There was this one wrestler named Pat Patterson who was wrestling in Florida who was openly gay, though, which was kind of shocking to me then.
Just because I had never really encountered that before. I love the guy to death, and he’s a great guy, but he’s one of these guys who’ll rib you about stuff. He’s always joking, and I didn’t know this at the time.
His pal Buddy Colt was the Florida heavyweight champion, and I don’t know if he’s gay or not. As it turned out, the way things went down before that first match of mine, it really didn’t make any difference. It was August of 1977. I’m gearing up for my very first match, with no idea how the whole thing’s gonna go down. I truly didn’t know if I was gonna get killed in that ring or what. For all I knew, someone else would break my leg the way Matsuda did in the beginning. I had no idea what would happen, and nobody told me a thing.
The day before the big match, Pat Patterson stops by Matsuda’s gym. “Hey, Terry,” he says, “why don’t you come down to the Sportatorium tomorrow and we’ll ride down to Fort Myers together.”
I didn’t care one way or the other about the fact that he was gay. I was just psyched that a big wrestler like that would reach out to me.
So I get into a car with Pat and Buddy the next day, and Pat says, “Hey, you know, this is a big night for you.” “Yes, sir, it is, Mr. Patterson.” “Well, this is your initiation night.” “Oh man, this is gonna be great, I can’t wait!” I acted all pumped, but like I said, I was really scared. I was so worried about getting beat up, or what I’d have to do to win, or if I’d wind up losing my first time out.
“Well, you know what?” Pat says. “We got you in the car ’cause we’ve been chosen to initiate you tonight.” I said, “What do you mean?” “Well,” Pat says, “we’ve got about a hundred and fifty miles to go, and before you get to the arena you have to give one of us a blow job.”
“What?” I said. “What do you mean?” “You have to give one of us a blow job before you get to the building, ’cause that’s your initiation before you wrestle,” he says. I was completely taken aback. “Well, I can’t do that, you know, I’m—I’ve never done nothing like that. I’m not gay. I can’t do that!”
They both got real serious. “Well, you have to do it.” “I’m not gonna do it!” I was horrified. I was so upset. All this time I’ve done nothing but prepare for this night and they’re telling me I have to do this thing that I can’t possibly do or they won’t let me wrestle my first match? It was seriously fukked up. I didn’t have the slightest clue that they were ribbing, you know?
“I can’t do this. This is fukked up,” I said. I just wanted to wrestle, and they took advantage of how serious and focused I was. They tortured me.
It was the longest car ride of my life. On top of worrying about the match, how I’d do, if I’d look like a fool in front of a stadium full of people, they put this fear into me that they wouldn’t let me wrestle at all if I didn’t do this horrible thing. As we got closer and closer to the stadium, I just refused, over and over. Finally we were pulling into the parking lot, and they still wouldn’t let up.
“Okay,” they said. “Since you didn’t give one of us a blow job before your match, we’re gonna have to tell all the other guys that you failed your initiation. So after your match, in the shower in the locker room, everybody’s gonna grab you and fukk you in the ass.”
Again there wasn’t even a hint that they were kidding. This whole wrestling experience had been so barbaric, you know? With the leg breaking and the pushing me till I fainted and the watching other marks get beat to shyt and run out of the business. I was so fukking scared. And now I have to get in the ring and wrestle thinking I’m gonna be fighting for my life in the locker room after the match. Really fighting. The thing I feared most.
So I get in the locker room. It’s total silence. No one says a word to me. I get suited up and tie up my new boots, and I go out to wrestle Brian Blair. Now, I knew Brian. He was a friend of mine. He was an amateur wrestler in high school, so he knew a lot more real wrestling moves than I did. What I didn’t know was that Brian was under orders to do a twenty-minute “Broadway”—to keep the match going for twenty minutes as basically a time filler that would end in a draw.
No one told me that, of course. All anyone told me, right before I hit that ring, was that I was supposed to go out there and win. It was yet another rib.
So off we go. Ding-ding-ding-ding. I’m out there trying to pin him, trying to hold his shoulder, and he keeps kicking out. We’re fighting. I mean, we’re really beating the shyt out of each other. I thought I was supposed to win this thing, and he was just following his orders to not get beat.
Brian didn’t think it was too funny, but I noticed at one point during the match that all the wrestlers were standing out by the dressing rooms watching us. They weren’t supposed to do that. The bad guys and good guys weren’t supposed to be seen together at all. Looking back on it, it must’ve been like the biggest joke to them.
After twenty minutes of this brutal battle, finally I hear ding-ding-ding-ding-ding. I’m exhausted. I’m all bruised up. And instead of basking in the moment of finishing my first match in this arena full of people, I’m only thinking about one thing: Now I’ve gotta go back in the dressing room and fight for my fukking life.
On the way back from the ring, I was so worried and so upset, there were tears in my eyes. I don’t think any of the guys saw it, but I was a wreck. I’d thrown everything in my life away for this dream of wrestling. My music career was gone now. I was so fixated on making this thing work, and this was what I’d gotten myself into? I was shaking, practically bawling, thinking, I don’t want to be a wrestler anymore.
I felt like a loser. An outsider. The twelve-year-old fat kid. I was weak, I felt sick, I just wanted to get out of there. I was so scared and so messed up, it was all I could do to gird myself and get ready to face my fate as I pushed through the doors and stepped into the locker room—Where all of the wrestlers were waiting with beers in their hands. “Congratulations! You made it!”
What the hell? They were cheering for me. The rib was over. The whole thing had been a big goof at my expense.
They patted me on the back and shook my hand. Someone handed me a beer. They were all so happy that I made it through the match, and everybody was talking about what a good fight I’d given Brian.
Hazing is pretty common in fraternities. I guess it’s pretty common in the military, too. I had no idea it was a rite of passage in the wrestling world. In fact, maybe it wasn’t all that common. Maybe I was just an unlucky stiff who was too naive for the other wrestlers to pass up.
. I swear them jawns hit different after a while of not eating them.
