411’s Dark Side of The Ring Report: ‘The Junkyard Dog’

-As I have noted I grew up on WWF in the 80s and that is where I first saw Junkyard Dog. Obviously, I was too young for his run in Mid-South so I am intrigued by this one. Let’s get to it!

-Chris Jericho is our narrator!

-We start with Jim Ross who talks about the following JYD had and how it was infectious. JYD was a hero to the working class and was a hero to fans in New Orleans.

-Jake “The Snake” Roberts is up and he says New Orleans was JYD’s town and if you were wrestling him you were scared to death. The cops usually had to escort the guys out that wrestled JYD.

-JYD started as a rookie in Calgary as Big Daddy Ritter. Jim Ross says that there was an unsaid quota of how many black wrestlers you can have, so a young Ritter was out of luck. JR notes it was horrible, but that’s how the white promoters ran things back then.

-Bill Watts took a chance on the kid though and JR notes that people compared Watts to Vince Lombardi in that he was a disciplinarian and head coach. It was his way or the highway.

-Koko B Ware is here and his cellphone goes off while talking. Fantastic! He notes that wrestling is a white man’s sport. He says Bill Watts gave Dog a chance to make real money and it blew Mid-South wide open.

-JR brings up Watts’ rule that if any of his wrestlers got into a bar fight and lost, they were fired. Ernie Ladd was the booker for Watts and someone recommended JYD. Watts didn’t know Dog wasn’t a technical wrestler. Tony Atlas says Dog clicked with the audience and gives credit to Bill Watts for finding matches that fit JYD’s style. They knew Dog was a former football player and they played off that strength with his offense.

-They needed a perfect villain and enter, Ted Dibiase. Ted says he was coached by The Funks and Bill Watts on how to highlight JYD. He was told to emphasize what Dog did well and avoid what didn’t. JYD had faith in Ted and they became such good friends that Dog was Ted’s best man in his wedding.

-Credit to Vice for a solid knockoff of ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ that has played few times in the background. JR doesn’t think anyone in the business did more for anyone else than Watts did for JYD. He brings up how people were surprised Watts was behind a black guy and says that Watts favorite color was green as in money.

-Jim Cornette brings the history as he talks about The Municipal Auditorium and how it was Dog’s house every Friday Night. He goes over the feud between JYD and The Freebirds. The gimmick for The Birds was they had cream that instantly removed hair and they wanted to make JYD bald, but the cream “accidentally” got in Dog’s eyes and made him blind. Jake notes once that happened the Birds were dead. Great stuff was JYD goes on TV and says his baby is about to be born and while he can hold her, he won’t be able to see her. Cornette reiterates that the Birds were dead men.

-JYD and Hayes were set to have a dog collar match, but before it happened, we get a story from Cornette. He says JYD told him this story, but others have said it was bull. JYD was sitting, “blind” at ringside with The Freebirds coming down and a fan jumped over the railing and pulled out a massive gun and told Dog, “Don’t worry, I got them.” Dog was conflicted for a second as if he grabbed the gun then everyone would know that he could see. The cops got there in time though and took the guy to the ground.

-Commercials!

-JYD has become a Main Event star in Mid-South and Koko calls him The Black Hulk Hogan down there. Teddy Long next and they include video of him telling JBL he is going 1 on 1 with THE UNDERTAKER! He mentions that folks of all races loved JYD.

-Tony Atlas says JYD became huge and made sure he was generous with him money and his time. He knew where he came from and that lets us meet Jarvis Woodburn, the nephew of JYD. He called him Uncle Dog and he shows some photo albums of JYD as a kid. We see the home where JYD grew up complete with an outhouse. We get a tour of the home and see more photos. Good stuff!

-Koko remembers Dog taking his chain off and giving it to a kid in the front row. He stayed humble and Long says he was the same guy every day.

-Life on the road started to take a toll. We learn Dog had a daughter named Latoya and she was a daddy’s girl. Ted and Jake talk about life on the road and how it taxes your relationship with your kids and your wife. JR says sometimes on the road a joint was your solace and that leads to Jake and Dog experimenting with drugs. Jake says Dog showed him his bottle that had 1000 hits on sped in it. Jake said Dog was in with downers and sleeping pills, and he wasn’t yet, but was about to start.

-Jarvis says he didn’t know wrestlers had groupies and learned it was similar to rock stars. He was amazed to learn that a lot of the women had to pay to have sex with JYD. Tony Atlas loved it and laughs how he got free beer and got laid because he was with JYD. “They paid for it.”

-Tony says there was a night three women came in and each paid $100 to have sex with the wrestlers. He told the ladies that Tony doesn’t want to get laid, but likes playing with feet. Eww! Dog was ready to smash one of these ladies and there was a knock at the door. It was the girl’s husband and he wanted to fight dog and that didn’t go well for him. “Dog beat the hell out of him and the girl stayed.”

-Dog was making 2-3 thousand dollars a week and was given a car to drive. Dog caught the eye of Vince McMahon in 1984 and he offered JYD double what Watts was paying. JR couldn’t believe that Dog walked out on Watts, his savior. Jake chuckles when they ask how Watts felt when news broke that JYD was leaving. He says he wishes he had been there to see his reaction.

-Commercials!

-JYD leaving Mid-South sent shock waves throughout the territories and JR says it broke Watts’ heart. They show Watts tear into Dog on Mid-South TV and claim he walked out on the phones. Koko was amazed to see a white man cry over a black man leaving and credits Watts for everything he did for Dog and how he tried everything to keep him.

-Teddy Long says he was told by JYD that he heard Grizzly Smith and Watts talking in the bathroom. Smith told Watts they were going to lose JYD to The WWF. Watts apparently told Smith, “don’t worry that n****r isn’t going anywhere.” That is what caused JYD to make him mind and jump to New York.

-Jake says that Watts was terrified he was going to lose his territory and immediately tried to find another black wrestler to fill the spot, and JR says that was a mistake. They tried George Welles, Brickhouse Brown, The Snowman. Jake says he had the pleasure of wrestling Snowman and it did not work. He continues that Butch Reed was a good wrestler, but wasn’t the Dog and was far too pretty.

-JYD was welcomes by the fans in the WWF and Vince marketed him like a Superstar. JR says it was the best move Dog every made financially and JYD told him he was making six figures a quarter just off his action figure. I had that figure! JYD was in the cartoon and got to sing on the music album! GRAB THEM CAKES!

-Duggan says everyone wanted Hogan’s spot and there were a ton of guys on the spot below hungry. JYD had a ton of success, but never got to the heights of his Mid-South days. Koko thinks that JYD felt Vince was going to push him the way Watts pushed him. He thinks JYD felt he let Louisiana and his fans down.

-Commercials!

-Koko says they pushed the black wrestlers somewhat in WWE, but never went the whole way. I mean, Hogan was on top. Black or white, nobody was taking that spot. Tony Atlas notes that the majority of the top stars in Vince Sr’s run were minority and names Rocky Johnson, Pedro Morales, Mr. Fuji, and The Wild Samoans. Vince Sr wanted someone from every Nationality. When Vince Jr took over he had Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, and Bret Hart. I mean using Bret, who was in a tag team, is kind of a stretch. He says there was a pecking order and he needed black wrestlers, but had the white wrestlers beat them. He notes it wasn’t racism, but a business decision as he needed to draw in more white fans.

-Ted Dibiase says he wishes Vince used JYD like Bill Watts did. Again, they had HULK HOGAN! JYD wasn’t the only one stuck below that level.

-JYD them gets addicted to cocaine and would do it on a plane and pretty much anywhere he could. Tony Atlas says they were in a limo to go to TNT show and he made the limo driver go to the hood so they could get dope. He asked the limo driver if he could smoke and the driver said sure as he thought it was cigarettes. Dog pulled out a crack pipe and the limo started freaking out. They were late which meant Atlas also missed his match. He says Dog forgot what Thunderbolt Patterson told them, “you can’t do what the white man do, and keep your job.”

-Jakes notes that Dog was out of control and he remembers him hitting the pipe in front of everyone in Madison Square Garden. Hacksaw says he can’t throws stones as everyone was doing drugs, but he never got addicted unlike Dog who had problems. Jake says as far as he knows Dog was fired from WWF for no showing events. Koko says they don’t give you two weeks notice and just ask you to leave. JR says JYD’s story is a cautionary tale and if you don’t think so, you weren’t paying attention.

-Commercials!

-JYD starts working on the Indy Scene in small gyms. He gets an offer to join WCW where Bill Watts was in charge. Everyone there was happy to see JYD and wanted to help him. JR knew Dog’s days as a top guy were over, but Dog didn’t see it that way. He was bloated and people wanted to help him but he needed to carry their share of the water.

-His nephew is mad when he reads all the stories about JYD doing drugs before anything else. They took him out of his environment and gave him money. “Yeah, he did drugs. Woopie! Everyone has demons.”

-Jake last saw JYD at an Indy show where he was incoherent and did a two minute match, took the money, and left without saying a word. Jake had been there and knew where he was going: outside to get high. The cycle was heard to break.

-JYD started working a part-time job at WalMart. Atlas says he hit the same low points and tried to kill himself. He was homeless at one point and didn’t shower, shave, brush his teeth, or comb his hair for a year and a half. That was right before Samba Simba got him money to get back on track somewhat. Dogg didn’t save his money and careless with it. They all thought the money would never end and they would always be big stars.

-Dibiase says he got a call from JYD in the middle of the night and he told Ted to encourage the kids he was speaking to, to not do what he had done. That stuck with Ted and he has done that. He also notes that is one of the last conversations he ever had with JYD.

-JYD was determined to get to his daughter’s graduation. He was in Mississippi and the graduation was in North Carolina which is about a 9 hour drive. Dog misses the graduation and apologizes for being late. He got to meet his nephew’s son and we see the photo and that is the last family photo they ever took of him.

-JYD was heading back out and his nephew noticed there was puke in the car. Dog said he didn’t need to sleep and would just head home. That was the last conversation they ever had.

-Commercials!

-No episode next week due to July 4, but in two weeks it’s Adrian Adonis.

-June 1, 1998: For perspective, I just finished my junior year of high school. Dog said he would be back in for The Fourth. The next morning he gets a call that Sylvester had been killed that night. According to police the accident happened in the morning. Dog fell asleep at the wheel and there were no skid marks. The car flipped and Dog didn’t have a seat belt on as his nephew he was too big for it and shouldn’t have been in that car. The autopsy noted the cause of death as head trauma.

-Ted says he was hopeful that JYD would get better and then heard about the car wreck. Jake says he was happy for JYD as he knew he finally escaped and the pain was over. Old footage from Watts as he notes he cried and never got to tell JYD that he loved him.

-We visit JYD’s grave and right below is where his daughter is buried. Oh man! She died from a ruptured heart valve at 31 years old. That’s awful!

-They also agree that Dog blazed a trail for any African American that followed. JR says JYD did more to create awareness and acceptance in the prejudice world of pro-wrestling. He prefers to remember JYD in the happier days. Jake says he had charisma that made him a God and so many people loved him, black or white.

-JYD was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004 by his daughter as they try to find a happy way to end this one. Ted Dibiase gets the last word before we close.

-This was a solid episode as I enjoyed having JYD’s story told as he doesn’t get mentioned enough. The only tragedy was that he got caught up in addiction and like so many others, he couldn’t overcome it. His daughter passing at 31 was heartbreaking and I can only imagine what that would have done to JYD had he been alive. The racial overtones in regards to the WWF in the mid 80s seemed kind of tacked on, as again, I don’t see it as Vince being racist and more that it was HULK HOGAN and nobody else was getting that spot. I think Jake even mentioned in the opening that JYD didn’t get that spot because he couldn’t be dependable. That can be said about a lot of guys in that era and for all his faults, Hogan was there and dependable. Overall, I didn’t learn too much knew as they didn’t do too deep into what made JYD a big star in Mid-South other than he just had charisma and the only feud touched on was with Dibiase to a point and the blinding angle with The Freebirds. Thanks for reading!