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Buddy Austin, Mighty Atlas, and a lot of others were some his favorites. -- Ray Gordon, Buddy Austin, and Billy Graham trained him for wrestling. -- He started working out in St. Joe's. As he started in the business, Happy Humphrey came into the area. Humphrey needed a driver because he was 785 pounds and needed a driver and was too large to reach the wheel. -- His debut match was in 1959. The Missouri State Title was a stepping stone to the World title. Sam Munchnik was the booker for the NWA and he was in the St. Louis area. -- Of his entire career, winning the NWA title from Dory Funk was his most memorable match. -- He and Dusty Rhodes have had a love hate relationship for many years. -- Bob Roop was a great guy. He let "chemical mix shit overtake his career." He feels it was a shame. -- When asked about the meaning of the belt through the years, he felt the belt back then meant something. It meant you could go anywhere in the world and wrestle because you were the world champion. He feels now it is more of a prop. -- He gets along with Terry Funk. He feels Terry's dad was very unique and didn't back up or take crap from anyone. But, he has known Terry since the early 60's. -- The rumor has always been that Dusty was injured when he dropped the belt to Harley and if Dusty had not been injured, he wouldn't have dropped the belt. Harley feels that everybody has their own excuses and that Dusty wrestled him several times after that match and never took the belt back. -- He feels Jack Brisco had the most pure wrestling talent he's ever seen. -- The rumor that he was frustrated that he couldn't make Terry Funk bleed were not true. He says if you could have bottled the blood lost in his matches with Terry, the Red Cross would never be in need for blood. -- He got along with Larry Hennig. He was tag team champions with him, but he never wrestled him. The closest he came was a fight he had after wrestling Curt Hennig. -- His views on Curt's death is it was obviously very sad. He says it is a shame when "kids get caught up in that crap." -- He liked wrestling long matches because it made everyone look good. He felt it helped the younger guys shine plus it helped him stay in shape. -- He liked working with Ric Flair greatly. He jokes saying he wrestled Terry Funk, Dusty Rhodes, and Ric Flair far too often than he cares to remember. -- When he went to the WWF, he saw the change. But, he didn't mind it then because they did it with respect. Eventually, it became something that wasn't respectful to the business. He hopes that the changes you can see now in the WWE is a change back to respecting wrestling. -- He feels Hulk Hogan is a good guy. He helped Hogan a lot in the 70's and enjoyed working with him in the WWF though he wrestled Hogan more often than that. He enjoyed it. -- Early in Steve Austin's career, Harley was his manager. He told WCW several times not to let him go and feels that he was ready to be a break out star when they did let him go. He was not at all surprised to see how big he got in the WWF. -- Vader was okay to manage. He said he gets along with him but he could be a pain in the butt. In terms of wrestling talent, though, he feels Vader is the best big man since Andre. -- There was no expectations of going to the WWF with Vader because he was involved in a car accident so it wasn't an option anyway. -- Around Christmas of 1961, he was in a car accident that almost ended his wrestling career. He had a lot of artificial steel put in and doctors weren't sure he'd be able to wrestle again. He feels he went on to have "a fairly decent career." -- He is currently running WLW shows. He doesn't want to try to compete with Vince because he knows he can't. He's happy doing what he's doing and is honored that the WLW belt is recognized in Japan. -- He isn't sure he likes the direction NWA TNA is going. He feels that it seemed at first as though they were going to make the business believable again but feels they are trying too hard to compete with the WWE now. He feels they can't compete with a company that has a billion dollars in production. Plus word associations with everyone from Ric Flair to Vince McMahon! Listen in Streaming Media :: Download to Desktop © Copyright 2005 Wrestling Epicenter All rights reserved Privacy Policy