411’s Dark Side of The Ring Report: ‘Paul Orndorff: Saving Mr. Wonderful’

-Written: 8.11.26
-Source: Vice
-Run Time: 1 Hour (w/ commercials)

-Plug: Dark Side: Renegade

-Chris Jericho is our narrator!

-We are back in my wheelhouse with my childhood. My earliest wrestling memories are the build to Mania 2. One of my first is the famous Hogan/Wonderful Cage Match.

-Preview with the talking heads and this is going to be an emotional one it seems.

-We start with WrestleMania I. Jim Cornette says Mania I was Vince McMahon’s big gamble. My very old review is here. Actually, the first thing I ever wrote for 411mania. The Main Event was Hogan and Mr. T vs. Piper and Orndorff. Cornette says Paul was there because he was an elite level athlete who could work with a green Mr. T and knew how to work with Hogan. He was also there so when the time was ready he could get beat. Paul was the only guy of the four that was going to take the pin and it made sense. We have footage of Paul from a 2002 interview where he says they were out to change the world and he knows it changed wrestling.

-Travis Orndorff, Paul’s son, says his dad got the credit he deserved from the people who understood wrestling. He notes he got his dad’s intensity. He talks about his dad’s childhood being rough. B. Brian Blair next to give us more information on Paul’s childhood. Paul grew up in a house that was a converted chicken coop. His dad was a butcher and modest would be considered an upgrade. They were poor.

-One time Paul was working a job and came home with money. His mom asked for the money, and Paul said it was his. His mom knocked him out with a cast iron skillet and took the money. I have had a job since 16 and my mom never once asked me for money. I would give her if ever needed obviously.

-Paul’s dad bare knuckle fought to pay his bar tab as he was a drinker. Paul ran down to a bar to save his brother who was in a fight. Paul started beating up the cops that where there. He fought off 7 sheriffs and we see the newspaper clipping. Travis notes his dad was forged in hell.

-Paul was blessed as an athlete and is considered one of the best athletes to come out of Tampa. Here’s Gerald Brisco who says Paul believed his athletic ability was his way out. He played football and got a scholarship to the University of Tampa. He was a fullback and played in the NFL for four years with the New Orleans Saints. That doesn’t sound right, so I checked. Everything I found notes he was drafted by The Saints, but stepped away during training camp. He went to camp with the Bears later and then went to The World Football League, but was hurt. No shade as being drafted is crazy good, and shows how much of a stud athlete he was.

-Paul says his heart wasn’t in football and started watching wrestling on TV. He figured he could do that and his father-in-law knew Eddie Graham. They put Paul with Matsuda to be trained. Paul talks about what he was put through with Hiro. Blair says 100 people were in the camp and the only ones that made it through were himself, Hogan, and Paul. Good group obviously!

-Back to Jim Cornette who took the picture of Paul’s first wrestling magazine cover in 1977 when he went to Memphis. Arn Anderson says Paul looked like a body builder, but was smooth like an amateur. He calls Paul his friend and notes that Paul believed his own press. “Sometimes that’s all you need.” Paul was driven to bring his family up out of poverty.

-Travis says his mom (Ronda) and dad were high school sweethearts. They were married young as she was pregnant at seventeen. Paul III was their first child and is nine years older than Travis. They called him Buzz. Travis says they had the same parents, but they were different parents. There was a lot of moving in the early days and Paul had a short fuse during those days. He thinks it forged bitterness and resentment. They discuss how hard it is to live on the road and how those at home suffer. Travis says his father wasn’t perfect, but he was unconditionally loving.

-In late 1983, Hulk Hogan recommends Paul to Vince McMahon. Cornette talks about WWF going National and how Hogan’s word carried a lot of weight with Vince. Hogan wanted people he liked and could draw money with. Brisco says Paul checked every box other than having experience. Paul says you have to take gambles in life and it paid off.

-Commercials!

-Cornette talks about Paul’s quick trajectory and covers how he came up with the Mr. Wonderful name. “With a body like this and a face like this, you can do anything damn thing you want to do and get away with it.” Blair calls Paul a stud and how he had to have his hair perfect. Travis says if he ever gets cancer he will blame Paul Mitchell Hairspray because he had to smell it his entire childhood. His dad loved being a heel because it’s easy to make people angry.

-They discuss Paul’s piledriver and it still looks killer! Paul says there was nothing fake about the character. “That was me. Ask my wife. I was a jerk.” They talk about the groupies and ring rats. Travis doesn’t think his family was immune to it. Blair says women would throw themselves at the wrestlers.

-Following Mania I, Paul turns face as Piper blamed him for the loss. Hulk Hogan now has a best friend and the crowd was getting behind Mr. Wonderful. We get to the injury where he got caught on the chin with a stiff shot and it affected the nerves down his arm. Paul didn’t want to give up the spot and money that came with it, so he worked about the injury. Travis says his dad was going to work around it to get generational wealth.

-MONEY TIME! Paul Orndorff turns on Hulk Hogan and drops him with an EPIC piledriver! That crowd is PISSED as Paul mocks Hogan while standing over him. Paul says he loved working with Terry as they made each other. The feud drew all the money and easily could have been the Main Event of a WrestleMania. Paul notes he had death threats and had bottles and darts thrown at him. Travis had a friend that stopped talking to him because his dad turned on Hulk Hogan.

-The Big Event: What’s crazy is they didn’t need a WrestleMania. Hogan and Wonderful drew over 60,000 people to an outdoor show in Toronto. I checked and some have it as 61,000 paid while others have 64,000 and others have it as being over 70,000 in attendance. Cornette says it was the biggest wrestling crowd in North America to that point. Paul grew up in a chicken coop and now was making $25000 a week.

-Travis says that was a job for his dad and it was a job that was taking his dad away from him. He never went without anything and went to a top private school. His dad kept money in a Tuperware container in the freezer. One fell out and lands on Travis’ foot, breaking his toe. Travis says his mom loved the money and unfortunately the pill started. There were times she wouldn’t wake up to take Travis to school. It just continued the rest of her life.

-Cornette says the WWF was selling over 150,000 tickets a week to see Hogan and Wonderful wrestle. That’s crazy! I know the money WWE is making now is insane, but there is nobody out there selling that many tickets in a week. Paul would have a few days off and Vince would be calling him up to get him back on the road. “When you are the Main Event, you go to go.” Paul says he was working 18 hours a day and doing it for 3 years.

-Travis got sick and went from 83 lbs to 52lbs over three weeks. He lost the ability to walk and his hands quit working. The best answer he got was complex regional pain syndrome, but at the time they didn’t think he was going to live. The doctor just thought he had a brain tumor. That angered Paul and he grabbed hold of the doctor and told him his son didn’t have a brain tumor. It hurt Paul he couldn’t be home, but choose what would at least feed and clothe them and he would make amends when he retired.

-By 1988 the arm got worse and you could visible see it was getting smaller from atrophy. He was getting depressed over the arm and his wife, so he started using drugs and the women. Travis says Vince told his dad that he would have a job for life if he didn’t screw him. “My dad screwed him.”

-Commercials!

-Paul no showed after asking for days off that he didn’t get. He says he and Vince did not leave on good terms and laughs that he got buried. He thinks people got in Vince’s ear that he wasn’t hurt, but he was hurt and it was time to go.

-Paul got away from the business and bought a bowling alley. He knew nothing about bowling, but trusted his wife and an investor. Arn thought it was unique and we see a televised bowling event with Travis as a kid and Paul sitting in the crowd. Paul disappeared from the public eye so much that a rumor was out there that Paul died from steroids and it was picked up internationally.

-Buzz (the oldest son) had legal issues with driving while drunk and other issues. We see FOX 5 coverage of him being arrested and see a high speed chase that ended with police crashing the car. Travis says he is not better than his brother, but they had different circumstances. Paul would do all he can to love Buzz and give him another chance, but Buzz always turned the wrong way. Travis says they would get their hopes up, but it was short lived. Paul and his wife adopted Buzz’s children.

-Financial issues as Paul’s business manager was a crook and lost Paul’s money in a Ponzi Scheme. Of course! Want to make sure I get his name, Shelton Thorne, bankrupted Paul and he had to go back on the road again to make a living. Cornette says it took a lot out of Paul and from there it got worse.

-Commercials!

-Paul is back in wrestling, but not the WWF. He was working on the independent scene with the UWF and other promotions. He still looked like Mr. Wonderful and Arn says it didn’t affect his work. You could see the arm was a little smaller, but he worked like he always did. Cornette brings him into Smokey Mountain to work weekends and Cornette notes it was an agreeable rate. Travis says Paul did what he needed to take care of his family.

-Paul signs with WCW in 1993 (they are skipping over his WCW run in 1990 I guess) and start with his gimmick where he had the psychic with him. The idea is he lost who Mr. Wonderful was and had to fall back in love with himself. Travis hated the gimmick and Cornette calls it low rent. Arn says it happened because Paul was getting paid.

-Paul becomes a trainer at The Power Plant and Cornette says Paul was a perfect fit for the role. He took it seriously and taught the kids the way he was trained. We jump to Paul joining some of his kids and working an elimination tag match on a WCW PPV (Fall Brawl 2000). We get some cool footage of Cornette watching the match and giving commentary explaining what was happening. He buries Jindrak for going up to quick for the piledriver. Paul says if he would have dropped the kid the way he went up, he would have dropped him on his head. So they went kind of backwards and to the side and it causes a neck injury to Paul. The weight and velocity made it like a car accident from a different angle. Paul can’t move and the match is called off. Cornette explains what happens with a stinger. We see the wrestlers in the match looking on concerned and one is an unmasked Rey Mysterio Jr. Cornette notes you can end up paralyzed.

-Commercials!

-Back to Fall Brawl as Wonderful gets taken away on a backboard and stretcher. Travis says his dad broke his neck. Cornette notes it was rare to stop a match back in those days. Paul was 51 at the time and got hurt doing his own move. Arn: “It was God telling him, you’re done.” Paul had a third operation on his neck where discs were fused and he had a rod put in his spine.

-2005: Mr. Wonderful is inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. That was a loaded class before WWE realized they needed to spread out the big time stars. I mean, Hogan went in with Piper underneath. They easily could have put Piper in as a headliner another year. That 2005 Class was the Hogan Era Class as you had Hogan, Piper, Orton, Volkoff, Sheik, and Jimmy Hart.

-2010: Travis started noticing a decline in Paul’s memory and then it accelerated when he got throat cancer. We see Paul with Hogan and Piper at Mania XXX. He was losing his memory and forgot when he would call his son. He would get lost at airports and it was discovered he was suffering from dementia.

-Blair felt Paul was being abused and blames his wife for not giving Paul his medicine and taking care of him. She says she was on Meth and was strung out on other drugs. Buzz got out of prison and punched Paul in the face, breaking his nose. Travis picked Paul up and took him to his house. Paul wanted to go back home and didn’t want to leave Ronda. She didn’t want to care for him, so Travis called Adult Protective Services. Cornette says Paul was in bad shape and then the pandemic happened and that was the end of it.

-Paul is hospitalized with pneumonia in 2021 and Ronda refuses to take him back. Travis got his mom to tell him where his dad was. She walked into the room and he starts breaking down as he saw his dad in the condition he was in. He said he was taking his dad home, but he was told he couldn’t because he was not next of kin. His mom refused to pick her husband up and the hospital couldn’t release to anyone else. Travis wanted a social worker and they said it would no matter, so he decided to record his father. We see the footage it’s heart breaking! He is talking to his dad while he is eating packets of pepper in a weak state. Arn says it broke his heart then and does now. Blair and Brisco were pissed and Blair called Travis to get him to take it down. Travis refused and Blair told him “Dave Meltzer posted it.” Travis: “Who is Dave Meltzer and why would I care what he says?” Oh man! Like that won’t be a meme online with wrestling fans now. Travis says the video was a plea as he was desperate and scared to death. He didn’t want his father dying alone in a hospital like others during COVID.

-Commercials!

-Next week: Missy Hyatt! I already have a problem as Cornette says she was by far the most well known female personality in wrestling and it wasn’t close. Um, I see no time where she was more well known than Miss Elizabeth. We will get to that next week.

-Travis faces backlash for posting the video of his dad from other wrestlers. He knows his dad would be mad, but would tell him the next day he made the right choice. A social worker was involved and they apologized. The doctor told him Paul didn’t have much time left and they let Travis take him home. Blair says that he knows now that Travis used the video to get his dad home and it makes sense. At the time it was deplorable, but the good thing is he got his dad out of there.

-The family got to spend time every day and Travis let her mom visit an hour at a time. Blair talked to Paul a week before he died and could barely talk, but was excited to hear from him. Travis was with him for every last second and Paul Orndorff passed away on July 12, 2021. Blair: “I believe he died in peace. He just beat me to Heaven.”

-We see Paul’s tombstone and it is a shared one with his wife (who is still living). Travis forgave his mom and says he came to love her. His dad left him his legacy. He was able to work through the anger of the time his dad was away and he found purpose for it as he talks to fans.

-Arn says Mania I was Paul’s peak and that is the one to remember. Everyone talks about the great things Paul did in the ring and Travis says he was an amazing father.

-I loved this episode! It was a tough watch at times, but I am glad the story was told. As always things get skipped as they have less than an hour due to commercials. The Hogan feud was the main thing as far as his in ring career, but it would have been interesting to hear the stories of Paul being a tough guy and I am kind of shocked they didn’t share the story of him beating up Vader (allegedly). They tend to like backstage fight stories on this show. Even if just in a passing, quick, one off story. As mentioned they skipped over the early WCW years, but I am glad they covered the injury from the match in 2000. The stuff with Hogan was a must and it can’t be overstated how HUGE that feud was and how much money they drew together. There has always been rumors that if Andre couldn’t go at Mania III that Mr. Wonderful was a backup plan. The video of Paul in his later years was tough to watch but his son did what he needed to get his dad home during a time the world was shutting down. I don’t blame him for wanting his dad to be around people that loved him. The talking heads were really good this time and what struck me as sad was how many people from that era have passed that would have been great as a talking head. This and The Boss Man episode are my two favorites so far this season and for people my age, this one is right in our wheelhouse. Thanks for reading!