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Observer site posts a classic Observer every week and a couple of weeks ago was the June 15 1998 issue which was a week or so after JYD died. This is a fantastic read and I thought it might interest some folks here, too many highlights to even bold:
That blinding angle
Giving so much of his money away 
Jordan sending his best wishes 
It was a long time ago
In a world totally different from today.
The old Downtown Municipal Auditorium in New Orleans every Monday night in those days was known as The Dog's Yard. It was a wild dangerous scene. It was in a part of town that the people from the suburbs knew to avoid, and the scene inside the building exemplified exactly what they were afraid of. There were usually some 5,000 to 8,000 fans packing the place. There were near and occasional outright riots nearly every week within the building. Sometimes there were riots in the streets outside the building from fans who were turned away at the door the night there were sellouts. The security force was aggressive and legendary, and on more than one occasion literally saved the lives of the heels that were threatening their king. His opponents often wouldn't even dare drive to the building for fear their cars would be destroyed, and often would sneak out of the arena in the trunk of someone else's car so as not to be followed by the dangerous mob. The crowd was heavily African-American. Black was the term in those days. Their king was the Junkyard Dog.
From 1980 to 1984, The Dog barked, danced and head-butted his way through opponents fed to him while the fans in the Big Easy created the chant and repeated it every Monday night that still exists in another form to this day, "Who dat think they can beat dat Dog? Who Dat?" The fans came to see the Dog thump foe after foe with his powerslam, but along the way, Sylvester Ritter had real-life opponents who had the power to put him down for the three count the way promoters of that time would never dare allow his opponents to do. Nobody is really sure which came first, the marital problems or the cocaine, but they were a devastating 1-2 punch that were chipping away at the armor of the Junkyard Dog the fans saw, but were doing a lot more damage to the Sylvester Ritter that they didn't know.
On a national basis, the Junkyard Dog will best be known for his run in the World Wrestling Federation from late 1984 to 1987 when he was a headliner and one of the top babyfaces in an era that will go down as being known for cartoon wrestling, network television exposure, steroids, the beginnings of Wrestlemania, the birth of toy action figures and the infancy of pay-per-view television. He was on the first Wrestlemania, beating Greg Valentine via count out in a match for Valentine's Intercontinental title. He was on the first Saturday Nights Main Event on NBC six weeks later. He won the first and only Wrestling Classic PPV tournament in Chicago. He was in the final match in early 1986 when NBC set the all-time ratings record in that 11:30 p.m. time slot in the history of television teaming with Ricky Steamboat to beat Don Muraco & Mr. Fuji. He was actually in the best match at the second Wrestlemania, teaming with Tito Santana to lose to Dory & Terry Funk, and one month later on NBC teamed with Hogan to gain revenge on the Funks. He beat Adrian Adonis via count out in one of the top matches before 69,300 fans in Toronto underneath the Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff match on August 8, 1986, and his run as one of the main stars ended when he lost to Harley Race at the most famous Wrestlemania of them all, on March 29, 1987 at the Pontiac Silverdome. He lost his job shortly thereafter and in a few comebacks was never, and really could no longer be pushed as a major star.
But to the people who knew the Junkyard Dog best, even though he made his biggest money in the WWF and was a genuinely top star and gained his international notoriety at that time, the Junkyard Dog that they remember was the one who set New Orleans, and the rest of Louisiana and Mississippi and Oklahoma, Arkansas and parts of Texas on fire several years earlier when the wrestling world and the world in general in those parts of the country was a very different place.
That Junkyard Dog was, within his domain, one of the most genuinely loved pro wrestling personalities in any region at any time to the level that few wrestling fans outside that area ever really grasped. Perhaps the only wrestlers who were actually loved by fans to the same level were the even more tragic Von Erich family in nearby Texas but the results of that love weren't nearly as dangerous. The ultimate creation of the right person with the right look and the right charisma coming at the right time with the right promotion and angles behind him. That rare part of wrestling history when all the dots connect at once and the result is a magical form of emotion that wrestling often comes close to but only in the most rare occasions actually fully achieves. When the fantasy actually becomes highly-charged emotional reality to a scary number of people. It was only a fleeting time, a few years of record business in cities where the population wasn't all that large and the economy was all that poor. Bill Watts, the promoter at the time and the architect behind-the-scenes of his success, called the period "Camelot." Of course that fantasy in hindsight was certainly different from the reality of the boys, working seven days a week, often twice on Saturdays and Sundays, driving upwards of 2,000 miles per week on two-lane roads winding around several states. Those who didn't make it out alive remember working for Mid South Wrestling in those days as a living hell. Some of those who did make it, particularly in hindsight, have more fonder memories, of the days when the fans thought wrestling was real, maybe too real, and of all the lessons that were crammed into their heads about what pro wrestling should be when everything makes logical sense and it clicks on all cylinders by Professor Watts, or "Bucket Head," as JYD nicknamed him, while working their seven-day weeks. For a young enthusiastic wrestler wanting to learn, it was probably like the hardest year of law school with a tyrant instructor. A period that gave you constant headaches and nightmares and fears while it was going on, but one that molded all those who lived it and paid attention while there into wrestling minds what understood concepts of the business and television that few since that time really grasped and put all of them way ahead of the pack for years to come.
Like the death of Ray Stevens in San Francisco put final closure on a territory long since gone, the death of Junkyard Dog in many does the same thing for the hottest era ever for pro wrestling in that part of the country, all the monster crowds and television ratings that would literally boggle the mind, like 50 shares on UHF stations. Make no mistake about it. Nobody should ever, and hopefully will ever, compare the Junkyard Dog as a wrestler on his best day with Ray Stevens on his worst. Probably the most apt comparison would be to Dusty Rhodes, another poor worker who had incredible charisma and interview ability. The Dog, at his peak in New Orleans, was more popular and definitely a bigger drawing card than Rhodes ever was anywhere, although his shelf life on top wasn't nearly as long. Realistically, had it not been for the drugs and had he been as motivated as his contemporaries whose career stood the test of time and maintained his conditioning, he very likely could have still been a top star today with the kind of historical run that people like The Crusher and dikk the Bruiser had in their home cities to where they could still headline at the age of 50, in the same class of his contemporaries like Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage.
But it didn't happen. His career was long since over, fizzling out early due to problems that cost him his magic, cost him numerous jobs, cost him his reputation within the business and ultimately prematurely ended his career and ruined his life.
"I've never seen anyone who over was like Junkyard Dog in his prime," said Buddy Landel, who largely took care of the Dog during his glory years. "I was never around Hogan in his prime, but I was around Ric Flair in his peak and he was never over like JYD. I never heard a pop in wrestling like when he came out at the Superdome."
Sylvester Ritter passed away on 6/2 when he rolled his car three times after apparently falling asleep at the wheel driving back to his home in Mississippi from where he grew up in Wadesboro, NC. He was 45 years old. The company that made him a superstar and that, in return, he made millions of dollars for, Mid South Wrestling, had passed away 11 years ago. In a wrestling sense, the Junkyard Dog died several years earlier as well. He was a long forgotten name out of pro wrestling nostalgia at his death, even though many of his contemporaries are still around, and even though just a few weeks earlier he received a shocking pop when introduced at the ECW PPV event in Marietta, GA and got into the backstage fight with New Jack. And even as he was still doing independent shows in Mississippi and Louisiana drawing a few hundred onlookers who were trying to relive the days when he really was the Junkyard Dog. Sure, Junkyard Dog will always be remembered for having one of the classic ring names, perhaps dancing to the ring with the dog collar and his ridiculous crawling head-butts, being around during a hot period when wrestling was on late-night network television, but outside of his initial stomping grounds, for little else.
The most famous native son of Wadesboro, NC, a poor rural heavily black city off the beaten path from Charlotte, was a football and, believe it or not, wrestling star at Bowman High School, graduating in 1971. Dog was known as a poor wrestler inside the ring to where his best foes like Ted DiBiase and Terry Funk recognized the only way to have a match with him was to bounce around like a rubber ball when he remained largely stationary, but he was actually a good enough offensive guard at Fayetteville State University, an NAIA school in North Carolina, to be drafted in the 12th round by the Houston Oilers in 1975 after graduating with a B.A. in History and Political Science. And as everyone who knew him in his prime in the Mid South would attest, contrary to his WWF role, the Dog was no dummy, with a quick-wit and a classic interview style that nobody could get over on and was largely responsible for creating his weekly magic.
He was cut by the Oilers after blowing out his knee in camp, and the next season tried out for the Green Bay Packers, but was again cut in camp. He ended up playing one season with the Charlotte team in the old World Football League. At around this time he fathered three children, two of whom, DeVader and Kevin Polk, he had little connection to in later life and that even his best friends in wrestling knew nothing about. He was living in Charlotte, working as a deputy sheriff for Mecklenburg County when they had some sort of a wrestling tournament among the big tough members of the department, many of whom were as big as he was, and he was strong enough to throw everyone around. One of the deputies worked part-time as a referee for Pedro Martinez and suggested to Ritter that he try pro wrestling. Martinez was running a dying outlaw promotion called the IWA against Jim Crockett Jr. in the area, and Ritter's co-worker got Sonny King to train him and he began his wrestling career in 1977.
After only a few matches, he went to Memphis, where somebody must have been impressed with his size because he had little else at the time, or it may have just been timing since in those days blacks were a gimmick in wrestling, with many companies keeping one around largely as a token with the belief they'd draw black fans, but if there were too many, it would keep the whites away which was one of the theories why the NBA was dying at the time. Rocky Johnson had just left for Nova Scotia a few weeks earlier, and King Sylvester Ritter arrived in Memphis with a crown obviously to build to a feud with Jerry Lawler. Unfortunately, he was far too inexperienced and the feud never materialized. Within about a month he was gone, never getting out of the prelims. He moved over to Nick Gulas' Nashville circuit where the history books list him, in what would turn out to be a weird irony, using the ring name of Leroy Rochester, which was actually the real name of an established wrestler known as Bad Bad Leroy Brown, winning his first pro title, teaming with Gypsy Joe on Christmas Night of 1977 winning a tournament for the vacant Mid American tag team titles before losing in early 1978 to Bobby Eaton & Lanny Poffo. His next stop, and how he got there is anyone's guess, was Germany.
In August of 1978, Bruce Hart and Dynamite Kid were working in Bielfeld, Germany. Ritter had arrived about two weeks earlier and was such a poor wrestler that as they arrived, he was being fired in the middle of a tour which was unheard of, and as Hart recalled, he must have really been bad because that area at that time was filled with lousy wrestlers. Again, timing was everything. The top heel in the Calgary territory, Kasavubu managed by John Foley, doing kind of a Kimala before his time gimmick, real name Jimmie Banks (a former WWWF television jobber who used the name Jo Jo Andrews), had just left the territory and the promotion was sold on the idea of having a white-womanizing big black stud as its top heel, a role that years later actually clicked big for Badnews Allen. Big Daddy Ritter, still terribly green, but close to 300 pounds, was immediately put on top because Stu Hart wanted someone to fill the Kasavubu spot for Foley to manage, and always had a fondness for big football players, if, for no other reason, to lure them into the dungeon and do all those torturous things to them that Hart was known for doing. Although obviously these stories weren't true, Dog used to tell people that he started wrestling in Calgary, and that the Harts never smartened him up to the business and the first few weeks he was out there fighting for real, knocking guys around with real tackles, before Foley, an old-time shooter, started calming him down and teaching him the ropes. And like dozens of others who came back from Canada, he spent years doing Stu Hart imitations in the dressing room.
Ritter quickly became a reasonably good heel interview, although he showed no signs to anyone of impending superstardom, and with the foursome of Ritter, and a nearly as green version of Jake Roberts generally facing the likes of a green Bret Hart, along with Dynamite Kid who was already a super worker, the Calgary territory did reasonably well in late 1978 and early 1979.
Ritter had a five-month run as North American champion, with Roberts doing a babyface turn and capturing the title from him in April 1979. While on a road trip from Great Falls, MT back into Canada, the police pulled over the bus carrying the wrestlers and asked specifically for Ritter. Usually in that situation the wrestlers figured it was some outstanding arrest warrant being connected, but in this case the news was far worse. His two-year-old son had passed away. When NWA World champion Harley Race was brought in for the annual summer Stampede show, it marked the first time Ritter would challenge for the world heavyweight title. After regaining the title from Roberts in August, he got word, apparently from Roberts, that Jake's father would be involved in a new wrestling promotion that was opening up. Ritter dropped the belt to Larry Lane and he and Roberts arrived in Louisiana at about the same time Watts broke away from Leroy McGuirk and started up Mid South Wrestling promoting in what was thought to be a dead wrestling area of Louisiana and Mississippi. Watts' first, and without question his most successful creation, was the Junkyard Dog.
Watts is generally given credit for coming up with his famous ring name, obviously from a line out of the Jim Croce classic, "Bad Bad Leroy Brown," which was actually the song that created a wrestler of the same name who was actually the first American wrestler of that period, predating either JYD or The Freebirds, to have rock entrance music. In the song, Leroy Brown was badder than old King Kong, and meaner than the Junkyard Dog. However, the more accurate version is probably that Terry Funk created the name for pro wrestling from the song in West Texas a few years earlier where he nicknamed Buck Robley the Junkyard Dog. Robley, when working for Watts, or perhaps Watts, knowing the name Robley used in West Texas, remembered the name and the wrestler who became known worldwide as Junkyard Dog was created just after Watts began his new company.
At the time, JYD was supposed to be more of a comedic character along the lines of Fred Sanford, since Ritter's body movements were similar to that of a the television character Redd Foxx played in a hit TV show called "Sanford and Son," with his gimmick being that he was the owner of a junkyard that became a pro wrestler. He would come in wheeling a wheelbarrow full of junk to the ring, quickly dispatching his opponents, and then would wheel the wheelbarrow back to the dressing room. In time, after thumping his foes, he'd put them in the wheelbarrow. This character got over better then anyone could imagine, and early in 1980, Watts made what was actually considered a revolutionary decision within pro wrestling at the time to make him the unquestioned and unbeatable top babyface star of the promotion, a black Bruno Sammartino, figuring the two states he was promoting in, Louisiana and Mississippi, were heavily black, at the time the blacks loved pro wrestling and would believe in pro wrestling if he gave them a star and style of product they could believe in. Other promoters from around the country thought he was nuts, with the belief that white fans would never support a pro wrestling show where the top babyface of the company was black. The wheelbarrow was dumped, replaced with a dog collar, and added to the mix was the entrance music, and you have to remember that entrance music was revolutionary in the business at that time and its importance can't be overstated, "Another one bites the dust," which became synonymous in that part of the country to Junkyard Dog for the next few years.
While on the surface building the company in that region around a very charismatic black man made perfect sense, it wasn't quite as easy as it sounded. First off, Louisiana was perhaps the most politically corrupt state in the country. In every city, Watts had to use local officials, usually old-line white political patronage appointees, as his local promoters and the last thing some of these people wanted was to be promoting shows with the star of the show being black. Some of them didn't like it because they thought it would hurt them politically to be running shows with a black man portrayed, and who at the time looked the part, of a veritable superman among men on top, particularly since JYD's appeal crossed over all demographic lines which only made some uneasy since he was becoming enormously popular among white children. The fact JYD was so limited in the ring wasn't even a major consideration since Watts protected him, feeding him one good worker after another who would bump for him in short matches, very similar to Bill Goldberg today. At the time, JYD was a motivated powerhouse in the gym and physically would have been similar in both size and physique to today's Goldberg, heavily on the gas and reputedly bench pressing in excess of 500 pounds, which exceedingly few large powerlifters let alone wrestlers could do at that time, so he not only could speak the part, but looked the part as well. Watts would explain his quick wins by telling the fans that "JYD doesn't get paid by the hour." At least one of Watts' local promoters was an outright racist who didn't even want JYD booked on the shows despite JYD literally being the goose laying the golden eggs at the time. JYD, with his classic sense of humor, used to do localized interviews on television for that market, talking about coming to Jackson, MS, going over to his good friend promoter George C. Culkin's house before the matches to eat watermelon and fried chicken before kicking whomever behind later that night at the Coliseum, driving Culkin crazy, as he'd call Watts up and demand not only that JYD be fired, but that Jim Ross, who handled the interviews at the time, be fired as well.
When the decision was made to go all the way, the angle was created to build not only a top wrestling star, but a Sammartino-like folk hero for the masses. Watts decided to copy the most famous angle in Los Angeles wrestling history which led to the 1971 Fred Blassie vs. John Tolos match at the Coliseum and blind the Dog, teasing that his career was over, and then when he defied the doctors' odds and came back anyway, he'd be made. First, he was made into a main event calibre player when he won both the Louisiana and Mississippi titles, and then he and Robley defeated The Fabulous Freebirds to win the Mid South tag team titles. Then in an angle, Hayes used the infamous Freebird hair removing cream to the Dog's eyes, blinding him. It should be noted by this time, Mid South Wrestling was starting to garner some very impressive local television ratings, the territory was already popping, and the Dog was already becoming something of a well-known celebrity in those markets. Literally, to protect the territory, Dog wasn't allowed to leave his house during this period for fear anyone would see that he really wasn't blind. While this was going on, fans in the territory began sending money, some $600 to $800 per week came, mainly in $5 bills, from fans, probably most of whom were poor themselves, who treated it like a member of their own family had been blinded in an accident and unable to pay his bills. Then came the crushing blow that hit the nerve. While this was going on, Dog's first daughter, LaToya, known to his friends as Kisha, was born, and it was heavily pushed on television as they did interviews with the blinded Dog that he couldn't even see the birth of his first daughter due to Michael Hayes. They portrayed it as if there was no guarantee his sight would ever return and he'd ever see her.
To set up the final angle for the big match, the blinded Dog was brought to the Downtown Municipal Auditorium to thank the fans, and perhaps say goodbye to them for the last time. Today this would be angle alert, but in those days people didn't see it coming. Naturally the Freebirds, a threesome of Hayes, Terry Gordy and Buddy Roberts, showed up and some sort of an angle was going to take place. Exactly what it was, only a few people know, because it didn't quite happen. A fan hopped the rail with a gun, and aimed it right at Hayes, screaming, "Don't worry Dog, I'm covering you." Dog, selling he was blind, didn't know what to do, but fortunately security hit the ring en masse and the gunman was taken, no doubt, to what was known to the wrestlers and a lot of the fans as well at the time as "the room," a place where the police would shut the door and give horrible beatings to out of control fans, hopefully dissuading them from ever becoming part of the act. It wasn't unusual after the police were done in those days for them to let the wrestler, if the fan had punched them, or Watts, who was a huge and sometimes vicious person, into the room and have them close the door behind them as well.
Still supposedly blinded, the Junkyard Dog demanded to come back for one last match, a dog collar match with Hayes, where he could feel him, where he could drag him around, and where he could smell him and it goes without saying what the end result of that match was. Actual records of what this actually drew are no longer around but there is no question it was the largest indoor wrestling crowd in history up to that point, and set attendance records locally that stand to this day. At the time it was reported as drawing in excess of 36,000 fans, but that figure was likely exaggerated and the real figure was probably just shy of 30,000, one of the bigger crowds in the history of pro wrestling up until that time. The crowd literally stunned the wrestling industry, because unlike the few stadium shows that had been done over the previous decade usually featuring a long-time local hero like Dusty Rhodes or Fritz Von Erich challenging for the world title or a big match with Sammartino, or Blassie vs. Tolos, this show was headlined by young wrestlers, The Freebirds and JYD, that literally most people in the wrestling business didn't even know about for a company that was only about one year old. The gate at the time was reported as $183,000, one of the two or three biggest up until that time ever in the United States. And actually that figure was significantly lower than the real sum as there were so many political payoffs off the top in cash in New Orleans that nobody ever knew what the accurate count was. Over the next few days, they took the same angle on the road to the other cities in the market, selling out and drawing a record house in every venue. For the week, JYD earned $12,000, a figure that nobody in wrestling unless you were Sammartino on your best week, or Andre the Giant, earned in those days. It may have been the first monster house that he drew, but it was far from the last, as when the Dog miraculously regained his eyesight, and he wrestled for a while wearing eye protecting goggles, New Orleans would usually pack them in every Monday, and when it came time to blow off the big angles at the Superdome four or five times a year, the crowds for the next few years were usually upwards of 20,000. Between 1980 and 1983 with JYD on top, it is probable that no city in North America drew as many fans to pro wrestling as New Orleans.
After coming back from that angle, Watts fed the Dog one foe after another every week, carefully protecting him at all times. Just after the Freebird angle, Len Denton was brought in as The Masked Grappler, an arrogant heel whose gimmick was that he could wrestle, and in his first television match, took JYD down and rode him to get his gimmick over, probably not realizing what the game was. Watts was furious, and nearly fired Denton on the spot and it is believed to have been the only television match ever in the history of Mid South Wrestling that Watts couldn't put his spin on and let air. The big angles, usually a tag team partner turning on him, whether it would be Paul Orndorff, Ted DiBiase, Robley, Mr. Olympia (Jerry Stubbs) or finally Butch Reed, were saved until just before a Superdome date. Watts used to tap into reality to JYD's audience for the angles, such as, with DiBiase, JYD was legitimately the best man at DiBiase's wedding and at one time, when DiBiase was working in Georgia and even though he got great national exposure, business was horrible and he was broke and behind on child support payments, JYD lent him money, all things JYD's fans could relate to. In later years, when DiBiase was making big money in WWF and JYD was down on his luck, that favor was repaid.
"There were nights in New Orleans when I quit taking my car to the building because I was afraid it would be destroyed," DiBiase remembered. "I'd drive with Grizzly (Smith) and they'd slash his tires. Sometimes I had to leave the building hiding in the trunk of a car. One time I had to leave in an ambulance."
Things were so heated that Watts wouldn't allow any of his wrestlers to leave the building until after the main event was over, in case there was a serious problem. And to make the pressure worse, if any of his top wrestlers were in a fight with a fan and would lose, it was certainly well known that they would be immediately fired because of the belief the business had to be protected.
One of the hottest issues ever, and probably the last big angle he did in Mid South, was when Reed and Ernie Ladd, two black studs, held JYD down at the Superdome and allowed a pretty boy white man, Buddy Landel, to paint him yellow.
Watts teased the Dog's audience with the big title chase, waiting until June 21, 1982 before the Dog finally pinned Bob Roop downtown to win the North American title. But their euphoria was soon quelled, as the very next weekend on television, they saw Dog's best friend and tag team partner, DiBiase, shockingly turn heel by loading his glove and stealing the title away. At a booking meeting, Watts, Grizzly Smith and Ernie Ladd were debating about a heel to bring in for a Superdome show and asked DiBiase for some ideas of someone he may know from another territory who could get hot in a hurry. After thinking about it for a while, DiBiase went back to Ladd and said he's found them the heel they were looking for--"Me." This led to another of the most lucrative house show runs in the history of the company, as by this time Mid South had expanded into Oklahoma and Arkansas when Watts took over what was left of McGuirk's operation. It built to a loser leaves town match on television where DiBiase and new partner Jim Duggan were to face Dog & Mr. Olympia, but Duggan no-showed, and instead Matt Borne took his place. Duggan, dressed in a gorilla costume, interfered, causing Dog to get pinned, and naturally he returned one week later, as the first incarnation of Stagger Lee, building up to another big Superdome house on Thanksgiving on 1982 when Stagger Lee pinned DiBiase to win the title, that he promptly sent back when JYD's 90 days were up. After Olympia then turned on Dog, Dog regained the North American title beating Olympia in a cage match on April 16, 1983 at the Dome before losing it three months later in the same building to Reed. Dog's fourth and final title run ended when he beat Reed on television on October 26, 1983, before losing it in the infamous match downtown to Wrestling II.
While all this was going on, he was, according to a local newspaper survey, by far, the most popular athlete in New Orleans, particularly among the kids. At the time, the top football star was Archie Manning and the top basketball star was Pete Maravich, both white, and JYD and Michael Spinks were the lone black sports heroes.
Watts had sent JYD to Atlanta in late 1980, being one of the first promoters to see the value in getting his top star on a national cable outlet and perhaps looking down the road at getting a foothold into that territory. Later he sent him to Houston for Paul Boesch, where JYD got over almost immediately so strong as the top babyface to the point where Watts was then able to use JYD to leverage a deal to where Watts and Mid South became a partner in Boesch's successful operation.
But if the rise of JYD was meteoric, the fall was a lot slower and more painful. He was earning about $150,000 per year as Watts' top draw, for a life consisting largely of going to the gym, travelling, partying in all those towns as a celebrity, and wrestling. Landel, who was his next-door neighbor, used to drive him from city to city and remembered Dog always giving money away to people down on their luck, and sometimes even at a restaurant telling a waiter that he wanted to pay for the dinner for someone in there he thought was down on their luck and would never let the people know who was paying for the meal. As with many wrestlers in that circuit during that time period, the travel made his marriage fall apart, although in the case of JYD, the fall was far more pronounced as his wife ended up having to be institutionalized. Whether it were those problems, or just the ready access from being a rich celebrity, the cocaine came at about the same time. While cocaine was becoming a tag team partner of many, if not most wrestlers on top in that era, with JYD it gained a more powerful grip. He stopped training, and his once hard body ballooned to up around 300 pounds again. While his ring work was never good, it actually got worse. Watts tried his best to camouflage the problem. He would explain JYD's weight gain as him having to bulk up to face the likes of Kimala and King Kong Bundy. The quality of those matches when JYD wasn't being carried by a Reed or a DiBiase was downright pathetic, particularly in a territory that was becoming known for its workrate. Still, business was still strong, largely because Watts had replenished his ranks with some strong undercard performers who carried the wrestling end of the show. But the weekly Monday night shows at the Downtown Municipal Auditorium were badly damaged when Mr. Wrestling II scored a three count on JYD to win the North American title on March 12, 1984 in a match with the mask against JYD leaving town using a loaded kneelift that actually missed badly and that Dog sold in a manner making it look that much worse. Suddenly, before their eyes, people started to think that their hero JYD had taken a dive on them, or perhaps maybe pro wrestling really was b.s. But the rest of the circuit remained strong, as did the big Superdome shows. The next one coming up had JYD for the second time (he'd done this also in 1982) coming back under a mask as Stagger Lee, teaming with Watts coming out of retirement for a match against Jim Cornette's Midnight Express broke every one of the Freebird box office records selling out just about every arena, including new ones like Houston where it set Boesch's all-time gate record, except at the Superdome, where it drew between 23,000 and 25,000 although it was really Watts who was the draw for that feud. JYD was starting to fade, both physically and as a draw although outside of New Orleans, whatever was fading was more than picked up on by a new crop of heroes like Jim Duggan, Magnum T.A., The Rock & Roll Express and Terry Taylor. His drug problems were getting worse to the point they were causing him financial problems. At about the same time, the offer from the WWF came.
In those days it was traditional for a wrestler leaving a territory to give four weeks notice so they could be written out of the storylines. For a headliner, six weeks was considered more professional. However, with no warning, JYD simply disappeared, leaving a string of no-shows in main events against Reed in every market on the circuit, and showed up immediately on WWF television. Watts was bitter and took to strongly burying JYD on his television, trying to protect his turf from the expected invasion of the WWF using JYD on top. Those close to him say that although few knew it, he did struggle with the decision, but the opportunity was there to earn more than double what he was making, and the way McMahon wanted things done at the time was for guys to leave on the spot. The two men who built the company left on the most bitter of terms. He gained his most money and most fame over the next few years, but his character and interviews that made him a folk hero were cartoonized. But he was very successful and certainly not threatening or created any dangerous heat to the largely white suburban WWF audience. One night about a year or so after his arrival, probably at his peak as far as WWF drawing power, JYD returned to the Superdome to form a tag team with Hulk Hogan, but only drew about 6,000 fans. The magic was over, although he remained a top star for several years. Another night in late 1985, which shows just how much the character had changed, when JYD headlined against Terry Funk in a predominantly black Oakland, CA drawing about 10,000 fans, the audience was lily white and the few blacks in the crowd were cheering for Funk. At about that time, Dog's ex-wife either escaped or was released from the mental hospital, and went to his parents house and kidnapped back her daughter, who was living there since Dog's life was doing 28-straight-day runs for the WWF. He immediately chartered a plane home and went to her brothers' house and broke down the door. The brother, who was a local police officer, tried to stop him, and the two scrambled trying to be the first to get a gun, which went off, shooting the police officer in the side of his stomach. It was ruled as an accidental shooting.
JYD's run at the top in the WWF would have lasted a lot longer, but his problems worsened. He started no-showing dates to the point he eventually lost his job. He became nicknamed Junkfood Dog within the industry for his fondness for twinkies and candy bars and midnight snacks, and over the years his weight ballooned to around 330 pounds. He got numerous second chances because there were still few people around with his name and charisma. He got married again, and when that marriage broke up, he lost his car, his jewelry, his home and everything.
Watts, who was legitimately scared that without his top star, it could be the end of his business, tried to recreate JYD with every black wrestler under the sun, from George Welles to Reed to Sonny King to Brickhouse Brown to The Snowman (who Watts went to the expense of bringing in Muhammad Ali to be his manager in an attempt to get him over as the new JYD) to Savannah Jack to others even less memorable, to the point it almost became a bad running joke. Watts survived well, actually flourished for a few years as most cities besides New Orleans, did better business after JYD left since the overall product and talent depth had improved so much. But after the next generation of talent he'd developed started leaving for other territories, in particular to Jim Crockett who had national exposure on TBS and was paying better, and then his new top star, Jim Duggan, left for the WWF in 1986, he eventually started losing interest in wrestling and sold his company in 1987 to Crockett for $4 million, very little of which he actually ever received.
Watts himself made two comebacks in wrestling, a famous one when put in charge of WCW in a period that was nothing short of disastrous, ending when comments he made in a Pro Wrestling Torch interview actually just when he had taken the job were about to go public, basically stating that he felt if someone owned a company, such as a restaurant, as an owner they should have the right to discriminate such as not allowing blacks into their establishment and was against laws that prohibited such behavior. Watts' defenders to this day point to the fact he went all the way with JYD, and tried to do so later with so many others that failed (including making Ron Simmons WCW world champion, yet another failed attempt to re-create the JYD magic of another time, in one of his first major moves on top), to point that he wasn't a racist, a charge he remains heavily bitter about to this day, although the comments certainly were not the type a corporate executive at TBS could get away with saying in a published interview. Besides, business was terrible at the time and his relations with the wrestlers were even worse than that as business and the world in general had changed. What Marge Schott had just been suspended from baseball for saying were things almost tame by comparison. A few years later, Watts had a brief run in the WWF, where he was received far better by the wrestlers, but left in a huff when Vince McMahon told him he'd have complete booking power, but then one week later changed his mind when Watts wanted to keep Bret Hart, who he felt was more believable, as champion rather than go with McMahon's pick of Shawn Michaels, in 1996. Watts left bitter, largely totally divorcing himself from the business, and with the exception of a conscience clearing phone call and letter to Landel, didn't even want to talk about what he referred to as "Camelot."
"I loved the man and that's all I want to say," said Watts.
Dog's last big run in the business came in 1990-91 with WCW. Anderson was the booker and trying to get the black fans back in the Southeast with a JYD vs. Ric Flair run. The matches were horrible. Probably the worst title matches of Flair's career. That wasn't unexpected. They didn't draw all that well either, which by that time also wasn't all that unexpected. JYD stuck around for a while in mid-cards before fading to the likes of the indie-world, with his final title reign coming in the USWA--a two week period from September 21, 1992 through October 12, 1992, winning the USWA title from the late Eddie Gilbert before losing to his old nemesis Butch Reed in Memphis, and when Reed then quit the territory after getting the belt and not losing it in Louisville, Dog went to Louisville as champion on October 20, 1992 and dropped it to Todd Champion. After that period, it was mainly working indies, where the reputation that ruined his career largely continued.
Over the last few years, JYD never had a stable home address. According to friends, he had made several unsuccessful attempts to lick his problems. He had at one point worked for Walmart in Las Vegas. He later bounced around to his old stomping grounds, trying to hustle indie dates based on his old name. He had tried to get back with WWF and WCW but neither company was willing to take the chance on a guy who had little going for him anymore other than the fact he was an incredible draw for a short period, and was a recognized name as part of a national wrestling boom that was also long over. He was of late living with a family in Mississippi and working in their repossession business.
On 6/1, he drove back to his home town of Wadesboro, NC for the high school graduation of LaToya, the same daughter that was born during the Freebird angle. It made a nice story that just before he died he saw his daughter one last time. Unfortunately, that didn't happen either. He arrived a few hours later. The graduation was already over. She had left with her friends to spend the night hanging out at the beach, and the next morning, when she found out he had driven in to see her, it was combined with the news that he had just died. He had spent the night with his parents and started driving home the next morning. Somewhere near Forest, MS, he rolled his car three times and was pronounced dead.
DiBiase, when giving religious speeches in JYD's old stomping grounds, would bring up what life brought the best-man at his wedding and his first huge money opponent, as an attempt to motivate kids to stay away from drugs. He had spoken to JYD just a few weeks before his death and JYD had no problem with his life being used as an example if it could motivate children to learn from his pitfalls.
JYD was buried wearing a t-shirt in Wadesboro, NC on 6/6. The man who had earned and drawn a few million dollars in the ring had only one member of the wrestling community at his funeral, his former traveling mate Landel, who spoke at the funeral. WWF, WCW and several of his former foes like The Funks and DiBiase sent flowers. He also read from the letter to him by Watts, apparently trying to make amends for the bitterness in business that estranged them. Another person who sent his best wishes to the funeral director was Michael Jordan. But it seemed that the entire town came out for the funeral, some 1,500 to 2,000 strong. They remembered him as the one of them who made it out of the town, to the top of the world, and for a brief period, created magic.
As irony would have it, that night I was out with some friends and they started talking with a 22-year-old who up until about a year ago, had lived their entire life in New Orleans. They noted that I was working on a story about New Orleans, and mentioned that the Junkyard Dog had just died this past week. "I'm sorry, but I never heard of him," was the response. Just another reminder. It really was a long time ago.
Perhaps more than anything else, what will live on about the Junkyard Dog will be this fall, during football season, when the Saints are playing at the Superdome on national television and the crowd starts chanting, "Who dem think they can beat Dem Saints? Who dem?"
That blinding angle
Giving so much of his money away Jordan sending his best wishes 