wishing that dollars would fall out. The big apple has not fallen far.

The fourth of seven children, Abdullah says his father never attended a match, his mother once. ?They thought it was vicious.?

He does not disagree. Wrestlers have acted out enough violent images that the only remaining line in the sand, he says, is ?to kill somebody.?

That will not happen with World Wrestling Entertainment, the dominant organization that presents PG shows, without the gore. Abdullah does not need WWE or any other powerful group; he prefers to operate independently so he can control his finances and his fate, setting his own story lines.

?If you look around wrestling,? he says, ?there?s not many guys like me.?

A diner wishes him a happy Father?s Day. ?It?d be a great Father?s Day,? comes the response, ?if you gave me a hundred-dollar bill.?

It is an act, rooted in the truth. With wrestlers, illusion mixes with reality, resulting in a fuzzy picture. Portraits of President Barack Obama hang from the restaurant walls amid dozens of wrestling snapshots, but Abdullah is an avid listener of conservative talk radio. Though he craves money, he donates to causes like a local youth recreation centre.

Charity is one of many off-limits topics ? after all, he is a villain. Another is the toll wrestling has taken on his body, though he acknowledges the need for hip replacement. He does open his shirt to reveal a burn mark beneath the left shoulder, a remnant of an unscripted wrestling bit involving a flame device gone awry.

?If I hadn?t turned my head,? he says, ?I?d be blind.?

As if wearing blinders that block out reminders of his septuagenarian state, Abdullah vows to continue wrestling ?until I die.?

Tags: Abdullah the Butcher, WWE