Going Broadway 04.25.12: A Night Working For Klondike Bill

May 2, 1998. North Charleston, South Carolina. WCW House Show.

My first live event in nearly four years. My friend’s first live event, period.

A pretty good card put together with Diamond Dallas Page facing Raven in the tail end of their feud, The Giant facing Kevin Nash, and another entry in the great series of Chris Benoit-Booker T matches centered around the WCW TV Title.

My friend and I got to the arena early enough to kill time walking around the various merchandise stands, but we also walk around on the floor near the ringside area and the makeshift entrance walkway.

An elderly man on the other side of the security gate wearing a WCW hat and shirt motions us to come over. Through a set of coke bottle glasses and a full white beard, he greets us and tells us he needs a couple of guys to help out after the show packing up the gear, and we can get free stuff if we agree to help. Of course being young, stupid, and completely impressionable, we quickly, excitedly agree. (Looking back, we probably should have been more cautious and skeptical of this set up but luckily nothing nefarious or underhanded would come of this.)

The prospect of getting to peak behind the curtain of Oz made the show even more anticipated for us. We took our seats and watched an undercard which in retrospect made me have to look up the team of High Voltage to remember who they were back in 1998. But all the while I was wondering who that old man with the scratchy voice was and what he had in store for us. The only thing I had to go on was his name: Klondike Bill.

…

Bill Soloweyko, born December 1, 1931, was a student (and survivor) of Stu Hart’s dungeon of wrestling in Calgary, which gave birth to many of the future great grapplers in the wrestling business over the years. Soloweyko was already well versed in amateur wrestling, but surviving Hart’s dungeon required an extra sort of mettle and fortitude.

Wahoo McDaniel offered a great anecdote about Soloweyko’s early days at Hart House: “Stu kept squeezing and taking Bill in until he passed out. And Bill kept coming and coming. And Stu kept hurting him and passing him out.” (One of many amazing anecdotes told by other wrestlers from the following article, courtesy of Slam! Wrestling. Check out here)

Eventually, Soloweyko’s determination paid off, and Hart took him on as his newest trainee. He debuted as a professional wrestler in 1967 under the ring name Bill “The Brute” Soloweyko. But as the years went on, he donned a thick beard and began to sport a pair of jeans and a rope belt. He became Klondike Bill and habitually utilized the Bear Hug as his finisher.

Topping out at around 365 pounds, Soloweyko initially found the majority of his work in Hart’s Stampede Wrestling promotion but eventually worked his way back into the southern US territories, finding frequent bookings for the Crocketts in North Carolina.

Soloweyko enjoyed much of his success in tag teams with Whipper Billy Watson, Skull Murphy, Nelson Royal, and Luke Brown, whom he all shared championships with. He had also been lauded over the years for his incredible eating feats during his peak years.

The one story that keeps popping up through many sources related to Klondike Bill is his classic version of Man vs. Food, where he visited the Big Texan Restaurant and Opry in Amarillo, Texas. The restaurant challenged the patrons to try and consume a 72 ounce steak and all other items on the plate in one hour and receive the meal for free. It would be one thing to say that Soloweyko finished the entire plate, but that in itself would be sadly under-serving when, in fact, Soloweyko ate TWO of the steaks in a one hour period.

By the late 1980’s, Soloweyko had transitioned away from being an on-air talent to working behind the scenes as not only part of the ring construction crew but also as a general coordinator of the event staff. He also worked for the Charlotte O’s, the minor league affiliate for the Baltimore Orioles, which was also owned by the Crockett family, in a similar capacity as a groundskeeper.

But ultimately, Soloweyko’s duties were focused to wrestling as he traveled with the Crockett-owned promotion to every show, unpacking, setting up, and packing in the ring each night and having to repeat again in the next town. When Ted Turner purchased the promotion in 1987, in what would later become WCW, Soloweyko stayed on in his capacity as an event supervisor and road agent.

…

After the show ended with the lackluster main event of Nash/Giant, my friend and I gradually made our way to the arena floor. By this point I had become skeptical that this Klondike Bill fellow would even remember us as we approached him where we saw him earlier by the security gate.

But when I greeted him, he instantly remembered us and took us past the security gate to join with his ring crew. There we were, getting instructions from Klondike and his assistants on what had to be taken apart first and where it all went.

(Funnily enough, my friend got a case of the runs because of the chili dog he had eaten earlier and made a quiet but swift retreat to the bathroom.)

As I’ve learned from later years of having to do it, disassembling a wrestling ring can be long, arduous, and tiring. But that night, it couldn’t been more enjoyable. Despite being a punk kid fan in a DDP t-shirt, the crewman were very amiable in their attitude and direction of me. Klondike, now at age 67, mostly supervised the scene, from the area around the truck as we packed up the materials.

As focused as I was on the job I was given, of course, I had to pause when Lex Luger, Scott Hall, and Nash emerged from the locker room and walked to their cars. They too were very cordial as we (my friend had re-emerged from the bathroom by this time) greeted them.

After an hour or so of back and forth travels to the WCW truck, we had finished our job, and Klondike brought out a box of old WCW pay per view t-shirts for us to choose from. Although, the choices were slim, I ended up taking a Halloween Havoc ’97 shirt. I distinctly remember Klondike sitting on the edge of the truck as we rummaged through the box of shirts, remarking about how he had smoked cigarettes since he was twelve years old but how he generally felt good in his health despite the long days and nights on the road.

We shook hands one last time and parted as the door to the truck closed and pulled away from the arena. Although my friend and I had enjoyed the show for the most part, we couldn’t stop talking about the experience we had with Klondike and his team. (Klondike Bill pictured left with Masanorie Horie taken from his fan page)

Funny enough, a year later, Klondike was shown on television as part of the storyline where Eric Bischoff was forced to work as part of the ring crew because he had lost his job as president. It was hilarious seeing the grizzled Klondike bark orders at Bischoff as he went through the same tasks we had done for Klondike back in 1998.

Another year passed, and I found myself catching a match on Nitro when I noticed a sign that read “RIP Klondike,” which immediately struck me. I dialed up the AOL connection and was saddened to learn that Bill Soloweyko aka Klondike BIll had passed away on October 3, 2000 due to complications stemming from a neuromuscular disorder similar to Bell’s Palsy.

I came back to my story about Klondike Bill on a complete fluke when I heard my girlfriend comment that her grandmother had smoked cigarettes since she was fifteen years old. I instantly remembered that incredible lucky night nearly fourteen years ago when we were fortunate enough to work behind the scenes of a professional wrestling show. Not because we had earned it but because he was kind enough to let us, just like he probably did for plenty of young wrestling fans who would come to the matches all across the county.

The legacy of Klondike Bill.