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meltzer's obit from today's observer
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William Moody, the legendary pro wrestling manager best known under the names Paul Bearer and Percy Pringle III, passed away on 3/5 at the age of 58.
Moody had suffered a blood clot three days earlier while at the Gulf Coast Wrestling Reunion that took place at the International Speedway in his home city of Mobile. Those close to him had reported that he had not been feeling well for several days before the reunion, having caught an upper respiratory infection while appearing in Chicago the previous weekend.
According to Cowboy Bob Kelly, the area’s top star of the early 70s, Moody was in bad health at the event on 3/1 and 3/2. Kelly said Moody, who was the emcee, was so weak when he came that he needed a wheelchair.
He was having severe breathing problems, was coughing badly and was having trouble standing for long periods of time. After the dinner, Moody went to the hospital, telling people he had been suffering respiratory issues, but would be back for a later activity, but never came. Kelly said that after going to the hospital, Moody was told that he had suffered a blood clot. He remained hospitalized until passing away.
Moody had suffered serious health problems over the years, related to obesity. He had, even before the reunion, canceled some independent bookings, citing health issues, including a meeting with fans at the famed Kowloon’s restaurant outside Boston this coming weekend, where his played the role of the president of the Millennium Wrestling Federation.
Kelly and Ronnie Garvin were going to visit him on Wednesday morning at the hospital before getting word on Tuesday night that he had passed away. Moody had asked Kelly, his favorite wrestler growing up, to be the presenter for him when he received the Lou Thesz award in April at the Cauliflower Alley banquet in Las Vegas.
His health improved after undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2003 that he on several occasions said saved his life, taking him from 525 pounds down to 285 pounds. Moody had bitterness with WWE for some time about being let go after being a longtime loyal performer.
WWE paid for his surgery, as part of an agreement to bring him back since he first turned down overtures, but creative had ideas for using the Paul Bearer character in an angle with Undertaker. He became very loyal to the company from that point, and after that contract expired as a full-time performer, he was immediately signed to a legends deal which gave him an affiliation with the company. He was brought back a few more times as a character, often in angles where the wheels came off.
He had continued to work independent shows until recent weeks.
Reports from WWE indicate there is already discussion on adding him to this year’s Hall of Fame list, since at this point nobody who has passed away had been announced. A graphic was added before the start of the 3/6 Main Event show, and is expected to also air before both the 3/8 Smackdown show and 3/11 Raw show.
About five weeks ago, in an interview with Chris Yandek, Moody considered it a given he would some day be in the WWE Hall of Fame.
“I know that I will, so that’s all I need to know,” he said. “Whether it’s next year, or whether it’s five years from now, I know the time’s coming.
I’ve been very, very blessed in professional wrestling because I’m just an Alabama kid, from the Alabama Gulf Coast that grew up watching local territory days wrestling.
I have been all around the world. I performed in all 50 states, 28 countries, and I got a paycheck every week.”
Just about everyone in the wrestling business, or around the business, sent out tweets mourning the death of Moody. Moody was generally very well liked. He could be, pardon the pun, moody at times, and admitted having bouts with depression likely stemming from a number of personal tragedies in the past decade involving his family, but he loved wrestling and it showed in everything he did around the sport.
“Very sad about Paul Bearer,” wrote Hulk Hogan. “He was a great person and one of the original boys. He was what made wrestling great. Much love. Much respect.”
“Always a pro, and a real kind man,” wrote Dusty Rhodes. “May our family be strong, and you be with God.”
“Goodbye to a good friend, Paul Bearer,” wrote Bret Hart. “Say Hi to Owen for me.”
“Sad, sad news. Percy, my friend, I will always cherish our friendship we shared over the years. Since 88? You’ve always made me smile. From the first time we shared our love of country music, our love of this business, you always put that `Percival perspective,’ on things. RIP Percy. I love you my friend.”
A number of major mainstream news outlets covered his death, including Yahoo Sports, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, FOX Sports, National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times and New York Daily News.
Moody, who grew up in Mobile, AL, was a lifelong wrestling fan. His entree into the business started when he was a teenager and shot photos at the matches for Gulf Coast Championship Wrestling. Ironically his beginnings were similar too that of two of pro wrestling’s other best managers of the era, Jim Cornette and Paul Heyman, who also started out as photographers as teenagers.
Born William Alvin Moody on April 10, 1954, Moody was the son of two wrestling fans. On his personally written biography, he talked about going to matches dating back to being a toddler.
“My lifetime interest in professional wrestling began about the time I learned to walk,” he wrote. “I remember that my Mom and Dad would take me to the local Wrestling Live on Channel 5 studio (in Mobile) television tapings. Needless to say, it was love at first sight. I remained a wrestling fan throughout my childhood. However, my fascination really took off when I received my driver’s license and I was able to go to the matches by myself around the Gulf Coast area. If there was wrestling in town, I was there, becoming a fixture at Mobile’s old Fort Whiting Armory. When Gulf Coast Wrestling moved to the Mobile Municipal Auditorium (now the Mobile Civic Center), I moved right along with them, missing only a handful of events in seven years.”
Moody started shooting photos for wrestling magazines as well as the local program for the matches in Mobile, which got him in the door at a time breaking into pro wrestling was very difficult. He also hung around at the matches with four other friends, who all had goals of making it in pro wrestling. One of whom became his wrestling cousin, Marcel Pringle, a long-time Alabama independent wrestler, who he managed for years. Another was Michael Seitz, who was five years younger than he was, and became Michael Hayes. A third was Ruben Kane, who became Robert Gibson of Rock & Roll Express fame. The other was John Frenkle, who wrestled in the 80s as Hollywood John Tatum, best known in Texas and in Mid South Wrestling. Kane had something of an in because his older brother was one of the top workers in the Southeast at the time, Ricky Gibson, and had became a big headliner in Memphis.
After high school, he enlisted in the Air Force and underwent basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, but ended up stationed in Biloxi for four years.
He actually started wrestling on independent shows while still in the Air Force, debuting at the age of 18, in the summer of 1974, wrestling under a mask as Mr. X in Greenville, AL.
At the same time, he got interested in Mortuary Science. He was working and training to be an EMT while in the Air Force, which led him to often visiting local funeral homes. In 1976, he became an apprentice Funeral Director and an Embalmer at the Higgins Mortuary in Mobile. He was also going to college at the University of South Alabama, and met his wife, who he married in late 1978.
He was married for 30 years and had two children. His wife, Dianna, battled breast cancer for years. She had beaten cancer twice before the combination of the cancer returning, and damage from chemotherapy, led to her passing away on January 31, 2009. His family had already faced tragedy when his first grandchild, Troy Mitchell Moody, passed away one day after being born in 2003. Shortly after, Bill’s brother died of cancer in 2006 while he was suffering assorted health problems and his wife was in her eventual fatal battle with cancer. His second son, Daniel Moody, 25, wrestles in Southeastern independents under the name D.J. Pringle.
He continued to wrestle while working at the funeral home and while going to college, often using the name The Embalmer or The Mortician, playing a dark heel character. He quickly realized his talents were better suited as a heel manager than as a wrestler.
He got his first real job in wrestling in 1978, working for promoter George Culkin’s promotion out of Mississippi, when hired by booker Frankie Cain, better known as The Great Mephisto. He used the name Percy Pringle III, taking the name from the original Percival Pringle. He then left his job at the funeral home as well as left college.
Although he was far more famous on a worldwide basis as Paul Bearer, within wrestling, at least to those who had been around, he personally used the Pringle name. He was generally referred to as “Percy,” and would sign his letters with that name or as “PP3.”
After his first son was born in the summer of 1979, he realized that pro wrestling was a crap shoot and returned to college, attending San Antonio College and getting his degree in Mortuary Science. While in college, he worked at night and on the weekends at a funeral home in San Antonio. After graduation from college, he moved to Biloxi and worked at a funeral home.
In 1984, he returned to pro wrestling, going to Championship Wrestling from Florida as the manager of Rick Rude, who was the main event heel at the time, and was at ringside as a manager for Lex Luger’s pro debut.
After the Florida tenure was up, he and Rude went to World Class Championship Wrestling in 1985 together as an act. Rude was world champion for the promotion. Pringle came after the promotion had peaked and was on its downslide, but it was still holding its own.
Rude ended up leaving for Jim Crockett Promotions while Pringle stayed in Texas for several years. He played the ultimate rich fat pussy character at first, a character that could seemingly never be a babyface. But after a few years as a manager, he started working in the front office, became a commentator on the television show, promoted house shows, ran the merchandise stand, and wrote the programs. The fans accepted him as one of their own, since he came across like a fan who got to live his dream. He later turned heel to be an opponent when Chris Von Erich (Chris Adkisson), who was only 5-foot-3, was being used.
In Texas, as Pringle, he managed names like The Missing Link, Matt Borne, Buzz Sawyer, Texas Red (Mark Calaway, who later became The Undertaker), Eric Embry, the Great Kabuki (after Kabuki and Gary Hart had their legitimate falling out), The Dingo Warrior (who later became the Ultimate Warrior), Steve Austin, Ted Arcidi, Steve & Shaun Simpson, Black Bart and Iceman King Parsons.
But his most famous affiliation was with The Undertaker. While most would recall him as the strange man Brother Love handed the reigns of Undertaker over to shortly after the character debuted in the WWF in early 1991, the affiliation went back to the start of Mark Calaway’s career. In fact, in Calaway’s first match and program ever at the Dallas Sportatorium, he was Texas Red, managed by Percy Pringle III, as a heel, going against Bruiser Brody.
After being a babyface to the fans as a television announcer and working with the promotion, he was brought back as a babyface manager of Eric Embry when Embry booked and built the promotion around himself in the angle where they turned the World Class promotion heel. Embry and Pringle rebelled against the promotion, building to an angle where they were allowed to destroy all mentions of the company and change its name to being affiliated with USWA, at the time Jerry Jarrett was running things. While that angle was a big deal at the time, in Texas today, the USWA is barely remembered while World Class is the term that many remember as being the golden age of the promotion. Undertaker debuted in WWF in November, 1990, originally brought in by Brother Love (Bruce Prichard) as Cain the Undertaker. They dropped the Cain name, and about a month later, The Undertaker was managed by Paul Bearer.
The name Paul Bearer came from a character played by Dick Bennick Sr., as the host of the local “Creature Feature” scary movie show on WTOG-TV, in Tampa/St. Petersburg every Saturday afternoon that was popular when Moody lived in Tampa during his time with Championship Wrestling from Florida. Bennick Sr., the host of the show, was a local television institution, using the name Dr. Paul Bearer, from the mid-60s until his death in 1995.
With his pasty white face, his jet black hair (he was bleached blond as Percy Pringle), holding the urn that gave Undertaker magical powers, he was one of the classic characters on 90s WWF television. He was best known for his high-pitched voice that would, as Undertaker, would destroy opponents, scream “Ooooh yes.”
Paul Bearer was completely different from Percy Pringle III. They didn’t look the same, with the make-up and different hair color and style. Both had a comedy element to their characters. Pringle played the stereotypical fat sissy who did that role for physical comedy. Bearer rarely got involved physically and never played his role for laughs directly, but there was comedy for his memorable faces and exaggerated mannerisms he’d make and just the idea that there was a mortician character named Paul Bearer.
Antonio Pena, when he was running AAA, was so into the character that one of his minis at one point was renamed Mini Paul Bearer, or Mini Paul.
Undertaker & Paul Bearer were top heels for years, and later, both turned face. However, Bearer turned on Undertaker and began managing rival Mankind (Mick Foley) in 1996. His feud with Undertaker would also lead to his managing Vader and The Executioner (Terry Gordy under a mask).
Eventually, Bearer said that he would reveal Undertaker’s deep, dark secret unless Undertaker joined back with him. Undertaker did, reluctantly, but eventually broke away from him. Bearer then claimed that Undertaker started a fire which killed his parents and his younger brother and that’s where Undertaker and Bearer’s association started.
Undertaker claimed in different stories that it was really his brother who set the fire, or that the fire was an accident. This story was to build up the debut of Undertaker’s brother, the 7-foot, 320-pound giant Kane, played by Glen Jacobs, who wore major lifts in his boots at first to appear to be taller than Undertaker. Jacobs was legitimately about 6-foot-6 ½ while Calaway was closer to 6-foot-8 ½, although both were billed as being 7-foot and 6-foot-11 respectively.
Bearer later claimed his younger brother, Kane, was still alive, which led to the introduction of the Kane character. Later, it came out Kane was Bearer’s son, so only Undertaker’s half brother, after Bearer had an affair with Undertaker’s mother. The story was that Bearer had raised Kane in secret, since Kane had suffered permanent scarring from the fire making him unsightly, which is why he had to wear the mask. Through the twists and turns of the characters and storylines, none of that ever ended up making any sense, particularly since Undertaker and Bearer were inseparable for years, yet Bearer was raising Undertaker’s brother, who Undertaker had assumed for years was dead.
Kane eventually showed up at the first Hell in a Cell match, causing Undertaker to lose to Shawn Michaels on the day Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel room.
In 1998, Undertaker turned heel, with Bearer, as Bearer turned on Kane. Later Undertaker & Kane became a heel team with Bearer. In 2000, Bearer was taken off the road, but remained under contract and doing office work until being released in 2002.
He ended up being negative on WWE after he was let go. While few remember, he was at the 500 pound mark when he returned to being Percy Pringle III in the early days of TNA in Nashville.
WWE wanted him back with Undertaker, but he at first refused, before signing a contract in October, partially due to Jim Ross agreeing that the company would give him a signing bonus that would allow him to pay for his needed Gastric bypass surgery. After recovering, he returned at WrestleMania XX, in Undertaker’s corner for his match with Kane.
He was hired back for an angle where Paul Heyman got the Dudleys to kidnap him as a way to get to Undertaker. This led to a match at that year’s Great American Bash PPV in Norfolk, where Bearer was chest deep in cement and Heyman said that if Undertaker didn’t agree to lose the match, they would murder Bearer. Instead, Undertaker won the match, and then pulled the lever and buried Bearer, essentially giving the impression they had killed him, which wrote him off as a television character.
He returned to working at a funeral home in 2006, and also promoted independent wrestling around the Mobile area.
“I feel that independent wrestling is the grass roots of our industry,” he wrote. “If the roots die, the tree dies. I am on a personal crusade to protect our business on the local level.”
Since that time he returned for a few angles and worked indies. He reunited with Undertaker in late 2010 for a feud with Kane, giving Undertaker back his powers as they reintroduced the urn. But Bearer turned on Undertaker and went with Kane, giving Kane the powers of the urn.
This led to Kane beating Undertaker in a Buried Alive match due to help from Bearer and The Nexus. This wrote Undertaker out for months, where he returned for WrestleMania. Bearer stayed as Kane’s manager, for a goofy feud with Edge, one of the worst of recent years. Edge, the babyface, would continually torment and torture Bearer. Edge would use a dummy Bearer over and over, until Kane, thinking it was a dummy, pushed Bearer off a ladder onto concrete, writing him out again.
In 2012, Bearer returned as Kane’s manager against Randy Orton, and Orton kidnapped him and put him in a freezer while tied up in a wheelchair. Kane came and Bearer celebrated as his son was there to save him, only to put him back in the freezer and kill him off once again.
“I am very true to the proud tradition of the `old school’ wrestling that I was brought up on,” he wrote in his biography. “I am very blessed to be able to live out my dreams, and I have great respect for the business I am in, especially to the legends that traveled the roads before me. They are the ones who made all this possible. I’ll never forget where I came from, and that my home is forever Sweet Home Alabama.”
_________________ Drop In wrote: I'm picturing a 12 year old Bob Loblaw bitching out a Randy Savage Wrestling Buddy for botching his finisher. Also envisioning Bob Loblaw getting bitched at for lighting the living room table on fire for said finisher.
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