Dark Side of the Ring S6 Episode 4 - Tony Atlas Too Much Too Soon
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00:00I had 19 and a half inch biceps, and I was 225 pounds at age 19.
00:15God, he was a black Arnold Schwarzenegger.
00:18You have got it.
00:18Look at the alarm.
00:19You have got it.
00:21Yeah, I mean, he was a total package.
00:23I know that I need to work harder.
00:25I need to train harder.
00:26A bodybuilder turned wrestler, Mr. USA Tony Atlas broke barriers as one of the first major black superstars in the sport.
00:36You got to keep it.
00:36Getting it is one thing, but keeping it alive, you got a different thing.
00:40I remember seeing black wrestlers get tarred and feathered.
00:43A lot of questionable racist behavior.
00:48Tony Atlas made little black kids all over the world feel like, man, I can do that too.
00:53I am going to whoop on you and get paid for it.
00:57There were very few black wrestlers.
00:59There was a lot of time I wrestled in an area where I'm the only black guy.
01:02They saw money.
01:04They didn't see color.
01:05Hey, wait a minute.
01:06Holy shit, look at this guy.
01:09Get in the way.
01:09Get in the way.
01:11Tony Atlas, Mr. USA, climbing the ladder of success very, very rapidly in the World Wrestling Federation.
01:15Rising to heights few black wrestlers of his era had ever reached, Tony Atlas began to unravel the weight of fame's pressures and pitfalls.
01:25I got trouble here, and I got trouble there, and I got trouble coming your way.
01:31Sex, drugs, and wrestling.
01:33There was a party every night at the hotel room.
01:36There were a lot of temptations, and there were a lot of different choices out there to make.
01:41I never bought drugs in the day of my life.
01:43It was always given to me.
01:44It was in the dressing room, for God's sake.
01:46There's a lot of things about Tony Atlas I wonder.
01:49Whether it's legend or fact, is it true or not?
01:53Tony's battle with addiction cost him significant opportunities, leaving him with no place to call home.
02:01Here's a guy that was making hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he's living on the street.
02:06It's not how much you make, it's how much you save.
02:09I was some homeless guy that smelled like something died.
02:12No place to live, no nothing.
02:15I became a suicider.
02:16I didn't want to live no more.
02:18I wanted to die.
02:30All right, so we're going to watch this, and you just tell us whatever you think about it, feel about it.
02:36Mr. USA, Tony Atlas.
02:41And he looked fantastic.
02:43Looks like he was chiseled from granite.
02:45Man, he was jacked.
02:46What a well-put-together human.
02:49His opponent, weighing 320 pounds, the incredible Hulk Hogan.
02:56Jeez.
02:57Unbelievable.
02:58Nice, that Hulk Hogan.
03:00So, you press-slammed Hulk Hogan at Madison Square Garden?
03:03Yeah.
03:04Oh, look at that.
03:06Oh, that's that.
03:07Check it out.
03:09Check it out, bro.
03:10Check it out.
03:11And how do the fans react?
03:14Atlas grinding it out a bit.
03:16The table and glue.
03:22Hulk Hogan's, what, 330 pounds at the time, 6'4".
03:26And press him over your head.
03:32Hulk Hogan, I can hear him now, cussing up a storm.
03:37Damn.
03:38Tony wanted to press the biggest guy in the company, because it was telling everybody in the audience,
03:44look how strong I am.
03:47A main event guy, Madison Square Garden, to go to, you know, living on a park bench.
04:02Sometimes people have to go through hitting bottom before they realize how good they really had it.
04:09I was born in Virginia.
04:12My mother was a devoted Christian.
04:15She'd only been with one man her whole life, and that was my father.
04:20My dad never worked.
04:22My mother worked.
04:23All of her dedication went directly to raising her kids.
04:27One time, we were walking down the street, and this guy slapped my mother on the butt.
04:32My mom turned around.
04:34She hit him with one punch and knocked him out.
04:36Laid him out right there.
04:38My mother said, I got to teach you kids how to protect yourself, because I ain't always going to be here for you.
04:42That was something she said all the time, because when I was young, you had to know how to use your hands.
04:48All through life, like when you go back to my childhood, I was in anywhere between 50 to 100 fights.
04:54Anywhere in there, easily.
04:55So I had a reputation that if you fight me today and I don't win, you're going to see me again tomorrow.
05:02Most of the influence in the black neighborhood when I was a child was bad influence.
05:06We looked up to drug dealers.
05:08We looked up to street fighters.
05:10We walked to school.
05:11And there was a fist fight every other day.
05:14I didn't care who you were.
05:15I would fight anybody.
05:17Now, my dad, he was a gambler who liked to hustle money.
05:20So he took me down to scrap a corner and wait for the railroad men to come in.
05:25And when they get drunk, he would tell them, I bet you can't whoop that boy there.
05:29I don't fight these grown men.
05:31And he said, if you lose this fight, boy, you're going to get it worse when you get home.
05:37But I grew quick.
05:38By the time I was 12, I was already over 6 feet at 12.
05:43But I only weighed like 110 pounds.
05:48I was like a stick.
05:51And so one day, I was walking with this girl.
05:53I helped her carry her books.
05:55I liked her.
05:57Really, I liked her shoes.
05:58She had tennis shoes on.
05:59So I hear this voice, baby, say, I'm going to push you.
06:03All of a sudden, I fell head first.
06:06I got the dent in my head right here.
06:10The whole world turned red because all the blood was ran down to my face.
06:15My grandmother come running out.
06:17Hold on.
06:18Hold on.
06:18Come here, boy.
06:19My scar was split completely in half.
06:22We had no phone.
06:23She couldn't call the ambulance.
06:24She couldn't call the police.
06:26No way of contacting anybody.
06:28My grandmother said, I want you to pray.
06:32So I got down on my knees.
06:34And this is what I said.
06:35I want to be strong like Samson.
06:37Built like Hercules.
06:39And have a lot of money.
06:41And everything that I asked for in that prayer, God gave to me.
06:45I blew it later.
06:48But still, he gave to me.
06:50Do you think that you suffered brain trauma from that incident?
06:53Yeah.
06:54Yeah.
06:55Have you been ever medically diagnosed?
06:57No.
06:58No.
06:59But I do know it was something wrong with me.
07:01That I was not like regular kids.
07:04And I think it has something to do with the shoes.
07:06The reason I'm so submissive to women in sneakers and stuff like that.
07:11Because all that was all at the same time.
07:13I don't understand.
07:14What do you mean?
07:14I buy shoes for the girls to step on them.
07:16That's what they got me into now.
07:22Oh, my goodness.
07:24That one.
07:25Fan one.
07:26Yeah, that's a nice pair of shoes right there.
07:28Now, what makes it good?
07:29Well, if they're family looking.
07:31They look like something should be on a woman's feet.
07:34I got stepped on in malls and gyms and houses, hotel, elevator.
07:40I got it done everywhere.
07:41A couple dozen times I was with him.
07:43I seen him just buy shoes and have them walk on his face and never talk to him again.
07:49I was as shocked as the girl was.
07:51People knew nothing about fantasies.
07:53Fantasies, all this stuff was underground.
07:56So they thought because of my wrestling, they thought it was part of my training.
08:00He'd take girls to matches and have them walk on his face.
08:03I'd give a woman $50 just to step on me.
08:06Plus, I'd buy the shoes for them.
08:08They didn't have to pay for the shoe.
08:09I thought it was a little bit out of the ordinary.
08:11You know, but then, you know, everybody has their little quirks, right?
08:18You know, things that make them feel good.
08:21As Popeye said, I am what I am.
08:23You know, he's not the only foot guy in the world.
08:26Well, they said, like, I suck toes, which I don't.
08:30They said I like high heels, which I don't.
08:32They try to make it into a sexual thing.
08:40What, for me, my shoe feather keeps me calm.
08:44I got more control of it now than I did then.
08:48Get a sniff on it, Tom.
08:49Hey, now we talking.
08:51I was into what's called dominatrix.
08:55So the dominatrix become your master.
08:58You're what you call a slave.
09:00I can't use that term now because I'm black, and black people get mad, but that's what it was.
09:04So they dominate you.
09:06See, I went to a person once, had to explain it to me, that was into all this psychology stuff.
09:11And I had this rage in me.
09:13You know, ever since I was a kid, I'd fight anybody.
09:17I'd beat up anybody.
09:18I could lift anything.
09:19Nobody could beat me.
09:21So I had to learn more control.
09:24So I ended up going to the YMCA.
09:27I've never been to the gym any day in my life.
09:29I was 15 years old when I first started lifting weights.
09:34Hey, hello, welcome.
09:35Come on in, guys.
09:36Well, I know y'all gentlemen noticed I got a lot of stuff spread out here on the table.
09:41Because these items here are items for before there was a Tony Atlas.
09:49Now, this is Muscle Development Magazine.
09:53I never competed in bodybuilding before, but what ended up happening, I did a 350-pound press at age 19.
10:02That was the beginning of my bodybuilding and powerlifting.
10:11I saw Tony the first time at the YMCA.
10:18My name is David Crockett.
10:20I am part of the Crockett Wrestling family that started Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, TBS.
10:29That's us.
10:29In Charlotte, the only place you had to exercise or lift weights was the YMCA.
10:37A lot of the wrestlers, George Scott, Sandy Scott, Johnny Heideman, you name it, they all were down there working out.
10:45And they said, hey, we've got this young man that we think we can do something with.
10:49They take me to the office.
10:52There were some mats there, and they said, you know, put him through the paces just to see, you know, if he knew anything, which he didn't.
11:00But he definitely had potential.
11:04They said, we're going to pay you $150 a week to trade.
11:10We took an investment in Tony.
11:13Other people, we did not see it worth buying stock in them.
11:18So was there jealousy?
11:20Oh, yes.
11:21And it was very hard for him.
11:23Very hard.
11:24But he was like a sponge.
11:26You know, he'd learn.
11:27Now, George Scott said, well, Tony, I guess tomorrow we have to teach you how to work.
11:34I said, George, I don't want to work.
11:36I want to be a wrestler.
11:37He said, no, Tony, you don't.
11:38I said, I don't want to work.
11:39I said, I don't want to be a worker.
11:41I want to be a wrestler.
11:43I learned it ain't up to me to win or lose.
11:45It's up to some promoter.
11:47It was hard to swallow.
11:49Me being for so many years as a weightlifter, a bodybuilder, I was in legit.