ESPN has released a new interview with legendary pro wrestling journalist and 1Wrestling.com Editor-in-Chief Bill Apter.
You can find some highlights below. The full interview can be found HERE.
Related: Scott Hall Catches Up w/ Bill Apter (Video)
On how the wrestling magazines became known as “The Apter Mags”:
BA: That title was coined by Dave Meltzer from The Wrestling Observer. I used to call him on it and say, “Dave, I work for a publishing company and we have plenty of editors and writers and photographers and art people, so it’s not the Apter mags. Stanley Weston owns them and they should be called the Weston mags.” Meltzer said to me, “Fans see you at every arena and you are at every federation’s TV show either handing out awards or doing commentary. You are the face of the magazines, so that’s why I call them the Apter mags.”
On if promoters would try to get their wrestlers on the covers:
BA: Some of them did. Some of them didn’t care because the magazines didn’t jibe with their local TV, but the wrestlers all wanted to be in the magazines. Captain Lou Albano and Fred Blassie used to joke with me and say, “If I’m not on the cover, I don’t want to be in the damn rag!”, but they loved being in the magazine. As long as the storyline was complimentary to them, they loved being in the magazine. Periodically, if there was a story that somebody didn’t like, just to maintain their relationship with me, they would say Vince McMahon, Sr. didn’t like it. Once in a while Vince McMahon, Sr. would call me and would have an issue with a story that was run.
On any crazy stories he has about his time with Muhammad Ali:
BA: When I went up to his training camp in Deer Lake, PA, the press was invited on to a press bus. We were going to be going down a very steep, winding mountain and Ali made the bus driver sit down and then Ali drove the bus. We all thought we were going to die because Ali had supposedly never driven a bus that size before.
