I received an e-mail this week from Lenny Olson, a good friend who wrestled all over the world as Dr. Luther. The e-mail told me he was retiring. It was sad to hear, but from a physical standpoint, he had to call it a day. Lenny made his mark in Japan, but also wrestled on several of the "winter death trips" in Manitoba. It was during these trips that I got to know Lenny and wrestle him quite often. He helped me a lot in the beginning, probably the most important lesson being to have fun while you're in the ring.
Here's an example: Tony Condello was the promoter on these trips. I've talked about him before, and unless you meet him, you can't understand how unintentionally funny Tony is. Well, on many of these trips we didn't have referees. It usually ended up that one of the boys would have the double duty of wrestling and refereeing all night. Finally, we all said no, and Tony was forced to referee. The show was on a tiny Indian reservation, which I can't recall the name of (I'm punch drunk, OK). Now, knowing that Tony would be reffing later on, Lenny hatched an evil, brilliant scheme along with Don Callis. They were able to nab Tony's red sweatpants which he wore to ref. While we distracted Tony, some Deep Heat ointment was lathered into the crotch of the pants. Now Deep Heat gets pretty warm on your shoulders and back, so you can imagine what it would do to your nether regions, underwear or not. That night was a curtain sell out. From the opening match on, we all surrounded the entranceway and watched Tony fidget and fondle himself. When it came time for my match, I approached Tony in the ring, and, in his one-of-a-kind Italian accent he said, "Ugh, I'm f***** dying in here! My b**** are on fire!" From that point on, I couldn't keep a straight face.
It only got worse. Throughout the match, Lenny and I would "accidentally" bump Tony in the tomatoes. Finally, the match was coming to an end. Tony could see the light of day. Or so he thought. I was up in the corner giving Lenny the dreaded 10 punches from hell. When I finished, Lenny commenced to do the classic Ric Flair face bump right in front of Tony. The only problem was he pulled Tonys pants down on the way. Tony stood there in his little bikini briefs with palm trees on them, in complete shock. By the time he realized what had happened, Lenny had a tight hold and wouldn't let him pull them up. They fought harder then we did in the match. Tony's face was redder than his pants.
That, however, was just the beginning. One of the guys, Jethro Hogg (who Tony always mistakenly called Jericho Hogg) brought a pig to the ring with him. His pig was named Snoots (who Tony mistakenly referred to as Snooze).Well, Tony was scared to death of the pig. So that night Lenny and Don laid a trail of breadcrumbs to Tony's bed, which was a blue gymnastics mat on the floor of the gym, and also laid them all over Tony's cherished hair. They then put yellow food coloring in his hair. All while he was asleep. We all waited to see what would happen, while pretending to sleep. Just like Mr. Burns releasing the hounds, they released the pig. It got on the breadcrumb trail immediately. It sniffed Tony's Deep Heat laden crotch quite a bit and then moved to the bread placed in Tony's tight yellow afro. After about 30 seconds of the pig eating off his head, Tony woke up face to face with the dreaded Snoots. He lost it. He ran to the bathroom. He screamed, and said the pig p***** in his hair. At this point, we all lost it. We were all crying, we were laughing so hard. So at 3 a.m., Tony grabbed a hockey stick and chased us around the gym until he got blown up. He did almost behead Lance (who he mistakenly called Land Storm, I kid you not). Lenny is a ribber that can equal the kings of ribbing, Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith. It was nights like these that taught me what fun this business can be away from the ring too. They were tough times, but Lenny helped to make them times I will never forget. Thanks, buddy.
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