4 days Ago By RobertLeightyJr
-Welcome to the latest episode of Dark Side of The Ring. This week we go into detail on Tony Atlas. If you didn’t know, Tony is in the WWE Hall of Fame, and I will have live Hall of Fame coverage this Friday/Saturday at 1 AM.
Join me then! Let’s get to it! -A reminder that Chris Jericho is our narrator. -Show opening. -We start with Mark Henry and he is shown video of Tony Atlas working a match against Hulk Hogan.
This was Hogan’s early WWF run when he was a heel. The match was at MSG and Atlas hits a gorilla press slam on Hogan. Gerald Brisco notes Hogan was 340 lbs at the time and Tony pressed him over his head.
That is rather impressive! HOGAN WAS SCREWED THOUGH! His foot was on the middle rope when Atlas got the pin and the ref never saw it. I don’t know if that Hogan kid is ever going to recover. This series has always liked to use Hogan when they can and makes sense as he is the biggest, arguably to some, star in history.
Ricky Steamboat says Tony was a Main Event guy and fell to a man living on a park bench. -Tony says he was born in Virgina and his mother was a devoted Christian. She had only been with one man her whole life, and that was Tony’s father.
His father never had to work and all of his mom’s dedication went to raising her kids. Tony tells the story of a man slapping his mom on the ass, and she turned around and knocked him out with one punch. She instilled in her kids they needed to protect themselves as she wasn’t going to always be around.
Tony says he was in countless fights and if he lost that day, he would see the person the next day. His dad would dare him to fight grown men and told him if he lost, he would get it worse at home. -Tony was over 6 feet tall at 12 years old, but only weighed 110 lbs.
He was walking a girl home one day and he liked her. He notes he liked her shoes! Yep! Someone pushed him from behind and he landed on his forehead and started bleeding. His skull was split in half and he still has the dent in his head.
He notes the whole world turned read because of all the blood running down his face. His grandma ran out and they didn’t have a phone to call anyone, so she had Tony pray. Tony remembers praying to be strong like Samson and built like Hercules.
SHAZAM? He says everything he asked in that prayer, God eventually gave him. The producer asks if he thinks he survived brain issues and Tony says yes, but says he was never medically diagnosed. He thinks that is why he is submissive to women in shoes.
Producer: “I don’t know what you mean.” Tony: “I buy girls shoes so they can step on me.” I was waiting for that! -Next Tony goes shoe shopping and this is just bizarre.
He says he has been stepped on in malls, gyms, houses, restaurants...
everywhere. We see video of him letting fans step on him. He would pay women $50 plus the shoes for them to step on his face.
Steamboat: “Everyone has their quirks that make them feel good.” Tony says he doesn’t suck toes or like high heels. He doesn’t masturbate either.
He says it isn’t a sexual thing and just keeps him calm. He says he has more control of it now. He admits he was into dominatrix and was their slave, but says he can’t use that term now because black people get mad.
-He admits to seeing a psychologist and he learned he had rage in him as a kid. He sent to the YMCA when he was 15 years old and started hitting the gym to deal with the rage. He takes us to his house and shows off the muscle magazines he read and then appeared in when he became a bodybuilder and power lifter.
-David Crockett says he saw Tony the first time at a YMCA in Charlotte. That was the only place to exercise and lift weights. They saw Atlas and thought they could do something with him.
They ran Tony through the paces and he was green, but had potential. They paid Tony $150 to train which wasn’t the norm. David says they took stock in Tony and he was a sponge in being able to learn.
George Scott told Tony they would teach him how to work. Tony: “George, I don’t want to work I want to be a wrestler.” So yeah, green! He mentions having the promoter decide if he wins or loses was hard to swallow.
“I have to let people whoop me that can’t whoop me. It was the most disappointing day of my life.” -Commercials! -Mark Henry says Tony was one of the biggest and strongest and he can relate to him.
Mark says that some say he is the strongest man that ever lived. As for Tony, Mark says “he didn’t have show muscles, he had go muscles.” -Now we properly meet Ricky Steamboat and he thanks us for being here.
It seems Ricky and Tony competed in body building competitions against each other. Ricky won Mr. Southern States and Tony won Mr.
USA. -Gerald Brisco next and he says Tony was a bodybuilder that was a wrestler. The look alone helped Tony get pushed and he was TV Champion in Georgia in no time.
-Here’s Tommy Rich and says he was NWA World Champion when “rasslin was rasslin.” Rich and Tony were a team together in Georgia and we see a promo where Tony says the following: “if you want to make love to Tommy, you have to make love to me.” That’s a new one! They were a salt and pepper tag team in what was a different world back then.
Tony says today it would be called racism, but back in his day it was average. Tony says they kept 1 black wrestler on the roster so if there was another one, that was your enemy. He talks about how everyone would use the n word and Tony didn’t care as he was making money.
His mom taught him to pick his battles, so he didn’t care as he made $100,000 his first year and that was his small year. He says it was too much, too soon. Roll credits! -He says he would give all the money away.
He was told he could either live like a king or save the money and be rich. He wanted to live like a king. Brisco says he was like Ric Flair with his money where he would make 5 grand and the next day was broke.
He bought the new Lincolns and started getting friends hanging on just for free drinks and meals. -Tony says the girls would come up to him and he would take three to his room. They would drink, party, and smoke.
“Every night was an orgy.” He didn’t have to look for drugs as they were in the dressing room. Rich says they all participated in them.
-Nick Patrick is here and even introduces himself as the nWo referee. That is awesome for some reason! He also notes he was a referee for the WWE. He was partying with Tommy and Tony and is amazed any of them are still alive.
They were tired of driving Tommy, so they had him drive one night, which was a mistake. Tommy had been drinking and was a few miles from the hotel and he flipped the car three times. Tony was knocked out and “was almost dead.
” -Commercials! -Back to the car wreck where the roof was crushed down on Nick and knocked him out. Tony ended up with a broken neck and was in the hospital for 3-4 days. Tony says it wasn’t a wake up call as it was the business, so they kept on moving.
-Tony moves from Georgia to the WWF and we see him with a young Vince McMahon. Brisco says if there was ever a talent built for New York, it was Tony Atlas. He was booked in the Main Event and became one of the most popular stars.
He was paired with Rocky Johnson, who was already an established star. Soul Patrol! They show the historic WWF Title win over The Wild Samoans. Tony says it was great but as he noted earlier, there can only be one top black wrestler and he was the only one that could take Rocky’s spot and that’s why they didn’t get along.
He says there was jealousy as he made and earned in 1 week what it took Rocky 10 years to do. Brisco says Rocky noticed Tony was getting the bigger push and tried to get him fired. They nearly traded blows several times and then would go out and have great matches.
-Tony says they did very little with them after winning The Tag Titles and lost them 5 months later. He claims he didn’t know they were losing that night and Ole told him the world is not ready for a black Champion. That gets back to the racism talk.
Atlas claims Dick Murdoch was a member of the KKK and would have his uniform in the back. Murdoch told Tony he had friends that wanted to me him and Tony wanted to be respectful. He asked if Tommy could come and that was fine.
They end up on a dirt road and the Klan was there with a shotgun. Tommy yelled, “get down T.” -Commercials! -So we pause on the cliffhanger to discuss Tony having dyslexia.
He says his mother told him he was a slow learner and it ties back into the story as Tony was given from Murdoch and he couldn’t read that it was for a Klan meeting. The boys didn’t think Tony would actually go to the meeting. -David says Tony was taken advantage of as he never saw the bad in people.
Even with all the backstabbing he just trusted people. He would cope with alcohol and drugs. Next, he started going into the locker area to intimidate people.
He would fire off shots from his Colt Magnum to the ceiling to scare people and this wasn’t the Tony Atlas that David saw at The YMCA. He was on the road to self-destructing. -Tony says he was stupid and not a happy person even with all the success.
We go back to shoes as Tony says he threw away The Championship over sneakers. The producer asks about it and Tony says a girl had new shoes to walk all over him. “Shit, I can come back and do this wrestling thing.
” Chief Strongbow told Tony not to leave as it was a big-time chance. Tony says he took a plane to LA to be with his girl and gave up the chance to be the first black World Champion. “I had to lose everything to learn to appreciate what I had.
” We cut to Tony being interviewed while getting kicked in the face by a woman. -They discuss Tony missing shows and Mark says you can’t do that to the fans. Vince told Tony he was fired and had to make an example out of him.
Tony says it was a compliment because if he could fire Tony, he could fire anyone. Sure! -Tony ends up in a small regional promotion in Maine with Mario Savoldi. He told Tony he could get 50-75 thousand.
Vince would run a show in the same area the day before and that killed the small company and that left Tony broke and homeless. He shows us the park bench where he slept for nearly 18 months. He would get into fights behind the bench and would roll off the bench while sleeping into a mud puddle.
He was eating out of dumpsters. He was poor before, but nobody knew him. He was now poor and famous and hooked on cocaine.
He became suicidal and wanted police to shoot him and would walk in front of cars. -A woman named Monica started to check on him and called an ambulance as Tony was sleeping in subzero temps and went fell into a coma. -Commercials! -Monica is Tony’s wife and says when they met all he had was the clothes on his back and his Mr.
USA Trophy. Monica took Tony back to her house and he started to get back in the gym. He was working as a bouncer to pay the rent and then got a contract from Vince McMahon.
Monica started crying as she thought she would never see Tony again. He lets us know he bought a pair of cheap rings (he shows the one he is wearing) and told Monica they are married. -Tommy Rich credits Vince for giving Tony another chance.
Saba Simba is born! Tony brings up Roddy Piper doing commentary on the debut and just ignoring the gimmick. Piper on commentary: “That’s Tony Atlas. That ain’t no Saba Simba.
” Steamboat: “Piper’s right.” Mark Henry thinks it was low and says the character was belittling. Brisco: “Vince what were you thinking?” Steamboat says it was a way for Vince to make fun of him because “Vince can.
” He brings up Vince turning him into the costume wearing Dragon. Brisco: “my third grade son could have promoted a better gimmick.” Tony is asked how he felt and he starts laughing as he was just sleeping on park benches.
“He could have put me in a pink gorilla suit at that time and I would have loved it.” -The run doesn’t last long and Tony gets work here and there in other companies. We then jump to 2006 where Tony is inducted into The WWE Hall of Fame.
Mark Henry says Tony was a role model to little black kids, who had someone to identify with and he asked for Atlas to be his manager. Mark says it was a childhood dream as he just wanted to be in the same room with Tony. He credits Tony for pushing him in the gym and The Hall of Pain was built.
Tony even got a chance to do some matches and says he was told one day that he was a big part of the company and they next day he was terminated. “That’s Vince. What comes out of Vince’s mouth, don’t trust it.
” -Commercials! -Next week “Superstar” Billy Graham. I assume we will have Hulk Hogan mentioned on that one as well. Probably Scott Steiner too! -Mark Henry says the Legend of Tony Atlas will never die.
Tony does all the meet and greets and even gets in the ring at his age. Tony says he is not financially secure and isn’t smart, so he has his body and strength. He notes that Monica is not doing well as she has been in the hospital since 2019 when she had a stroke.
We meet his wife at the hospital as Tony pushes her around in a wheelchair. There is something sweet about that and how in love he seems to be with his wife. He has a Monica kit that he uses to take care of her and says he can never do enough for her.
That is beautiful! -Tony says if he was a little more humble he would have been the first black World Champion. With that said he is happier now than he ever was with all the money and fame. We end with Tony telling his wife she is getting prettier and they share a laugh.
Again, beautiful! -That ending made up for the shoe fetish stuff. This was a weird one that fit in with ones we had on Jannetty and Bagwell. Some of the things Tony said will likely be questioned as we all know wrestlers like to tell tall tales.
I am not sure if he ever really was pegged to win The World Title but him giving that up to have a woman walk on his face makes for a weird story at worst. The other thing was everyone killing Vince for the Saba Simba gimmick, but Tony was fine as he just needed the money. Tony was just before my wrestling fandom exploded and I only first knew of him from Saba Simba and then he had the later run with Mark Henry.
The other place I remember him was an episode of MTV: True Life where he was hiding money from himself and asking to borrow a cellphone. The ending was great and it’s wonderful Tony has found happiness and is there to help the woman that saved his life. Thanks for reading!.
