Wrestlezone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard had a phone chat with long-time wrestling veteran and tag team star Brian Blair of the infamous Killer Bees before ’80s Wrestling Con 2 takes place this weekend in Freehold, NJ.
In the first part of the thirty-minute conversation, Blair talks about how he got his start in wrestling by going to the other famous wrestling “Dungeon” in Tampa, FL that had infamous grapplers like Hiro Matsuda, Eddie Graham and Karl Gotch stretching young prospects out. During Blair’s training days down there, over 100 people started out but only three survived.
“I got stretched and put through the grind. Probably 100 or more people came and many left without their clothes. The only two that made it besides myself were Hulk Hogan and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff,” Blair said, “who will also be in Freehold, NJ for the 80’s Con. It was very, very, very brutal my friend. It was, we start out the first day, 100 Hindu squats.”
’80s Wrestling Con 2 will feature Blair and his tag team partner Jim Brunzell sharing a sit-down panel with Ax and Smash of The Demolition as the two teams recount their storied history. Blair talked about what kind of stories fans will hear at the panel.
“What they can expect are a lot of inside stories that I won’t reveal right now, but Demolition and The Killer Bees had a lot of classic matches together and they were an awesome opponent to have, one of my favorite being the Hart Foundation. [Ax and Smash] were the kind of guys that you could go out with and you knew you were going to have a good match, but at the same time you knew you were going to have a tough match.” Blair said. “Very stiff matches, but I didn’t mind that, that’s how I was raised. They never hurt us to where we couldn’t feed our families the next day. So it was difficult, we had some knockdown drag-out matches, and the fans can expect to hear a lot about that.”
Blair then details why he thought that stiff kind of wrestling style made it easy for him in the ring in comparison to a more lighter worked match. “For me, I always believed whether there was 10 people, I was raised very humbly and as a matter of fact, the first time I got into the wrestling matches I had no money,” Blair noted. “I’ve always believed that if those people paid for a ticket, $10 or whatever it is, it’s a lot of money and I wanted to give them their money’s worth and every time you look at The Demolition I knew that people were going to get their money’ worth because of that type of wrestling.”
“That’s the kind of thing I liked about The Demolition; the psychology, that old school style…I’m not talking about a small package or an inside cradle, I’m talking about like stuff off the top rope, sleepers, figure four, different things that people use to actually beat somebody and that’s their famous finishing move. Some of these guys now you know they’re great workers,” Blair explained, “but to me, they could get a lot more out of a match, they just don’t understand the psychology of the business, it’s not really taught as much. You got the Triple H’s, the Randy Orton’s, those guys know exactly know what I’m talking about because they know the psychology of the business and newer guys just never unfortunately never get the chance to go to the different territories like we used to have and learn that kind of psychology. So Demolition—the people always got their money’s worth and that’s one thing that I liked about working with The Demolition.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
You can listen to the full interview below:
