Jimmy Garvin Comments On WWE Hall of Fame Induction

In an interview with Sporting News, Jimmy Garvin spoke about the Fabulous Freebirds getting inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year. Here are highlights:

On if he thought the announcement would happen this year: “No, I was really quite surprised. Michael has mentioned something about it. We didn’t really talk too much about it because it was in Atlanta a few years back. People would say “Atlanta feels like the place” but Dallas is a great place, too, because of what we accomplished and what we did in Dallas. ”

On his status as a Freebird: “I was always, from the time the Freebirds came together — of course, I was in another territory — but Michael and I always stayed close and our thoughts and beliefs of the business was so alike. I was born a Freebird, Michael was, too, and so was Terry and obviously Buddy. We just happened to finally get together. It’s one of those things, too, that it was just a matter of time before that happened. A lot of times in the years before they referred to me as the undercover Freebird before I was an official Freebird when I was doing the ‘Gorgeous’ Jimmy Garvin character. Of course, when I was doing ‘Gorgeous’ Jimmy Garvin and the Freebirds were doing their stuff in Dallas, I was a Freebird then. It just that I was busy doing ‘Gorgeous’ Jimmy Garvin, but who I was really? I was a Freebird but I had this character that I knew would do well, which it did, so I’ve always been a Freebird. I was born on Sept. 25, 1952, a Freebird. We were all too alike to not be together. And being a Freebird at the time was a dangerous occupation as well with all of things going on.”

On if there was surprise that Freebirds/Von Erichs feud worked so well: “No. That was one of those things that was meant to be. That was going to happen. It wasn’t if it was going to happen, it was when it was going to happen. That mixture was evolutionary; it couldn’t fail. It would be like having a big fire and having nothing to put it out with. It was one of those fires that you can’t put out with water. In fact, it’s going to get larger. It was one of those types of phenomenons. You had (booker) Kenny Mantell and Michael Hayes and myself and all of us brainstorming and we had a lot of talent to work with. There wasn’t nothing that we couldn’t ask where we were worried if the talent could pull it off or not. All we had to say was this is what we want to do, this is how it should be, this is how we want the picture drawn, that’s the way it was drawn because we had the talent as a territory. You could have gone to any city and put the Freebirds against the Von Erichs and that would be the only match and it would have sold out. I might be a little overstating myself when it comes to be arenas that hold thousands but I bet it would come close.”