Crime in Sports - #362 - Butter Bongs & Bar Fights - "Dr. Death" Steve Williams

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

This week, we look at someone who was thought to be the toughest man alive, by just about everyone who ever met him. A college football player/wrestler, who made his mark in pro wrestling, all over the world. He was as beloved as he was feared. We'll hear all about too many bar/street fights to count, not mention how a person gets caught at customs, with a lot of drugs... THREE times! Be an amazing athlete at every sport you try, insist that copious amounts of drugs can be taken to other continents, and be beloved by everyone in your industry with "Dr. Death" Steve Williams!!Check us out, every Tuesday!We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. The Queen of the Courtroom is back. How did I know that? i have crystal ball in my head new cases leave her a long so uh this is not a so this is a period classic judy it's streaming you can say anything it's an all-new season judy justice only on freebie Hello everybody and welcome back to Crime and Sports. Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed.

My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us on another crazy edition of Crime and Sports. Can't stop, won't stop. That's what it is. Hope you enjoyed Conor McGregor and his saga of... What the fuck? That's not over. His saga of it is. Hope you enjoyed Conor McGregor and his saga of. What the fuck?

That's not over. His saga of unfinished business. Of unfinished business. That is not over. He will be back. Yeah. I mean, between him and Gervonta Davis, that's a hell of a fight to see who's going to get the coveted, the also coveted, most likely to get another episode scummy award.

I'm waiting. The silver handcuffs. waiting for handcuffs the silver handcuffs you get they're very very nice so we have a lot of crazy before you today too we have a wrestling episode hey so we have crazy and steroids and brain damage and all sorts of fun stuff mixed up into one right it's a lot of fun and we can't wait for that very quickly before we get started definitely head over to shut upAndGiveMeMurder.com. What's there, you may ask? Tickets! Come see us for a live show for Small Town Murder.

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New stuff, whole back catalog, couple hundred episodes to binge on of bonus stuff. And new episodes every other week. This week is no different. What you're going to get this week, it's a fun week this week. We're going for just crazy and disaster and wild stuff. Crime and sports, we're going to talk about theme park disasters that have happened. We talked about defunct theme parks before. Now we're going to do theme park disasters, which is a lot of fun. A roller coaster that killed 100 people flew off.

We'll talk all about it. Then for small town murder, we're keeping it equally chaotic with prison riots. We're going to talk about some of the craziest prison riots in the history of the world. So it's going to be so much fun there. That is patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get all of that. We can't

wait for the chaos and you'll get a shout out at the end of the show, which is always fun. Keep an ear out or an eye out for your stupid opinions, which is coming as soon as we can humanly legally bring it to you it's all we we have it's all good it's coming it's all smoothed out it's not it's all business stuff that we have nothing to do with the show is done we're waiting to put it out so thank you for your patience we can't wait to can't wait to give that to you and we'll let you know when that is happening so that said let's get right to the crazy jimmy okay let's get to it with a guy a very well-loved guy this week a boy the opposite of

conor mcgregor conor mcgregor is a guy his audience his currency is i'm an asshole though yeah like if you hate him it's because he's conor mcgregor and if you like him it's because he's conor mcgregor you know what i mean Like you either like an asshole or you don't like an asshole. You either like a douchebag with a Hitler haircut or you don't. You know what I mean? It's one of those things. Whereas this guy, there is very, very, very few like you could scour the earth and have a hard time finding many people who don't like this guy. He's just one of those guys that's beloved by everybody he ever worked with, beloved by the entire Oklahoma University Sooner fan base especially. Huge stuff. It is Steve Dr. Death Williams. Remember him? The wrestler?

Don't remember Dr. Death? You'd know him if you saw him probably. I thought you were going to say Cold Austin. No, no, no. He's coming too. By the way, I'll blow one of the mistaken identities right now. His name is also Steve Williams, by the way. Is it really?

Yeah. So doing research, poor Ian, on this one. Wrestler Steve Williams, you're coming up with. Oh, no. Yeah, you've got to mix in his DUI, and this one slapped his wife, and then this one didn't. There's a lot here. But this is a different Steve Williams.

This is Stephen Franklin Williams, better known as Dr. Death, didn't and there's a lot here but this is a different steve williams this is stephen franklin williams better known as dr death which is of course a pretty goddamn good nickname for a wrestler and you got to have a certain gravitas to pull that kind of shit off you gotta be pretty tough you gotta be pretty tough and this is one of the guys where you know wrestling aside because you know you can say there's a lot of guys and wrestling is one of those things where it used to be a lot of tough guys and shit like that but wrestling some of the guys are performers now you know what i mean they're not tough guys i don't know if they got in a fight if they'd be able to fight they can pretend to fight yeah i don't know

if they know how to throw a real punch if they ever have before but they know how to throw one that you know looks fun in the ring you know shit like that but like this is one of these guys where no one questioned his that this guy's a really bad motherfucker honestly because his college sports is like a career is legendary for being just one of the toughest people that's ever existed so we'll talk about him here he's born may 14th 1960 he's from lakewood colorado he's born right he has a lakewood fellow here yeah yeah he um he grows up he's a big guy when he gets full grown he's about six two not when he's born obviously you know that would have been tough on his mom poor lady jesus christ six one and he's you know 285 pounds he's one of these guys that if you look at him like if he turns sideways you're like holy fuck your chest is you're deep he's a deep motherfucker like his

but his torso is thick like you could you look at him you go how can i hurt a person like that he's got no neck and what little neck he has is the same size as his head. So there's no like it's just connected to him. And he's just so strong looking. Looks like that X-Men. What was that thing's called? I don't remember. Oh, God. I don't know.

I don't remember. You can see him. You know what I'm talking about? I see the thing, but I don't remember. Yeah. I don't remember. Is it Argonaut? Argonaut.

I don't know. Maybe. He's the bad guy in the second Deadpool. I think there's a He-Man character that relates to this as well, but that's even farther back in my memory, so I have no idea. Very similar. Very similar. The brown head, no neck. Yeah, yeah.

No neck, yeah. Put a mullet on that and you got Steve Williams here. So he's born and raised in Lakewood. He's got three older siblings here here uh he's the youngest of the four obviously he's got his brothers are jeff and jerry and he's got a sister named dotty as well and he was born he said he was only seven pounds when he was born so not even a huge some some of these huge guys they were 13 pounds yeah i was too it's not bad he got named after his grandfather so his father didn't junior him which is nice his parents are dotty and gerald williams which is interesting oh no his sister

okay his sister's name isn't dotty his mother's name is dotty not his sister so sister's name don't know i know his brothers are jeff and jerry i got that okay so he uh he said that he had a nice house grew up on a big four-bedroom brick house they had a big one-acre lot nice place you know real grew up in a in a very comfortable environment not rich or anything but just 60s middle class suburban fine yeah doing fine you know whatever he said uh he was not, he was raised Protestant. They went to church, but not, you know, they weren't, they weren't religious about it. You know what I mean? Not crazy. Didn't do anything. You know what I mean? Didn't do anything like that here. So he's a

holidays, you know? Yeah. That's what I mean. They go, we got to go to church this Sunday, but it wasn't like, Oh my God, we're going to be late for church and everyone will talk about us. It wasn't, they didn't go Mormon about it or anything. So that's nice. Uh, his parents didn't meet until they were, his parents were both in the Navy mom too, which, yeah, which is just every time. If I read any woman in the Navy, if I know there's tons of women in the Navy, it's very normal, but all I think of is overboard. You were in the Navy.

I was in the armed forces. You were in the Navy. I was in the armed forces. You got to remember. You were in the Navy. You were in the Navy. The way he says it's awesome. Now I automatically think of Goldie Hawn when I picture Steve Williams' mom. So they met at a Naval Academy, at the hospital at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Oh.

Fell in love and got married in two months. And they were still together 50 years later. That's yesterday. I don't know if they're still alive now. All right. He said his mom was like average size, not a huge lady or big lady or anything. He loves his mom. He said his mom worked a lot, worked not a huge lady or big lady or anything. He loves his mom. He said his mom worked a lot, worked at the Copper Kitchen restaurant as a bookkeeper.

Oh, after the Navy, huh? After the Navy. Yeah, retires from the Navy. And he said she came to all of his athletic events, which is a lot. Football and wrestling. In high school, he does like every sport. He's very athletic. Dude, I've had enough of it.

It's a lot. I've had an ass full of these kids games. Athletics In high school, he does every sport. He's very athletic. Dude, I've had enough of it. It's a lot. I've had an ass full of athletics, high school. And it's becoming more and more and more. It's so crazy. Imagine if they liked more than one sport. Oh my god, I could not. I could not. It's just one thing you have to know. What are we doing today?

Track and field? Do you really need to do track and field? Really? Pick one. Track or field. You got a shot put and football and wrestling and that's enough already come on holy shit how do you letter in three different sports how do you have the time yeah that's what i'm saying well he didn't care about uh school at all as he'll say later on we'll talk about he said his dad gerald was the hardest working person he's ever known in his life he loves his dad he said his dad, Gerald, was the hardest working person he's ever known in his life. He loves his dad.

He said his dad's an entrepreneur and owned a flower shop. Listen to how diverse his father is. Not diverse, but just an eclectic man. He owned, how many people own a flower shop and a tire store at the same time? Think about that. Those are the two most different businesses I've ever heard of. And who has interest in both those things? Gerald Williams does. You get snow tires this year.

You get free daisies. That is awesome. And he also worked. He had two stores and also worked for a computer company. And so he said he was always just trying to make more money for the family his dad was on the pretty uh the pretty the city council as well the pretty council they call it the pretty city council you know it had to be pretty good looking to be honest you know pretty hot shit how do you how do you do it i don't understand how they do this i don't know

how these people can leave their house at seven in the morning and get home at like 10 o'clock at night and not go oh my god i'm gonna kill everybody and just get up and do it again the next day do it tomorrow what yeah you could do it once and then you'd be like i'm never doing that day again that's this guy's every day sounds like a fucking nightmare so we have by the way a lot of this information comes from steve williams's own book he wrote a book and in 2008 i believe the book came out so that's out there to buy and it's very interesting if you're if you're interested in his life here i mean that's it really goes into a lot of detail but the best parts of this book are people's because he'll be telling a story and then they'll just be in a different

font there'll be a story about him from quoted by somebody else you know what i mean a book that has breaks in the action breaks to to kind of give you context of something it all makes sense yeah he'll be talking about like you know we went and got in this bar fight and then they'll cut to a quote of somebody talking about how steve williams is in bar fights you know what i mean wow stuff like that so this is his brother jerry on steve here he says steve is one of a kind from the time he was a toddler steve was unique i remember when he was nine months old mom put me uh put him in a middle bedroom and a half door so she could let him play safely in a manageable area so i that's like one of those farm doors almost. It did not take long, however, for Steve to figure out that all he had to do was get over the half door

and he'd gain access to freedom. Although he did not walk, this Hercules of a child would support himself, leaning against the bed and rocking it back and forth like a baby gorilla until it had moved across the floor and up against the half door. He took the bed for a walk to the door. Couldn't walk yet. This is pre-walking, so under a year old here to do that. He couldn't walk, and he taught the bed to walk.

Wow. At that point, he would use the bed to catapult himself over the half door to the other side. Holy shit. The only problem is that he would land on his head and start screaming bloody murder this might explain some future actions he must have been successful doing this routine a dozen times until dad added a three-quarter door and his efforts were finally curtailed he can't get that high can't get that high 12 times on his head yeah well i mean he's probably got permanent brain damage i'm gonna going to fix the door. Yeah.

He's at it too late. He is doing a lot, though. He's got like three jobs and a flower shop and a tire store, and he's got to vote. Fix the door tomorrow. He's got to vote on whether to repave Main Street because it's got that pothole. There's a lot going on. Yeah. There's a lot happening.

He says he loved to go fishing with his dad. He says, quote, he would take me and my brothers to great many fishing places in Colorado. When I was eight years old, just the two of us camped and fished at a secluded lake for hours away from everything. I was so excited to be there with my dad. I got up early just to get the fish, just like he taught me. Okay. early just to get the fish just like he taught me yeah okay one time in the woods i ran to use the bathroom and a branch from a tree ripped my ripped open my eyelid oh god jesus that's horror horrifying i started to cry and scream because blood was everywhere uh-huh you know and i'm a child and

all right i added that part myself but as my dad to me, I begged him to take me to a hospital and then home. You know, have my eye put back together. Fix this. Holding me tight, dad said, Stephen, we aren't going anywhere. He calmly cleaned the cut and made a butterfly stitch to close the wound. After I calmed down, we went back to fishing. Closed his eye? You've got a hole in your eyelid. I got a band-aid, Steve. We went back to fishing. Closed his eye. You've got a hole in your eyelid.

I got a Band-Aid, Steve. We're going to fish more. Oh, boy. It'll dry. It'll heal. Steve, the muskies are biting. I have to. We have to get back in there.

I'm sorry. Yeah. There are giant trout in here. We're not leaving. Nobody's here. The crappies are going. They're all it's all ours but you don't see anybody else here do you come on the worms will all be dead

if we leave it all dad i have a fucking hole in my eye well you should be able to see extra then even when you close your eyes should be fine you're bionic now so he goes on to say though i was his baby boy he was a disciplinarian and showed me no favors the youngest of four children i was bar none and why and a wild kid i thought i was invincible and could get away with anything jesus i also got my share of whippings my dad used to whip me bare bottom good lord that. That sounds. Pull his ass out to do it? Yeah, that sounds both violent and weirdly, you know, like some kind of sexual fetish at the same time. Some sort of erotic. Yeah, that's gross. I don't like that at all.

I remember one time I had just turned eight. My father was getting ready to whip me for something I had done. Getting ready. That sounds like he's got to get his equipment out. He's putting his apron on. He took a shower for this. Yeah, puts his flower bouquet-making apron on. This time, however, I told my dad,

no, I was tired of being beaten. You should have seen his reaction. Unfortunately, my request didn't stop his attempt. So as my dad went to strike me, I grabbed his leg and rolled over on him. He did a single leg on his dad when he tried to. I'll just snap your fucking femur. That's amazing. I quickly snatched the belt from his hand and said, I've had enough of this.

I'm a man. Enough. How old was he? Eight. He was eight when this was happening. I'm a man. I'm a man. Enough. How old was he? Eight. He was eight when this was happening. I'm a man. I'm a man. Well, he did just take his father down and disarm him.

So you know what? I think he kind of is a man at this point. He single-legged his dad and then took the fucking weapon out of his hand. That's a man. He's at least more of a man than his father. No shit. He said, I'm sure my dad was laughing inside, but I never got a whipping again. Oh. Well, he knows. he's not just taking a beating you gotta really you can't go four beers in with this kid you gotta be sober and have your shit together i think that

is the line you draw with punishment on your child though is when if he can disarm if he can turn the beating on you oh it's over then yeah You are no longer in charge of this house. I guess not, at least not of the beatings anymore. Simba's the king now. You start sending Steve to dole out the beatings now. This is good, Steve. This is good. This is his mom, Dottie.

Quote, Stephen was a very adventurous kid, and he gave us a headache every once in a while sounds like more than that he said every once in a while he said I should have known that Steve was going to be a professional wrestler the way he would climb over that fence there's a fence he talks about his parents had a local carpenter put up a wooden fence around his backyard so he couldn't get out of the backyard it was to like a dog. They fenced him in. It wasn't to keep people out. It was to keep him in. It was to keep their rabid child in the yard. That's amazing.

And he would eventually figure out how to climb the fence. So his mother said how he would climb that fence and keep getting hurt and cut on up all the way over. We would watch him climb and climb and fall and fall. And no matter what, he was determined to get over that fence he was one tough little cookie no shit he's a determined little shit let's just say that's what he is by the time he was 13 he said he weighed 260 pounds at 13 but fat not muscular yeah there's no way that's a muscular no no no he was just a big heavy kid he said his brother he said everybody at school would call him fatty or fatso that was his nickname he just took it because everyone did it

everyone's when the girls are like hi fatty you're like all right what am i gonna do punch sally in the face i can't do that so yeah that's the problem oh yeah when it's everybody you gotta go okay maybe it's me fuck i don't know maybe i'm a fatso i guess i'm a fatso and you walk away you know that sucks that's what makes kids feel like shit it happens yeah so his brother jerry got engaged and said that if you lose 60 pounds because he was in his wedding he said steven's gonna be one of his ushers so he had to have a tuxedo he said if you lose 60 pounds by the time our wedding comes around i'll buy you a new stereo system and all this shit for your room and so steve was like i lost 60 pounds hardcore he was

like tomorrow yeah he was like i was jacked i couldn't wait to have a new stereo so he lost 60 pounds so wow that was the way he did weight loss he has a strange way to keep weight off in college too we'll talk about here so here he is talking about his school days, high school. Quote, I wasn't the brightest kid on the block. Though I liked history, my favorite subjects in school were gym and lunch, which don't have books, either of those. I went to school to play sports and hang out with my friends. I liked school, but often found it very difficult. That's a

lot of falling on your head too is the problem there yeah maybe in elementary school i had to take special classes it was hard for me to stay focused on things that i had little interest in i would often find myself easily distracted by sights and sounds and had a hard time concentrating for long periods of time that sounds yeah Today I would probably be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Yeah, that sounds pretty by the book, honestly. Is he a doctor now? Because you just nailed that one. He is.

Doctor Death, Steve Williams. So, yes, he is. What do you think? They just, hold on. What do you think, wrestling's fake and they just give you nicknames? If you're called doctor, you must go to medical school. You've got to be legit. You have to. It takes a long time. is fake and they just give you nicknames if you're called doctor you must go to medical school you gotta be legit you have to it takes a long time that's why nobody named doctors ever wrestled

before the age of 30 it just takes so long for the schooling you gotta know you want to do it from a young age it's tough yeah it's really working went through school he did he did i mean dr dre i can't say that about him i don't know. football games i watched local wrestling on tv i would watch the old awa wrestling show over in ghania and all that um which featured two of my favorite wrestlers mad dog and butcher vashon the vashon brothers and uh mad dog is very famous butchers butcher didn't last the test of time for some reason in fame the only thing he's really famous for now i mean he was great but he mad dog like lived on as this legend and and Butcher didn't quite as much. But Butcher is Luna Vachon's father.

Oh. Luna Vachon, the crazy-looking broad. Sure. Yeah, that's her father there. Their in-ring antics would motivate me to bully my opponents on the football field. Oh. So he wanted to, yeah, that sort of deal. He had a Jeep here.

His first car, he said, was a 1942 willie jeep really yes um an old army type jeep and a classic that's a cool fucking ride yeah it's the ones that the 42 i don't they weren't available to civilian ones yeah that's an actual army yeah they probably sold it off surplus later on or something he said it had a steel frame and was built like a tank. I bought it for $389 and fixed it up real nice with new tires and wall-to-wall blue shag carpet. Oh, boy, the 70s. Blue shag carpet in that thing? He was 15, so this is 1975.

So that's the pinnacle of cool in 75. You're like, I'm going to get so many blowjobs in this car. Look at this carpet. Oh, my God. But I don't think those had roofs to them. Doesn't matter. He's going to soak that fucking carpet. Doesn't matter.

Still hot shit. It's the 70s, man. You know what? Sometimes your carpet gets soaked. Whether from rain, bodily fluid, you never know, man. Though I was only 15, I was getting it ready to roam the streets as soon as I turned 16. One day I decided to take my willy for a spin. That sounds like a British term for jerking off.

I did that when I was 15 a lot. Oh, I took my willy for a spin, I did. Oh, I took my willy for a spin, didn't I? Doesn't that sound like that? Totally. Oh, wow. Though it wasn't completely road ready well that doesn't sound smart i don't have a license and my car is not ready to be driven let's take it out for a spin cool sounds good without a license and with my friend nick hammer jesus i hope he became a wrestler he doesn't even have to change his name. It's awesome. I pushed the ignition button and headed into town.

I didn't make it but a few blocks when the steering wheel came off as I turned a corner and we hit a telephone pole. Oh, shit. His steering wheel came off. That's amazing. So it's a stick then probably because my Volkswagen used to do that and you'd have to get the splines lined up to get the wheel back on. You're in deep shit. It's so scary. My dad told me about a car he had that did that one time, and he was like, oh, shit.

I forgot the nut that holds the steering wheel on, because there's a shaft that comes out that's threaded, and you put the nut on it, and it holds the steering wheel. I didn't put it on, so the first time I took it out, I went to shift. And when you shift, you pull back on the steering wheel, and you don't realize it. So I went around the corner, and I shifted and yanked, and my wheels were turned. I was like, oh, my God.

Trying to line up the splines to get the wheel back on. I got it on within another second, and I would have hit a pole, too. It was close. Well, they hit a telephone pole by the way i don't know if this is fixable at this point in time but the the in the book it says telephone pole p-o-l-l so i don't know if the editors can fix that in the digital edition because it's a it's i just i got the digital edition so i mean you can obviously in print but you can fix that there you don't want want that in there. That feels shitty. Yeah, yeah. The impact knocked us back about 20 yards because it's steel.

It doesn't go around the pole. It bounced off the pole. It didn't do any damage to the Jeep. That's an awesome car. That's why they had him in the military. But once my father found out, you can only imagine the damage done to me. Yeah. Not too long there. He probably took the beating because he deserved it on that one.

He was like, I deserve this one. No, this is. I won't even fight back this time. I pulled the fucking steering wheel off. That was real stupid of me to do there. No, no, you go ahead and beat me. Not too long after, on a Saturday afternoon, my mom and dad had left the keys in their car and gone out. Uh-oh.

Slightly hungover. He's 15. Slightly hungover, I decided to go out for a joyride hung over a hungover 15 year old there i was this 15 year old kid cruising the neighborhood as i approached the corner i inadvertently hit the gas pedal instead of the brake oh what are you fucking 87 years old jesus christ i was gonna say how old are you 15 or 90 i approached wow i jumped the curve i jumped the curve curve not curve by the way it says in the book too another misspelling come on editors of this book mowed down two trees smashed through a fence and slammed into someone's flower bed jesus. I quickly tried to back up and hightail it out of there.

Oh, my God. As I pressed the gas, flowers and dirt went everywhere. It's like Clark Griswold. That's amazing. It's probably raining down upon him if you're going to reverse, too. I wasn't moving. I was stuck. The owner of the house, who knew my family and me came out running out

yelling stop stop shut off the engine jesus christ i was scared and the only thing going through my mind was jail i got out of the car and started begging for the owner to cut me a break i was crying like a baby then out of the corner of my eye i saw my older brother, Jeff, riding by on his 10-speed bike. You got a bike, Jeff? I got the car. I took the car out, so you should have done that, Jeff. You didn't look in the ignition for the key, stupid. I ran toward Jeff, screaming for his help.

Jeff was laughing his butt off, as anyone would be laughing at their younger brother for doing this. Ha ha, dad's going to kick the shit out of you. I kept begging Jeff until he finally stopped and sarcastically said, good luck, Steven. He took off laughing all the way home. Ha, it didn't help him at all. Have a good one. See you at home. Wow.

Needless to say, the punishment I received from my parents was nothing to laugh about. I was grounded for an entire month. That seems light for doing that, honestly. Yeah, for pressing the car into a neighbor's house? It's not even your car that you don't have permission to drive, that you're hungover, that you're 15. Too young to be driving?

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Leave her alone. Okay, so, um... This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother. That's not him.

Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all new season. It's streaming. You can say anything.

Judy Justice. Only on Freebie. So he says, quote loved to drink this is great coming from a child at the time i loved to drink and party loved it started laughing i couldn't even get that out every friday night the boys and i would go to lakewood park or another facility to shoot the breeze, chase women, and get drunk. Chase women? This is pre-adulthood here. That is wild. Although we were all underage, I never had a hard time getting alcohol.

I bought my first beer at 12 years old. I was the biggest guy around and would literally cart the keg to and from the party. You just carry it. And the other thing about Steve Williams, party you just carry it and the other thing about steve williams when you look at him the way when you look at his beard you go oh he's had that since he was 10 it's one of those beards where you're like that's he's a 10 he's a yeah it's thick it's a you know anytime he has a beard or anything he's it's a thick big mustache i mean he's a he's a man his his lots of testosterone pushing hair out of him.

He said, one time the police came to the park and raided our party. Man, I ran away as fast as I could, carrying that keg on my shoulder. How fast you can run. Running with a keg. That's hilarious. That's funny. I also experimented with marijuana. I didn't do it often because it affected my athletics.

Sports were the number one priority in my life, but some of the older kids got me stoned and I kind of liked the thrill of the forbidden. Sure. Sounds like he likes to do shit he's not allowed to do. Yeah. When I was 12 years old, I bought my first bag of pot or so I thought. I approached one of the stoners at school and asked him for a bag. They said, sure, dude. Meet me after school and bring 40 bucks. 40 bucks is a lot of money in 1972. Yeah, that's a high dollar bag of weed. You got like a fucking ounce back then. Right.

I said, okay, dude, I'll see you then. After we made the exchange, the boys and I went to the tunnel, a place behind the school where everyone went to smoke. Excited about getting high, we opened the bag. To our surprise, it wasn't marijuana, but oregano. I was pissed, but it taught me to make wiser drug purchases in the future. That's an important lesson for every young man and woman out there, is you have to learn how to make wiser drug purchases. Know what drugs you're buying.

Make sure they're real. Have a good look at it before you buy it.'t buy anything too shaky take a whiff yeah it's oregano you you should have felt that it was a little too mushy for a bag of weed anyway so if it's if it's all shake don't buy that don't buy that especially for 40 bucks back then that's like right you know 300 now or something so half the thrill is breaking it up. Yeah, you got nothing. Just pour it out. So in sports, though, he loved it.

He said his older brothers taught him sports, and he said, I excelled in every sport I tried. Jerry was a ski instructor, so of course I learned how to ski. I loved going down the beautiful Colorado mountains. I guess if you live in Lakewood, you might as well. Oh, it's so beautiful. You might as well take up some skiing there. Fuck, yeah. I was also good in baseball. I was a decent pitcher and center fielder.

I received my first baseball trophy at 10 years old for batting over 500 for the season. 500 on the season. Not bad. Well, he's huge. He's playing 10 years old, and he's 220, and the other kids are 86 pounds. He said, and then there was football. Football was my passion. I grew up wanting to be a professional football player.

Football was all I could ever think about. And I was very good at it. I started playing the sport at eight years old. Since I was bigger than all the kids my age, and even many of the older ones, I spent one year in Pee Wee or Little League. They quickly elevated me to the heavyweight league where some of the older kids would pick on me and tease me. But their taunts only made me more determined. No one was going to intimidate me. I would hit them even harder.

Okay, well, he tells this story. When I was 10 years old and playing in the heavyweight division, one of the assistant coaches on my team decided to do the bull of the ring drill okay in the middle yep the drill consisted of 12 to 15 players making a circle around one guy the coach called a player from the circle to hit the player in the middle tackling him to the ground this time i was the one in the middle the coach kept calling different players numbers one by one guys from the circle would nail me i was getting hit left and right i don't know what he was trying to prove at the end he had all the players dog pile on top of me

please everybody yeah come on guys beat he's a child get him get him so he went to lakewood high school and he was on the track and field team played football and wrestled all four years awesome not too bad at all here he said when I was a senior in high school, I was the most highly recruited football player in the state. That sounds awesome. Damn. Lakewood High School has a long football tradition, going back to its most successful coach,

Tom Hancock. In 15 seasons, Coach Hancock compiled 137, 36, and 3 record. That's not bad. Pretty damn good. His credentials led him to be inducted into

the colorado sports hall of fame in 1969 not too shabby he said throughout my entire junior and high school wrestling career i was undefeated but then he'll say his record in the next paragraph and it's not undefeated so i don't know what he's talking about. Wrestling in the heavyweight division, I was known as the pinning artist because I pinned everyone I wrestled. Because of my fine high school wrestling record, on April 7, 1978, I was selected to represent the U.S. team in a match against the Pennsylvania All-Stars at the Pittsburgh Press Wrestling Classic. Jesus. At the time, the event was heralded by many as the Rose Bowl of high school wrestling. And of course,

I won my matches pinning all my opponents. In high school, I was a wrestling machine. Nobody could come close to pinning me. This was due to my work, a lot to my work ethic

and training where I held school records for squatting, 575 pounds, deadlifting, 800 pounds, and bench press, 375 pounds. Jesus, not pounds and bench press 375 pounds.

Jesus. Not bad. He said my high school wrestling career concluded with a 77, four and one record. Holy, that seems pretty good. Jesus Christ. I won 14 tournaments and was enshrined in my high school's hall of fame.

I was a Colorado state champion, both by junior and senior year, and still hold the following Lakewood High School wrestling records. Best overall record, 76-77-78. Most takedowns, 77-78. Most pins, 1977-78. And most outstanding wrestler, 76-77-78. Wow. Sophomore, junior, senior year, he was killing it.

Crushing everybody. Man he that's why he was he felt pretty invincible yeah he's hung over and he's still doing all this he said in 1978 the ncaa policy was that recruits because they're college recruiting they're all trying to get him could only make six campus visits total you can only go between these schools. Now you can visit a bunch, I think. Six total of all different schools. I think, yes, six total. So that could be a couple to one, one to six different schools. My visit to the University of Arizona was interesting.

The recruiter showed me one heck of a good time, although no money ever exchanged hands. Flaunting food, alcohol, jewelry, and women, it was made explicitly and implicitly clear that Dr. Death would be, quote, taken care of if I signed with their school. That's U of A. The coaches and staff were very polite, and they all treated me with respect.

I also got to know some of the players. A few members of the team also took me out that night to party. I was so drunk that i got into a fight there was a there's a guy sitting in his car saying something that i can't even recall that's a good reason to fight i don't remember what it was it was and i'm not even on the team no i'm recruiting i'm just hammered and fucking younger than everyone else hanging out i went over to his car and had a few words and smacked him in the face.

As the guy went to get out of his car, I held the door. Unfortunately, I had these slick new dress shoes on, and as he pushed, I slipped on the gravel in the parking lot and fell face down. After that, I'm sorry to say, I got up and beat the living crap out of the guy.

There was blood everywhere. To escape the police, we took off back to campus. It took less than 24 hours for the city of Tucson to feel the wrath of Dr. Death. Oh, my. So these are just common stories with him that happen all the time. Never got caught for that. Never got arrested. He ended up going home.

And they would all cover him. He's a U of A recruit. They'd probably go i'm sure the guy deserved it back then think about that in the fucking 70s i'd probably do that now so in uh he decides to go to the university of oklahoma okay oh yeah he's going to here so he's a sooner here he decides to go there barry switzer is going to be his head coach who is the future coach of the cowboys there for a couple Super Bowls. And 1978, he is a redshirt year for him.

So you have the option of redshirting your freshman, so then they actually have five years of eligibility. So you can have them on the team and be on practice and all that kind of shit, but they don't play games. So it saves a year of eligibility. He said, I was redshirted in my football in my freshman year because I was raw and they wanted to bring me along slowly. They saw my potential and since the offensive line was already in place, they thought it would be best if I sat out a year to learn the offense. I was allowed to wear number 76 and Coach Switzer would still let me practice with the team.

So here's a teammate of his, Kelly Mitchell. Quote, Doc was the toughest man I've ever met. On the football field, he was a terror. Though Doc didn't memorize all the plays, he would make it up with his sheer strength and will. Everybody respected yet feared Doc. With a heart of a giant, his look was nonetheless intimidating. One time before practice, Barry Dittman, a senior and starting linebacker from Houston, was sitting in the locker room waiting to get his ankles taped and whatnot

from the trainer. Doc, a freshman, came in and told Barry to move from his table. Barry, about six foot and weighing 205 pounds, was one tough hombre. A few of us nearby perked up and waited for Barry's decision. Within 60 seconds, Barry got up and moved. Doc claimed his table. In short, nobody messed with Dr. Death. Here's Mike Geary, another guy that's going to talk a lot about him.

He says, Doc was naturally strong. He would easily bench press 480 pounds 10 times. That's pretty strong. Combine that with his, this is pre-steroids too. So combine that with his will, desire, and looks, and he was without a doubt the toughest man on the planet. He said Doc was one intimidating person. If you didn't know him, he would scare anyone.

And if you raised his voice, forget about it. Well, then the doctors told Doc to pee in a cup. Well, when the doctors told Doc to pee in a cup, Doc barked no. The poor guy almost had a heart attack and simply said, okay, next. He didn't have to do the college drug test because he said no. That's fucking awesome. Another incident that displayed Doc's intimidating presence was during his senior year. New recruits from around the country were coming to campus.

During lunch, I came in with a bunch of the recruits. Doc was sitting alone at a table eating pounds of grub. His hair was long and looking like a creature right out of a science fiction movie. He paused from his food and glanced at me. Soon thereafter, I sat down with the recruits to eat. I noticed they kept eyeballing Doc. One of the recruits whispered, is he a senior? And I said, yes, why?

And he said well we have all decided that if he isn't we aren't coming to ou they're all terrified of him we don't want to be here next year no that guy's scary so in 1979 he starts playing and he's on the offense he's an offensive guard these 79 oklahoma sooners are 11-1 that season, so not too goddamn shabby. They go all the way to the Orange Bowl that year where they beat Florida State 24-7. So that's a good year for a college football team. They end up third in the AP poll, in the final AP poll. So number three overall in the country.

On that team, a really good running back named Billyy sims who was a great nfl running back who ended up blowing out his knee eventually and another guy that we're very familiar with another running back stanley wilson is on this team with them a crime and sports alumni boy does he love crack oh he loves he hates super bowls but loves crack if you if you haven't heard this it's an early episode it's before we were even in a studio so it's like our first year one of its third episode 30 something we did an episode about stanley wilson and his still hates him wow cincinnati cincinnati yeah he played he blew the bangles ran out on the super bowl climbed out of a window to smoke crack while

the team was trying to like they had like five people watching him he just climbed out a window so and it was a muddy super bowl and he was the one that would have got all the all the running because he was a mutter yeah yeah and he calls yeah it's fucking amazing so billy and billy sims was the heisman trophy winner in 1978 and you know great he was the first overall pick in the 1980 draft, too. So some big-time people on that team. So Kelly Mitchell, another, like we talked about, from the team, he said, Doc and I were best of friends. My mom once found a bong in my room.

My mom was also missing lots of butter from the refrigerator. These are individual sentences, by the way. My mom once found a bong in my room, period. My mom was also missing lots of butter from the refrigerator period who's eating butter as a snack well he said that duck and i would get the munchies does that explain something to you we would raid the kitchen on butter and devour bread and butter just rolling on thick on the pieces of bread my mom got concerned and asked my sister to check on the missing butter unbeknownst

to me she found my bong mom thought doc and i were smoking butter with the bond she's oblivious butter bong hits is the name of this episode absolutely it's going to be butter bong hits but that is un-fucking-believable are you smoking you're smoking there's butter missing and here's a smoking implement you must you must be doing that smoking with Hitting dabs of butter. That's my grandmother, Italian grandma one time. My Aunt Lisa and my cousin, her cousin, she's older than, my aunt's cousin, Gilda, anyway. They were smoking weed when they were teenagers. And somehow they got stoned and they left the bowl somewhere.

A little metal weed pipe. Left it somewhere. And my grandmother found it and freaked out completely scream crying screaming said my you smoking the crocane smoking the crocane my uh my poor girls so at least it's not butter at least it's not butter she uh so they teased he said went on to say they teased their mom about it, his mom about it all the time. He said, later I teased my mom by telling her everything is better with blue bonnet on it, which is an old ad. Especially weed. Especially weed.

Oh, yeah, man, weed and butter together. Ooh, weed. Ever heard of weed butter? I invented it. So another thing when he's in college he said he had beef with jack bear who was the equipment manager this is steve said this jack was one mean person he says we used to go back and forth all the time he yelled at me and i yelled right back he got so mad at me because i always asked for extra t-shirts another ou football gear he would scream

i'm not going to give you anything. You are stealing them anyway. The only thing you're going to do is sell them. He said, regardless, I always manage to attain extra OU football shirts. You were selling them? You don't understand. I've read so many books about old players that go through these type of things. And every team, when they hire an equipment manager, they go, we have to find the crustiest.

Oh, a man who defies time and space. Someone who's 112 years old but mean is the day is long and just hates, hates equipment and hates the players who use it. That's what we need. Every single one. He says the NCAA also came down hard on drug testing about then. At this time in my life, I was still 100% clean. Still, I didn't like the idea of them violating my privacy. When it was my turn to be tested, I simply refused.

They never bothered to ask me to pee in a cup again. That was from when he scared the doctor. So 1980 OU here. They go 10-2 this year. Oh. And they go to the Orange Bowl again. And they beat Florida State 18-2 this year. Oh. And they go to the Orange Bowl again, and they beat Florida State 18-17 that year. So Florida State must be just hating them at this point.

Drubbing every time. And OU finishes third in the AP poll again. So two years in a row at third in the AP poll. This year on the team, as well as Stanley Wilson being the starter, they bring in another running back who ends up making it to the NFLfl and has the best nfl name of all time buster rhymes that's a real person is that absolutely right new york giants had him for a while buster rhymes that's his name do you think trevor knows it probably because he's that age and this guy played for the for the giants and he would have he's from new york so i assume he probably saw him and was like, that's fucking awesome.

I'm taking it. That's perfect. Hey, he did better with it than Buster Rhymes ever did. Sure did, yeah. Good for him. He's still around. Heard of the other guy. Heard of him a lot.

He said, my sophomore football year, this is this season, had its ups and downs. Though we finished the season 9-2 and captured a Big 8 championship, we were hoping to become national champions. He said, we started the season 9-2 and captured a Big 8 championship, we were hoping to become national champions. He said, we started the season 1-0, and then we hosted the non-ranked Stanford Cardinal. Maybe we were looking ahead to our Big 8 opener against Colorado, but with future Super Bowl MVP and Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway leading the attack, they upset us on our home turf 31-14. How about that? That was probably when he was you know a sophomore or something john elway too so uh he talks about the orange bowl and he says that he and a few of his teammates decided to take advantage of the miami bar scene oh boy he said

we drank the bars dry unlike two years earlier this time we were wiser and more cautious of Coach Switzer's schedule and curfew. We were somehow able to keep track of the time and managed to stumble back to the team bus before it departed. Though it was only for a few miles from where we were, the bus ride to the hotel seemed to take forever. It also

felt like we were on a roller coaster. With my stomach churning, I threw up only a few minutes into the drive oh god hoping not to get anything on the floor i used my brand new sports coat to catch the mess a blazer oh god although i tried to be discreet vomit oozed out of the jacket and leaked everywhere can you imagine someone acting like they're just holding their jacket in their hand while like a stream of puke comes out of it? Liquor puke from the night?

Just falling out of the sleeves. Oh, my God. He's like, no, no, I'm good. And he's got shit crusting around his mouth. Oh, that's hilarious. I told the coaches I must have eaten too much barbecue. Yeah. Must have just ate too much, guys.

Or the whiskey. Here's a way to keep some weight off from eating too much. He said, I figured one way to lose the weight was to find a physically demanding job during the summer. I went to Wyoming and caught on with an oil company working the rigs. But that didn't last too long. It was very dangerous and I felt I might injure myself. I didn't want it to affect my football career. So I decided to go to Lakewood and stay with my parents instead

of during the summer roughneck for the summer i mean he looks like an oil when you look at the guy you go jesus there's an oil field missing their you know their baddest dude right now there's an oil field struggling because yeah he's doing the work of four people so the 81 sooners are seven four and one that year so not quite as good they go to the Sun Bowl that year against Houston that's not as great at all and they win 40-14 as they should so he uh there's that year though he's a starter finally they make him start and there's a big article about how he's a heavyweight wrestler which we'll also talk about and a guard and about how he's a heavyweight wrestler, which we'll also talk about, and a guard. And, you know, he's going to be full-time lineman.

They called him Williams. Drew his first start last week after a kidney injury. Forced guard Don Key out of football. Jesus. Oh, wow. They said the Sooners moved the ball well and Williams received excellent blocking grades. He said, I enjoyed it up to a point. I don't enjoy losing because they lost.

Nobody lost, yeah. Yeah, who the hell likes losing? He said, I've been here four years, and I know the Aggies still can't beat us, talking about A&M. There's only one Oklahoma team. We're too strong. Well, they're Texas A&M, so how the fuck would they be another? Okay, I don't get it.

I don't get it. I don't understand what he's talking about. Don't try to keep up, James. Yeah, you know what? You're right. This is on me at this point. He's a toddler with brain damage, for Christ's sake. Jesus Christ.

He's an Italian biker, for Christ's sake, James. What do you want? That's an inside joke, everybody. It's the best thing ever, though. It's the most brilliant thing Jimmy ever said ever said in his life to me anyway i mean he might have said smarter things but it's it was hilarious it put a lot in perspective for me and it probably saved me years of therapy i think just having to meet that go all right well i have that to lean on and just. Sometimes you just need a very dismissive sentence that sums everything up. I do that for you a lot. This one, you really nailed it, though, I got to say.

I really give you a lot of credit. Love that. So, yeah, he talks about, oh, my God, the guy he's replacing came after the other guy ruptured his right kidney. Ruptured it. Ruptured it? Ruptured a kidney playing football. Wow. You got to take a helmet to the kidney, right? I guess so.

How the fuck else did that happen? That's rough. Well, this is what Dr. Death says about that, which is wild. Quote, I felt really bad. I just know how he feels. When I was in ninth grade, I injured my back. That's not a ruptured organ. I know how he feels. When I was in ninth grade, I injured my back. That's not a ruptured organ. I know how he

feels. Wow. I know how he feels. I hurt my back one time. I went to a specialist and he told me I couldn't play football for the rest of my life. I put holes in the wall. I cried for two days. He said it was just two games ago that Don and I were talking about how great it's going to be

with each of us playing his own position next year. It's a sad thing that it had to happen to such a hell of an athlete and a great guy. And he says he wants to be a national champion. He said, I'm not playing to be all big eight or all American or to get drafted. I just want the national championship in football, just like with my wrestling career. That's all I want. And then they talked about this team you're playing has great linebackers and all this and he said i don't look at the names i

don't look at the size i don't look at the number of tackles i just go out there and play one-on-one and try to do my best okay i want to win fuck them i don't care yeah here's from mike geary this is fun quote one afternoon doc and i were having a beer at an adult establishment an adult entertainment establishment near campus a strip club titty bar everyone in the place knew and liked doc and we're terrified of him you should have there doc and i were simply chit-chatting and minding our own business all of a sudden a couple of fraternity guys started making smart talk you jocks think you're so tough i'm sure it was the beer talking he says well i guess this man is enormous you don't say shit like that no you look at this guy you'd be the last guy you'd ever

think to do to fuck it with like he may think he's tough but looking at him i think he's tough too yeah he's real goddamn tough that That's what I'm saying. This is what I like about old-timey wrestlers. I want to look at a wrestler and go, man, that guy would kick the shit out of me. That's what I want to look at. I want to look at two guys who can kick the living shit out of me, fight each other. That's what I want to say. You know what I'm saying? Or the better, like if you're a heel, it works.

If you're like the chicken shit heel of the old timey, you could be like, then the thing was like, I bet I could kick that fucking guy's ass and he still gets in there and does shit. I hate that guy. You know, that's another thing that works well. But, you know, you got to look like this guy looks like he'd kill you. So Duck, however, one to never take crap from from anyone got up from his stool and headed to these pretty boys you could immediately see they wished that time could be reversed of course we didn't say that yeah um maybe we could never mind doc simply grabbed one of the guys around the shirt collar and jacked him off the barstool. That, again, everybody needs to really, really spin your willy, jacked him off.

He used jacked him off. Those words are in a row. Jacked him off. Jacked him off the barstool. He literally held him two feet off the ground. I wasn't going to let Doc beat him or the others up or anything like that. I knew Doc just wanted to teach them a lesson. After making his point, he

pitilessly let the frat boy down. They all scattered. Yeah, I bet. Jesus. Within minutes, we heard the police sirens, and I heard Doc, come in here. It was the strippers motioning Doc to go in and hide in their dressing rooms. Come in here where we're

all naked you'll be safe in here there's there's there's cops out there but tits in here where would you rather be okay i don't need cops for that for that no shit to be enticing now just every once in a while doc's gonna go cops are coming and just run in there hey ladies how you doing cops are here he said i was the strippers motioning, Doc. The cops came in and searched the place for Doc. And, of course, they didn't go into the dressing room where there were naked ladies. Right. Everybody loved Doc.

That's his quote. That's awesome. That's terrific. He just hide in there. They're not going to go in there. Hide amongst the titties. They won't find you. Can't be in there.

1982, Oklahoma goes 8-4 that year. And, again, not that great. They lose the Fiesta Bowl that year. Oh, is that right? This is a big game in Arizona State lore because they beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. They still talk about this fucking game in Arizona. Yeah, it's sad. Arizona State football doesn't have a whole lot to rest on.

You got the Plummer Super Bowl and then this, huh? You got beating Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, and there's like one more from the 70s. It's a big deal there. Because I think that was 82, I think, is the last year that Frank Cush coached Arizona State, and then he went to the Colts and Elway wouldn't go there. Did Plummer win the Rose Bowl?

I don't fucking remember. I don't remember. I don't remember if they won or lost. Yeah, I don't remember either. I just thought they went and it was a big deal. It was a big deal. Yeah, that they were in a bowl game. That wasn't terrible.

So this year, Marcus Dupree is on the team who could have his own episode here. He's a guy who just fucked himself out of the league completely with cocaine and stupidity. He says, Dr. Death says, Marcus Dupree was a stud of a football player. Unlike Billy Sims, however, Marcus didn't like to practice. He was extremely fast, and come game day, Marcus was on. But during practice, you would never get the most out of him. He had a poor work ethic, and I believe that lazy approach caused his knees to be unprepared for season long contact.

I don't know if that's how that works again. We don't know if you're an actual medical doctor, Steve. So he was in 1982. Steve is a big, all big eight conference offensive guard. So he's very good in wrestling because he's been wrestling the whole time at ou also here are his stats and wrestling his awards here um oh that's his high school

three-time big eight champion 80 to 82 four-time all-american 79 to 82 jesus not bad he has the uh fourth fastest pin in Oklahoma University history as he defeated an Oklahoma State guy in 20 seconds. Wow. He won the Jimmy White Award in 81-82. Yeah. I don't know what that is. It's a big deal.

It's a big deal. It's coveted. Yeah, wrestling. Jimmy White's like the Valvano of wrestling. He had cancer and came through. So he did all that. He's a four-time All of wrestling. He had cancer and came through. So he did all that. He's a four-time All-American. He kicks ass a lot.

He finished sixth as a freshman, I guess, in total rankings, fifth as a sophomore, third as a junior, and second as a senior. Wow. He lost in the finals of an NCAA tournament to future two-time Olympic gold medalist bruce bomb gardner so that's not that's okay he got a lot of wrestling uh medals which is good shit here and he's the guy who trained with kurt angle as well to help him in olympic wrestling this guy so a badass steve says i don't think people realize what wrestling is all about they don't know the rules i think if

somebody gets out there and explains the techniques and the point system, people could understand it better. It's like boxing and anything else. They like to see the big guys go at it. Again, guys, if you just finish a sentence and go, anything in here sound sexual? No? Okay. Just small tweaks.

Just a little bit. Remember in Arrested Development when he tells David Cross, just carry a tape recorder around with you one day and just one day listen to what you've said. Just play it back. It's one of those. It's a big deal there. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault, or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay.

I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from Smartless Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'd learn that that's the science-y term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink roller coaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They want to see big guys go at it. I don't think people understand the sport, and if they understood it better, I think they'd come out and watch. No, probably not. But amateur wrestling is hard and difficult and all that, and also not a real exciting spectator sport. True. It cannot move out of a circle. So right there, you're limiting the action.

Yeah, it's got borders. It's got borders. Hardcore borders. There's no running around. Very defined. Very small, too. So he was interested in wrestling, as we'll talk about here. He said that he used to call himself dr death anyway

like that was always his nickname really college and high school everybody called him dr death and he said at one point i shattered my nose about a hundred times and they had to keep stopping the match a wrestling match so coach from another school gave me an old time goalie mask. And when I put that on, my coach yelled out Dr. Death. So that's what it was. He said, um, you know, he said, I wasn't like stone cold, Steve Austin or the rock who got a nickname for being in wrestling. I got a nickname for being a tough guy on the mat. I didn't have to give Vince McMahon a big house because he made up the name. I already had that name. I did all my bookings and I was my own agent. So I came out really well.

Beautiful. So everybody knew him as that. He says, when people say Steve, I don't even hear that word anymore. It's usually Doc or Dr. Death. And all the wrestlers call him Doc. Everybody, when they're talking about him, they're like, Doc, Doc, Doc, Doc.

They just call him Doc. He said, I think they usually remember the name Dr. Death. That stands out. Yeah. He said, there's always some wannabes that came out there like brian bosworth who wanted to be a dr death i was already there and conquered the sooner football field and i think they remember me as the tough guy who came in there and conquered amateur wrestling and football and the first guy who could become a professional wrestler when he's had one more year of football left i don't think

anybody's ever accomplished that because some of his pro wrestling, he wrestled a little bit while he was still in college before his senior year playing football. Absolutely. Uh, cause Bill Watts, uh,

he knows Bill Watts here from his coach. And it's a little interesting story here. He says how he got into wrestling when I was a senior in college, professional, professional wrestling found me. In 1981, after I was defeated in the NCAA wrestling finals by Bruce Baumgartner, Bill Watts approached me about becoming a professional wrestler

with his Mid-South promotion. We've talked a ton about Bill Watts. Big amateur guy, football player, loves an amateur athlete. That's what he loves the most. Memphis, right? No, no, he's Mid-South. Memphis was Jerry Lawler.

But they do have... You know what? That's confusing, though, because Memphis had the Mid-South Coliseum is where the big shows were, even though it's not the Mid-South. That confuses a lot of people. Mid-South is... That's not what I was thinking. No, it's not. I know. You actually fell into a hole

that a lot of wrestling fans will go, Mid-South Coliseum, but I was thinking. No, it's not. I know. But you actually fell into a hole that a lot of wrestling fans will go, Mid-South Coliseum, but that was Tennessee. Yeah, okay. So Mid-South is Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and like that area. That's real South. It's South. It's Mid. I guess you're middle of the country South.

I guess that's what it is. If you consider the planet, then yeah, it's mid. Midwestern south. So he said, dating back to their Putnam City High School and University of Oklahoma days, Coach Abel, his wrestling coach, and Bill Watts were close friends. One day, Coach Abel called Bill Watts and told him he thought I would make an excellent professional wrestler. Bill Watts asked, is he tough? Coach Abel, who coached more than 50 All-Americans and had 13 national wrestling titles, said,

Bill, he's the toughest I've ever seen. As it gets. As it gets. He said, I decided to meet with Bill Watts and I liked him from the start. He was friendly, straightforward, and had that look in his eye as if he knew I had something beneficial to bring to his promotion i had a national reputation and i sensed bill knew i was marketable watts said kid give it a shot at this point academics weren't my highest priority and i needed some money i said okay i'll give it a shot i didn't tell anyone that i was training to become a professional wrestler the only person who knew about it was coach abel not my mom dad brothers even coach

switch switzer didn't even tell barry switzer i was my own man and i didn't feel that anyone needed to know my business years later i would have to tell my friend mike geary because he would take me to bill's place or later i would tell my ears later sorry he said one time before football practice a reporter asked me if wrestling was fake. With a look of incomprehension, I pulled up my shirt, revealing bruises to my ribs and said, let me show you something. Count them. The reporter counted 42 bruises on the side of my ribs. I continued, you call this fake? So he is, um, I guess he said, although we lost Arizona state in the Fiesta Bowl, I knew I had a good enough senior year to be drafted in football. I didn't care about academics and yearned to get back into the ring.

As I waited for the spring football draft, I went back to work for Bill Watts. He said, standing 6'2 and weighing a natural 290 pounds at 23. Holy fuck. I started my first major professional wrestling angle with Bob Roop. And I see here, too, they had him fighting Terry Taylor a lot, who was later on the Red Rooster. Fucking worst gimmick ever. Before he was the Red Rooster. Yeah, Terry Taylor, I think, was helping him learn how to work a little bit here.

So he is selected by the New Jersey Generals in the 1983 USFL Territorial Draft. So there you go. He signs with the New Jersey Generals, and they try to convert him to a defensive tackle rather than an offensive guard. During camp, though, he got a bruised knee and was on injured reserve for the first six games of the season. He gets activated for Week 10,

and he's the starting nose tackle for a loss to the Birmingham Stallions. It was live on ESPN. So I guarantee you that's on YouTube. So if you want to see him play defensive line, it's probably, I guarantee you, all of those games are USFL Forever is the name of the channel, I believe. They have tons of games on there. Yeah, they're cool. So he said william started here

at nose tackle the following week when they lost to the michigan panthers that first year the generals were terrible uh he ends up getting cut though okay he said that they they paid him for his entire the remainder of his contract and they placed him on the injured reserve roster so they also gave me extra money to pay for another year of school at the university of oklah I guess my dad sure enough took care of it, huh? Oh, because his dad, that's right, because his dad helped him with that. He said, I sold my house, packed everything up, and headed back to Lakewood. Since I had a few months before the fall semester started, I stayed a few weeks with my brother, Jerry, in San Diego. While in San Diego, I called Dan Reeves. Dan Reeves was the coach of the Denver Gold of the USFL.

I asked him if there was a place for me on his roster, but he said the unit was set for the year. We chatted about other things, and he told me to check back with him before the start of training camp the next season. He said he went to San Diego, chilled out, and had some money in the bank from his contract, and just didn't know what to do with himself. Smile every fucking day. Yeah. Hanging out on the beach. He said, though, he called Bill Watts and said, Bill, can I come to work for you full time?

And Bill said, I'll tell you what, kid. You have to promise me that you'll never go back to professional football again. And he said, okay, fine. So there he goes. He's going to go be a wrestler now. He said, I played for Barry Switzer and Stan Abel. You couldn't have asked for anything better than that. Those two guys were like fathers to me.

They came to see me in the hospital later on. We'll talk about that. He said, so he's talked to him all the time. Bill Watts said, Doc fit right in with Mid-South Wrestling. I had the best workers and the toughest guys in the business working for me. Doc was indeed both tough and rugged. He was also extremely talented with legitimate athletic credentials. I never

considered Doc to have great technique and at first he wasn't a great worker but what he had was more significant. A force of will and a heart. He would go all out and just destroy people. He got over it because of his personality and because he was a force so when mid-south is one of these territories that is they like bill watts like

beats the shit out of people if they don't do things right you know what i mean like he's famous for that yeah he'll go he's a famous story of telling buddy landell to get down on the ground and show you how to sell a kick he goes you're not telling buddy landell to get down on the ground and show you how to sell a kick he goes you're not selling kicks when people kick get down on the ground then he just all out kicks his kicks the shit out of him yeah that's how you sell a kick what you just did there pretend that asshole so that's how he would do things so he did not treat dr death like that though he treated he's he's like he's like his son he treats him him just like a son. Also a little afraid, probably. Also not a guy you're going to physically toss around and intimidate, by far.

But that's the style of wrestling he wanted to. Rough, rugged. If you hit a guy, you better hear it. I don't want to see any phantom bullshit. You got to hear it, see it. There better be a mark on him. He's the guy who had the famous thing where if you go out and get in a bar fight, I don't care if you get arrested. I don't care if you go out and get in a bar fight i don't

care if you get arrested i don't care if you kill five people if you lose the fight you're fired and everyone around town knows you're a pussy and who's going to want to watch who's going to buy a ticket to watch a pussy fight who cares yeah so that's how you that's how you do it so um he starts out with all this we'll get here's a quote from Ricky Morton, who is a rock and roll express member here, tag team, famous guy there. He said during a tag match between Ricky and me, the rock and roll express against doc and Hercules Hernandez.

Jesus, those are two huge and insanely tough guys. Hercules, Hercules Hernandez. He was in WWF from like 86 to 92 or whatever, but big fucking Jack right. It up. It's big, scary, tough son of a bitch. He said, but big fucking Jack right. It up. It's big,

scary, tough son of a bitch. He said, uh, Hercules Hernandez in, in Homa, Louisiana, which we've talked about not only on this show,

but on small town murder. I told doc before our match to watch the fans in this town. Cause they are wild, crazy occasions. Uh, and only a doc way he could respond. He said, screw them.

Well, halfway through our match i'm selling big time doc quickly comes over to me and yells at me to get up and make a comeback the fans back then and the and jim cornett's talked about this in homa they said these people were fucking backwoods swamp people basically the people that came to the matches he said they didn't get that this wasn't real so if you were beating up one of the good guys they would try to stab you because they were mad at you for beating up don't beat him up he's we lock him it was like it was fucking crazy they said they always had to fight their way out of the ring and shit the heels there so is that the one where the kids rode a donkey to the show no no that is uh that's that's Smoky Mountain Wrestling. That's in Kentucky, I believe.

The donkey riding. He said, yeah, so he tells him, he said, I look across the ring and see about 30 rabid Cajuns in the ring. The people got in the ring. Doc is fighting them one by one and also tending to our match in the ring. It was total pandemonium. He's fighting. He's kicking the guy he's supposed to kick in the ring

and then beating up a couple of fans and then going over hitting the other Rock and Roll Express member. The match was called a disqualification and the ref and I headed back to the dressing room. Doc, who is the strongest and toughest wrestler I've ever met was fighting the fans as he headed back to the dressing room. Continued to fight.

Had to fight. They would stop you from going. Doc made it to the dressing room, but lo and behold, Had to fight. They would stop you from going. Doc made it to the dressing room, but lo and behold, the door was locked. Doc couldn't get in. Oh, no. With what seemed like minimal effort, Doc kicked the heavy steel door down, ripping it right off the hinges.

It was unreal. Doc grabbed his stuff, and with the help of the police and security, left the arena unscratched. There must have been 50 beaten coon ass cajuns lying on the ground and that's not a racial slur these are all white people that's a that is that's in louisiana there is there's like hick hillbilly whatever and then there's coon ass which means you're from the swamp and you're like you eat raccoons all the time and that's that

doesn't mean black at all it's a totally different thing there so he removed a door he just kicked a giant steel door off a dressing room that's meant to keep out a crowd of people just kick it off no problem get my shit and get out of here well that was fun he got uh there's a match he says there was one match with brad brad armstrong he says june 5th 1985 brad armstrong and Armstrong and I met in Shreveport, Louisiana. Brad's a second-generation wrestler and a great technical worker. Midway through our 20-minute scheduled match, I whipped him into the ropes for a clothesline. I hit him so hard that his elbow swung back and nailed me straight in the eye. The impact forced me through the ropes, and I landed hard on the concrete floor.

My eye was split open and my eyeball was totally exposed. Oh, shit. He's got a real eyelid problem. I wonder if it's the same eyelid. That's what I mean. His dad didn't... Dad's handiwork left it a little...

A little butterfly weakness there. He said, as Brad and the referee waited for my next move, I simply wiped the blood away i shook my head up and down to acknowledge that i could continue with blood gushing all over me i climbed back into the ring and pinned brad a few minutes later when we got to the back bill said that i had another match that evening so you're gonna fight again ted di biasi and i had to defend our belts and i said oh gosh okay bill the personnel in the back put some Vaseline around my eye and did their best to stop the bleeding.

About one hour later, I went back out there, and Ted and I defeated the Fantastics to maintain our titles. Later that night, I went to the local hospital, and they sewed up my eye. The gash was so bad, it took 108 stitches. Holy. Holy balls, dude. That's a huge. 108. They were just like, we'll put some Vaseline on it.

That's a long. Is that a long? Do you know what I mean? Is it long or just thick? Several layers? What is that? Wow. He said, my eye.

Well, here he explains it. My eye was split wide open in four different places with two gaping cuts above the eyelid and one S-shaped slit under the eye and a jagged cut in the corner of the eye. What the hell is his elbow made out of? Fuck, man. No shit. Does he have the Lex Luger fucking bionic forearm? Was he wearing spike elbow bands?

Oh, it was Hawk and Animal, man. No, it was Brad Armstrong. He doesn't have any gimmick except I'm Brad Armstrong. That's a good one i am a wrestler i have the same name as your neighbor i'm excited wow brad do you can you when we're done watching you wrestle can you come over and sell me some insurance next fucking boring good worker and all but boring as shit give me give me the best tips on hedges please please he said i've come within a quarter inch of losing my right eye completely

well that's not good he uh talks about steroids now and how he got into steroids and he talks about uh hercules hernandez whose real name is ray fernandez and why wouldn't you just call yourself hercules fernandez because it's not alliterative hercules hernandez that's probably double h yeah whatever he said ray was a very muscular guy and he was i mean there's not a he had like a half a percent body fat like it was you look at like 86 hercules it's like holy shit this guy is jacked he said he worked a great strong man gimmick since i stayed with him on the road i saw ray take his shots i didn't know much about steroids at that time i was a

natural 280 plus ray told me that those steroids could cut me up real good yeah a lot of guys in the business were using them and the better you look the better chance you'd have to make more money sure that's a fact one day i told think about what you're competing with like you're competing with the movies in the mid 80s of schwarzenegger and salone and all these guys who were on shit loads of steroids walking around all jacked up that's what balloons yeah he said one day i told ray all right let's go ahead and try it okay let's go ahead and give it a whirl what do you say buddy i'll try them i'll just i'll try them like it's a costco sample like yeah like i have never wanted an Oreo, but you know what? I keep watching you eat them.

Chocolate cream? It sounds like it might be. Give me one of those. I've heard they're good. I'll try. I've heard they're good. He said, I began to take Winstroll. I got on a cycle, and after a while, the steroid began to chisel my body.

Combined with my intense workouts, my body transformed. I then decided to also take Deca durabalin which is the other one deca and winstroll is what they all take an anabolic steroid deca produces muscle growth and increases red blood cells bone density and appetite after all the damage done to my joints this steroid made me move a little better which helped me out tremendously sure all the football and the wrestling yeah he's got to have knees are already got to be trash by now but his heart is going to be irreversible damage yeah yeah between that and the butter butter smoking jesus good god you smoke that much butter it'll take its toll he said we would get

our steroids on the black market lots of wrestlers taking steroids, so it wasn't like he couldn't find them. To look good and advance in the business, steroids were a huge asset. Yep. Here's Ricky Morton. Quote, I recall one time that Doc and Hercules got in a fight. Though it was mainly cussing and yelling as well as throwing things, I was stunned to see Doc tear off the front glass door of the club. What?

You ever been to a nightclub that has a big front door? He just ripped it off. He's a wrecking ball. How does he destroy houses? I don't know. If you make him mad in your house, it could just be a pile of rubble when you leave. He's just ripping parts off of it. He's a great demo man.

Wow. I would say so. He was stunned to see him, Doc, tear off the ripping parts off of it. He said, great demo, man. Wow. I would say so. He was stunned to see him, Doc, tear off the front glass door of the club. This door must have weighed 300 pounds, and Doc was carrying it around and swinging it like a baseball bat. Jesus Christ. Swinging it. Swinging a fucking giant. Oh, my God.

After everything calmed down, we are all leaving to head to the hotel. How does that calm down ever? The club has no door anymore how does that get calm yeah what he just put the door down in order to drink like once the shock subsided i guess is the words right oh my yeah i guess so he said after i'll calm down we were leaving to head back to the hotel i looked over and asked doc if he was going to bring the door back inside doc still had this 300-pound door in his hand. I was taking it home with him. Here's some stories of some bar fights from this area.

Oh, boy. Because the arrests he has don't have a shitload of details. Like, he doesn't have, like, a standoff with the cops where he was beating his wife. That doesn't happen. So there's a lot of, like, fights, though, that are like, wow's he could be in prison for that like 25 things where you go he definitely would have been arrested we've already said 10 of them i think yeah he beat a man bloody in the street in tucson yeah he bleeds a guy bloody he's ripping doors off he's yeah who knows so here's buddy landell nature boy buddy landell who had a lot of balls calling himself that when he wasn't as good as

flair or buddy rogers so neither one of them he said steve was this big tough guy i was the young and brash instigator we just took a liking to each other we got along real well but when it came to fighting i would always start the fight and run and steve would have to finish it yeah it's a good quality to have he said uh i got in many bar fights throughout my mid South wrestling tenure. Many occurred at a bar called Cowboys. It's since changed its name to the rock and rodeo. Since all the talent had to be in Shreveport on Wednesday morning for TV, the boys tried to get back from Jackson Lake,

Charles Lafayette, or wherever they were Tuesday evenings to go to Cowboys. It was located next to the Sheraton Hotel where we all stayed. Everybody at the bar knew us and treated us well. One evening I was there. This is Steve talking. One evening I was there with Buddy Landell, Hercules, and my ex-wife Tammy. We'll hear from her too.

I had just started dating her and was madly in love. I was out on the dance floor dancing and kissing all over her. Out of nowhere, five police officers come up to me. They tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, saw them, and quipped, What in the world did I do now? Which crime are you here for?

Right, which one? Which door are you here to charge me for? He said a cop pointed to the other side of the room and said, You guys got to other side of the room and said you guys got to get out of here i had been drinking greyhounds vodka and grapefruit juice yeah that's gross oh jesus christ that's okay you drink vodka and orange juice to cover the flavor of the vodka now you somehow found the one fruit juice that exists on this planet that tastes worse than vodka and said let's mix those together yeah wow at that point i guess you're drinking it for heart health right i think

you're yeah that's the antioxidants is really what you're after there i believe combat the damage that the vodka is doing you gotta jesus christ he said so i was feeling pretty good i asked what do i have to do to get out of here the only thing or why do I have to get out of here? The only thing I've been doing is dancing and having fun with my girlfriend. One of the cops knew me and said, well, some of your buddies over there are causing trouble. They're talking trash,

and it looks like they're going to start a fight. I should have known Buddy Landell was running his mouth again. Oh, no. Buddy was another guy I got along with. Buddy was a great worker, and at one time was the Mid-South television champion. Sporting dyed blonde hair, Oh, no. pick a fight. I loved the guy, but when the fight started, when the fight started, he was nowhere to be found. I was often left to do the heavy hitting, as well as spending the nights in jail.

Anyway, I looked to the back to see Buddy and Hercules, surrounded by every male patron in the bar. Perfect. Yeah. There was about to be a huge gang fight, literally 100 versus 2. I knew the patrons wouldn't stand a chance,

100 versus 3, but I was in love and was having a great time with my girlfriend. Fuck, man. The last thing on my mind was fighting. So when the police behind me rushed over, so with the police behind me, I rushed over and told Buddy and Hercules we need to get out of here. As we left the bar, the cops escorted Buddy and Hercules, my soon-to-be wife

Tammy, and me out of the bar. As I passed through the front door, some guy popped me in the face from behind. Man, like a bull, I went chasing after this coward. As I got closer, all of a sudden, a cop stepped in front of the now-fallen punk, and it was go time. No, that's

not go time. That's not a go. That's stop time. That's stop time. No, that's not go time. That's not a go. That's stop time. That's stop time. But the guy punched him in the face from behind, so he wrapped around him. Yeah, it came in one of those from the side. And I guess he went. He said the now fallen guy.

So apparently the cop knocked him down as he was running away. Or he tripped. Like in a fucking horror movie with a guy that size chasing you. No shit. Yeah, really, I got a heart attack. Oh, God. He says, with rage running through my veins, I pointed my finger at this police officer and said, kid, you must be a rookie cop. I was going to beat the living tar out of this guy and anyone else who got in my way.

being tired of this guy and anyone else who got in my way but as i turned to tammy who was screaming for me to stop this rookie cop jumped on my back and tried to put the sleeper hold on me he also wedged his knee into my lower back uh out of instinct the only thing i could do was drop down in a three-point stance and head for something that would get this cop off my back he's gonna bull rush a wall and smash a cop's head into it and do a ridiculous like slapstick comedy fucking move who wouldn't want to i want the surveillance footage i know it was the 80s and it wouldn't be good but i want hd surveillance footage of this whole scene happening i really do this sounds great okay oh man i. Oh, man, I need this. He says, so he did that. The first thing I saw was the police paddy wagon. With the target locked in, I headed right to it. I was running as fast as I could like a snorting bull with the cops screaming for me to stop.

I put on the brakes right before hitting the paddy wagon. The cop flew off and he hit the paddy wagon, which knocked him unconscious. hitting the paddy wagon. The cop flew off and he hit the paddy wagon, which knocked him unconscious. Simultaneously, I felt these sharp pains to my lower back and legs. I turned around and saw about 20 cops beating me down.

I was soon handcuffed and my ankles were chained. What's that feeling? Oh, those are nightsticks in my ribs. I didn't even... How many nightsticks to the ribs would it take you to notice? Now, if you guys hit me and i find out about it i am gonna be mad holy fuck well they're just pounding him um i was thrown into the police car and taken downtown tammy later told me that when they arrested me she overheard

the police dispatch the police called the jail and told them to move everybody out of the big jail cell they just arrested the toughest sob around and they were bringing him in. The dispatcher radioed back, who is it? And they said, Dr. Death is coming to jail. And the dispatcher simply replied in a concerned tone, oh my. I spent the night in jail. The next morning I had my hearing. 20 cops must have been in attendance.

It seemed that everyone gave a statement. The judge told me stand he asked me what were you thinking yeah i said nothing i was there with my girlfriend minding my own business and i tried to be a good guy and get my friends out of there before a fight broke out next thing you know i'm getting hit in the face from behind i was simply defending myself. Very simple here. After a few back and forth comments, the judge took a short break. When he came back, the judge asked me to stand. He then told me to approach the bar. In a stereo, I think the bench is what you're going for, Steve.

Yeah, not the bar. Everything's the bar. He was back there. He wasn't shaking you up a fucking greyhound, was he? The lawyers approached the bar. They approached the bar. In a stereotypical manner of Louisiana justice, he said, Mr. Williams, to terminate the charge of battery on an officer, the fine is $5,000. So you want to pay?

You can pay. I can give you a break, but I have to work with these officers for the rest of my life. And Steve says, I just started in the business, and $5,000 is a lot of money to me back then but i had no choice so i accepted the judge's offer yeah no shit after another incident that occurred at cowboys could have really damaged my reputation in life prior to dating tammy i met a very attractive young lady on the dance floor oh no we drank and danced all night when the bar shut down we both headed back to my place a few hours later i dropped her off back at the bar parking lot in other words when we're done the next morning i got a knock on my door the cops asked me a few questions

the police then told me the young lady who spent the early morning hours with me said i had raped her oh boy i was stunned i pleaded my side but the police arrested me and took me downtown there is no record i cannot wasn't in the newspaper or any of that that he got arrested for even taken in if a you know if a if an nba player tomorrow gets arrested for rape i don't care if it's just for question whatever they're fucking putting that out there it's all over the place he said i couldn't believe this allegation. I once again appeared before the court. I pleaded not guilty and was released on bond. A court date was set.

It was unreal, and evil things started to run through my mind. Oh, boy. What kind of evil things? I don't like that at all. Fortunately, the young lady eventually dropped all charges. I later found out she made this charge of rape up because she felt I had disrespected her. She wanted to get all cozy and serious, and one short evening she had somehow developed some feelings toward me. I simply used her, then dropped her back off at her vehicle without even getting her phone number or saying goodnight.

I would be a whole lot more careful in the future. I was just trying to get some fuzzy. Wow. All right, then. There's no other info on that, so we only have his side of that so who knows who knows maybe maybe he is that charming that you just want to fucking settle down with him i don't after one night he's like a big teddy bear you know just cuddly loving that beard he's got a beard down on me for god's sake it was great too i mean he really worked it out it was hard i mean he smelled like a greyhound,

but other than that. So he's in UWF the whole time. Well, it's Mid-South, which turns into UWF, is what Bill Watts runs. He turns it into UWF. After Bill Watts turns it into UWF, he's really running with Steve

as kind of his main guy. This is like 86. He wins the UWF Heavyweight Championship from Big Bubba Rogers, who is future Big Boss Man. main guy this is like 86 he wins the uwf heavyweight championship from big bubba rogers who is future big boss man and um then jim crockett promotions bought uwf in 87 jim crockett promotions bought by ted turner and turned into wcw in 88 so that's how that went okay he's one of the few guys from the bill watts crew that they Watts crew that they kind of pushed as a big guy was Steve Williams because he looks like he looks. So there's another problem he has with a young lady here we'll talk about.

Quote, a few years back, a groupie came up to our hotel room in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Buzz Sawyer, John Norton, and I engaged in a youthful indiscretion which i am embarrassed by to this day hold on yeah how many how many guys one two three three large men oh buzz sawyer's a scumbag too like he's a piece of shit scumbag he's probably not as big as them therefore there's not a lot of room we're touching thighs in Oh, there's touching all sorts of shit. Pecs and thighs and nutbags. Wow. This is a lot.

Seeing that I was going to be rolling in the dough with WWF, the woman claimed that I was the father of her child. In front of a packed courthouse with media galore, I had to unnecessarily subject my family to this untruth. I had to take two DNA tests in front of everyone. They swabbed my mouth with these large Q-tips. The results unequivocally proved that I wasn't the father, yet the humiliation to me and the shame to my family was indecent and offensive. In the end, the case cost me slightly more than $100,000. What? What?

That's fucked, man. That's fucked, yeah. I mean, you have to defend yourself, and the only way to do that is with lawyers and money. Shouldn't you just spit in a cup and call it good? Wouldn't that do it? I would imagine so. Well, I would think maybe it would be like if it's yours, then fine. But if the baby is not yours after all that, then that's what I mean.

Yeah, you brought me into this. I didn't say I was your fucking baby's father. I wasn't trying to be the kid's dad. I wasn't claiming anything. We were running a train on you in a hotel room. It was disgusting. disgusting and i didn't want to tell my wife about it i touched buzz sawyer's nutsack you know what that's like i've never even jerked off to this memory since then i never want to remember this ever again oh my god so let's hear from m. Dr. Death. Oh, boy. Yeah. What's she have to say? This is Tammy here. She said, I have often been asked what it's like to be married to Dr. Death,

Steve Williams. We had our good times and bad times. He took me places that I had never been to and would probably never have seen without him. We were also going to we were going to Japan and Hawaii on a regular basis. He also bought me very nice things. Steve's lifestyle also affected our relationship in a bad way. I used to tell people it was like living with a rock and roll star. He wasn't around a lot, and the few times I accused him of fooling around with other women. At times, our relationship was very emotional and hurtful. Though he may not have always been the best husband, he is a wonderful dad. He even adopted my daughter, Stormy.

Steven is categorically an excellent father to both Wyndham and Stormy. He's also like a father to my other child, Levi. So, through all this, he ends up being on a show, on a TV show here for an episode. This is a terrible show called Learning the Ropes. It was on in the late 80s for like a season and a half starring Lyle Alzado. Remember the show? He's a wrestler Lyle Alzado. I remember

it. He said he met Lyle Alzado briefly when he was in high school. It's the same Lyle Alzado that played for the Raiders? For the Raiders. Lyle Alzado died. Yeah, he was an actor in the 80s for for a while and he got this tv show he said at my senior homecoming game lyle gave away the homecoming queen he's like i'm done with her here you go i'm just kidding it was great to finally see lyle close up and also to size myself

up against him later in life i got to know him a little more. When I was wrestling for Jim Crockett from 88 to 89, Lyle was making a show, Learning the Ropes. The sitcom was produced in Canada and featured Lyle Alzado as a teacher named Robert Randall who could not provide for his family with his job as a teacher and vice principal of a school, so he turned to wrestling part-time to pay the bills. Lyle needed some real wrestlers to work on his show, as well as a stuntman who looked like him and could absorb the punishment of being in the ring.

Several WCW stars appeared in the show, Rick Flair, Ronnie Garvin, the Road Warriors, but Lyle chose me as his stuntman, and I wrestled in the show as the Masked Maniac. He said, let me tell you something something being a stuntman for the sitcom was one very painful experience here your only job is to take a beating you're just getting beat up all day he said during one stunt i blew out my knee landing on the canvas of a stiff ring after rick flair rolled out of the way on another occasion i got my head busted open when tully blanchard smashed a steel chair over it i went went to the hospital, got 39 stitches in my head, and quickly returned to the set to finish the session. It was the most painful $2,000 I would ever earn in my lifetime.

Two grand for that. Two grand here. All right, here's a story from one of his pals here. Quote, in another traffic-related story, this one clown was speeding in and out of traffic and wouldn't let doc pass he kept screaming and cussing at doc that seems wise if you saw this man's head in a car window would you be screaming and cussing at him you're like oh that guy come on through be waving him by finally doc was able to pass the man doc looked over and said i'm going to teach this guy a lesson doc put on his brakes and

we both get out of the car when this guy saw the size of doc he rolled up his window and looked no pun intended scared to death yeah he didn't say a peep the entire time doc was yelling up a storm right before we left doc slammed his arms down on the roof and left the shape of a bird bath on the roof and left the shape of a birdbath on the car the guy the guy still didn't say a word happy to get away not murdered here so january 4th 1988 okay here he is um he's going to be arraigned here in district court u.s district court in detroit on a charge of attempting to export cocaine oh no oh yes i'm not good he was detained by u.s customs agents on january 4th Oh, no. of cocaine in his pants pocket 22 grams of marijuana in his sock and two grams of psilocybin mushrooms and assorted barbiturates in a black purse in his luggage then they found more barbiturates and marijuana 241 steroid tablets and 28 milliliters of liquid steroid okay yeah

cocaine and they got well that's like that's the most exporting a drug like cocaine's the highest charge okay for that yeah i mean this is fucking 88 they were cocaine was you know public enemy one at that point so they said that they they ordered him to surrender his passport and restricted his travel to the continental united states and all this type of shit here he had uh they were talking about a diversion program that would allow him to avoid criminal prosecution, but the court pretrial service division recommended against it. And federal officials were then unable to find Williams, prompting an issuance of a warrant for his arrest, and then he was arrested by federal agents in Seattle.

Oh, God. So, yeah, he faces some jail time and a $250,000 fine for this. Wow. And a year and a half in prison. Here's how he explains it. Tell me. Okay. It was a misunderstanding.

Well, no, no, no. He just said how he got into it. Hawk of the Road Warriors. Let's start with that. Okay. Now, Hawk is the one with the not the Mohawk. He's the reverse Mohawk. He's that that one of the road warriors.

It's yeah. He put a receding hairline. He shaved it. It was that shaved a horseshoe. But one has one and one is the other. The other guy should be Hawk is my point, I guess. But he's Hawk. The other guy's animal.

So he said, anyway, Hawk, the other guy's an animal. So he said, anyway, Hawk and I lived together on the road. He had a heart of gold and was very compassionate and an understanding person. Hawk was a top star and got paid very well for his talent. On the other hand, the company wasn't paying me well at all. Hawk knew about this inequity, so out of the kindness of his heart, he gave me money if I was ever short or in a bind. He treated me like a younger brother. With my divorce, the birth of my premature baby, and life on the road, and my miserable contract, life became very difficult and stressful.

Hawk was also going through a divorce. Though we looked larger than life on television and in the arena, we were emotionally and physically hurting. Life became very tough for both of us. At this time, to escape our pain and troubles, Hawk introduced me to cocaine. Yay, that'll do it. I became addicted. I was doing steroids, popping painkillers, drinking and smoking marijuana. I was a drug addict.

That sounds like it. For some reason, I thought these cravings would solve my problems and keep me alive, and I wasn't alone. There was many guys in the business who had to deal with the same issues. The company was running us hard. We were working nine matches a week, one on Saturday, two on Sundays. Hawk and I were like machines and felt invincible. Cocaine kept us going. I was also chasing Benjamin Franklin.

My life was all about getting as much money as possible. I sent some money home to my family, someone in the bank. The rest went to my vices. I was also chasing Benjamin Franklin. My life was all about getting as much money as possible. I sent some money home to my family, someone in the bank. The rest went to my vices. I was living in the devil's den. My body was in pain from getting pounded every night. Again, Doc, just for a second, just think of what you just said and then go, you know what? Is that not a thing then? Make that like that.

I was shooting in Japan and dealing with head games and stress in the States. I was also trying to keep my family together. I needed an outlet. I'm embarrassed today about my past addiction, but would never erase the wonderful memories and times that Hawk and I shared. Like me, Hawk became a born-again Christian and changed his life. Unfortunately, Hawk passed away in October of 2003 at 46. It was during this period in NWA

wrestling that I got busted two out of the three times of my career for drugs. Two out of his three career busts came during this time. The first time it happened at the Detroit airport, that's this time, they found a plethora of cocaine, pills, pot, and steroids in my luggage. Though they were simply for my own personal use, the authorities thought I was planning to sell the drugs in Japan.

They confiscated everything, and I spent a night in jail. With the help of a lawyer friend recommended by the road warriors, I was let go. But upon my return from Japan, federal agents were waiting for me in California. They showed up in the locker room and mistakenly grabbed rip morgan that poor bastard shit they found me in seattle washington i had to pay a huge fine received one year probation and was sentenced to community service so it's really hard to find the resolution of this you hear he got busted but to find the revolution the resolution is really difficult so i'm glad he put that in there so um yeah he talks about um uh now he's in uh wcw now and um this is the time of this is a bad time of wcw this is

like all sorts of kind of shit angles and uh jim heard's gonna take over so no 89 90 91 this is when they didn't want rick flair anymore and sent him to wwf in 92 and late 91 and it was that sort of deal he's in an angle with the varsity club which is the varsity club him and mike rotunda who's irs later captains of of the football team or some shit it's kind of like that sort of thing. Yeah, it's really a dumb, I don't know. There's good wrestlers in it, but a really stupid fucking name. So I guess it was guys who had done college wrestling or college sports. Because Rotunda wrestled at Syracuse and he wrestled at OU. So here's a story from Jim Ross about a fight here.

He talks about this on his podcast, Grilling JR. He talks about Road Warrior Hawk and Dr. Death getting in a fight here. He talks about this on his podcast, Grilling JR. He talks about Road Warrior Hawk and Dr. Death getting in a fight. So they love each other, and he loves them so much, but apparently they also got into each other's faces a lot, and he said they, according to Cornette, they got in each other's faces and cursed at each other and nearly came to blows.

He said that this is what he says, quote, of course, this is Jim Ross. Yeah, of course, two high strung guys, two alpha males that didn't want to compromise. I was actually involved in a situation with those two guys in Florida at a TV. I remember watching the ongoings with Natch because Natch, of course, was being a Minnesota guy. That's Ric Flair. And Hawk, being a Minnesotan, said, oh, man, your boy's going to get it tonight. I go, right.

Okay, Natch. So the issue was that I got in between the two guys and started scolding them. I knew they weren't going to beat me up because that wouldn't have been a big win on your win-loss record. So cooler heads prevailed. I said, you guys are going to hurt each other. Then you're going to be off work. And then when you're off work, you're not going to make a goddamn dime. Is that what you want? Are you both that stupid? So I said, come on, get your shit together and move on and just move on out of this. And let's

see what kind of and and that's the kind of what we did on that deal. They didn't fight, but they sure as hell wanted to. And Jim Ross says, I'm like Cornette in that respect that my money would have been on Doc. They say, why would you say that Hawk was a great street fighter and he had a hell of a punch. Those punches are rendered ineffective when you, the puncher is on the, uh, is on his back. And that's what amateur wrestlers do. Doc would have broken him down, taken him off his feet, which would have negated the punching power, uh, to a large degree. And that's how that fight would have ended. And then, uh, then he would have mounted him.

Everybody, please, please. It's bad enough. Submit to his will. Ah, it's bad enough. You're sweaty and in your underwear.

Must you do this as well? And then he would have beat the shit out of Hawk. And that's how that would have happened. So that's what he thought. 1990 is his born again. Christian time. Oh boy. This is his first going before his first big run in Japan.

Steve's a huge star in Japan. Really? Oh, God. He's what they think of like the big, giant American. He embodies it. So, I mean, they love that big, thick, crazy fucking. He does look like he eats a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers. Him, Scott Norton, any of those real big those real big thick chested guys they love those guys over

there so he said he generally prior to this he lacked interest in organized religion but now he's a born-again christian so he's into it he said he also took interest in east asian religions having attended a lot of japanese temples while on tour in 19 in j 1990, though, he's known for praying backstage before each match. Oh. So that's what he's doing here. He talks about Japan a little bit. He said, I wrestled Antonio Inoki. He was a senator over there.

Inoki is, like, so famous. I mean, Christ, he was in Bad News Bears movies in the 70s and had that big Ali exhibition with Muhammad Ali and everything. In fact, he was the one who got the Japanese prisoners out of Iraq. I wrestled him in Dallas, Fort Worth in front of probably 40,000 people. And I got a deal out of that. It wasn't a contract. It was a handshake.

That's probably why I stayed in Japan, because every contract I had in the United States has been broken. And over there, I had a handshake and my money was sitting in the bank every time I got there. Yeah. So he said that he was very Japan was a different deal for him. Like you could Japan over there. They want to see you could be rough over there. You could really punch the shit out of somebody in the crowd loves that sort of shit.

So he ends up being forming a tag team with Terry Gordy who's one of the Freebirds and also known as one of the toughest son of a bitches ever. So these two walking around would be terrifying. 1990, he goes to work for the other UWF, not Bill Watts' UWF, Herb Abrams' UWF, which we did a

bonus episode on it. And he said that this wasn't Bill Watts' UWF, rather in 1990 the uwf founded by herb abrams herb was a dichotomy without a doubt he was a heck of a nice guy herb was extremely funny and unequivocally treated me like a superstar herb flew me first class to all the events and had a limousine waiting for me at the airport he's making no money remember all the we went over that he put me up in the best hotels, but Herb was also a bullet train heading for a collision.

He lived life to the fullest. Unfortunately, he lived on the wrong side of the track. Herb loved to party, and he could party with the best. He loved his alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and anything else you could think of. He also surrounded himself with

beautiful women. I recall this one time in Las Vegas when Herb called me to his penthouse suite in one of those luxury hotels on the Strip. Herb answered the door half-blitzed. In the room were five naked prostitutes with cocaine all over the place. Oh, my God. That's how he died, Herb, we know. The UWF, however however was a legitimate company Herb thought it could compete against WWF

and WCW I'm not sure where he got his money some say his parents but he never short changed me from what I understand and what we did when we went over Herb if Herb was scared of a man he would pay him if he wasn't then he didn't never shorted Dr. Death because he didn't never shorted dr death because he

didn't want dr death beating the shit out of him here his doors were not dr death proof they're not dr death proof no no he'll just rip it off kick it off real weak doors on my house yeah he'll mount you he'll slap your willy he'll do whatever he wants to you don't want that happen jerky jerky right off on a barstool so he uh he ends up back in wcw as terry gordy comes back in with him and they're they come back in for a little while march of 1995 here he has uh another another issue here uh and with jap with japan and uh a uh oh no this is 1995 is when he gets clean from drugs that's right oh great he says he's with Japan. Oh, no. 1995 is when he gets clean from drugs. That's right.

Oh, great. He says he's clean from drugs. He thanks Giant Baba in Japan for helping him and also his faith and everything else and the fact that he's still close with his ex-wife. So close that they'll end up remarrying and divorcing again. Oh, dear God. My worst nightmare.

Isn't that horrible?esus christ i could again with this me you're not getting another alimony i'll tell you that right now i've learned my lesson oh man he also appears in ecw in the in 1997 a bit uh extreme championship wrestling if you don't know there he comes in does a few shots uh beats up axel rotten a little bit and then he ends up losing a match to raven who was the champion at the time and uh raven yeah you know raven that guy so march of 1997 he is at the laredo international airport where is that texas texas yeah texas he's there and uh inspectors found what they describe as undeclared pharmaceutical drugs again here. Yes, and him and his two companions, Michael Joseph Geary,

who's his buddy that we've been getting quotes from there, and another guy, Paul Gregory Ferrer of Denton. They were all charged with possession of a controlled substance, a felony, and released. Drugs seized included 80 boxes of neopercadam, 17 boxes of Valium, 16 boxes of Halcyon. Halcyon is fucking strong. Halcyon's strong. That's what the wrestlers... That's what Jeffrey Dahmer used to knock people out, isn't it?

That's what wrestlers used to use to knock each other out. They used to do that to women all the time. They'd put it in their drinks. It was like, again, Arrested Development. It was like, Jobes, forget me now. That's what it was, though. So 15 boxes of Temma Jesic. I don't know what that is.

26 boxes of Darvon and 8 boxes of rich ravoli uh rich rich roville and and these are boxes how many is in a box that's i don't know that's a shitload that's a lot of stuff either way if you have 80 boxes of something even if there's one per box that's 80 pills you know if you've got a halcyon you're a dangerous person yeah 16 boxes seems like too much right too much yeah he explains it this way quote the second time i was busted while working for all japan to cope with my divorce i got high with some friends in dallas prior to a tour in japan when i arrived at customs in japan they searched out my wallet and found the roach of a joint. I had forgotten all about it.

I was immediately deported. Since I had embarrassed and disgraced the profession, Japan suspended me for one year. Wrestling over there is taken seriously. It's like a national pastime. It's like sumo and wrestling and baseball. Those are the three big sports. Fortunately, I met Giant Baba in California six months later. I deeply apologized for what I had done, and he took care of me and brought me back to all Japan. So still, got busted again.

A shitload of stuff at the airport. Now, this 1999, we'll talk about this briefly because we did an entire Patreon on this subject. So the brawl for all in WWF. We did a whole, we talked about it on other episodes and literally did an hour and ten minute long Patreon. So, if you want to hear about that, go ahead, but I'll give you that. have or vince russo more accurately decided it'd be a good idea to have all of their wrestlers not all of them but a group of their wrestlers perform in a shoot fight tournament real really fight this time and you know do all of that they just hoped that the guys that they wanted to win would win and not some like you know mid-card nobody guy, which is what ended up happening. The guy who won was Bart Gunn, who was not a guy they expected or wanted to win, but was a guy who was a boxer, was an amateur boxer for years,

and was a rodeo cowboy. So a tough fucking son of a bit. That's a tough bastard, you know what I mean? A boxer who does rodeo cowboy shit? That's a tough man. So that's who ended up winning because he knew how to fight. He knew how to box. In a boxing match, this isn't like a ufc type thing they have boxing gloves on so i mean in a boxing match you have to it's a who can box the best you know what i mean

so they bring in dr death who boxing is not his strong point anyway but they figure he's tough enough hopefully he'll win the whole thing and they tell him that the plan is hopefully you win this thing and then we're going to have you do a six-month program with Stone Cold Steve Austin. Right. And it's going to be Steve Williams versus Steve Williams here and it's going to be those two are two big tough son of a bitches. A little mirror match. Steve Williams from Oklahoma and Steve Williams from Oklahoma. From Texas. Is he from Texas?

I think the other one's from Texas who knows I think he was born in Texas wasn't he I don't really care maybe who knows so eventually though obviously Dr. Death ends up he wins his first fight

then gets knocked out by Bart Gunn because he tore his hamstring and his glute muscle. He tore every muscle in his leg. And he was trying to fight the rest of the fight on one leg. And you can't box on one leg. You absolutely can't. All of your punching power comes from your legs and your balance. So you're just, I mean, he was out there ready to get killed.

So Bart Gunn ended up knocking him out. And he was injured. His whole leg was all there ready to get killed. So Bart Gunn ended up knocking him out. And he was injured. His whole leg was all fucked up and everything else. He said, I was knocked out in the second round of the tournament. Though I had torn a hamstring and a torn butt muscle, I never gave up. With my hands down by my side, I got back up to my feet. He did try. I got to give him credit.

Most people would have went, well, fight's over. I can't walk anymore. So he kept going. He said, in 1998, I tore my hamstring and thigh muscle at the WWF's Brawl for All against Mark Gunn. To get back into wrestling shape, I went to Dory Funk's dojo. While there, I was the first guy to do a 10-minute Broadway with Kurt Angle. So he was the first guy to kind of help break Kurt Angle into the business because they're both amateur guys and all that. So he thought that was pretty cool.

So he said the initial plan to have dr death be this guy you know he's going to come in and be the baddest toughest guy in the world and kick the shit out of stone cold they kind of had to lose that at that point because we watched him get limp limping around getting knocked out so that's not going to work anymore um at one point uh vince mcmahon came up with a gimmick for him well rather than that he's that guy we've ruined we've ruined dr death yeah destroyed him let's put him under a mask and pretend he's japanese what do you say yeah yeah so they put him in like the whole japanese outfit and with a mask and pretend he's japanese then and it was ridiculous so he had bruce pritchard he's got

the podcast there as his manager and uh pritchard, who's got the podcast there, as his manager. And Pritchard was asked to wear face paint and act as if he was Japanese, you know, speaking for Steve Williams. This is what Steve Williams. Yeah, they've done this a million times in the past, by the way. The Orient Express in the early 90s was like a Hawaiian guy and a white guy from Michigan or some shit. Like it was yeah they do this all the time so um it didn't really work out very well um the uh on monday night raw february 22nd 1999 williams debuted as the mask gimmick by attacking bart gun yeah there you go and uh they said that he threw him off and he did all this shit but that's the only time you're going

to see that gimmick though it goes away after that so that's off and he did all this shit. But that's the only time you're going to see that gimmick, though. It goes away after that. That's it. Then he starts being on a storyline with Jim Ross, being Jim Ross's bodyguard at that point. You'd see him come out and do that, which leads to him then going to WCW. And when they did the Jim Ross character of, you know, him with Bell's palsy and all that kind of shit. They hired Steve Williams to stand next to him. So it would look like he did in WWF. So that's how that goes on there.

Yeah, he was very disappointed in the WWF thing because he thought after all these years, this was his big break. This was going to be, he said, this six months with Steve Austin, this is going to be the most money he's ever made in his life all at once. You know what I mean?

So he was very excited, and then it all just, poof, was that's tough that is tough man yeah for some dumb shit that should have never happened that's he really is out of everybody in this tournament it really didn't hurt anybody else that bad it fucked his career up irreparably it absolutely did it absolutely did it fucked him up he was supposed to be this invincible guy and he put boxing gloves on him and put him in the ring with a boxer a guy who knows how to box and he tears his hamstring up and you let him get knocked out in the ring like what the fuck is that yeah destroyed him so i don't know september 18th 1999 he's got another problem here. He's arrested for child support charges.

Oh, no. He's not paying? Yes. No. Everybody says nice guy. No matter what, everybody loves him. Deputy Marshal Carla Cooper said he's a nice guy, absolutely a gentleman. He signed a lot of autographs for courtroom or courthouse employees.

I'd charge him some money so I can pay this fucking child support. No shit. He needs to pay $18,000. He failed to pay a lump sum of $18,000 and monthly child support payments of $811, ordered in 1995 during the divorce by an Oklahoma court. $18,000 in a lump sum. I don't know if he owed a bunch of money or what it was, but he ate 11 a month after that. Yeah, said his client never married this is not tammy this is another yeah he this is the one where he uh he denies the

paternity claim he says this isn't my kid but they've been making him pay child support for four years so i assume this probably is your kid i don't think this is the other one he was talking about or else it wouldn't cost him a hundred thousand dollars so he says but then he says this quote in early 1998 i was slapped with a paternity lawsuit this deadbeat dad case made national and international news but it was from three years ago you were ordered by a court to pay the shit three years before that so that doesn't make sense uh it was in the USA Today and other major media headlines. There I was, an international wrestling superstar, headed to the WWF for my biggest payout ever,

but all of that was overshadowed by me being portrayed as an irresponsible father. So, yeah, that's not great. But, you know, you don't feel too bad for him. I mean, what the fuck? People think of you, people think of a wrestler, they think he's probably a much bigger scumbag than that.'re like oh child support at least he didn't beat her up i mean that you know good for you i mean with the brain damage and the steroids and who knows sometimes you got to raise these kids for 18 years we're gonna we're gonna assume that over

the next 18 years i'm not gonna have some financial hardship no shit so we don't know that so and if it isn't if he's not the father and he's being dragged through all this you gotta feel bad for him at that point i mean you gotta feel bad for him but not nearly as bad as you feel for steve williams yeah coo of leading ev cargo's global forwarding division division in the united kingdom that is steve williams president at williams jewelers in englewood colorado steve williams president at williams jewelers in englewood colorado steve williams partner and head of design services at cive in houston texas steve williams retired director and supply chain management at southern company which is a power

company in atlanta georgia and of course steve williams stone cold ste Steve Austin, who's another wrestler, obviously. So he talks about his third arrest here. Let's talk about that. Quote, the third and final time that I was arrested because of drugs was my All Japan tenure. After my second divorce from the same woman, I went to Mexico with some of my friends. We partied and had a grand time in Nuevo Laredo. As we headed back to the States, I was busted with illegally purchased my friends. We partied and had a grand time in Nuevo Laredo. As we headed back to the States, I was busted with illegally purchased prescription drugs. The incident was on all the newspapers,

including USA Today. He's obsessed with USA Today. That's the big one for him. I think it's because he stays in a lot of hotels. When you stay in a lot of hotels, they always have one sitting out. So that's what you see. And it's folded.

So if you're above the fold, you're like, shit, I really fucked up. He said, I spent all night in jail. Mexico's judicial system operates differently than that of the U.S., though through much negotiation and diplomacy, I was released after paying a major $10,000 fine. So another time. So he's bad at borders is his problem. He doesn't realize that they're pretty stingy with the borders, and they tend to find stuff in customs a lot of times, you know, every once in a while here.

They tend to run those bags through x-rays and shit. It happens sometimes here. It happens. So he goes back to All Japan here wrestling from 2000 through, like, 2003, and he does, you know, a lot with that. Again, he tags up with Vader. Remember Vader from the 90s there? Tags up with him and is their world champions for a while there.

So 2003, he's involved with an indie named Major League Wrestling, which is in the mid-Atlantic region. There's a lot of guys that do that. And he also wrestled for a few other indies around there. They did one of the first professional wrestling events in China. And he won their title there. So he did that. March 14, 2004.

He decides to go into MMA for some reason. Really? Yeah. I guess a payday would probably be why. 40 years old? It was Japan's K-1 promotion. Well, he's a big deal in Japan. He's considered pretty tough. So they can probably get a good payday out of him.

But, yeah, he has one fight. He fights Alexey Ignashov, who's a fighter here. And this fight only goes 22 seconds, and Steve is knocked out with knees. Damn it. So, yeah, it doesn't really work out all that well. He is 40 years old. Oh, and we'll tell you something else that happened. That happened also.

A few days before the match, he was told that he had throat cancer. Before the match? Before the match. But it was only a few days away, so he had to go through with it because he needed the payday. And it was already on the book. So you can't really concentrate on fighting if you just got told you have cancer. Plus, you have cancer. So, you know, it's tough.

So, yes, he's got throat cancer, they tell him. And he said that he had a persistent cold and he ended up having a golf ball-sized tumor in his throat. That was the problem. Yeah. So, in March 2004, pretty much right after that match, he undergoes surgery for his throat cancer. And he said it's been probably been around for over a year, they said. It's been, you know, building up and building up. He's still appearing in wrestling shows and doing all this type of thing. He is declared cancer free in 2005.

Great. And he has his return match in August of 2005. And then the problem is, though, it comes back. Really? Yeah, man. It's so fucking sad because everybody really, really does like the guy. Unless you fuck with him in a bar or something, he treats everybody nicely. Everybody says he treats people with respect.

He treats rookies. He's a detriment to himself only and anybody who would be. But he's the type of guy, if you're stupid enough to fuck with somebody that big, to yell at somebody like that in a bar, you deserve to get the shit beat out of you. Because, duh, I'd walk to the other side of the fucking room if I saw this guy coming. Just in case he felt like getting in with somebody. I don't want to fight this fucking guy. He's a monster. So that's on you you know what i mean so this at this point he's um it's really hard because there's videos of him out there from like 2008 where he is in the wrestling

ring training guys wrestling and he's like doing a demo of like training and how he trains people and he's got the voice thing up to his throat where he dogs like that he's got that going you're like oh dr death it's just so fucking sad man and he looks it makes the dr death character real scary though it's scary yeah yeah yeah right no shit he's got a voice box he talks with uh but he it's it's crazy he's got um he withers away. You can see it. The original surgery was 10 hours of surgery, too. It was absolutely fucking horrible, man. It was really bad stuff.

So he talks a lot about it, but I got to be honest, man. It's depressing. It's really fucking depressing. I'm not going to read long paragraphs in his book about having cancer because it's just depressing. We've had fun so far. It's sad enough that he had cancer and that really sucks i don't really want to make it i i don't know what the cause is he talks later on about he never says it because he talks later on about how he you know tells his he he says that he tried to stay he doesn't get it because he said he tried oh at the time he was trying to stay away from like smoky bars and thick shit

because his throat hurt but he talks to his kids and tells them to like stay away from tobacco products and all that sort of thing but i can't really figure out what his deal is about it because i don't think he ever i don't think he was a smoker based on smoker well based on all of a wrestler and football player that's yeah you know what i mean not a real smoker he even when he was in college didn't even want to smoke weed because he didn't want to like hurt his lungs. So that doesn't seem weird. I don't know if maybe he chewed tobacco. Yeah.

Cause that seems more likely. Got a lot of guys like that, you know, do that. Um, and he had, he said the type of cancer I had is called T4 cancer. T4 is the most devastating one can get in the lymph nodes and throat.

With T4, the cancer extends outside the larynx by invading the thyroid cartilage and into the esophagus or soft tissue of the neck. And there was a tumor the size of a golf ball on the side of my neck. Oh, my God. So that's a lot of fun here. He said I was blown away. It was a lot. And he was just, they basically had to cut his head off to take this tumor out.

Yeah, he said that he figured he was dying. He said, well, he did smoke cigarettes. Because he said, I started smoking cigarettes after my first divorce, thinking that would help me cope. I also chewed tobacco and dipped snuff from the age of 12 until I hit 30. Bingo. Yeah, as a jock, chewing tobacco was part of the practice field and locker room, and it is, especially back then.

It was just normal. It seemed like everyone was doing it at the time, and I thought nothing about the health risks. But that's still not... I mean, Christ is divorced. It was like six years. He's been smoking for six years, and he had quit smoking.

He had quit doing chew 12 years ago. Right. So, I mean, who knows? He might just be predisposed. Yeah. You know, who knows? I mean, there's a lot of different anecdotal so can linger and come back later and come out. So, who the fuck knows?

It's very, very, very fucking sad, though, here. His whole family is, you know, with him. Like I said, he'll be better and then worse. family is uh you know with him as he like i said he'll he'll be better and then worse and then it after like 2007 it seems to really kind of go downhill and um yeah it's it's really hard um he goes to the he comes out in the media though and talks about it and really you know tries to you know tries to act like he's okay basically he tries to say that you know if tries to act like he's okay. Basically, he tries to say that, you know, if it could happen to me, look at me, I'm a big tough guy. It could happen to anybody.

Make sure to keep an eye on cancer and all that kind of thing. So, I mean, I guess that's really great to do, but that's about all you can do at that point. So everybody who likes him, everybody who knows him comes out, all his coaches and ex-players and hundreds of people. There's articles about him and what a great guy he is. And his ex-wrestling coach who hooked him up with Bill Watts said, down-to-earth sweet guy. Despite all the bravado, Steve Williams is a very sweet human being.

He said he's always all smiles and all that kind of shit. So, yeah, he's talking about that. Steve goes through a lot in his book about having the cancer and all the doctor visits. And it's brutal, man. So he does, though, like I said, after he makes a comeback in wrestling a little bit and then kind of sits out of the comeback and he gets his treatments. And when he's feeling okay enough to to wrestle he'll wrestle but he'll make appearances still because he's still you know people want to go look at him sure he's a draw well in 2006 he doesn't have health insurance either because

he's a wrestler independent 1099 baby that's how that goes no and he accumulated three hundred thousand dollars in medical bills so far so they tried to help him wwe gives him a trainer for their developmental talent that's where i saw that video from and he would work the occasional house shows as a referee it's like a guest referee in 2006 he also made an appearance on smackdown in 2006 which he was signed to help train an up-and-comer there and all that sort of shit. So he made a few appearances on OVW as well, which is Ohio Valley Wrestling.

In 2007, he is inducted into the NCAA Wrestling Hall of Fame. Great. So, yeah, he's the George Tragos and Lou Fez Professional Wrestling Inductee is what he is here. Riddled with cancer cancer the poor bastard riddled with cancer yeah uh 2009 he's uh they he's trying he says he's retired basically at that point he makes his his last public appearance in wrestling terms in at a wrestle fest convention on december

12 2009 and um he's having problems. Jim Ross said, I received an email from Steve Dr. Death Williams, and apparently cancer has returned to once again challenge my dear pal. Cancer returned to his stoma, and Doc has been undergoing chemotherapy treatment, which is the only way this matter can be

addressed. So, talks about that. It's really difficult, and he says doc has some limited wrestling engagements upcoming and is still working for southwest airlines at the denver airport what he's i don't know he's working at counter i don't know what he's doing for handler can't do that i don't know what the fuck he's doing but i mean he's working at the Denver airport in 2009. That's December 12th is his appearance. He makes December 29th, 2009. He dies in Denver.

Yep. He died in Denver at 49 years old. Jesus Christ. Yeah. It's fucking sad, man. It's very, very sad. Yep. He's shit.

I mean, it's obviously the tons of people come out and give come out and give these eulogies in the press, and he said that there's quotes from him saying he was fighting and fighting and fighting, and he was hoping that his friends were trying to help him raise money for an artificial voice box,

and he said, I'm hoping to have the money by Christmas. It would be a heck of a Christmas present. present fuck he didn't even make christmas he didn't even make it to he didn't make it so that's brutal he made the 29th he made it oh he didn't make it to the new year that year though so he was living with his mother in lakewood at the time of his death and um yep he was cremated and not they didn't say what has done, what they did with his ashes, but people have said that they were scattered around the Rocky Mountains where he wanted it to be scattered.

So that's a story of, I mean, a great legitimate athlete, obviously, and a big star in wrestling and a big star in all sorts of shit. This is a guy who nowadays, if this guy existed would be he'd be a big mma star i believe would was what he would be probably you know what i mean you think so i i believe so yeah he professional wrestling wouldn't be for him now yeah yeah they wouldn't be it's he's nice too he's too tough of a guy i think now i don't think he's pretty enough i mean there's guys that aren't pretty but i i just think he's too wild for wrestling nowadays. I think he would be a big-time MMA fighter, I believe, because just being a big, tough son of a bitch,

if he started doing that style and using his hands more when he was 22, I think he'd be crazy. If he was really good on the college field, he may have gone just to the NFL or to a practice field or something. There's probably more money in that than combat sports probably but when you get when you get cut from the generals where else do you go at that point dan reeves said he doesn't want you and you take a year off and i mean i could see it it's tough it's tough but um everybody that is dr death steve williams and it's just a wild a wild life a wild life man he lived in the crazy times of wrestling

where you would have to fight your way back to the locker room and kick the fucking door off the hinges to get back in and drugs around the planet

and hit that butter bong all the time and everything else and all the butter was missing hilarious that's so fucking funny so

there you go everybody that's Dr. Debt Steve Williams if you like that show or any of the shows damn it if you haven't done it yet butter was missing. That's so fucking funny. So there you go, everybody. That's Dr. Debt, Steve Williams. If you like that show or any of the shows, damn it. If you haven't done it yet, get on whatever app you're listening on.

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We've talked about defunct theme parks. Now we're going to talk about just horrible theme park disasters. There's been countless amounts of them. You could do a whole show just on that. Theme park disaster show. When the horror felt by a roller coaster is justified. That's what I'm talking about. Then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about some of the

wildest prison riots we've ever heard of. Because that last episode we did made me think of that. So we're definitely going to talk about prison riots and all that sort of thing and some crazy shit there. That's patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you'll get a shout out in just a second as well here. They're coming up.

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Get your tickets. And also get your goddamn shout-out on Patreon. And when does that shout-out happen, Jimmy? Right now. That's right. Goddamn. happen, Jimmy? Right now! That's right, goddamn. Now, Jimmy, hit me with the names of these people like a butter bong hit right to my face. This week's executive producers are Jordan Bennett, of course, obviously.

Hey, Jordan, my girl. Margaret Thatcher's dank meat sleeve. That's disgusting. Why would you do that to me? That's a bad visual. And Michaela, happy birthday. It doesn't narrow it down very much, Michaela. Except that it's from DeLuca.

Do you know DeLuca? Are you Michaela? Do you know a person named DeLuca? Happy birthday, somebody from somebody else. Other producers this week are Fanny Pfister. You son of a bitch. Peyton Meadows, Dixon, my ass. Hey, very nice.

Oh, boy. Why do they do this? Does that make you feel better? Sweet Pete. Gary Friedman, Janice Hill, Gorilla Monsoon's comb over. Shitta Perlman has relapsed, James. She's back on the rosinitis. And we're really pulling for rupert bumpkins lizzie b lynn ash sandy minge oh yeah of course caitlin wellborn uh jan lewis kathleen cox

tucker smith diana ortiz caressa what is this caressa hill grant richard uh annMarie Marquis. What? Patrick Badizzi. Badizzi? Not that, probably. Fast for Chase Applegate, Holly Royce, Caitlin Dornan, Carrie Elwell, Sydney Irvine, Jess Vixen, Jenny Fernandez, Whitney Smith, Bethany Morin, Da Bushmeister, Daryl Hunt, Maria Saldino, Saldino, Saldino, Jessica Nihill, Ezekiel Suarez, Katie McGarry, Jesse Goodhue, Brooke Sandstorm. Brooke Sandstorm. That's real. Amanda Cook.

Cool name. Barrett Thornton. That's a cowboy name. Holly Trexler, Randy Filayo. Oh Barrett. Barrett Thornton. That's a cowboy name. Holly Trexler. Randy Faleo. Oh, boy. Be careful with that one. Justin Reynolds.

Alexandra Moody. Zana Roth. Daniel Valdivinos. Valdivinos. Jody Orlando. Jennifer Morgan. Boston Hensley. Jeremiah Murphy.

Kyle Benjamin. Jason with no last name. Brenda Wegner. Kyle Youn. Jeff Brown. Christy Durham, Kristen Wells, Melody Potter, Mikel, Mikel, Mikeli, that's Mikel, right? Paige, Daniel Bricado, Heather Bellinger, Austin Witters, Anora with no last name, Sonny Palmitier, Palmitmitier i don't know jeff schaefer daniel danielle cantrell cantrell crazy kiwi in the land of oz greg eckler sarah with no last name lindsey white uh christopher miller peachy nemo nemo uh lacey keeser mary hudson kelsey with no last name brian mcdavitt uh dan peruzzi jennifer so what's, Aaron Keeley, Jolene Pritchard, Heather Hunoff, Whitney Bernard, Emily Casey, Sky Emiliano, Trisha L., Justin would know the last name, Tanzania Lucas, Kaylee, Kylie, Kaylee, Bresh, Wendy Bagneski, Bev Tremblay, Nathan would with no last name Tanzania Lucas, Kylie Kylie, Kylie, Kaley, Baresh Wendy Bagneski, Bev Tremblay

Nathan with no last name, Kim with no last name Japcat, that feels awful Sean McAdams, Eric Everett Steven Sowers, Jacob Ollenberger, Paul McGreevy Crystal Moyer Brandon Wilburn Rachie J

Julia Rose Jeanne, Jeannie, Colleen Crowley, Jess Badeau, Bo Dot, Bo Dot, John Kirby, Susan Rez, Jane Comtois, Kelly Smith, Faye Youssef. Faye? Faye. Faye. Marina with no last name. Marina, no last name. Matthew DiRizzo, Susan Wilson, Francesca Brim, Depoler Diamond.

Depoler. Depoler. All right. Gay Nolan, Brock Skaggs, Cassie Costello, Flatwoods, Nancy Bonilla, Victoria Walsh, Ari Van de Graaff, Sonia Silvers, Jenny Lynn Warren, Jason Kozian, Eddie Fox, Sarah Bradburn, Kim McGugan, Madeline M., Toby Armstrong, Sydney Roberts, Lee Jane, Leah J. Russell, Lisa with no last name, David Dorn, Adam topless, topless, uh, Becca has, has, has flexbert. Hamilton, Mary Clark would know. Wait, Mary Clark is her name. Penelope Carter, Ron reader or reatter. Uh, Sean Dennehy sky would know last name.

Kaylee, Kay, Callie, grow some gross time. MSM, grow some, grow some, grow some Callie, Kaylee, uh, Steven MSM. Grossom, damn it, grow a pair. Grossom, Callie, Kaylee, Stevie Barr, Tanner Holmgren, McKenna Barajas, Lauren with no last name, Catherine Kruger, Randy Stone, Jesse Webb, Jacqueline Tinsley, Ryan Chapdelaine, Chapdelaine, that's right, Benjamin Frufrauer, Fruferfoff, Fruhoff, Fruhowff. I have no idea what that person's name is. Fruhoff. I have no idea what that person's name is.

Gigi Lamb. Joseph Iramo. John Holyfield. Hollyfield, maybe. Zachary Cherokov. Cherokovich. Cherokovich. Yeah.

Those are the same thing. Dean Porter. John Duarte. Renee Murphy. Hope N. Joseph San Juan. Miriam. Miriam. Miriam McAdams, Kim Earl, Raj Panjaki, Pankachacky, Pankhani, Raj, I'm never going to get that right. I really apologize.

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