Post by Ringside Junkie on Aug 28, 2005 23:19:39 GMT -5
Paul Bearer undertakes comeback
By Lawrence Specker
Mobile Register
MOBILE -- "Look at the goosebumps," says William Moody, as he sits in the office of his west Mobile home. "That tells you something." Over the course of a lengthy conversation about professional wrestling, Moody pauses several times to take note of the goosebumps on his arms. His excitement is real, as well it should be.
Thirty years in professional wrestling carried him around the world and to the heights of sports entertainment fame. But his life isn't all about the memories.
These days, it's more about the second chances he's gotten following a dark time: The chance to enjoy life with his family. The chance to reinvest himself in the kind of hometown wrestling that put the fire in his blood in the first place.
The memorabilia lining the room from floor to ceiling -- "just a pinch of my collection," he calls it -- tells much of the story.
Born in Mobile in 1954, he was entranced by wrestling from an early age. First he took it in as a spectator, in the days when Mobile had a thriving local wrestling sce
ne, part of a busy regional circuit.
By the time he was 20, he'd made his debut in the ring, as "Mr. X." He wrestled under several names, but soon decided his talents were better suited to management. And so, in 1978, he took on one of two alter egos known to wrestling fans around the world: manager Percival Pringle III.
Off and on through the '80s, the blond, flamboyant Pringle was affiliated with sanctioning bodies such as World Class Championship Wrestling and the United States Wrestling Association.
In that decade, several such regional organizations vied for national dominance via cable TV. The ultimate winner would be the World Wrestling Federation, which in recent years changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment. Late in 1990, WWF/WWE kingpin Vince McMahon hired Moody.
McMahon didn't recognize other organizations, or their characters, so the hiring meant Percy Pringle was on ice. But what role would Moody play?
The answer is one of those memories that raise the goosebumps. When McMahon saw that Moody was, in real life, a licensed funeral director and embalmer, he threw back his head and laughed.
As it turned out, McMahon had a hot new wrestler who needed a manager. The guy was known as the Undertaker. Who better to manage him than a caricatured mortician called ... Paul Bearer?
"We created a monster there," Moody says.
If the Undertaker was ominous, Paul Bearer was downright creepy, thanks to his coal-black hair, deathly pale skin and the cremation urn he always carried. He was one of the characters fans love to hate.
"Most managers were bad guys," Moody says. "And I never had to work at being a bad guy."
Several urns, some of them gifts from fans, sit atop Moody's desk. "Fans give me stuff all the time," he said. "They make little caskets for me."
One urn, battered and burnished from all the times it's been carried into combat, is the urn, the one millions of wrestling fans have seen on their TVs.
"This right here won a lot of matches," Moody says with a smile. "All these dents -- these are heads."
Moody isn't knocking noggins in front of WWE cameras these days, but he still has a relationship with the organization. In June he signed what WWE calls a "legends contract." In part that means that WWE will continue to market the Paul Bearer character via books, tapes, games and, yes, action figures.
"It's cool to go into Toys R Us with my grandbaby and there I am," Moody says.
But there's another part of the legends deal that has Moody excited. Every other contract he's had with the WWF or WWE has been exclusive. They've prohibited him from lending his talents to outside wrestling organizations, even small-time local outfits.
That's no longer the case.
"For the first time in 14 years, I can work outside the company," he said. And that means it's payback time.
Cable TV and entrepreneurs like McMahon took wrestling to new heights, but at a price, Moody says. TV raised the stakes, bringing in national audiences and millions upon millions of dollars. It made worldwide superstars of wrestlers who otherwise might have been only hometown heroes.
But it left independent wrestling on the local and regional level to die on the vine. The TV money wasn't there. And the audience could watch the big show on TV or at a nearby arena.
"I have some very, very strong feelings, and some of it's very emotional, about independent wrestling," Moody said. "In most of the areas around the country, it's just a horrible, horrible situation."
Moody could stay out of it. But he's lending his reputation and talents to local outfits, hoping to help stoke up the kind of local scene that gave him his start.
At 51, he's stepping into a new ring.
"I don't want to see wrestling die," he says.
It's a Friday night, and the Alabama Wrestling Federation is packing them in at the Semmes Community Center.
It's plain that the audience of more than 250 people sees this as family entertainment. It's an alcohol-free, smoke-free venue. The audience ranges from young kids to teens to parents to senior citizens.
Now it's time for the semi-main event. Marvelous Marcel Pringle steps into the ring, accompanied by Queen Melissa. Steve Armstrong follows, with his manager: William Moody, using elements of both the Paul Bearer and Percy Pringle III characters. (He's introduced as Paul Bearer, but he's not wearing the makeup, and references to the Pringle name fly thick and fast.)
The gimmick is announced: For the duration of the match, Queen Melissa and Pringle will be handcuffed together. When Melissa demurs, Moody seizes the microphone.
"Come on, you hussy," he taunts. "I know you're used to being handcuffed. Come on and get handcuffed to the real man in the Pringle family."
As the match proceeds, they fuss at each other outside the ring, providing a backdrop and some comic relief to the action in the foreground. But it's after Armstrong has vanquished Marcel Pringle that they really get in each other's faces.
After denouncing Queen Melissa to the rafters, Moody introduces a young female protegDe, Miss Dixie. The idea is that the two women will have a match at the AWF's next event.
For Moody to take such an active part again is not something anyone would have taken for granted just two years earlier. By the summer of 2003, Moody didn't even think he'd be taking an active part in life for much longer.
The last couple of years had not been good. Dianna, Moody's wife, had faced a long, tough battle with breast cancer. She won, but it wasn't easy. In the same time period, the couple's first grandchild died as a newborn.
The stress got to Moody. His weight ballooned.
"I weighed 525 pounds," he says. "I was dying."
He'd been on hiatus with the WWE. They called him up, saying they had new plans for Paul Bearer. He said his health was so bad that he couldn't do it. They didn't give up on him that easy.
Moody's Web site, www.percypringle.com, is a wonderful window into his life and career. In the "Story Time" section, Moody shares numerous memories and stories in an open and articulate fashion.
One of them, titled "How Paul Bearer Saved Bill Moody's Life," tells the story of his return to life. In a nutshell, he didn't have insurance and couldn't afford the weight-loss surgery he'd been researching. WWE signed him to a new contract anyway, and agreed to help with the cost of the operation, "as a signing bonus," he says.
The surgery took place Nov. 25, 2003. On his Web site, Pringle describes the painful aftermath, and the transformation that followed.
"The gastric bypass surgery is not an easy thing," he says. "A lot of people think it's a quick fix. It's not a quick fix."
It did work, though. "I started losing weight rapidly, a pound a day," he says.
His first appearance back with the WWE was scheduled for March 14, 2004, at WrestleMania XX in Madison Square Garden. It was 16 weeks after his surgery and he had lost 129 pounds.
He was weak, especially in his legs, but he plunged in. "I knew I couldn't let this chance pass me by."
He was back in the thick of it, the Undertaker and Paul Bearer back in action. It was the life he loved, but it wasn't necessarily easy.
"People think it's a glamorous life," he says. "But it's airport to airport, city to city, rental car to rental car. It's brutal."
Three months later, he was sidelined by gall bladder disorders, which he says are a common complication of gastric bypass surgery. He was sitting in his office chair one day when it hit. "It felt like somebody came up behind me a stuck a butcher knife in my side," he says.
He survived the subsequent surgery, but it helped everyone involved realize that the rigors of the road might be too much for him.
If you were following the WWE action at this time, you saw Paul Bearer kidnapped by opposing manager Paul Heyman and The Dudley Boyz. They threatened to kill Bearer if the Undertaker didn't do their bidding, which he did -- for a while. Long story short: Paul Bearer ended up being buried in cement, but few fans would be fool enough to bet wrestling could never bring him back from the grave.
The WWE severed his old contract, then came back with the Legends contract. But it's his new hold on life that seems to excite Pringle the most.
"I'm under 300 pounds for the first time in probably 20 years," he says.
He walks three or four miles, most days. He advises people in his situation to seriously consider gastric bypass, but to look carefully at the risks.
"It saved my life, without a doubt," he says.
"I feel better than I have in years and years. I can get down on the floor and play with my grandbaby -- and get back up."
Courtesy of The Montgomery Advertiser:
www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050823/NEWS02/508230347&SearchID=73218683687493
By Lawrence Specker
Mobile Register
MOBILE -- "Look at the goosebumps," says William Moody, as he sits in the office of his west Mobile home. "That tells you something." Over the course of a lengthy conversation about professional wrestling, Moody pauses several times to take note of the goosebumps on his arms. His excitement is real, as well it should be.
Thirty years in professional wrestling carried him around the world and to the heights of sports entertainment fame. But his life isn't all about the memories.
These days, it's more about the second chances he's gotten following a dark time: The chance to enjoy life with his family. The chance to reinvest himself in the kind of hometown wrestling that put the fire in his blood in the first place.
The memorabilia lining the room from floor to ceiling -- "just a pinch of my collection," he calls it -- tells much of the story.
Born in Mobile in 1954, he was entranced by wrestling from an early age. First he took it in as a spectator, in the days when Mobile had a thriving local wrestling sce
ne, part of a busy regional circuit.
By the time he was 20, he'd made his debut in the ring, as "Mr. X." He wrestled under several names, but soon decided his talents were better suited to management. And so, in 1978, he took on one of two alter egos known to wrestling fans around the world: manager Percival Pringle III.
Off and on through the '80s, the blond, flamboyant Pringle was affiliated with sanctioning bodies such as World Class Championship Wrestling and the United States Wrestling Association.
In that decade, several such regional organizations vied for national dominance via cable TV. The ultimate winner would be the World Wrestling Federation, which in recent years changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment. Late in 1990, WWF/WWE kingpin Vince McMahon hired Moody.
McMahon didn't recognize other organizations, or their characters, so the hiring meant Percy Pringle was on ice. But what role would Moody play?
The answer is one of those memories that raise the goosebumps. When McMahon saw that Moody was, in real life, a licensed funeral director and embalmer, he threw back his head and laughed.
As it turned out, McMahon had a hot new wrestler who needed a manager. The guy was known as the Undertaker. Who better to manage him than a caricatured mortician called ... Paul Bearer?
"We created a monster there," Moody says.
If the Undertaker was ominous, Paul Bearer was downright creepy, thanks to his coal-black hair, deathly pale skin and the cremation urn he always carried. He was one of the characters fans love to hate.
"Most managers were bad guys," Moody says. "And I never had to work at being a bad guy."
Several urns, some of them gifts from fans, sit atop Moody's desk. "Fans give me stuff all the time," he said. "They make little caskets for me."
One urn, battered and burnished from all the times it's been carried into combat, is the urn, the one millions of wrestling fans have seen on their TVs.
"This right here won a lot of matches," Moody says with a smile. "All these dents -- these are heads."
Moody isn't knocking noggins in front of WWE cameras these days, but he still has a relationship with the organization. In June he signed what WWE calls a "legends contract." In part that means that WWE will continue to market the Paul Bearer character via books, tapes, games and, yes, action figures.
"It's cool to go into Toys R Us with my grandbaby and there I am," Moody says.
But there's another part of the legends deal that has Moody excited. Every other contract he's had with the WWF or WWE has been exclusive. They've prohibited him from lending his talents to outside wrestling organizations, even small-time local outfits.
That's no longer the case.
"For the first time in 14 years, I can work outside the company," he said. And that means it's payback time.
Cable TV and entrepreneurs like McMahon took wrestling to new heights, but at a price, Moody says. TV raised the stakes, bringing in national audiences and millions upon millions of dollars. It made worldwide superstars of wrestlers who otherwise might have been only hometown heroes.
But it left independent wrestling on the local and regional level to die on the vine. The TV money wasn't there. And the audience could watch the big show on TV or at a nearby arena.
"I have some very, very strong feelings, and some of it's very emotional, about independent wrestling," Moody said. "In most of the areas around the country, it's just a horrible, horrible situation."
Moody could stay out of it. But he's lending his reputation and talents to local outfits, hoping to help stoke up the kind of local scene that gave him his start.
At 51, he's stepping into a new ring.
"I don't want to see wrestling die," he says.
It's a Friday night, and the Alabama Wrestling Federation is packing them in at the Semmes Community Center.
It's plain that the audience of more than 250 people sees this as family entertainment. It's an alcohol-free, smoke-free venue. The audience ranges from young kids to teens to parents to senior citizens.
Now it's time for the semi-main event. Marvelous Marcel Pringle steps into the ring, accompanied by Queen Melissa. Steve Armstrong follows, with his manager: William Moody, using elements of both the Paul Bearer and Percy Pringle III characters. (He's introduced as Paul Bearer, but he's not wearing the makeup, and references to the Pringle name fly thick and fast.)
The gimmick is announced: For the duration of the match, Queen Melissa and Pringle will be handcuffed together. When Melissa demurs, Moody seizes the microphone.
"Come on, you hussy," he taunts. "I know you're used to being handcuffed. Come on and get handcuffed to the real man in the Pringle family."
As the match proceeds, they fuss at each other outside the ring, providing a backdrop and some comic relief to the action in the foreground. But it's after Armstrong has vanquished Marcel Pringle that they really get in each other's faces.
After denouncing Queen Melissa to the rafters, Moody introduces a young female protegDe, Miss Dixie. The idea is that the two women will have a match at the AWF's next event.
For Moody to take such an active part again is not something anyone would have taken for granted just two years earlier. By the summer of 2003, Moody didn't even think he'd be taking an active part in life for much longer.
The last couple of years had not been good. Dianna, Moody's wife, had faced a long, tough battle with breast cancer. She won, but it wasn't easy. In the same time period, the couple's first grandchild died as a newborn.
The stress got to Moody. His weight ballooned.
"I weighed 525 pounds," he says. "I was dying."
He'd been on hiatus with the WWE. They called him up, saying they had new plans for Paul Bearer. He said his health was so bad that he couldn't do it. They didn't give up on him that easy.
Moody's Web site, www.percypringle.com, is a wonderful window into his life and career. In the "Story Time" section, Moody shares numerous memories and stories in an open and articulate fashion.
One of them, titled "How Paul Bearer Saved Bill Moody's Life," tells the story of his return to life. In a nutshell, he didn't have insurance and couldn't afford the weight-loss surgery he'd been researching. WWE signed him to a new contract anyway, and agreed to help with the cost of the operation, "as a signing bonus," he says.
The surgery took place Nov. 25, 2003. On his Web site, Pringle describes the painful aftermath, and the transformation that followed.
"The gastric bypass surgery is not an easy thing," he says. "A lot of people think it's a quick fix. It's not a quick fix."
It did work, though. "I started losing weight rapidly, a pound a day," he says.
His first appearance back with the WWE was scheduled for March 14, 2004, at WrestleMania XX in Madison Square Garden. It was 16 weeks after his surgery and he had lost 129 pounds.
He was weak, especially in his legs, but he plunged in. "I knew I couldn't let this chance pass me by."
He was back in the thick of it, the Undertaker and Paul Bearer back in action. It was the life he loved, but it wasn't necessarily easy.
"People think it's a glamorous life," he says. "But it's airport to airport, city to city, rental car to rental car. It's brutal."
Three months later, he was sidelined by gall bladder disorders, which he says are a common complication of gastric bypass surgery. He was sitting in his office chair one day when it hit. "It felt like somebody came up behind me a stuck a butcher knife in my side," he says.
He survived the subsequent surgery, but it helped everyone involved realize that the rigors of the road might be too much for him.
If you were following the WWE action at this time, you saw Paul Bearer kidnapped by opposing manager Paul Heyman and The Dudley Boyz. They threatened to kill Bearer if the Undertaker didn't do their bidding, which he did -- for a while. Long story short: Paul Bearer ended up being buried in cement, but few fans would be fool enough to bet wrestling could never bring him back from the grave.
The WWE severed his old contract, then came back with the Legends contract. But it's his new hold on life that seems to excite Pringle the most.
"I'm under 300 pounds for the first time in probably 20 years," he says.
He walks three or four miles, most days. He advises people in his situation to seriously consider gastric bypass, but to look carefully at the risks.
"It saved my life, without a doubt," he says.
"I feel better than I have in years and years. I can get down on the floor and play with my grandbaby -- and get back up."
Courtesy of The Montgomery Advertiser:
www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050823/NEWS02/508230347&SearchID=73218683687493