Congratulations to Scott Casey for being a 2006 CAC Honoree

When and where were you born, Scott?
I was born in Dallas, Texas on March 19, 1947.  My stepfather's name was Ernest and my mother's name was Florence.  Their last name was Glidewell.

What was your given name?
Stephen Philip McConnell.  My mother had me out of wedlock.  I was the original Texas bast-d.  My mother named me after Bible characters, Stephen and Phillip.
So that's why you turned out so righteous and holy.
(laughs)  Yeah, right!

What did you dad do for a living?
He never finished high school, so he did a lot of things.  He was a roofer, then he worked in maintenance for the county in Amarillo.  That's really where I grew up.  They moved north to Amarillo and I went through part of seventh grade there, then I
contracted rheumatic fever, so I had to stay out a year.  I repeated the seventh grade while we were there in Fort Worth, then went to high school at Paschal High School from '63 through '65. My mother ... God rest her soul.  She's been dead since '66.  She went back to school when she was forty-seven.  She loved to teach and she loved books, so she got her degree in Library Science when she was fifty.  I saw her graduate from high school when I was six years old.  We moved to Fort Worth because she was too old to teach in the Amarillo school system.
There's a little suburb outside of Fort Worth called Kinnendale.  My mother and I lived there and my stepfather eventually moved down.  He had to stay in Amarillo for awhile because we had a house.

Why was she too old to teach?
I think after they hit a certain age, the Amarillo school district didn't want them.  I'm not sure.

What high school sports did you participate in?                                                                I played football and I ran track.  I was a linebacker and wide receiver.  I played both positions.  Back then, you could do that and get away with it.  We went to State two years out of the four I was there.  We got to the Finals a couple times, but we never did win it.  Garland, Texas always whipped our ass.  I was a sprint man in track and ran the 100 and 220.  I was pretty fast and set a couple records.  I guess I did about a 9.9 hundred-yard dash.  Back then, that was pretty fast.

Did you have the opportunity to wrestle in the amateurs?
No.  Wrestling wasn't that big of a sport in Texas in the early '60s.

When did you graduate and what did you do from there?
I graduated in '65, then went directly to Amarillo College for a year-and-a-half.  It was like a junior college.

What was your major?
I majored in Business and minored in English.  My mother was really into English, so she tried to keep me in tune with what was going on there.  Two years later, I went on to the University.  I should have gone back and finished, but you know how it goes.
Your life goes in different directions.

Did Amarillo College have a football team?
No.

So you were out of football for two whole years, then played at the University?
Yeah.

Did they offer you a scholarship?
No, I walked on.  Like most kids, I worked in the summertime doing construction, or whatever else I could do to pick up money.  My folks didn't have much money, so I did most of it on my own.  I bounced in nightclubs.  You'd do just about anything to make a
dollar.

What was your average weight in high school?
When I graduated, I was 205, but when I started, I was about 180.

Considering you had rheumatic fever just five years before that, you made a remarkable comeback.
That's what the doctors told me.  They said that I'd never, ever play sports. (laughs)  I guess I fooled them.  At my heaviest, I was about 260, but when I wrestled, I tried to stay around 240.  When you're 5'11, that's a lot of weight to pack into that frame. I played college football until I hurt my knee.  I went another semester, then I said, "The hell with it," because I was all gung-ho to play pro football. Once I tore up my knee, that was the end of that dream, so I just quit school.

There were some big-name, future pros that came off the team during that time.
That's right.  Mercury Morris was there.  He was our running back.  Dwayne Thomas.  You can probably guess that, with all that talent, I was mainly on the suicide squad, running kickoffs back and things like that.  I was a back, but I wasn't half as fast or
coordinated as Mercury Morris or Dwayne Thomas.  They were just awesome. By the way, that one coach was Joe Kerbel.  He was a real ass to play for! 

I hadn't thought about Joe in years, until you e-mailed me last year asking for some information about him. 
His son, Joe Jr., played center for the team.  He looked just like the old man. The old man was a real bast-d.  Ohh, he was tough! He was a hard man, but he had a lot of guys go to pro ball, so we were all excited about that. Quite a few pro wrestlers played football for West Texas State.  Terry and Dory Funk, Dusty Rhodes, Ted DiBiase,  (Dick) Murdock went out.  He wasn't that good at it, but he was big, so they kept him around
for awhile.  Stan Hansen.  There was a bunch of them. Stan and Dusty were there a little bit before me. DiBiase was after me.  Terry Funk was a little older than us.  He played ... and Dory Jr. played.  I'm 53, so Terry must be 56 or 57 ... and insane for keeping on doing what he's doing now.  I just can't believe it.  He's like his old man.  You can't tell him to stop.  His old man wrestled up until he died.  He was 53 when he died.  When I quit in '90, I was 42. Ohhh!  After college, my life was like a leaf in a
whirlwind.  It went in a lot of different directions. After I quit college, I worked as a salesman in a clothing store called Brent's.  I stayed there for a couple of years, then started bouncing in a night club with a couple of my buddies.

When did you first attend a wrestling match?
Before we lived in Amarillo, we lived in a little town called Borger, Texas.  It's northeast of Amarillo.  We saw Bob Geigel, Art Nelson, Paul Baillargeon, Dory Funk Sr., Don Eagle.  I was nine or ten years old at the time.

Was your dad a fan?
Yes.  He enjoyed it.  As a matter of fact, I remember seeing Lou Thesz there.  He came in for a title defense.  I was just a kid, but he said "Hi" to me. Years later, when I was wrestling, I met him again. I'm sure he remembered saying "hi" to you when you
were a kid. (laughs)  Oh, yeah.  He was a nice man.

Did you follow wrestling from that point on?
Yeah.  It was real popular in the '50s and '60s, especially on TV.  When I was in Amarillo and I couldn't play ball anymore, I was bouncing and working for the clothing store.  I thought, "There has to be more to life than this."  I just didn't have the initiative or drive to finish college.  This story will sound strange, but I swear it's the truth.  The
way I got into wrestling was because I was doing hair. You're right.  It does sound strange. (laughs)  Pat Patterson and his friend, Louie Dondero, came to Amarillo.  I used to go to wrestling with my dad and I got to be friends with Louie.  He was really
a personable guy.  I could have cared less about his sexual preferences.  In fact, both Pat and Louie were friends to me.  They never did come onto me or anything like that.  They were just friends.  He said, "What are you going to do with your life?"  I said,
"Hell, I don't know."  You know.  When you're twenty years old, you don't know what you're gonna do.  He said, "Why don't you become a hairdresser?"  I got into it and did hair for about three years in Amarillo.  I had artistic abilities because I could draw, so that helped. Did you consider a career as a wrestler? I talked to Pat about wrestling and he said, "Oh, you don't want to do this."

He didn't encourage you at all?
No.  I was friends with Bobby Duncum Sr.  His son died a while back.  I was also friends with the Funks, Terry, Dory Sr. and Dory Jr.  I talked to Terry and some others.  They'd say, "Yeah, sure," but they were on the road.  They couldn't give a sh- about training somebody.  In Amarillo, the matches were on Thursday night.  I'd show up as often as I could.  I was lifting weights and would walk around trying to impress somebody, but nobody ever gave a sh-. I started watching it again in the late '60s (pause) ... well, the way I really got involved in wrestling was through Bobby Duncum.  Bobby and his wife Glenda were in Amarillo.  He came in to wrestle.  He had just
finished playing for the St. Louis Cardinals and he messed up his knee, or they cut him or something.  I don't remember what it was.  Anyway, his wife came in and I did her hair.  When I found out that Bobby was her husband, I told her I'd like to learn how to wrestle.  Glenda talked to Bobby and he said, "You need to bulk up and get some size."  I was probably 210 at the time.  I was really hittin' the weights hard at the time.  Bobby took me to the (Amarillo) Sports Arena.  Jerry Kozak was the promoter.  Jerry
opened it up and let us get in the ring.  I'm in the ring with Bobby Duncum, Dick Murdoch, Terry Funk, and a guy by the name of Duke Myers. I know Duke. All those guys were like 6'4.  There I was at 5'11. They worked out with me a couple times, then they all quit, except for Duke Myers.  Duke would just beat the livin' sh- out of me ... but I just kept comin' back. The main reason I'm in the business is because Duke
>Myers took an interest in me.

You had no amateur background to speak of.  Did your training session consist of teaching you any amateur wrestling skills?
No, they didn't show me many holds.  They mainly showed me pro stuff.  They all took turns body slamming me about ten times each.  We'd all be in there and one of them would say, "Okay, hit the ropes."  They didn't tell me how to hit the ropes or anything.  It was just, "Okay, hit the ropes."  I'm bouncing off the ropes, then Duncum would show me the techniques.  They showed me things like how to take a tackle (pause) ... but I didn't even have an inkling of an idea as to how to wrestle.  I mean, I had watched it a lot. Evidently, I was good enough to pick up the concept of working because they kept working with me.  There again, they didn't show me anything about timing, how to work in the ring, how to work the crowd, how to take bumps out of the ring.  They just threw me out of the ring.  "Okay, get back in." (laughs)  Throw me out ... "Get back in."  Throw me out ... "Get back in." They just wanted to make it as hard on me as they
could. Duke would show me things when we worked on our own. He'd say, "Look, here's what you need to do," but nobody showed me anything about psychology or anything like that.  Finally, Duke got with Duncum and they talked to Dory Sr.  My first match was on TV with Dick Murdoch.  Dory Funk Sr., being the sadistic bast-d
that he was, wanted me to get a black eye the hardway.

In your first match?
Oh, yeah.  I was like a sheep going to slaughter. "Yeah, I'll do it."  We get out there and Dickie says, "I don't want to hit you, man."  I said, "Go ahead," and he hit me.  Unfortunately, my eye didn't swell up or anything. (laughs) We get out of the ring and go to the back.  There's several of us standing in a circle.  I'm facing Dory Funk Sr.  Murdoch is to the right of me.  Terry Funk and Lord Al Hayes was to my left.  Senior says, "Murdoch, why didn't you hardway this guy?"  He says, "Well, I hit him.  It just didn't take."  Before I knew what was happening, Senior lashed out and hit me in the eye so hard it knocked me off my feet.  Well, my eye blew up that time. (laughs) I didn't see Dick Murdoch until years later.  I asked him, "Do you remember that?"  He said, "Do I remember it?  Funk hit you so hard that when he hit you, his fist caromed off your eye and hit me." (laughs)  Funk did it because Murdock didn't do it right.  Funk Sr. was really a character.  He loved to rib guys and did the funniest things.  He was quick to laugh and would go out and drink with the boys all night long.  That ring in Amarillo was one of the nicest rings I ever worked in.  It had a lot of buoyancy to it.

Did you have any idea of what to do when you got in the ring that night?
Duke had showed me a few high spots.  One tackle, drop down, get it again, a hip toss.  You know, there was a lot of times we couldn't get into the ring there in Amarillo, so Duke put a big blanket out in the front yard and was giving me bumps out there.  Back drops, hips tosses, arm drags.  Murdock and them smartened me up about different things, so I knew a little when I went in.  Duke taught me how to kayfabe people and how to carny talk. When I got in the ring, they said, "Listen to me, kid."  They'd tell me when to come back.  They'd tell me when to stop.  They'd tell me, "Sell this," "Don't do that," "Don't die," "Get up," "Move," "Take a bump out of the ring and wait for me.  I'll come after you."  Now I teach wrestling that way, too.  I tell my
students, "Never assume anything.  Don't assume you know what I'm thinking, because you don't.  Talk to each other.  Communicate in that ring."

Did you have any problem learning to throw a working punch?
Oh, yeah.  I had a little problem with working punches, but like they told me, they came in pairs, so you learn real fast how to do it.  Nobody ever taught me how to throw a punch, though.  I remember ... well, I take that back.  Dick Murdoch said, "Just pretend you have a pencil in your hand.  Look at the spot you're gonna hit."  That was it. When most guys get started in the business, they get excited and throw a punch with their hand tightly closed.  Obviously, if you hit someone with your hand like that, it's gonna hurt.  If you pretend you have your fingers curled around a pencil, even if you do hit 'em, it'll break down.  I mean, you're still gonna whomp the sh- out of 'em, but it won't hurt half as bad as if you had it tightened up like a real fist. It kind of collapses.  That's just one of the tricks the old-timers taught us.  I think Sputnik Monroe showed me that, too.  Nowadays, I watch these guys wrestle and I don't think they take care of each other at all.  It looks like they're killin' each other. Most of the time they are. 

Did you use your real name on that first TV match?
I went as Steve Casey.  At the time, my name was Stephen Glidewell.  When I started wrestling, I wanted to have something catchy.  George Dowlan was the judge in Amarillo and we were friends, so he changed it legally for me in 1972.

Why did you change your name to Scott Casey?
I had one friend named Casey, another named Scott, so I put them together.  It's kind of a strange deal, but that's the way my life has been.

Why did you change your name legally? 
Most of the boys assume an alias, but keep their real name. My mother had passed away in '66.  My stepfather and I got along, but we weren't close at all.  When I changed it, it upset him a little bit, but not that much.  When he got a lot older, and I got a little more maturity about myself, I had more compassion for him and tried to befriend him.  He was living in a nursing home, so I'd buy him clothes and take him out when I was in town.  I wasn't there that much.  I wish I could have been there more, but I had to be on the road, following my dream. I never knew my birth father and my mother didn't want to talk about him.  As long as I can remember, I was Glidewell.  I was Steve Glidewell, because he was my stepfather.  I was still in diapers when they got married.

So she had your last name legally changed from her last name to Glidewell?
Well, that's a hairball, too.  You'll love this story. When I was doing hair, I had to have a birth certificate.  My mother sat me down and said, "There's something I've got to tell you," and "You're gonna hate me," and all that.  I said, "What are you talkin' about?"  She said, "Ernest," which was my stepfather's name, "is not your real father." Oh! 

So you didn't know that?
No!  Here I am, twenty years old ... but they were born in 1903 and 1908.  Life was different back then and you didn't talk about things like that.  She told me the story, crying her eyes out the whole time. Thank God I was mature enough to say, "Mom, did you love the guy?"  She said, "With all my heart.  He was my true love."  I said, "Then that's all that counts."  I think she went to her grave satisfied with that. So I grew up as Steve Glidewell.  My stepdad had arteriosclerosis and he didn't know it.  That's what he died of.  He died in 1980. After I had that TV match, I refereed a few matches. The first match I ever refereed was in Muleshoe, Texas.  Cyclone Negro and Dory Funk Sr. were the main event.  They were both gonna get juice and both of them had blades on their fingers.  Senior was havin' fun with Cyclone.  He could get away with it.  Senior
was the man, the boss.  He'd poke Cyclone with his razor blade.  He caught him in the chest, the arm, just everywhere.  Cyclone's talking to him in Spanish and calling him all sorts of names.  Funk's laughing his ass off (pause) ... and I'm scared sh-less.  I honestly thought they were gonna kill each other.  By the time they went back to the dressing room, they both have cuts all over them ... and they're laughin' their ass off.  I thought, "Man, is this the way the wrestling business is?  These guys are nuts!" On the way back home, Funk stopped to make a phone call.  Something upset him, so he starts hollerin' and cussin'.  It's just him and me, and it was one o'clock in the morning.  I was stayin' about ten feet away from him because I didn't want to get hit again .(laughs)  He had a '68 or '69 Mach I Mustang.  He backed that car up and ran over that telephone booth. I mean, he demolished it!  He gets back on the road and drives 100 miles an hour all the way home, drinking beer the whole time.  I was thinking, "We're gonna die." (laughs)  He got me home, though.  After that, he said, "I'm gonna send you to Florida."

How many matches did you have under your belt by this point?
One!  The old man said I looked good in that match with Murdock, except for the hardway.  Now he tells me I'm going to Florida.  I had never been east of Longview, Texas in my life.  I had a Volkswagen Beetle.  He said, "This is Thursday afternoon.  You need to be in Tampa, Florida on Monday night.  The office is on Dale Mabry" (pause) ... or maybe it was Kennedy Street.

The Sportatorium was at 106 North Albany. Yeah!  Is it still there?
I haven't been over there in over fifteen years, but I've been told it's still there. Good.  Anyway, he said, "You've gotta be there on Monday, ready to go."  I had my tights and boots, my Volkswagen, and maybe $200 to my name.  I had it mapped out.  I was gonna leave Amarillo on 287 South, down through Dallas and Houston, then take I-10 all the way across.  I left right after I talked to Funk and drove through the night. I get just outside of Bowie, Texas on Friday morning and my engine blows up.  This is all the honest to God truth.  It actually happened.  I'm 24 years old and I'm cryin' and carryin' on.  I'm thinking, "This is it.  I'm stuck here.  I'm gonna be a dishwasher here in Bowie, Texas for the rest of my life."  A trucker sees my car smoking and stops.  He had a tractor-trailer rig.  He hooks a chain up and pulls my car to the first garage we come to in Bowie.  This greasy mechanic comes out and says, "It looks like you burned up your engine, boy!"  I said, "Yeah, I guess so.  I'm screwed now."  He said, "What do you mean?" I told him exactly what I was doing.  "I've gotta be in Florida by next Tuesday.  I'm starting a wrestling career."  "Really!?  I like that rasslin', boy.  Yur talkin' about that fake stuff, right?"  Back then, you fought to the death to defend it.  "Well, I don't know about that, sir.  I'm just getting started."  For some reason, he liked me.  He put a rebuilt Volkswagen engine in my car.

That quick?
That quick.  He had it in by that afternoon.  He said, "Here's what you do.  When you get down there, you call me and tell me where you're at.  You pay me as much as you can, every week, until you pay it off." We weren't making a lot of money, so it took me six months or so to pay it off. Talk about a good Samaritan. I guess the good Lord was watching over me.  I got in my car and took off.  I remember going through Mississippi.  You know how those rainstorms are down there.  Those truckers were goin' by and the water is all but knocking me off the road.  I was scared to death.  I remember when I crossed the Florida border into Pensacola, and then Tallahassee. I got into Tampa and pulled up in front.  I walked in the front door and there's Duke Keomuka with a big cigar in his mouth.  He looked at me and said, "Who are you?"  When I told him, he said, "Who?"  I think, "Sh-, here we go again!  I have no money and they don't even know who I am."  He was just pulling my leg, though.  He said, "Find a place to stay and come back tomorrow morning at 10:00.  You're gonna meet
Hiro Matsuda and a couple other guys that we're training."  I said, "Okay."  I found a room in a little house about two blocks from the office for $10 a week.  There was no air conditioning and it was the middle of the summer. I go back the next morning and Matsuda (pause) ... here we go, back to the basics of wrestling.  He rode my ass until I had mat burns from my cheeks to my ankles.

Who else was there?
There was Mike Graham and Dennis McCord, who later wrestled as Austin Idol.  Some of the old-timers came down.  Buddy Colt, George McCreary, Bob Roop.  Roop just about killed me ... but I learned.  We used to call our group the "black-and-blue division." Everybody would just boot the pi- out of each other. Eddie Graham used to come down.  He'd laugh and carry on, but he never took much notice of me.  Ed Wiskowski, Col. DeBeers ... he was there, too.  So there was a bunch of good guys who really became good workers later on. Matsuda would really work us out.  We had to work to where we could do five hundred jumping squats without stopping.  Sweat would be running off of us.  I remember my first match with Corsica Jean.  I guess the old-timer thought he could talk me through it, which he did.  I was in good shape, though.  I could wrestle for 45 minutes.  I remember wrestling the Alaskans, Mike York and Frank Monte.  It was me and ... I can't remember who my partner was.  We had to go an hour because the main event hadn't shown up yet, and we were the semi-final.  We had to keep wrestling until they got there.  It was an hour and twenty minutes before we could quit, but we were in shape for it. Jack Brisco and I became good friends.  I remember him when he was about 205 and 6-1.  He could move like a cat.  A lot of guys followed his style.  (Ricky) Steamboat and Jay Youngblood used to try to wrestle like Jack.  He had this flying arm drag that was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen in your life. I saw Jack do that move many, many times. 

When you went to Florida that first time, you only had one match under your belt.  Did you find it intimidating to wrestle for Eddie Graham, a promoter who expected so much from you in the ring?
Yeah, yeah.  As a matter of fact (pause) ... it was so funny.  Bob Griffin didn't show up one night, so I took his spot.  It was the first time I'd ever been in the main event.  I'd only been in the business for nine months or so.Bob Griffin was in the main event? 

What town was this?
It was in Jacksonville for Don Curtis. I didn't know Bob ever wrestled a main event in the bigger cities (pause) ... oh, yeah.  I take that back. I'll bet that's when he was teaming with Dale Lewis as one of the masked Saints.

Yeah, that's right.
One night, they asked me if I'd go in and wrestle Ivan Koloff.  I thought, "Oh, fu-!"  But I said, "Yeah, sure!"  I got with Ivan and ... if you know Ivan, you know he's real quiet and laid back.  He smiles a lot and he jokes a lot.  We got in the ring and he made me look like a million bucks.  He put me over big time. I mean, I put him over, but in the middle of the match, he called a high spot.  When he did, it was "Bing, bang, boom," and when he stood up, I knocked him on his ass.  I thought he was gonna kill me.  If you remember, the first rule of thumb if something fu-s up is "grab a hold."  I got the hold and whispered, "Ivan, I'm sorry."  He said, "No, it's my fault kid.  I forgot the high spot.  You did the right thing."  Ohh!  I'll never forget that.  I remember Matsuda tellin' us, "When you're in a match and you have a spot, and you forget it, grab a hold.  You can't go wrong by doing that."

Did you find Eddie Graham to be particular about you getting all the little things in that he wanted?
Yeah, but with the opening matches, he didn't worry so much about it.  He came down hard when something screwed up on the semi-final and main event.  Hell, I never wrestled more than the first or second match for over a year, because they were teaching me. It was a funny thing.  He kind of took a liking to me.  Eddie and I both went to Miami one night.  We didn't go together, but we flew down there at the same time. In his match, he got his bottom lip busted open.  I'm wrestling Buck Robley.  Robley comes up from the mat and catches me in the mouth, busting my bottom lip. When Eddie and I both get off the plane in Tampa, he looks at me and starts laughing.  I said, "What's so funny?"  He said, "It must have been a night for busted lips."  Our girlfriends were waiting there for us.  As we went our separate ways, he winked at me and I winked at him.  After that, he'd talk to me quite often.  It's funny how oddball things happen that help develop relationships.  I couldn't believe it when I heard he killed himself.  I heard he was in a lot of trouble with the Mafia over money or something. He had some real estate deals that were going south. Your first match in Florida was in Tallahassee on August 4, 1972.  You worked with Smasher Sloan. Smasher Sloan ... man!  I hadn't thought about him in years.  I remember Bob Orton Jr.  He weighed about a buck-ninety soaking wet.  He had his first match in Orlando.  There were so many great names that came out of there.  And I'll never forget.  Lou Thesz was still a great name, even though he was an older guy.  He was in his late '50s or early '60s.  He was watching the matches through a crack in the curtain one night.  I
walked up behind him and said, "Lou!  What are you doing?"  He said, "I'm watching the matches, kid."  I said, "You're the World champion.  You've been the champion seven times.  Why would you want to watch a match?"  He said, "Because everything I do out there, someone did it before me.  I learned to imitate those people and I learned my craft from them."  After that night, I watched the matches all the time.

What was the toughest aspect of the business for you to pick up?
At first, I really didn't understand the psychology of it.  The working part was easy.  I took to that like a duck to water.  I adapted to working, but it was the psychology that stumped me.  Back then, you really had to work the people.  You had to come up with high spots on the spur of the moment that would make the people pop.  You had to do a lot of false finishes in order to get the people involved in it. I'll never forget what Dory Funk Jr. told me one day. When Dory was the world champion, he had a lot of hour matches.  I said, "Dory, you work a lot of one-hour matches.  How do you fill that much time?"  He said, "If I have to go an hour, I try to work six ten-minute matches."  That was his philosophy.  It was so simple. God bless Sputnik Monroe.  There was a guy that showed me a lot about psychology while I was in Florida.  He was the master of psychology in the ring.  The guy could wrestle anybody.  Sputsy was too good-hearted and let people take advantage of him.  I hurt my knee one time.  That was the beginning of my knee problems. I'm like Terry Funk.  I went to the doctor and Sputnik said I had the knees of an eighty-year-old man because I didn't have any cartilage there anymore. When I walk, it kind of juts out to the right. The first time I hurt it, we were in West Palm Beach. I'm cryin' and carryin' on, so he drove my Volkswagen back to Tampa.  Sputnik lived in an apartment with a pool, so he said, "Come on over.  You're spendin' the night, kid."  We get home and he brought out a big jug of wine.  We sat and drank that, then he made me swim laps in the pool to loosen my knee up.  I'll be damned if it didn't get better. 

Does he still live in Houston?
He sure does. I haven't seen him in years. (laughs)  Jimsey Barnett came in one day.  Someone said, "Do you know Jim?"  I said, "No."  They said, "Well, he's queer as a three-dollar bill, but he's the promoter and he has lots of money."  He sees me and says, (Barnett imitation) "Oh, my boy!  I'd love to have you come to
Australia with me."  I really didn't want to think about what he was suggesting. (laughs) He said, "We'll give you $700 a week."  I thought, "Well, sh-! I never made $700 a month."  I was just a working kid, so I was excited.  I went to Australia for three months.  I met Danny Little Bear, Bob Griffin was over there, Dewey Robertson, Spiros Arion, Bob Roop, Dennis McCord, and (pause) ... oh, what was that guy's name. He was a big Italian guy. Dominic Denucci? Yeah ... no, no.  It wasn't Denucci. Mario Milano. Mario Milano.  I can't believe you remember all these guys.  Mario and Spiros were really nice.  They were good to me and taught me a lot.  The Fullers all came over ... Buddy, Ron and Robert. From there, I went back to Florida for another eight months or so, then went to the Carolinas.  They had some great talent there.  As a matter of fact, my first hour match was with Bobby Kay.  What a worker that kid was!  I learned a lot from those guys.  It was a time when wrestling was fun and you had to get out there and tell a story. I read in your book that Tank Patton died.  I couldn't believe it!  We were good friends.  Tank and I had hundreds of matches together.  I introduced him to his wife, Candy.  I don't know if she still lives in Corpus Christi or not.  He was living down there for years selling awnings and windows. What kind of money were you making in Florida? I was averaging about $300 a week.  I was in hog heaven, doing what I wanted to do.  Back then, though, wrestling was really an enjoyable thing to do.  You worked out, you ate, you slept, you wrestled.  I was in Florida and the weather was great.  I hung out with a bunch of great guys.  We drank beer and screwed all the girls we could.  What was the saying?  A six-pack and an arena rat. (laughs)  That's the way it was. It was really the life.  You get out of bed when you want, go to the gym and workout for an hour or two, and get killed by Matsuda for a couple of hours. (laughs)  He just passed away, too.  I don't remember if it was you that gave me the address, but I wrote a card to his wife.  I told her, "Out of all the people that I knew, Hiro gave me insight into wrestling and made me proud to be what I was."  He made me feel that I was part of it.  She wrote me back and thanked me for the letter, saying she knew Hiro would appreciate that.  He always smiled at me.  I wrestled him many times. When did you realize the wrestlers were working? I was so fascinated by it that I never thought of it that way.  I just wanted to get out there and do what the guys did.  That was my goal ... to get out there and be somebody.  I didn't want to be Steve Glidewell, just another guy in this world that was a nine-to-fiver.  I'd always been active in sports, so I knew I had the athletic ability.  I just wanted the chance to do it. I went to Tennessee from the Carolinas.  That's when I first met Jerry Lawler.  They brought me in and were gonna do big things with me, but Jerry got jealous of me.  I went from the main event one night to the opening match from then on.  I liked the people in Tennessee, though.  I had a great time.  I met Sonny King and Nelson Royal while I was there. (laughs) Nick Gulas' son, George, was wrestling then.  He was in a tag match with Nelson one night and I said, "Nelson, what are you doing?"  He said, "I'm ridin' this horse 'til it drops." (laughs) From there, I went to Kansas City.  That's when Buck Robley was the booker.  I think Brody came in and worked a few shots.

You tagged with Mike George?

Yeah!  Good old Mike.  He sells cars, or did sell cars, in St. Joe.  Jerry Blackwell was (pause) ...I'll never forget one night in Kansas City in the Memorial Auditorium.  He said, "Scoop slam me."  I said, "What?"  He was 410 pounds and about 5-11.  He
went up like a feather, but boy, when that weight got up there, he didn't feel like a feather.  I barely got him over without killin' him. (laughs)  God rest his soul.  Man, a lot of the boys have died. Jake Smith was in Kansas City when I was there.  I never thought he was that great a worker until I saw him again in New York.  Man!  I don't know what happened, but he was good!  He had perfect timing. Did you ever wrestle under any other names? No, I always wrestled as Scott Casey. You never worked under the hood? I did a couple of times there in Amarillo.  Bruiser Brody was in there.  God rest his soul.  What a crazy fu-er he was!  There's another guy that went to West Texas State University.  He hated the Funks with a passion.  He HATED the Funks. Brody was the West Texas State Heavyweight champion. He was getting ready to leave for Japan, so he had to drop the belt.  I'm standin' there listening to this sh-, right?  Funk (Jr.) says to Brody, "You need to drop it to Ricky (Romero)." (laughs)  Brody hated Romero, too.  Brody says, "Only if he can take it from me."  Brody said, "You fu-in' Mexican!  I wouldn't give you that belt if I burned it up and gave it to you in ashes."  Dory says, "Well, what about me or Terry?" I mean, they're catering to this big fu-er, because he drew a lot of money for them.  He said, "Nope!  I ain't droppin' it to any of you."  They said, "Well, what are you gonna do?"  He says, "I'm gonna drop it to him."  And he pointed at me. (laughs)  They looked at me like I was sh- on a stick, or like I had leprosy. I said something like, "Ah, but, ah, ah."  Brody said, "Shut up."  I shut up.  He said, "Next Thursday night in Amarillo, you and I will be the main event."  We sold the place out, because I was from Amarillo. Everybody in Amarillo knew me.  I beat him right in the middle with a sunset flip.  We couldn't have gotten any closer to the middle if the Funks had painted an X on the mat.  1-2-3. I really couldn't believe it.  We went around for the next two or three weeks.  He had me work as the Long Rider for a couple of matches.  I wore one of those long jackets and a silver mask.  Of course, everybody knew who I was.  It was just something to create some interest.  After a few weeks, he came out during my match wearing the coat and mask and HE became the Long Rider.  We went around and I beat him everywhere.  I kept the belt for three or four months. That was 1976.  Do you think that was the catalyst for turning your career around? Oh, yeah.  Definitely. That was your first title.  Do you remember how you felt when you won it? Oh, it was exciting.  I felt like "Mark of the Month" because I was all excited about it, but it was a great feeling knowing that I was the West Texas Heavyweight champion.  If the guys are really honest, I think most of them will admit that it was a good feeling to hold the title.  Of course, it didn't take long before I realized I had to carry the damn thing around with me all the time, and it was heavy. (laughs)  Back then, the promoters made you carry the belt.  They had a special bag for it. I had a good two-year run in Amarillo.  I don't know if I got burned out or what, but after that, I left wrestling for about six months and worked for a guy selling alarm systems.  I did real good with it.  I've always done good with sales. Then Tully (Blanchard) and Wahoo (McDaniel) called me from San Antonio.  They said, "We want you to come down and work some shows.  We're starting up a territory."  I said, "What the hell."  I told my wife that I wanted to go down there and do some shots. They flew me in for a couple of shows, then flew me back.  They did that for about four weeks, then got tired of paying airfare.  They said, "We want you to come in full time," and that's what I did.  I moved down there, left my wife in Amarillo, and that was the beginning of the end of our marriage.

That'll do it.
Oh, yeah.  They wanted me to come in as a heel, so I did.  I worked against Tully, who was the big babyface.  Well, he couldn't get over as a babyface, so we switched in the middle of the match.

Did Tully make the decision during the match?
Yeah.  It was his company, so he could do whatever he wanted to.  Wahoo was booking, so after the match, he said, "What in the hell are you doing?"  Tully said, "Scott's a natural babyface and I'm not."  So he became the heel and I became the babyface. What did Wahoo do?  Didn't that force him to change his whole program and all his plans? Oh, yeah.  He went nuts.  He was screamin' and hollerin' at Tully ... screamin' at me.  I said, "Don't scream at me!  It's his territory.  I had to do
>what he wanted to do."  The old man, Joe (pause) ...
Do you know Joe? I know of him, but never met him. He has a real bad leg.  He walks like he's gonna fold up like a deck of cards.  He came hobbling in there. "Jeez, Tully!  What are ya doin'?"  Blah-blah-blah. Tully said, "Wait a minute.  Listen to me, guys."  He talked for a minute, they looked at me, and then said, "Okay."

Did Joe Blanchard have any partners?
I believe he owned it outright.  I'm not sure if Charlotte (pause) ... what was her last name? Charlotte Mijares.  I believe she was Charlotte Carbone at the time. Yes.  I don't know if she was partners with Joe or not.  I know she was in the office, but I think Joe and Tully controlled it all.  Wahoo and Tully booked the towns.  Joe might have been booking when they first started in the early '80s.  Wahoo helped a lot and really encouraged us.  He'd say, "Come on!  Get fired up!  Get mad!"  Do you know Charlotte?I sure do.  She's married to Omar Atlas. Yeah.  She wrote a book called "Blood, Sweat and Cheers."  It's loosely based on me and a lot of the guys in that territory.  There's a lot of truth to it. That was a great little territory down there.  We had a lot of fun and made some money.  In the early '80s, we had San Antonio popping.  They had Gino
(Hernandez), Tully, Wahoo, Wayne Farris, Tank Patton. I'll never forget.  I wrestled Eddie Mansfield in a hair match.  Just before we went out to the ring, Eddie held them up for another two or three thousanddollars.  That was the biggest payoff I ever got up to that time.  It was like $1,500.  Eddie held them up for four or five grand.  "It's my hair and my reputation," he said.  They were pi-ed about it, but sh- ... we sold the Hemisphere Arena out.  They had never done that before.  They had Dick Slater, One Man Gang.  I was laughing to myself because they were the underneath card.  They had always been the main event everywhere else.  I never got to work on top. (laughs)  If you ever talk to Hercules Hernandez, ask him who gave him his name.  He was in San Antonio as Ray Hernandez.  He said, "I've gotta get a gimmick, like Ulysses or Atlas."  We're drinkin' beer and going down the road.  I finally said, "How about Hercules?" Damned if he didn't leave there and go to Kansas City ... as Hercules Hernandez. (laughs)

Were you with the San Antonio promotion during their entire run, up to the time they closed down?
Yeah.  Fred Baron was promoting and booking it. Freddie Baron?  The former wrestler? No, no.  You wouldn't know him.  He's a blond haired guy.  He's in jail now.  He went to prison for tax evasion and he was trying to get a judge killed or something.  They got wind of it and he's in Huntsville Prison now.

Did you pick up the cowboy gimmick in San Antonio?
Yeah.  I went in there as Scott Casey and wore regular wrestling gear.  Wahoo said, "You've gotta have a gimmick."  I said, "I never have before."  He said, "I'm an Indian.  Do you want to be a cowboy?"  I thought it would be fun to do something different, and
I liked the idea, so I said, "Yeah, sure," and I became Cowboy Scott Casey.  I wore the hat, vest, leggings. Then I really became a cowboy.  It's funny how it all evolved.  We're back to that leaf in a whirlwind, just flying around.  I met some cowboys and a guy named Terry Richael.  Terry knew more about horses than anybody I ever met.  He had horse stables on his place on the south side of town.  I'd go ride horses with him.  Well, I got the bug and I bought a couple of horses.  Then Terry went to work for another company, so he asked me, "Would you like to rent this property from old man Beard."  I said, "How much is it?"  He said, "Three hundred a month.  You can make that back with the horse stables."  I'd charge people $75 a month to board their horses.  They cleaned their own stalls and fed their horses.  I learned how to shoe horses, ride 'em, rope cattle, so I really became a cowboy for awhile.  That really helped me get into my wrestling gimmick. I also raised quarterhorses on the south side of San Antonio for about seven years.  In fact, at one time, I owned about eight of my own, but they eat a lot of hay and oats.  You need to raise them and get rid of them.  My place was called Scott Casey's Stables.  Iran them until I was going to wrestle in Dallas, so Jim Howard took it over.

Wasn't it profitable?
No, it was.  We pulled twelve to fifteen hundred dollars a month out of it, but I couldn't be 300 miles away and take care of all that had to be done.  Jim had done a lot of favors for me.  In fact, he lived on the property with his family.  It was like sixty acres.  It had a house on it, so he stayed there for free and watched the place to make sure nothing went wrong.  When I left, I just said, "Here, you take it over."  I figure I owed him that much because he helped out a lot.

Did it feel funny getting into the cowboy gimmick at first?
Oh, no.  I just loved getting into the ring and wrestling.  I just loved the sh- out of it.  It was a good workout and you worked up a good sweat.  You could have painted me purple and peeled me like a grape, and I would have been happy with that.  We did so many angles with that character.  Eddie Mansfield and I came up with a bunch of ideas.  He'd say he was from the city and I was just a goat roper.  We wound it up with the hair match.  Eddie Mansfield kind of reminded me of (pause) ... do you remember Eddie Haskell in the show "Leave it to Beaver"? Sure. He was a prickish, blond-haired kid.  That's what Mansfield looked like.  He was about 5-foot-11, but the kid could bump like Ray Stevens.  He had great timing.  He got disenchanted after he left San Antonio.  He did a big article in a magazine, exposing the business. He did a blade job on the 20/20 TV show. I heard about that.  He was really pi-ed off at the world about wrestling.  [door opens and closes, wife enters the room]  We've been on the phone for the last two hours. [voice in background]  My wife says, "I've been trying to call you for two hours."  That's Scott Teal's problem, honey, not mine. (laughs) (laughs) 

What kind of income did you make in San Antonio?
I probably averaged anywhere from the high 30s to the mid 40s when I was in San Antonio.  It wasn't that great, but we loved the business. (laughs)  We'd hop in the car and drive from San Antonio to Odessa, which was 360 miles, wrestle, then turn around and drive back home ... for fifty bucks.  The guys today would say we were out of our minds.  I've wrestled in little towns where we made a twenty-five dollar payoff. You'd stop and think, "Hell, this doesn't even pay for my gas."

Did Joe Blanchard give you any kind of a guarantee?
No.  I take that back.  On the average, I never made anything less than $75, although there were times when we might make fifty, but that's when things were just pitiful.  We worked seven days a week for months at a time.  You just got in the habit of doing it.  There were entire years when I only had a couple of days off... and that was Christmas and New Years. Not only was Tully the promoter's son, but he also had some control over the book. 

Did the boys resent the fact that he gave himself such a big push?
Well, it's not that they resented the push that he got.  They resented the fact that he was a little prick.  He was so into himself.  I don't know if this was a carry-over from college, because he was a big, stud quarterback at West Texas State.  He was going to
go on to the pros until he had a car wreck.  He was right-handed and it cut his right latisimus in two. They sewed it back, but it screwed up his throwing arm.  (Roger) Staubach even worked out with him one summer, so they had big aspirations for him.  For some reason, he always had this attitude that he was better than everyone else.  I worked for him for five or six years down there.  After awhile, I just had to tell him, "Tully, shut the fu- up!  I don't want to hear your stuff."  He looked at me like, "Who are you to talk to me that way."  Tully was a miserable son-of-a-bit-.  Tully always walked with a black cloud hovering over him.  There were times when I saw him happy and having a good time, but most of the time, he seemed miserable.  That's sad, but that's how it was.

Gino Hernandez was in there at the time, wasn't he?
Yes.  Gino and Tully teamed up and did real well. They did the cocky, young stud deal.

Were you there when Gino died?
Yeah.  What a waste that was.  From what I heard, andI don't know if it's true or not, but the story was that he was transporting cocaine.  He did something
wrong and whoever was behind the product took him out. They found him in his apartment after he'd been dead for three or four days.  They said he was blown up as
big as a tree.  There was a cereal bowl full of cocaine lying by the bed.  You can speculate or guess all you want, but we'll probably never know the true story.  The police might know and will never say, but that's my own personal feelings about it. Tully and Gino got into drugs real heavy.  I'll never forget.  Honest to God!  This is a true story.  Wahoo is the booker and Tully was helping him.  Wahoo's in there doing the booking and Tully comes in.  He hasn't shaved, he's half drunk.  That afternoon, we go to do promos for the TV show.  Tully gets out there and he's wired to the max on cocaine.  He tries to do a promo... and he tries and he tries and he tries.  He must have tried at least a dozen times.  Finally, the old man ... he had a clipboard with the order of the promos written down and he'd mark them off.  He slammed it down on the floor and said, "Dammit!  I knew I should have shot that one against the wall when I had him!" (laughs)  I'll never forget that as long as I live.

So Joe was well aware of Tully's problems?
Oh, yeah.  When Taylor died, the youngest boy ... he was about sixteen years old.  He would have been an All-American everything in football.  Tully was a great football player.  He went to West Texas State, too, but he was a little after me.  When Taylor was killed, it seemed like the old man went downhill.  I mean, he had one boy left, and by God, no matter what went down, Tully was right.  He would get so frustrated with the kid because Tully and Gino would be so screwed up on coke.  They'd be trying to do promos and ... When the promotion started to fall apart, I started to call around.  I worked in Dallas for a while, then I called Pat Patterson in New York and said, "Pat, can you get me booked?"  That was around February.  He said, "Yeah, we can probably work you in by July." So, for three months, I just did local stuff.  Killer Tim Brooks had a little promotion in Dallas and I worked some for him.  A blond-haired Steve Austin came through and worked the opening match on the card. (laughs) You also worked for a small promotion in South Dakota right after San Antonio folded.  You were in there with Rick Casey. Yeah, and Bob Sweetan. (laughs)  This is the funniest story.  This guy called up and asked Blanchard if we could go up there.  Blanchard said, "Yeah," so we told the guy how much we needed.  He flies us up to Des Moines, Iowa.  From there, we drove to either Sioux Falls or Rapid City.  This was in July and it was hot. When Bob and I got off the airplane, the heat just
melted us.  We noticed that the promoter had left his van running.  I thought, "That's nice of him.  He left the air conditioning running for us."  The guy says, "I had to pick up a little work here."  We opened th >door of the van and here's a gurney with a body laying on it.  It's in a body bag and the air conditioning was running to keep the body cool.  It turns out that the promoter was a mortician. (laughs)  Sweetan and I threw our bags on top of the body and we rode four hours with a dead man in the back.  Every time we'd turn a corner, that body would move, and I'd catch it out of the corner of my eye.  I'd look back and think, "This is another story of my life in the wrestling business."  Don't ask me how I remember this.  The promoter said, "Harry E. Mayberry died of natural causes at 89 years of age."

What was the main town in the territory?
Well, I don't know if the guy promoting it was just a wrestling mark or what, but we only wrestled in Sioux Falls and another town, then went back to Texas.

Who was the promoter?
Um ... (silence)
By any chance, was he a heavy-set, gay guy?
That's who it was!
That's Bert Prentice.  He's been promoting in Nashville for several years now. Wrestling?
Yep. Well, I'll be damned.

Who was the Rick Casey that was there with you?
His name was (pause) ...
Wendell Cooley?
Yeah, that's it.

How did the two of you get hooked up?
He was from Milton, Florida.  He looked like Mel Gibson, a handsome fu-er.  He sent pictures to San Antonio and they liked him.  He and I were pretty close to the same age and size, so they asked, "We have a young guy that looks a little bit like you, so we'd like to use him as your brother so we can get him over real quick and draw people."  I said, "Sure."  I was over, so they wanted him over to hot shot the territory.  He came in as Rick Casey and we wrestled together for several months.  He was a real nice fellow.  I should have written all this down, or kept a diary when I was in the business.  I could have saved you a hell of a telephone bill. (laughs)

Where else did you and Rick work as a team?
I can't remember if we went to Dallas together.  Oh, yeah.  We went to Birmingham for the Fullers.  They put me over big-time strong.  What I was doing was just killing time, waiting to go to New York.  I didn't tell those guys that I was going. (laughs)  I dropped the bomb on 'em one weekend.  I said, "Next week, I have to leave for New York."  Well, hell!  On the next TV, they beat me in ten seconds flat. (laughs)  That was fine with me, though.  I could have cared less.

You and Wendell Cooley weren't together as a team for a long period of time, were you?
We were in San Antonio for several months.  What a worker that kid was.  He was just a natural.  He was good on the stick, too.  We were almost identical in size.  I wish I had kept up with him.  You know, it's funny, but when I got out of the business, I was so depressed with it that I didn't want to be around anything or anybody that had anything to do with it.

Tell me about New York.
It was exciting getting into the big time and seeing all the guys.  I knew all the guys.  That's one of the things that was so nice about it.  It's funny.  I had been the main event in Texas and drew some pretty good money there.  I went in there and in my first match, I had to put somebody over.  I thought, "Oh, fu-!  Here we go again."  I didn't meet Vince until we did a TV about a month later.  I did everything through Pat Patterson.  Evidently, somebody had a hard on for me. They didn't want to put me over.  I worked underneath and had a few main events when someone didn't show up. I guess I worked there for almost two years.  One day, I was talking to (Hulk) Hogan.  I said, "I don't understand what the deal is."  He said, "What's that?"  I said, "Let me talk to you for a minute," and we went to his dressing room. Let me back up a little.  My first show was in Buffalo, New York.  When I walked in, there was about 150 guys.  I'd never seen so many wrestlers.  Hogan walks over to me and shakes my hand.  He says, "You don't know this, but I used to watch you wrestle in Fort Lauderdale.  I was with a rock and roll band and I used to come watch you wrestle."  I said, "I'll be damned.  Now I'm watching you make all the money." (laughs)  Anyway, a year or so went by.  I said, "Terry, I don't understand it.  I was a main event all over Texas.  I went to Australia, Japan, New Zealand... all these places, and I drew money.  Here I am now
and nobody wants to give me a chance.  Who doesn't like me?" Now, if you know Terry (Hogan), you know Terry is for Terry.  For some reason, though, he liked me, so he went and talked to Vince and told him what I said. The next thing I know, Vince calls me into his office. He says, "We want to do something with your cowboy gimmick.  Bring it to the TV taping."  I bring my hat, chaps, vest ... the whole bit.  All this sh- is heavy, right?  And I have to carry it around.  Three different TVs ... they tell me to bring this stuff to. Three different TVs ... I put the sh- on.  Three different TVs ... I wrestle and put somebody over. George Steele ... he and I got to talking a lot.  I said, "I'm so fu-in' depressed.  Man, they won't give me a chance.  They won't let me make any money." Sure, I was makin' like fifty or sixty grand, but fu-! I was spending half of it for expenses on the road, so I'm back to making thirty grand a year. You can stay home and do that. Yeah.  We went to Odessa, Texas.  This was going to be the last show I wrestled there, because I knew they were gonna cut about twenty guys loose, and I was one of 'em.  This was like January, 1990.  Vince had a little office set up in the back.  He calls me in and I said, "Before you get started Vince, just tell me. Do I have a job with you or not?"  He said, "No."  I said, "Okay.  Let me say something."  He said, "I kind of figured you probably would."  This is exactly what I told him.  I said, "I can accept failure when given a chance to fail, but you never gave me that chance. You had me bring my gimmick three times and you beat me three times."  He looks me straight in the eye, Scott, and he says, "Well, we really didn't know what you could do."  I thought to myself, "You fu-in' liar." I was on USA network for ten years, which went to many different countries, all over the United States, and I wrestled every week.  I would train six days a week, two or three hours a day.  I knew my craft and could work with anybody.  I was so mad.  I really had to fight the urge to climb over that table and beat the sh- out of him.  I'm all steroided up, weigh about 255, and hard as a rock.  But I kept my composure.  I didn't do it.  I told him, "You know, Vince.  Maybe in the next life, I'll come back and be your boss."  He said, "Well, I would hope you'd treat me accordingly." I said, "Just exactly the same way you treated me." Right before that, we had the Survivor Series.  I was in a match with Andre the Giant, Rick Rude, Ken Patera, Tito Santana, Dino Bravo, and Harley Race.  I have the tape here somewhere.  If I can find it, I'll send you a copy.  It was the biggest payoff I ever made.  I got five grand for five minutes, so you can imagine what kind of money these guys were making.  To top it off, he says, "Why don't you go to Atlanta for a year, then come back and we'll do something with you."  I'm 42 years old, so I thought, "No, fu- it!" He took all the heart out of me. Even the guys in New York.  Many of them told me they didn't want to beat me, but they had to do what they had to do.  Guys like Barry Darsow and Bill Eadie even apologized.  I told McMahon, "No, I think I'm gonna go home."  I left Odessa and flew back to Dallas.  I lived in Valley Ranch.  I sat in my apartment with my wife for two months and just stared out the window.  I didn't touch the weights.  I had lifted religiously for twenty years, and I didn't touch one weight during that time.  I was frustrated and felt sorry for myself... and that's how I ended my career.  I was so disenchanted and so hurt.  I mean, I was one of the guys who ... "Okay, you want me to go out and do a job in the middle?  Fine.  I'll gig myself or do whatever you want me to do.  Let's get this over so we can all make money."  I was one of the boys ... so it just killed me that he would do that.

<You can choose to answer these next questions however you'd like, or you can refuse to answer them at all. You mentioned using steroids when you were with the WWF.>

When was the first time you actually came into contact with steroids, either as a user or just seeing them used in the dressing room?
I would say in Dallas, before I went to New York. Several of the guys were using them ... Kerry von Erich, Jeep Swenson.  Jeep used them big time.  I used them off and on.  Steve Sasser, who worked as Steve Casey, my little brother.  There was a lot of guys. You just had to know where your head was.  I wanted to look bigger, so I used them.

How were you introduced to steroids?
In the gym, working out with weights.

So it wasn't a direct result of the wrestling business?
No.  Mine came from the gyms.  Oh, sh-, Scott.  I probably spent three hours a day working out with weights.  I was dedicated to it.  That's what I wanted to do.  When I first started, the guys said, "Ah, you'll never make it.  You're too small." (laugh) Don't ever tell me I can't do something.  I'll prove you wrong.  There was a lot of guys in New York that did it.  There was a doctor in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Dr. Zahorian.  He's the one that was indicted in the WWF scandal back in '94. This guy had a storage room in the coliseum.  You walk back in there and, I swear to God, Scott ... it looked like a pharmacy.  There was shelves and shelves of the sh-.  He was probably raking in ten to twenty thousand dollars a night.  It was just unbelievable money. We'd all sit around having a needle party, sittin' around stickin' each other in the ass.  Hercules Hernandez, me, Dino Bravo ... tons of guys were doin >it.  I mean, you're on the road in New York and you go two or three weeks without a day off.  You've gotta workout ... you've gotta get your rest.  Well, you can't rest because you go from East coast time to West coast, from middle America back to the West coast, then over to the East coast.  There was guys taking Halcions, which were sleeping pills.  You drink on top of those things and you think you're a combination of Bugs Bunny and Superman.  It really screws you up.

How many years did you use steroids?
Off and on, probably ten years.  I can tell it in my
joints. I can tell it in my knees.

So you do notice some negative effects from the use?
Yeah, yeah.  If I sit for a long time, my knees hurt when I get up.  They hurt until I walk around for awhile and warm them up.  It's primarily in my joints. I haven't had any other physical problems.  As a matter of fact, I just took a physical for some life insurance we took out when we bought this new house. My blood pressure was 130 over 80, which is perfect. So outside of my knees, I haven't noticed any negative effects from the steroids.

While you were taking them, did you worry about problems you might have down the road?
No.  My philosophy is that life is a window in time. There are things you'll never be able to do when you get older, so I said, "I'm only going through this life once.  While I'm here, I'm going to look as big and strong as I can.  If I suffer any consequences from my actions, then so be it."  That may be an ignorant way to look at it, but that was the way I saw it.  I was so dedicated to what I wanted to do that I decided I'd do whatever it takes. It's a given ... it will blow you up and make you real strong.  I was so strong at one time that I benched well over 500 pounds.  I did a seated, behind the neck press with 330 pounds for five reps.  I'm not bragging.  These are things you can ask Ed Leslie (Brutus Beefcake) about.  He spotted me on it. Over time, I think steroids became something that was almost a necessity for anyone who wanted to make it in the business, just to keep up with everyone else. Yeah.  You could get hurt, but if you were on steroids, you'd be well within a week.  It may have been a masking of the injury, but you didn't feel it like you would if you weren't on them.  I have to admit ... it [steroids] was probably a stupid thing to do, and it was a stupid way to live, but it was what I Iwanted.  It's what I felt like I needed to do to be on top of things.

Did they do any drug testing at all when you were in New York?
Uh ... they started testing in 1990 or so, right before the sh- hit the fan with the trial and all. The guys backed off of them.  Hell, I still did Deca-Durabolin and they didn't say anything to me about that. It's funny, but when I was in Toronto, I was wrestling Curt Henning.  When I went up for a dropkick, I realized he was too close to the turnbuckle.  I was afraid I'd tear his head off, so I backed off.  Well ... you can only stay in the air so long, right?  I came down and my right arm was the first thing to hit the mat.  It snapped the interior part of my tricep. I took several Percodan for the pain and drank about half a fifth of Jack Daniels.  The next night, they did a urine test.  They did random urine tests all the time, so I didn't think anything about it.  The next day, I get a call from Vince.  Hell, I probably only talked to Vince four or five times in the two years I was up there.  He says, "Scott, we have a report here that shows a lot of Percodan in your system."  I said, "Well, you would too if you ripped your tricep.  I'll bet nobody called and told you about that, though, did they?"  "Oh, oh.  That's a valid reason for it then."

They didn't detect any steroid usage?
They were testing for things like cocaine and marijuana.  I didn't do that sh-.  That just wasn't my bag.  Give me a six-pack and I was happy. They don't test for beer, I guess. (laughs) 

So it was easy to get steroids?
Oh, yeah.  We went to a lot of gyms across the country.  Four or five of us would walk into a gym and they'd let us work out for nothing.  We were publicity for them.  They'd always ask us, "Do you need any stuff?"  We'd say, "Yeah, we need some deca ..." or
whatever.

Did you ever suffer any side effects, like roid rage or physical problems?
No.  I didn't have any problem with it.  Some guys got moody, some got depressed.  Ultimate Warrior used to get depressed as hell.  He'd bit- and moan. (laughs) I called him Dr. Depression.  He'd laugh and mumble, "Why do you say that?"  "You ought to listen to yourself talk."  He was a funny bird. Most of the guys would go on a cycle ... eight weeks on, four weeks off.  Deca-Durabolin, which is an Anadrol type thing ... it didn't really affect you that heavy.  It was all the other stuff the guys would take.  They'd take Dianabol, Winstrol, and some of the growth hormones.  Well, I never did do any of that crap.  I just needed something to keep me looking hard and big. There's a lot of guys that are still takin' 'em.  You don't get guys that look like Chris Benoit, or (Scott) Steiner.  A man will not look that way.  I don't care if he goes to sleep at 8:13 every night, wakes up at 7:13 every morning, works out five hours a day, and eats the right food.  It's not gonna happen.  Benoit must weigh 280 pounds and he's only 5-11.  The kid is strong and he can wrestle like crazy.  I hope they give him a big push.  Right now, he's kind of in the middle.

Did you have any problems once you began to come off of them?
No.  I noticed that I got weaker.  I didn't lose any size, but I just didn't have the strength that I did. Honest to God!  I could fly on a plane from New York City, land in Los Angeles, and go out to Venice Beach to Gold's Gym.  I could walk into a gym, stone cold, lay down on a bench, put 405 pounds on.  I could stick my feet up in the air, cross my ankles, and I could do ten reps.  That's how strong the stuff made you. Sometimes, though, you have to suffer the consequences.  Hell, who knows?  I may die of a heart attack tomorrow from it. We'd go to high schools, and junior high schools, to promote the shows when we were in town.  The kids would ask me about steroids.  I'd tell them, "I'm gonna be honest with you guys.  I take 'em, but you and I are different people.  I'm not gonna condemn them or condone them.  For me it works, but it may kill you.  Before you even think about trying something, you should go to a doctor and talk to him and see what he says.  Just because you like the way I look doesn't mean that you're gonna look that way."  I was just straight up with 'em.  I didn't lie to them about it.  I just told them to make their own decision, AFTER they talk to their doctor, their parents, their friends.

Did any promoter ever encourage or goad you to do steroids in order to bulk up?
No, not really.  I did 'em because I liked the way I looked.  I didn't get hurt as much. (laughs)  If I did get hurt, I didn't notice it.

Did you enjoy working in Dallas?
Yeah.  I remember Bronko Lubich.  He was a great referee.  If he saw something wrong, he'd tell you. He'd correct you right in midstream.  The Von Erichs... the boys were always on top, so unless you were working with them, you weren't on top.  If you wanted to work on top in Dallas, you were gonna be a heel, and I wasn't a heel.

What was your average weight?
I want to say around 240, 245.  I got up to 260 once.

Where did you do your first promo for an upcoming match?
I don't think I ever did one while I was in Florida. I did a couple in the Carolinas.  It was funny.  I had to wrestle Johnny Valentine.  He was really (pause)... how do I put this?  Sadomasochistic? (laughs)  That's close enough. He loved to get hit.  He loved it!  He loved to waffle guys in the stomach and between the shoulders.  He'd blister you if he could.  He wouldn't hit you in the face or the ribs, but he'd slap the hell out of you. I go out to do a promo and I said, "Valentine's reputation precedes him.  I never wrestled the man, but I hear he's quite a competitor."  After it was over with, George Scott, who was the booker ... he was from Dallas, too.  He took a liking to me.  He said,
"Scott, do you know John?"  I said, "No."  He said, "Well, you'll have to fight for your life."  I said, "What!?"  And he pushed me out the door toward the ring.  He's laughing his ass off. I get out there and I'm wrestling this guy.  He locks up like a gate swinging closed, really tight.  I thought, "What the hell's goin' on?  I wasn't taught to work this way."  Finally, he knocks me out on the apron and turns around to the referee.  I thought to myself, "By, God!  I've had enough of this.  I may be fifteen hundred miles away from Texas, and I may get fired for this, but I'm not gonna let this son-of-a-bit- do this anymore."  I got up, grabbed him by the hair, and yanked him back over the apron.  I just beat the pi- out of him.  I hit him with my right hand just as hard as I could.  He looked at me and went, "Ooohhhh!  I love it."  I'm thinking, "Oh, sh-! What have I got myself into now?"  After that, he was just light as a feather. Evidently, from what I could put together later, Johnny and George had discussed it before the match and decided to give me a little baptism there in the Carolinas.  It was on High Point TV.  I'll never forget it.  What a sick son-of-a-bit-. (laughs) Johnny loved to chew tobacco.  He'd sit in the dressing room and spit the juice into a Coca-Cola bottle, then look at me and laugh.  He'd try to do his little psych job on me.  After awhile, I got to where I'd ignore him, but he drove some of the guys crazy. Valentine was always trying to come up with something to do.  One night, I went home after the matches, and for some reason, I didn't go through my bag like I usually did to let everything dry out.  I got up the next morning and took everything out, and there was a pack of Elephant Butt Chewing Tobacco.  I'll never forget that name.  I opened it up and there was a turd in there.  I don't know if the guys do those things anymore, but back in those days, they were always pulling some kind of joke. (long pause)  What were we talking about, Scott? (laughs)  Interviews. (laughs)  Oh, yeah.  I'd sit there and watch these guys talk.  I loved to listen to Dusty Rhodes.  He reminded me of a southern preacher.  And as an announcer, Gordon Solie was so smooth on the stick.  I was always a great student for watching peoples' body movement.  Everything's been done, so you imitate somebody else.  I didn't try to imitate Dusty's accent, but I used some of his expression.  The way he'd open his eyes real big, or he'd lick his lips and look off in the distance, them come back and point his finger at you.  I tell the kids I train, "Everybody says being a wrestler is easy, but there's so many facets that you have to go through.  It takes a lot of time before you can grasp it all." It took me a little bit.  They'd tell me to look at the camera and relax, or get excited, or frustrated. I wasn't a natural at it.  The only guy I'd say was a natural at it was Ric Flair. (laughs)  We'd do live interviews and the adrenalin would just be runnin' through me.  I'd get out there and say, "I'm gonna kick your fu-in' ass ..."  Oohh!  At times, you couldn't help it.  It's like I tell my students.  "If you really want the people to believe in what you're saying, YOU have to believe in it.  At that moment, you have to convince yourself that you want to beat the hell out of the guy you're talking about."  That takes time to develop.  It also depends on whether they're using you in programs.  For a long time, all I did was general interviews.  "Hi.  I'm Scott Casey. I'll be in Abilene on Friday night."  You can't get into those very easily because you really don't have much to talk about.  Unless you were part of a program, you really didn't have the chance to get any experience doing promos.

At what time in your career were you the happiest?
Probably when I was in San Antonio.  That was the best time for me, in the '80s.  I was in my thirties and was makin' a little money.  I don't know if you've ever been in that part of the country or not, but in the fall and spring, it's absolutely gorgeous.  The summer's the sh-s because it's so hot, but the winter's not that cold since you're so far south.  I had a good time in Florida.  I worked underneath, but it was a beautiful area, even though it was humid and hot.  The women were hot and the beer was cold.

Did you ever get tired of the travel or feel like you were just going through the motions?
When I went from Tennessee to Kansas City.  I was there with Ricky Morton, Ken Lucas, Jake Roberts, Harley (Race), Buck Robley.  It seemed like it was just a job.  That was the only time that I ever felt that way.  Things are different from one place to another, and with some people.  Robley was a weird duck, anyway.

What are your thoughts on how people will cheer for the heels now?  In other words, the blurring of the lines between good guys and bad guys.
(laughs) You watch TV now and everything is roundhouse kicks, punches, explosions, knives, bullets.  I guess people like the violence.  Hell, Ted Bundy had a fan club.  At times, I think society has changed for the worse, but you can go back 1,500 years and people were cheering for the tigers instead of the gladiators. Did you ever work with any of the wrestling bears? No, but I saw Bob Roop pin the bear in Amarillo. (laughs)  I remember Sputnik Monroe getting in the ring with the bear and someone goosed it.  The bear charged Sputnik and he literally flew over the ropes.

What about riots or problems with fans?
Bobby Jaggers and I were working against each other one night.  The people were right on the edge of rioting.  He was outside the ring and the people began to circle him.  I jumped in between them and grabbed him by the hair.  I yelled, "Get out of the way.  I'm gonna run his head into the wall," then ran him right back to the dressing room.  That saved his ass. There was another time in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia.  We went over there and wrestled for Fritz.  I'm wrestling Abdullah the Butcher.  There was a huge crowd out there.  On the back side of the crowd, there were guys on horseback with rifles in their hands.  Every time something would happen, they'd shoot their rifles.
That scared the sh- out of me.  I hear this high voice (imitates Abdullah), "Throw a punch at me."  I threw a punch and Abdullah took a huge bump.  The people got real quiet.  Well, unbeknownst to me, every other son-of-a-bit- over there is named Abdullah.  He laid there and says, "In the twenty-five years I've been working as a heel, nobody liked me.  Now they love me ... and they're gonna kill you."  I thought, "Oh, sh-!  I'm gonna die over here in a third-world country. I'll never get back to Texas."  I said, "You fat, son-of-a-bit-!  If you don't get up, I'm gonna strangle you right where you lay."  The people were climbing over the railing around the ring, so he finally got up and knocked the pi- out of me.  He did the same thing with me that I did with Jaggers.  He grabbed me by the head and ran me back to the dressing room.  That was the only time I can think of that we were on the verge of an all-out riot.

Were you ever involved in a bad accident while on the road?
Les Thornton had this big, whale-bone of a Cadillac. It was a '55 or '56.  He just loved that car.  We were driving along one time and it was the wintertime.  The overpasses had froze over.  All of a sudden, the car started spinning.  I'll never forget Les going, "Hold my beer, hold my beer!"  He got us out of the spin and we wound up on the other side of the road going back the way we came.  We didn't crash, though. (laughs) We laughed like hell afterwards, but it wasn't funny at the time.  Do you remember Bruce Swayze? Yeah. Beautiful Bruce.  He lives in Franklin, Kentucky.  He was about my size.  He and I were wrestling underneath in Norfolk, Virginia.  We rode up with Brute Bernard and Swede Hanson.  Bruce was a real sh- disturber.  He loved to pull ribs.  Back then, we had what we called bologna blowouts. (laughs)  I've participated in several of those. (laughs)  We'd stop at 7-Eleven and get our beer, get our bologna, get our cheese, bread, mayonnaise.  The guy in the front seat made the sandwiches.  The guys in the back seat opened the beer.  It was just a continual rotation.  We leave Norfolk after the matches in Swede's station wagon.  Bruce and I were in the back.  He whispers, "Watch this."  Now Brute ... did you ever know Brute Bernard? No. Brute was huge, but he had the brain of a pigeon. Bruce says, "Are we home yet?"  Brute, who talked with a French-Canadian accent, says, "No, coch-suchaire. We're not home yet!"  He called everybody that.  We get a few miles down the road ... Bruce does it again.
We get to the 7-Eleven, the same thing.  We get out on the highway, the same thing. Swede, who was actually an Italian, was a huge man. He's got his false teeth out on a napkin and is drinkin' a bottle of wine.  Bruce continues to ask, "Are we home yet," as we go down the road.  We're sitting in the back, laughing about it.  All of a sudden, Brute throws his triple-decker sandwich and beer into the air, turns around and climbs over the front seat, and grabs Bruce by the throat.  "I keel you, right here."  Have you ever tried to pull a 290-pound man off a guy?  Bruce is actually gaggingand choking.  Finally, Swede slams on the brakes, right in the middle of the freeway.  Cars are whizzing by left and right and Swede gets out of the car.  He pulls Brute off of Bruce and gets him back in the front seat. We get halfway home and it's been quiet for a long
time.  All of a sudden, Bruce pipes up, "Are we home yet?"  Brute turns around and I thought, "Oh, God!" Brute didn't do anything, but Bruce didn't say it anymore, either.  We get a few miles further down the road and all of a sudden, Swede slams on the brakes. He yells, "You mother fu-ers!"  "What's the matter?" He says, "My false teeth!"  When Swede got out of the car, the teeth fell out on the ground.  He turns around.  Normally, you get home to Charlotte just as the sun's coming up.  It's like 440 miles.  When we got in, it was almost noon, and we had to go to Charleston, South Carolina.  Brute was simple-minded, but he could be a good-hearted guy.  He was a damn good worker, too. They had some brutal trips there.  In the Charlotte territory, if you got the sh- run, you left for Norfolk and wrestled on a spot show about halfway to Norfolk.  You drive on to Norfolk right after wrestling, spend the night, then wrestle in Norfolk. You leave right after and drive 445 miles back to Charlotte.  You get in about the time the sun came up, then take off for Charleston later that day.  You'd walk in, eat a bite, and keep on going.

Did you ever have any problems with someone in the ring who wanted to do more than just work?
The only person I ever had a problem with ... and it was a mistake on my part.  Let me back up.  I wrestled Randy Savage.  They were in Amarillo.  It was Randy, Angelo (Poffo) and Lanny (Poffo).  I wrestled Angelo right before he quit.  We're in the ring wrestling and we had a false finish.  I'm just barely on top of the guy and the referee goes, "One, two, three," and counts him out.  Right away, he says, "Get off of me!" If the old-timers barely flinched, you were supposed to fly.  I apologized, but he was pi-ed off. The next night, we're in Albuquerque, 300 miles west of Amarillo.  I'm wrestling Lanny.  That kid could amateur wrestle.  He tied me up like a Christmas bow. When I broke loose, I smacked him in the nose and said, "Come on!"  The referee said, "That's enough." That's the only time in twenty years that I ever had any problem with anybody.  Most of the guys were there to make money. (laughs)  Luke Brown, the Kentuckian, and me are wrestling Jonathan Boyd and Norman Frederick Charles in Asheville, North Carolina.  Boyd had me all tied up and is laughing, "What kind of wrestler do we have here?"  When he finally let me loose, I tagged Luke in.  Luke was about 6-6, 300 pounds.  He saw what they were doing to me, so he gets in the ring.  Boyd and Charles tag in and out a few times.  Luke had been eating bananas, onions and peanut butter.  He farted and Charles threw up.  He said, "That'll teach you to mess with my little buddy."  That's a true story. Boyd and I were both laughing our ass off.  That was the only time I had any problem with that, but they were just having fun.

Do you remember any legit fights between any of the guys?
Adrian Adonis took on all-comers when he was in Amarillo.  If you could beat him, you won $10,000. He'd take on anybody and just beat the pi- out of them.  I saw him whip guys from Amarillo to El Paso to Abilene.  He really worked them over.  He worked with a Corporal somebody.
Corporal Kirschner?
No.  It was his partner.  He and Adrian just beat the pi- out of each other.  Anyway, he got in there and whipped him in ten minutes.  When he got out, he said, "I don't want the $10,000.  I just want to be a wrestler." (laughs)  I guess Funk was happy about that because he didn't have to fork over the ten grand. Outside of that, I never saw anybody get into a fight.

Can you remember when you first realized the guys were using blades to cut themselves?
Duke Myers smartened me up to that before I ever got into the business.  He showed me how to make a blade and said, "You can carry it in one of two places, on your finger or in your mouth."  I used to carry it in my mouth.  The first time I ever did a blade job was for the Spoiler, Don Jardine.  I really did a number on my head.  Jardine says, "Great job, kid!   Keep it up."  I thought to myself, "Bullsh-."  I was taught to just barely poke it in, then twist it a little.  The forehead bleeds more than anyplace else because there's so many capillaries.  After awhile, you got to where you could do it without scarring yourself up too badly. The first time I saw Terry Funk gig his ear, I said, "What did you do?"  He said, "I cut my ear."  I tried it one time and that hurt so bad.  I never did it again.  When you stop to think about it, we were all a little crazy to do some of the things we did. Arman Hussein and I wrestled on TV.  He had a long fingernail on his right hand.  When we locked up, his fingernail went into my cheek, all the way to the bone.  We were only thirty seconds into the match.  I picked up a chair and beat him to death with it.  I was so mad.  I had my girlfriend take me to the hospital.  That was on my 33rd birthday. (laughs)  The doctor looked like Trapper John from the old TV show. He sewed it up with such minute stitches that you can't even see it.  That's the only time I ever had anything like that happen, but I've seen guys get
gaffed so bad that they had to get stitches.

What was your best money year?
I had a couple good years in San Antonio and up in New York.  Out of the twenty years, probably four of them were exceptional where I made seventy or eighty thousand dollars.  I was always in little territories where you didn't do that much.  I guess I overstayed my welcome in some territories.  I always stayed as long as I could.  I was in Amarillo for three years, even though we traveled 2,500 to 3,000 miles a week. Me, Wahoo and Tully went from San Antonio to Hawaii. I worked with Lars Anderson, then came back to California.  I caught a plane from there to Atlanta, worked on Atlanta TV, came back and worked in San Antonio ... all in three days.

Did you have a hard time making the decision to quit the business?
Yeah.  My eyesight was getting bad.  I'd be hittin' the ropes and I'd see six ropes instead of three.  I told myself, "It's time to get out of the business." I didn't want to embarrass myself.  Even Ric Flair. No matter how good the guy is, he's embarrassing
himself.  He won't admit that, though.  (Hulk) Hogan has to be in his forties. As I told you, when I got out in '90, I came home and was so depressed.  I lived in Valley Ranch, which was like a suburb near Irving.  It was just a few blocks from the cowboy training camp.  All I kept thinking was, "What a way to go out.  They give you your walking papers and that's it."  After three months or so, I got over it.  I quit thinking about wrestling. I quit watching it completely.  I didn't start watching it again until just this last year, and that was only because I had trained Booker T and Stevie Ray.  Yeah, it was kind of hard, because you dedicate your heart and soul to something like the wrestling business, then all of a sudden, it's over with. You go from being "somebody" to just a regular Joe. That's it!

What did you do at that point?
I worked construction for the first summer, but it was so hot down here.  I thought, "I'll bet I could sell cars."  There was a lot of guys that did that.  I went over to Towbin Jeep-Eagle in '92.  There was a Hawaiian guy who worked there.  We got to talking and I said, "You wouldn't by any chance know a guy from Hawaii by the name of Curtis Iaukea?"  He said, "Are you kidding?  I dated his daughter for almost two years."  I said, "I used to wrestle with him."  He says, "Brother, you've got a job."  I went to work in the Jeep division.  I did that for three years, then went into the sign business.  I got out of that after a year because the guy was crooked and was cheatin' me out of money. One of the guys I worked with at the car dealership was working for the Luxor Casino.  He said, "Scott, stop by and see me."  He introduced me to the director of security and we set up an appointment.  He said, "Your friend tells me that you're from Texas and that you wrestled."  I said, "Yeah."  He said, "Did you ever wrestle in Cleveland, Ohio?"  I said, "Yeah, I wrestled there in the Auditorium."  He said, "I was the chief of police up there.  I was there when you were there."  This was on a Friday.  He said, "Come back Monday and you have a job."  So wrestling opened quite a few doors for me in my life. I also do some bodyguard work.  Jeep Swensen and I were working out one day when this guy walked in and asked, "Do you guys bodyguard?"  We said, "Yeah."  He told us what he wanted and Jeep and I spent twenty-four hours with John Travolta.  Now that he's in the big time, I'd like to see John again to see if he remembers me.

Why did you move to Las Vegas?
I moved to Vegas because of a family situation.  Later on, a European promoter called me.  He needed some talent to work with some of his boys.  They had a show they wanted to film at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino. I walked in the dressing room and there's Tito Santana and Ken Patera.  That was the last time I wrestled for money.  I think that was '93.

You currently work for the Luxor Casino.  What do you do there?
I'm a bike officer there in security.  I work outside. I don't even go in the casino.  We patrol the whole property on bicycles.  I put around twenty-five miles a night on that thing.  I work the graveyard shift from 11 to 7 in the morning.  I've had chances to go on the day shift, but it's 107 degrees outside right now and riding a bike in that isn't my idea of fun. When they escort the drunks out, we escort them off the property.  If a fight starts, we have to take care of that.  We take care of traffic control.  There are certain lots that are monitored twenty-four hours a day.  We all carry weapons.  I carry a '38 Smith and Wesson.  I just finished my fifth year in June.  I tell the guys, "I've saved more money since I've been there than I ever did in wrestling."  That's real funny, because when I got in the business, all we thought about was "six pack, arena rat, and have a good time."  I was just too stupid to stop and think, "You'd better save for a rainy day because you won't be able to do this forever." I have things that I never had before ... paid holidays, health and dental.  I didn't have health and dental for the entire twenty years I was in the business.  Nothing! And no holidays, much less paid holidays. Oh, I worked Christmas Eve, New Years Eve, New Years Day. You didn't want to miss them because those were the big shows. Yeah.  That's where the big money was.  I love doing appearances.  There's a guy here who had an autograph signing session with me, Ken Patera, Mad Dog Vachon and Jim Neidhart.  We signed autographs for a couple hours and the guy gave us five hundred bucks.

You train wrestlers for a guy named Buffalo Jim, right?
Right.  Buffalo Jim is an icon here in Vegas.  He owns Buffalo Jim's Auto-Marine Supply on Industrial.  He's a wrestling mark personified.  I mean, he's smart to the business, but if you walk into his place of business, the walls are covered with pictures of wrestlers.  He has pictures of him shaking their hands, posters of him hugging Muhammed Ali, sitting with Kris Kristoferson.  Picture this, now.  He's about 6-1 and weighs a little over 300 pounds.  He has hair that goes below his shoulders ... he looks like Bruiser Brody.  He doesn't work out and makes money like crazy.  If you were to hold him up in a dark alley, you'd probably get between twenty and thirty grand.  He carries that kind of money on him all the time.  He probably owns sixty or seventy automobiles. He has a 12,000 square-foot, three-story house on the east side of the city.
A few doors down from his Auto-Marine place, he has the BWF ... Buffalo Wrestling Federation.  You walk in and the front room is full of trash and crap.  We keep the back, where the ring is set up, swept out and clean.  It's a small ring, probably 16x16.  I train about eight guys in that ring.  He'll do that four times a month.  He charges them $250 a month and they get to wrestle around twice a week.  I charge him fifty bucks for every two hours that I work with them. I do that about twice a month, so I make a couple hundred extra bucks.

How did you start working for him?
I'd been away from it for about ten years.  I noticed in the paper one day that Buffalo Jim was running a school with Yokozuna as the teacher.  It was right off Sahara on Industrial Boulevard here in Vegas.  I went by and talked to him.  I said, "Hey, if you ever need another teacher, let me know."  A month later, he calls me up.  He said, "Would you still like to teach?"  I said, "Yeah."  Evidently, Yoko was bleeding him dry.
Yokozuna weighed around seven to eight hundred pounds at that time. 

How could he teach anyone about wrestling?
Oh, he just sat on the outside and let everybody kill each other.  Jim asked me to teach and I've been doing it now for about two years.  We've run some shows in places like the Orleans Casino and the Silver Nugget. When it was promoted right, we'd draw fifteen hundred people.

Is Nick Bockwinkel still announcing for the group?
Yeah, yeah.  He still does the announcing.  If you ever talk with Nick, ask him about Buffalo Jim.

He uses the Guerreros, too, doesn't he?
Yeah.  Chavo is here in town.  I don't know what he's doin' now, but he was working for Pepsi.

Do you wrestle on the shows?
No.  I could wrestle, but I've just been runnin' the back room, making sure things are on schedule and the finishes are right.  As a matter of fact, one of my proteges is now the (WCW) world champion, Booker T. They mentioned that three or four times on TV, so Larry Zbyszko says, "Well, I whipped Scott Casey's ass!"  Fu-!  I never even wrestled the guy.  I don't think I ever met him. (laughs)  I've had a lot of people call me about it. They should bring you in and work a deal with you. I would hope so.  I'd love to go in there.  I'm still in shape.  Give me ten grand for a couple shots.

How did you meet Booker T?
After I got out of wrestling, I was living in Houston. I was working out in the gym and Ivan Putski walked in one day.  I said, "Putter!"  That's what we always called him.  "Putter, what are you doin', brother?" He said, "I live here now.  I've remarried and opened up a wrestling school."  He said, "Do you wanna teach?"  I said, "Sure!  How much do you pay?"  I forget what it was.  It wasn't much.  He said, "Come on over.  I have a bunch of students." I go over there and here's two black kids, Booker T and Stevie Ray.  Booker T was a natural.  Stevie Ray needed a little more help, but he caught on fairly fast.  He was pretty athletic.  I worked with them for three to six months.  We'd train them three or four times a week.  Putski had a huge ring in an air-conditioned building.  He married some gal with money, so she was footin' the bill and we were doin' the work. I've got a kid here now named Gary Mills.  He's almost 6-5 and looks like Rob Lowe in the face.  He's a handsome guy.  He's got long hair, works out, has a big chest and small waist.  The kid has his own suntan company here in town and has like five or six outlets.  I've been trying to get ahold of Terry Taylor, but the mother won't call me back.  He has that answering machine on all the time.  I called the other day and I said, "Terry, I've got a guy I want you to see.  I trained him.  After all, your world champion WAS trained by me, so I know what I'm doin'."  I don't want this kid to go through the mill.  He's smart and he can work.  He's not one of these that they're gonna have to beat up.  I know this kid can do it.  He has that look about him.  His name is Gary Mills.  He goes by Rush.  He may be a little bit bigger than Booker T. While we've been talking, I've been thinking to myself, if I can get Rush into New York, I'm gonna bleed that son-of-a-bit- McMahon for everything I can. It's his territory.  He can do what he wants to do and he did what he wanted to do.  Life's not fair and I can understand that, and I'm not cryin' the blues about it, but it just wasn't right.  You can quote me on that.  If he denies it, I'll tell him he's a fu-in' liar, just like I would Zbyszko, sayin' that he whipped my ass in the ring.  I never wrestled the guy. Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. (laughs) That's just fine.  The boys love to hear someone reaming McMahon. 

Do you pay any attention to what's going on in the wrestling business?
I watch the matches now, and even though they're
schmazola, I still enjoy watching some of the moves
they make.

Are you married?
Yes.  I got married right here in Las Vegas to a girl named Katie.  Her real name is Karen.  She's a flight attendant with Northwest Airlines.  In fact, she's heading across the pond to Japan this week.  She does that about three times a month.  Everybody thinks that's such a glamorous life, but she puts in sixteen hour days.  I was already out of the business when we
got married, but she watches it [wrestling] with me once in awhile.  She says, "I just don't see how you could have done that for so many years."  I said, "I don't either ... it's 'stupid is' I guess."

How did you meet Katie?
I sold her a car when I worked at the Jeep dealership. That was in '93.  I had been divorced for quite awhile at that time.  Three years later, we got married.  We're buying a four-bedroom house, so the next time you're in Vegas, give me a holler and you can stay with us.

What about hobbies?
I have a 40 caliber Smith and Wesson.  I like to target practice with that.  I like to build things, so now that we're in this house, I'll be doing that.

Do you stay in touch with any of the guys?
No.  As I said, I was so depressed that I didn't talk to anyone.  Nick (Bockwinkel) and I talk once in awhile.  Of course, Chavo lives here in Vegas, so I talk with him once in awhile.  I'll tell you who I did talk to the other day ... Harley Race.  He's running his own territory up in Elgin, Missouri.  Bob Orton used to drive me crazy.  When I got out of the business and was working for the Jeep dealership, he used to come by and say, "Hey, kid!  What're you doin'?"  The salesmen would look at me like, "Who the fu- is this guy?"  I haven't seen him in a long time. Buffalo (Jim) had his son come in for a show several months ago.  He's the spittin' image of his old man. Leo Garibaldi lives in your neck of the woods, too.

Yeah, he works in a jewelry store ... Kay Jewelers in Meadows Mall.

So you're pretty content with your current job and situation?
Yeah.  I mean, I'm not gonna get rich, by any stretch of the imagination.  I'd like to write a book about my experiences in wrestling.  I've talked about it before, but I'm gonna get with it.

Any regrets?
The only regret I have, and it's a fault of my own, is that I didn't save my money like I should have. That's why I'm working as hard as I am now ... to make things right.

Did you ever have a part in a movie or TV show?
I did when we were working in San Antonio.  Tully, Wahoo, me and all the guys went up to Baltimore.  This nutcake up there wanted to make a movie called "Blood Circus."  Ox Baker was in it.  We filmed for two weeks, then the guy says, "That's it.  I don't wanna do this anymore."  He paid us our money from the time we were there, but he never did finish the movie.  I still have a clip of the tape somewhere here in the
house.

Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us, Scott.
If you talk to any of the old guys, tell them hello for me. 

Let's stay in touch, okay?
We'll do that.
Thanks, Scott.