Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCLXrtlpbOU
The Joe Rogan Experience no I out of the life I have to admit it wasn't always cost effective but I I lived in a gimmick but yeah but it's such a fun life yeah what year did you start like what what year did you make your first like pro wrestling matches 73 73. I started trading in in Fall of 72 and I made my I had my first match in January 73. those are the old days man the Kowalski days Crusher Bruiser yeah I mean but you started wrestling after the plane crash right no plane crash was in 75. oh wow tell us about the plane crash um we were going from Charlotte to Wilmington North Carolina for Outdoors Show 10 000 Legion Stadium where Dr Michael's from um it's first time at Michael Jordan in Wilmington and um we like what happened ultimately is he took five of us on the plane and he we didn't know at the time he was carrying no fuel because we were 1400 pounds over gross right so we get there and hit a little bit of a headwind or between seven and eight thousand it's not a pressurized plan so that's not 310. and um he did what's called past the point of no return he should have landed in Raleigh and refilled but he's looking and say it's 100 miles right so unbeknownst to us the guy right in front of me Johnny Valentine who got paralyzed kept looking at the gas station looking back at me and going uh I got to go Johnny at that dry sense of humor well we're flying along all of a sudden the right engine goes maybe like six times over like you said in the movies and Bingo pin right I went he reaches down he pulls up the reserve natural reaction there is no reserve gas left engine went beer boom and instead of which what flew into a Orchard Tree Orchards right normally a little cartwheel a small aircraft we're going so fastly toward down and landed a railroad makement stuck at the ground at 230 miles an hour so we were probably going you know well over 300 and we're just uh literally 200 yards from the runway wow
they tried and you're you he died and you never regained conscious and two chicks came both engaged to him don't don't knock out at the door at the hospital door oh boy I told the guy he said he goes Joey Yuna could talk all day so they're putting this in the middle in the ambulance right it's like the old military style not like the ones today that are like like a hospital room right you're putting in a rack right and he goes I think we might lose this one so I go I told the guy I said I think he's talking about me I said man go my shaving kit to the letter to a chick named Sheila said tell Sheila I love her or not to come see me last night I think I showed up 10 years later the Manchester you remember me I'm the guy that got the letter for you thanks so how bad did you get injured in the accident wrote my back three places T10 11 and 12. fractured the actual bones of the compression Frederick yeah I used to be a six foot two so they had to fuse your back nope no surgery at all really yeah they just didn't think I'd ever wrestle again and I I'm you know that goes that was what we're gonna do right they said you're never gonna wrestle again yeah [Laughter] I was in 75. would you say when was it like October of 75 and I was back in the ring in March of 76. yeah I went from 255 to 180 back to 218. wow but it never got myself to land flat on my back again ever you know everybody knows the land of my hip and my side yeah because of your back injury yeah just couldn't get myself to land flat so the promoter I was wrestling said if you don't take a backdrop that's really flip over a guy shoulder and go up in here like six seven feet boom I'm Gonna Make You wrestle an hour every night you do so I'll go after two weeks of wrestling and you know and some of the crowds back then were 250 300 people you know I mean five bucks ringside Fisherville North Carolina or Fisherville Virginia middle of nowhere right one hour every night
finally I said damn it I'm just gonna take the backdrop throw me in hit the road took it boom that was over but I I just couldn't give myself a landslide on my back when you did what happened were you all right it was fine yeah so it was just psychological all psychological yeah Jesus Christ