I Remember Gorgeous George

This program was made possible in part

by a grant from the Corporation for

Public Broadcasting.

[Music]

In the white corner

at 212 lbs,

the toast of the coast,

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the human orchid,

gorgeous yours.

Somebody asked me why I did it,

and I honestly don't know.

I do know that it didn't have any more

to do with Gorgeous George than with Ox

Anderson or Nick Bachwinkle.

It's just that Gorgeous George was the

first wrestler I ever saw. That was back

in the 50s when he was a big attraction

on late night television.

They pray the referee.

And there it is. Utterly beautiful. A

beautiful, beautiful robe.

Most people thought he was ridiculous in

those robes,

but all I could see was that he was free

to do or to act any way he wanted.

Even after all these years and all the

rrestles I've been to since,

when I think of what it means to be a

wrestler, when I sometimes wonder what

the whole thing means,

I remember gorgeous George for a press.

Gets one, he gets two, and he gets

three. Not for two.

Drop kick will pay and he dives for

another one, two, three. Look at the Oh,

drop kick did it.

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I guess I've thought about it ever since

I saw my first wrestling match, but I

never really thought about doing it

until I met Ox Anderson, which was years

after Ox had been crippled up and left

the ring. He had actually wrestled

Gorgeous George, but no one wanted to

talk to him about it. All anybody wants

to know now is the answer to one

question.

Is wrestling for Reed?

It's a typical question. And it's kind

of a stupid question for the sense that

you're going to get 60% for winning, you

get 40% for losing, and if you lose very

many matches, you're not wrestling main

events no longer. You're wrestling on

preliminary cards. But you don't know.

You don't know. I do know.

That's what bothers us. We don't know.

But the people who go to the Rrestles,

the people who dream of The Raffles and

make it big time entertainment, they

know.

For real.

I said for real.

For real.

I watch it every Saturday night.

Uh I know one of the promoters here real

well and he said it's real, so I believe

him.

They do take uh blows just like we

watched on college football today. And

uh They do have to know handle handle

themselves and I like to watch it. I've

seen a lot of

real bloody stuff and I've seen a lot on

real phony stuff.

Who's kidding who it's 99% fake anyway?

I'm here more for the watch the fans.

You know, you can't go through and get

that kind of punishment. Still stand.

Maybe you can't. Then again, maybe you

can. Wrestling is as much a point of

view as it is a sport. It's more than

just entertainment. It's a way of

looking at the world.

At the very least, it's a way of knowing

how to catch a wind.

When you're sailing through the air,

when you're hitting on the floor or

scooting into the rope or into the

turnbuckle, you can hold on there for a

while and catch your wind back. And if

you're beating somebody up and they

throw you, then you can uh you're ready

to go again. You can come back and beat

them up again.

It's tactical. You you use everything

that you mean to win that match. You're

thinking all the time you're in the

ring. more than any other sport is a

great thinker.

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A lot of guys overdo it. I'll say that.

Well, a lot of times you'll throw a

punch and uh it may hit, it may not hit,

but it's to your advantage to make them

believe it hit if it possibly can. If it

does hit, then it hurts. And if it

doesn't hit, sometimes it hurts. But a

lot of times, uh, you throw that punt.

When you take a punch, you're just going

to be trying to throw somebody off so

you can come in, do your damage.

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It doesn't really matter whether you

believe what Oux says about being able

to rest while someone is beating you to

death. What does matter is that to ask

whether or not wrestling is real is to

ask the wrong question. The right

question is what do you believe and how

much do you believe it?

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If wrestling were theater, critics would

call this the willing suspension of

disbelief. An audience's ability to not

worry how much punishment the human body

can or can't take.

The point is that people want to believe

and things happen at a wrestling match

that they can believe in

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Lanza. One fall 15 minutes. The referee

is Elden Rich.

Before I got into professional

wrestling, I was a school teacher. I

taught sociology at high school level

for two years.

Wow.

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Well, I think really when it gets down

to it, it's good versus evil. It's a

sport that uh you can be as outrageous

as you want. And sometimes the more

outrageous you are, the more creative

you are,

uh, the better that people like it.

I think what happens most people live in

a gray world. They come here and they

can make it a very black and white

world. They can pick people that they

hate and ones that they like and they

can cheer and they can boo and they can

vent a lot of their frustrations of that

gray world that they're dictated to and

by. Uh if you worked for IBM and you

came to work in a plaid jacket, they

call you upstairs almost as though it's

being disrespectful and sinful.

Uh and wrestlers and wrestling is one of

the great things. Starting with Gorgeous

George, he was the first one to do it.

Today, Gorgeous George wouldn't even be

noticed.

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It's nice to be humble. There's nothing

wrong with that. But there's nothing

wrong in one believing in themselves.

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We're the greatest attraction wrestling

has today. I should be the world

champion right now, but uh man, I'm just

too good, man.

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I think everybody sitting at home, no

matter what their occupation is, deep

down inside of them, you know, they just

really want a chance to tell the world

what they feel or tell the world how

they feel.

Because most people that that are out

there would like to be be like to get up

there and do it, but but can't do it.

They're afraid to do it or they just

couldn't take it. So, they enjoy seeing

somebody else doing it

because all you geeks wish you could be

like that. Well, it's too stinking bad

because you can't. Even you, you can't

either.

Hook me up there. I'll get up there. Get

me up there in the front row. Put the

camera on me. See, one of them comes out

and chase me.

This is what it comes down to. This is

what every fan who has a right to call

himself a fan has thought at one time or

another. Put me in. It's what every fans

thought.

Clifton, you're not big enough to get in

the ring with anybody. One of my little

kids is with you. You're just too small.

All I want is to be able to get in there

and to feel what you guys feel when

you're in the ring. That's all. I mean,

just long enough so I get a taste of it.

Well, I'll give you a taste of it right

here in the bar. But as far as you

getting in the ring, I couldn't

guarantee they wouldn't kill you. And I

could honestly not guarantee you that

somebody wouldn't kill you.

That's not what people who go to the

rrestles want to hear. We want to

believe that inside each of us, beneath

our educations and our good behavior.

There's a gorgeous George. I didn't want

to listen to Ox tell me somebody was

going to kill me. I wanted somebody to

rrestle.

I told you earlier that if you were to

step in the ring with Stan or myself, no

matter how nice we were to you here,

that we would humiliate you to no end,

first of all, and then we'd try to

injure you because if we didn't, we

wouldn't be protecting our sport.

Clifton, if you weighed another 100

pounds, maybe in shape and wrestling

knowledge, I would say yes, try it. Uh

it's just uh it just it's just not going

to happen for you.

I'm I'm a little small, maybe.

Mhm.

That's a greyhound, right? You look like

I just got off the banana boat, man. You

riving me. Who are you going to wrestle?

I'll wrestle you. How much money you

got?

If you try to be cute, if you try to

make who's ever in the ring with you uh

look a little bit foolish,

then I will agree with what the other

fellas told you.

Well, I'll tell you, if you're insistent

that you're going to get in that ring

and you want to find the feeling of the

rain, then the best thing to do is I'll

see if I can get one of the young kids

like Kurt Henning or somebody who

doesn't have that much experience to

work out with you.

What I planned was to get a little

training, learn a few holes, maybe even

have some robes designed, then set up a

match.

Yeah. How's it going? Everything was

working out just fine.

Well, if you train right, which is my

theory,

I trained every day, six days a week, 5

hours a day for four months.

I work for it. It's something that I

wanted to do and something I dedicated

my life to.

And when you make a decision like that,

I think it's uh only the right thing but

to uh prepare yourself. First of all,

I'd like to start off with uh why don't

I get down these are called twoman

exercises. And uh each one of us will

switch off and do the exercises just to

loosen up a little bit. Why don't I get

down on all fours and you can do some

sit-ups.

Okay. Okay. Now, is this the one where I

step over this way and hook one?

That's right. Okay.

All right. Like so.

Yeah. See if you can get about 30 or 40.

How many?

Well, do as many as you can do.

Three or four you said, right?

30 or 40.

30 or 40.

He hurt a great deal. Not yet though.

One more.

Does the match as much as it

do is get on all fours. Get yourself a

good

I don't think I want to be a

professional wrestler anymore.

That's it.

No. No. Okay.

All fours. No. My turn.

Okay.

Get Get yourself a good base. Good

square wrestling. You've wrestled

before.

Yeah.

High school, right?

Yeah. Get a good wrestling base here.

Okay.

Okay.

So, we'll just maybe try 100 or so.

Maybe 50. Huh?

We'll see how it goes.

Okay.

Don't count.

Go. Speed it up a little bit.

15.

Yeah. You just do a few here and I'll

watch.

You're the one that want to get in. I've

already paid my duty. This is something

I'm doing for you.

Okay.

Okay. Let's go.

Come on, keep it going. Keep the body

pumping.

15, 20 minutes into a match. You need

some endurance. Let's go.

That's right. Come on.

Come on.

Okay.

You don't need your legs to race.

Okay.

Okay. Let's do a somersault. Get right

up and go again.

Pick

[Music]

up a little speed.

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Get the guy in here.

This This gives you pressure on the

head.

Uhhuh. I'm controlling you anywhere I

want to push you.

The move can be applied with the arm in

or the arm out.

Yeah. And it hurts

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the

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best thing. A couple more squats.

Oh, no. No.

[Music]

I tried to laugh off the training

session, but I'd begun to think that

maybe Ox and the others were telling me

the truth. The workout beat the spit out

of me and pulled a muscle in my left

thigh doing the squats, and one of the

hip tosses threw my back out, and Ox

seemed pleased,

and I'd begun to understand what he

tried to tell me up front.

Forget about whether wrestlers hurt each

other. The more important question for

somebody who wants to be gorgeous George

for a night is will they hurt me? And

the answer is they will.

A wrestler is one of the proudest men is

like a boxer. One of the proudest men in

the world. You don't have to worry when

you go out on the street. You can look

at a man in the eye and say, "I am the

best. If you doubt it, come on and crawl

in the ring with me." I don't know if

any rather ever ever refused somebody to

crawl in the ring with him if they

wanted to crawl in the ring with him.

Well, I wanted in. I didn't want to get

killed, but I did want to be on the

wrestling side of the ropes. And I

wasn't going to give up. Not without at

least leaning on Ox for some kind of

alternative.

Refereeing is just as bad. Somebody's

going to beat the soup out of your

referee.

more dangerous situations in wrestling

as the audience. Man got a little

irritated while the police weren't

watching while I was watching another

person. He just let go with a punch is

all. That's the first time it's ever

happened to me. I've heard of other

referees that have gotten pretty well

beat up.

[Music]

If watching Gorgeous George taught me

anything, it taught me that no kid

dreams of growing up to be a referee.

The ref is the boss, the system. No one

in the crowd takes his side. No women

lust after him. Wrestling is more than

just men doing what men got to do. It's

men doing what they think women expect

them to. It's men showing off what they

think women want to see.

We like men's bodies.

That's why we're here.

They're stuck with some little feeble

guy. So they want to see a big

beautifulbodied man. And if your wife

looked at you and then looked at Hulk

Hogan, you imagine what she would say?

She'd look at him and say, "Oh my

goodness, there's a man."

Sex and violence

is is what people want to see.

And and you sit right here and the sweat

flies and the bodies pound and the

muscle and the flesh. And when we really

get down to it in an old in its own

strange way, we are just very highass

animals.

[Music]

When the poet TS Elliott discovered he

couldn't be a wrestler either, he wrote,

"I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant

to be. am an attendant lord. An easy

tool at times indeed almost ridiculous.

Almost at times the fool.

In other words, the manager.

Well, I try to encourage them, you know,

get out, get up. Come on, fight harder.

Fight harder. You know,

you got to remember if you're going to

manage though, you're going to be in

danger. It's not going to be something

with no danger at all to it. But the

crowd may hurt you. The man in the ring

may hurt you. And uh you're talking

about going out there with Mick Bwinkle

in the ring and you got to watch him.

He's dangerous. You got to watch your

tail. He'll be trying to put you in the

ring. He'll be trying to smack you.

He'll be trying to put an eye out. If

you get up in the ring, he's going to

kill you.

The closest I could get to gorgeous

George's outfit were the academic robes

I hadn't worn since graduation.

In a way, they were like the managing.

They weren't what I'd hoped for, but

maybe they were close enough.

I can barely see you without my glasses

on

you.

In this corner, he is a threetime

former world heavyweight wrestling

champion.

He is from Beverly Hills, California at

245 lbs. Nickoinko.

[Music]

And in this corner,

he is the Pacific Post Wrestler of the

Year

from Robinsdale, Minnesota,

236 lb, Church Henning Hig,

and his manager,

the Professor

Gi.

one 30 minutes.

And if for any reason whatsoever you

have any anticipation of possibly making

a fool out of me, my sport during a

match of mine, your family won't like

it.

Something was wrong.

Bwinkle had told me what would happen if

the wrestler thought I was getting cute.

That's part of why I wasn't rrestling.

Mr. Jolly to have a chair down there.

I thought Bach Winkle and I had an

understanding. We were both supposed to

be on the inside of this thing.

Are you ready? Are you ready? Let's do

it.

The fans were out in the arena

believing, but we were the guys up in

the ring. That's the way I'd planned it,

worked it out, and suddenly the whole

thing was coming apart on me.

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You can't

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Elliot wrote, "There will be time to

wonder. Do I dare? And do I dare?

Get your ass out of here right now.

Time to turn back and descend the stare.

In a minute, there is time for decisions

and revisions, which a minute will

reverse.

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going out.

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All right.

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Come on. Come on, get it up.

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Come on.

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Are you

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Oh, I love it.

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I have seen the moment of my greatness

flicker and I have seen the eternal

footman hold my coat and snicker. And in

short, I was afraid.

What I hadn't understood, what I'd never

even dreamed, is that believing doesn't

start at ringside. doesn't stop at the

apron. Sure, the fans believe, and the

wrestlers do, too.

But you don't want to know about that.

All you want is the answer to one

question. Is wrestling real? Did he

really hit you? And the answer is, I

know, but you don't know. The answer is,

what do you mean by real? The answer

really is,

it's not my fault. I'm the best looking

man that ever walked the face of the

earth. But it's going to be my fault

when I get in the ring with any one of

my opponents because I'm going to beat

him and I think I want to

stand proud and erect in New York Harbor

symbolizing all stand for. Catch the

story of the Statue of Liberty Wednesday

night at 8. Now stay tuned for I

remember gorgeous George.

Dolly, if you want to come down there

and stick your nose in.

Thanks for the invitation, Bach Winkle.

I'll remember you, too.