- 7 hours ago
Dark Side of The Ring S07 E07 - 11 August 2026 (Full Show)
Kindly Follow my Channel so that you can easily watch daily Updates regarding Wrestling stuff...Thanks!
Kindly Follow my Channel so that you can easily watch daily Updates regarding Wrestling stuff...Thanks!
Category
🎈
FunTranscript
00:08If you're a certain age and you're a wrestling fan, Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff was the pinnacle
00:14to you. Mr. Wonderful was a key piece in the foundation of WWE. Remembered for his epic feud
00:21with Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff thrilled audiences as the arrogant heel Mr. Wonderful. Mr. Wonderful,
00:28the man that defied the whole wrestling world. Mr. Wonderful was this expression of his perfection.
00:35This is what the most wonderful his body looks like. Paul was a rock star. Mr. Wonderful. A gifted
00:43athlete, Orndorff channeled the difficult upbringing into an imposing persona in and out of the ring.
00:49When that switch flipped, there was price to pay for making Paul Orndorff mad.
00:55Look at this. People feared him. The talent feared him. The fans feared him. Paul was the toughest guy that
01:01I had ever witnessed.
01:03He fought for everything that he got. The intensity that defined him pushed his body to the brink and hid
01:10his private pain.
01:11Hang in there. Hang in there. He was the closest thing to Superman without the cape. But the cumulative effect
01:17of age and injuries had taken a toll on him.
01:19Paul Orndorff has suffered some sort of neck injury in the ring.
01:22It was hard to watch him physically deteriorate.
01:27You could see how much Paul had aged. He shouldn't look like that. He had been abused and neglected for
01:33a long time.
01:34He was in the hospital. I said, I'm taking him home. And they said, you can't. And there's nothing we
01:39can do.
01:40This is a joke, right? People were dying alone in the hospital during COVID. That's not happening.
01:46I'm going to raise holy hell. And I had no idea how, but he was coming home with me.
01:53When Travis posted that video, I said, why would you do this? Paul deserved his privacy.
02:00Wow. You're putting this out of your dad. Do not embarrass him in front of the whole world.
02:07I didn't know what to do. I was desperate. I wasn't trying to embarrass him. I was trying to save
02:13him.
02:26Why are you here? What's the big deal here? What's the big deal? Excitement.
02:30This is the sport of the 80s. This is the media event of 1985.
02:34This is WrestleMania. This is the thing of today. Hulkamania is running wild.
02:38Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to WrestleMania.
02:43Pandemonium breaking loose here at Madison Square Garden in WrestleMania.
02:48We're seeing the greatest spectacle in wrestling history right now.
02:51WrestleMania 1 was Vince McMahon's big gamble.
02:54Hello, everyone. This is Vince McMahon.
02:56There had never been a nationally broadcast mega closed circuit event in every market in the United States to blend
03:04pro wrestling and pop culture.
03:06He had to have the promotion right, the card right.
03:10He loaded the thing up with the biggest attraction that he could.
03:14Ladies and gentlemen, our main event.
03:20Hulk Hogan and Mr. T against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff.
03:24They were in the spot of the main event of the biggest grossing wrestling event of all time.
03:30Piper and Orndorff, you dead meat. You dead meat. I pity you, fool.
03:33Everybody went into this thing with some pressure on them because this had not been done before on this level.
03:40The biggest match in the history of wrestling.
03:43Why was Paul Orndorff there? Because he was an elite level wrestler.
03:47Suplex. He got him.
03:48He could work with a guy like Mr. T that was greener than a pepper tree and didn't know what
03:52he was doing.
03:53He could put all of Hulk Hogan's stuff over.
03:57And then when it came time, he was the guy to get beat.
04:00Oh, he hit Orndorff. Unbelievable. He got him.
04:04The event was such a success that people have forgotten the fact that Orndorff was the key because who else
04:11is going to do the job of those four guys?
04:13Only Paul.
04:14That's how Vince McMahon hoped to and eventually did get a leg up on the rest of the wrestling world
04:20and take it over by creating WrestleMania.
04:23Unbelievable.
04:25He wanted to take over the world and he did.
04:28I think it changed the whole course of wrestling.
04:31Matter of fact, I know it did.
04:34Does my dad get all the credit he deserves?
04:38He gets the credit he deserves from the people that watched it.
04:43The people that go back and watch wrestling very much appreciate his work.
04:48My name is Travis Orndorff and I'm the son of Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
04:53I certainly inherited his intensity.
04:55Everybody out there knows what kind of a man I am.
04:58You know, dad moved and he was either go or stop.
05:01His evolution to Mr. Wonderful was this progression of his history, his intensity and all of that coming together.
05:10As I think most good hero stories are, they come from very humble beginnings and a pretty rough childhood.
05:18There's no doubt that Paul's upbringing made him the tough guy that he was.
05:22I mean, pfft.
05:25I'm B. Brian Blair and Paul Orndorff was one of my closest friends for many years.
05:31Paul's home was in a trailer park and he actually grew up in a converted chicken coop.
05:37My grandfather was a butcher.
05:38The life of a butcher, it's not like there was a lot of money.
05:41Modest would be an upgrade.
05:43They were poor.
05:44I'll never forget when his dad came to my house and the tears started coming from his eyes and he
05:49said,
05:49I did the best that I could.
05:51I thought I grew up tough.
05:54Paul really grew up tough.
05:56There's one story.
05:57Dad had worked some job and when he came home with cash, my grandmother, she asked for the money.
06:03And he told her, no, he wasn't given the money.
06:05It was his money.
06:07And so she knocked him out with a cast iron skillet and took the money.
06:13His own mother.
06:15Yes.
06:18You know, he fought for everything that he got.
06:21He was in an area where people fought on a regular basis.
06:25It was like part of their lifestyle growing up.
06:28My grandfather was a drinker.
06:29My dad bare knuckle fought to pay his bar tab on occasion.
06:33You know, he had a lot of anger.
06:34I've seen Paul in lots of fights and he never lost one.
06:38One night his brother Terry got into a situation in a bar, calls Paul and says, I need some help.
06:46Paul runs into this bar.
06:48There's two sheriffs that could have Terry down and Terry's screaming.
06:52And Paul, boom, nails one of them.
06:56Nails the other one.
06:59One guy's on the ground.
07:00He calls for backup.
07:02In comes five more sheriffs.
07:04They try to grab Paul.
07:05Paul nails all of them.
07:09This is one guy.
07:11One man.
07:13And seven sheriffs.
07:16That was his outlet, but sometimes you can't put that genie back in the bottle.
07:21You combine the fact that there's poverty.
07:24There's alcohol.
07:25There's anger.
07:28My dad was forged in hell.
07:31Despite the chaos at home, Paul has a gift that will change everything.
07:37Since he was very, very young, Paul was one of the greatest athletes to ever come out of Tampa, Florida.
07:43Paul was a true believer, and my athletic ability will carry me as forward as I can go.
07:50I'm Jerry Brischel, WWE Hall of Famer, and I've spent a lot of time with Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndoff.
07:56And Paul definitely thought his way out was football.
08:00Dad graduated at 18 years old, and he went on to the University of Tampa.
08:05Paul got a full ride there.
08:06He was number 40, the fullback.
08:08He got drafted by the New Orleans Saints.
08:11Played there for four years.
08:12I really kind of lost my heart for football.
08:15I played it all my life and just didn't care for it anymore.
08:19And I happened to be watching TV and catch his wrestling.
08:23Thank you very much, and welcome again to Championship Wrestling from Florida.
08:26And I said, oh, I can do that.
08:29My father-in-law knew Eddie Grant, and he gave me a tryout.
08:33So we brought him in and, of course, put him right with Hiro Matsuda.
08:37From Yokohama, Japan, Hiro Matsuda.
08:40Hiro Matsuda wrestled as a villain for Eddie before he became the trainer.
08:46So Hiro's job was to train the new prospective talent.
08:50It was the Harvard of professional wrestling.
08:54And Hiro would just put me through it.
08:56But I had that drive.
08:57You know, I had the heart for it.
08:59It sounds like I'm bragging.
09:00I guess I am.
09:01But it's the truth.
09:02Three summers that I had with Matsuda, over 100 people came there.
09:06And the only people that made it through the camp was Hogan, myself, and Mr. Wonderful, Paul Orndor.
09:12That's all.
09:13So we just had a natural bond.
09:15After making his mark in Florida, Paul now sets his sights on building a reputation across the country.
09:21I had never heard the name Paul Orndorff before in my life.
09:25When he came into Memphis with that look and that style and that athleticism, this guy is something special.
09:33I'm Jim Cornette, and I took the picture for Paul Orndorff's first wrestling magazine cover in 1977.
09:40He didn't have a gimmick.
09:42He didn't have an over-the-top personality.
09:44You could kind of buy him as being this hotshot athlete that's come in and is going to take over.
09:50Paul was one of those guys that looked like a bodybuilder but was smooth like an amateur wrestler.
09:57I'm Arn Anderson, the enforcer.
10:00Paul Orndorff was my friend.
10:02Paul carried himself with just this air of invincibility about him.
10:06If nothing else, he believed his own press, and sometimes that's all you need.
10:11Very quick.
10:12Really can't move.
10:14Orndorff.
10:14Paul worked all the major territories in the first three or four years of his career, and he progressed quickly.
10:21What really made Paul click was that desire to better himself and to bring his family up out of poverty.
10:28My mom and dad met at high school.
10:30My mom, Rhonda, she got pregnant at the age of 17, and they got married.
10:34They're very young.
10:36My brother is Paul Orndorff III.
10:38It's Paul Jr., and they called him Buzz.
10:41He's nine years older.
10:42So we had the same parents, but they were different parents, right?
10:46My mom, those years were hard on her.
10:49There was a lot of moving.
10:50There was not a lot of money.
10:51Dad carried baggage from his childhood.
10:54He had a short fuse at times.
10:57You know, he had not grown up.
10:58They didn't have therapy back then.
11:00You worked, you drank, and you just lived life, and nobody said anything about anything, and you moved on.
11:05That's where you forge bitterness and resentment.
11:08It's so hard to raise a family when you're on the road.
11:15You know, the wife's at home, and the kids have no dad.
11:19My mom took her frustration out on everybody.
11:23She was constantly, you know, talking bad about my father.
11:27It was rough.
11:29My dad was never perfect, but as a father, he was unconditionally loving.
11:34And I never felt like he was that far away.
11:38In 1983, Hulk Hogan recommends Paul to Vince McMahon, opening the door to the hottest promotion in the country.
11:48The topic of this week's update, a gentleman known in professional wrestling, is Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
11:55In late 1983, Vince McMahon was starting the national television syndication that would lead to the WWF's national expansion.
12:03Hogan's word carried a lot of weight with Vince, because Vince was building the entire company around Hogan, and he
12:09wanted to bring in people that Hogan liked to wrestle, that he thought he could draw money with.
12:14And one of the guys that he brought in was Paul Orndorff.
12:18Introducing the challenger, Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
12:27Paul checked every box that he could possibly check, except the experience box, so it was kind of a roll
12:33of the dice.
12:34Paul!
12:34You gotta take gambles in life.
12:37And I did.
12:39And it paid off.
12:40Paul!
12:43Paul!
12:44Paul was in the WWF within five or six years after he started, and he'd already been a main event
12:51guy in a variety of big promotions.
12:53That's a very quick trajectory.
12:55Mr. Wonderful!
12:57Paul took the name, Mr. Wonderful, because in his heel persona, it indicated that he was a megalomaniac, that he
13:04was the most self-absorbed man on the planet.
13:06Hello, Mr. Wonderful!
13:08This is the kind of treatment that Mr. Wonderful gets.
13:11One of my favorite lines is, so with a body like this and a face like this.
13:16When you got a body like this and a face like this, you can do any damn thing you want
13:22to do, and I'll get away with it.
13:24He saw his body as a temple. For him, that was his paycheck.
13:28A lot of people try to have a body like this, but they never will.
13:33Paul was a stud. I mean, he had to have his hair blow-dried perfectly.
13:39Paul Mitchell hair spray. If I ever get cancer, it's going to be from having to have smelled that my
13:45entire childhood.
13:46Look at that! It's terrible!
13:48There's a reason my dad loved being a heel.
13:51Anger is the easiest emotion to evoke.
13:55Oh, he's giving a sign for the pile driver!
13:58The pile driver was Paul's signature finishing move.
14:01Got him upside down now!
14:02He could get a massive jump, and then boom, drove him.
14:06It was one of the most deadly moves in wrestling.
14:09I knew my style was different, and I would be the best heel there, which I was.
14:13Dropping him like yesterday's newspaper!
14:16So that cockiness and arrogance just went along with that body.
14:19And all you women that are ready to leave your husband for me, now you know why.
14:23That was me. What the fake? I mean, that was me. That's the way I was.
14:27Ask my wife. She'll tell you. I was a jerk.
14:32I think Rhonda wasn't stupid when it came to realizing that her husband wasn't the loyal husband.
14:40I was out on the road sometimes, and I can remember being at different hotels, and the groupies, and the
14:46women standing outside.
14:48You gave them money, and you gave them fame, and all the things that come with it.
14:52I don't think my family was immune to it any more than anybody else was.
14:55Girls were throwing themselves at you all the time. I mean, it was like being a rock star.
15:01Following the success of WrestleMania...
15:04In WrestleMania, it was your shoulders that were pinned to the ground, brother, not me.
15:08Vince McMahon recasts Paul Orndorff as a hero, aligning him with Hulk Hogan.
15:14Mr. Wonderful wants Hulkster to shake hands.
15:17Imagine, especially in the 80s, you have seen Hulk Hogan rise to become the champion.
15:25And all the little Hulkamaniacs are on his side, and suddenly he has a friend.
15:30And you like the friend, too.
15:33Mr. Wonderful!
15:35They were on his side because he was a straight-ahead All-American athlete.
15:40Just as Mr. Wonderful reaches the peak of his popularity, an injury in the ring stops him cold.
15:46He was in a match. Somebody caught him on the chin.
15:50It ended up causing nerve damage that ran through his radial nerves.
15:55It affects your deltoids, your tricep, bicep, comes all the way down into your forearm.
16:02Once you have serious nerve damage, it's irreversible.
16:06He could not bring himself to give up that spot and that kind of money to have surgery.
16:13And so he soldiered through it.
16:16He had built his body and life around this moment where he was going to capture generational wealth.
16:26Despite the nagging injury, Paul prepares for his most important storyline yet.
16:31I've been trying to call him five or six minutes. I've been on the phone! He won't come to the
16:36phone!
16:37One of the biggest drawing angles you can do is give the hero a sidekick, a best friend, a partner.
16:44And he stabs him in the back.
16:46Oh no!
16:48During the heel turn, he does what my dad does. He does a pile driver on him.
16:55No! No! No!
16:58You know how he walks over the ropes?
17:00This is real slow.
17:03How do you like that?
17:05Look at that!
17:06I don't believe there's nothing in the world that's wrong with Orndorff!
17:11When Orndorff turned on Hulkster, that was a monumental spot for the wrestling industry.
17:17Hulk Hogan!
17:18I loved working with Terry. He made me the hottest heel in the country and I made him the hottest
17:25babyface in the country.
17:26Everything about it clicked. Everything started exploding and they were just hot.
17:31Man, for six months this feud has gone on.
17:34You sold out a country, man! You sold out all those people that believe in you, man!
17:39Now all the little Hulkamaniacs and the big Hulkamaniacs, they all wanted to see Hulk Hogan get even with the
17:47guy that betrayed him.
17:48I mean, I had death threats and everything else, man. Bottles, darts thrown at me.
17:54Wrestling fans are a whole nother level. It is crazy how driven, motivated and in love they are with these
18:02characters.
18:02I had a friend that quit talking to me when I was like eight years old.
18:06And a few years later, I am so sorry I hated you. Your dad turned on Hulk Hogan.
18:11I am the most unpopular person in the world. Well, that is an achievement right there.
18:19When they decided to do the big event at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, over 60,000 people went
18:29to Exhibition Stadium to see Hulk Hogan versus Paul Orndorff.
18:35You know what worked? Everybody in that building believed Orndorff could beat Hogan. They believed.
18:42Oh, he's tapped to the shoulder of Orndorff.
18:45That was the biggest crowd in the history of wrestling in North America to that point.
18:49Here's a guy that grew up in a trailer that they used to use as a chicken coop.
18:55Now he's facing the top star in the business and he's making $25,000 a week, which is the equivalent
19:02of almost $100,000 a week today.
19:05I didn't go in here blinding. I mean, I had a plan. I truly had a plan for once in
19:10my life that it worked.
19:11I was told I was going to make money. And when Mr. McMahon said, you're going to make money, you
19:17will make money.
19:20He was absolutely on top of the world.
19:24That was a job. And it was a job that took him away from me. And I wanted my dad
19:30home.
19:32I don't remember at that period ever going without anything.
19:37I can tell you, I went to one of the top private schools at the time. Everything was paid off.
19:41You remember the old red Tupperware? We had those in the freezer and there was like money stacked in there.
19:47And like one of them thought and like broke my toe.
19:51My mom, she liked the money of wrestling and, you know, she didn't have to work.
19:56She had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and it was genuinely severe.
20:02This happened in the late eighties. And then, you know, the pills started.
20:06Unfortunately, when he was sending his money home, his wife was spending it all on the wrong things, on drugs
20:13and other things.
20:15It was often just me and my mom. She wouldn't wake up on time to take me to school.
20:20There was this evolution of pain medication and, you know, it just continued and it continued the rest of her
20:27life.
20:27The relentless schedule leaves Paul little time at home with Rhonda and their sons or to deal with this worsening
20:34injury.
20:35There were a few weeks where the WWF was selling in excess of 150,000 tickets in a week to
20:45see Hogan and Orndorff wrestle.
20:46And it was a double edged sword.
20:48I'd get two or three days off and Vince would track me down and want me to come back to
20:54work.
20:55When you're main event, you can't, you gotta go.
20:58I was going hurt, burnout, tired, flying all day and getting to the gym.
21:05And I was working 18 hours a day, man. I did that for three years. You know, I got a
21:11family to feed.
21:12Dad was still on the road. He was injured and I got deathly ill.
21:18I went from 83 pounds to 52 pounds in about three weeks.
21:25Dad didn't see me every day, but they would bring in a cot and when he'd come into town, he'd
21:29sleep in my room with me.
21:29I lost the ability to walk. My hands quit working. My body kind of shut down.
21:34The best answer I've gotten is a complex regional pain syndrome, but at the time they really didn't think I
21:41was going to live.
21:42So the doctor at his own wits end said, we think your son has a brain tumor.
21:48My dad grabbed him by the collar, pinned him up against the wall and said, he doesn't have a effing
21:55brain tumor.
21:56In that moment, he was angry and he was scared and he didn't want to lose his baby boy.
22:04I think that always hurt Paul, that he couldn't be around his kids more, but he couldn't do both.
22:10And he chose what was going to at least feed him, clothe him and hopefully he would make amends when
22:17he retired.
22:19By 1988, you couldn't ignore it anymore. His arm was atrophying, it was getting smaller, it was affecting his work.
22:27You looked at his two arms and it was like two different people.
22:32He was very depressed about his arm, about the business, about Rhonda, about money, about so many different things.
22:39And he's using whether it was drugs or women, whatever crutch he could find to escape the moment.
22:46Vince had made my dad a promise when he got hurt.
22:48He said, don't, don't screw me and you'll have a job here the rest of your life.
22:54And my dad screwed him.
23:00After a severe nerve injury to his arm, Paul Orndorff walks away from wrestling, burning a bridge with the promoter
23:07who made him famous.
23:09The way my dad left WWF when he did, he upset Vince.
23:14He no-showed Vince McMahon and the WWF after asking for days off that he didn't get.
23:20Paul was a guy that if he felt he wasn't being treated fairly, that he would take matters in his
23:24own hands.
23:24Did you and Vince leave on good terms?
23:27No.
23:28Hell no.
23:30I got buried.
23:33I think that people got his years that tell him I didn't get hurt.
23:38I was hurt.
23:40I mean, I was hurt.
23:41It was obvious I was hurt.
23:42It was time to go.
23:44At that point, he's almost 40 years old.
23:47He had made a lot of money over the previous few years.
23:49That's when he decided to retire for the first time from wrestling.
23:57He wanted to get away from the business for a while.
23:59He wanted to heal.
24:01He bought a bowling alley and worked it like a business.
24:05My dad knew nothing about bowling.
24:09But when my dad left WWF, he had started to invest with a financial advisor named Shelton Thorne down in
24:15Florida.
24:16Somebody he knew from a dentist where my mom worked.
24:19And so he trusted my mom and he trusted Shelton.
24:24They got some investors together and they opened a bowling center.
24:27I thought that was very unique that a guy of his magnitude would buy a bowling alley.
24:33That's Travis Arndt, Paul's little son there.
24:38My dad said, my identity is not in wrestling.
24:41My identity is not in Mr. Wonderful.
24:43My identity is your daddy.
24:45And my identity is what I do.
24:48Paul had been so visible in the WWF that when he retired, somebody actually started a rumor that he was
24:55dead and it was picked up internationally.
24:58To get calls at my bowling center, I think somebody said I died on steroids.
25:04That's stupid.
25:05I was home.
25:06Hadn't been home in 20 years, man.
25:10At home, things are far from quiet.
25:13Paul's eldest son falls into a life of crime and addiction.
25:17Buzz is Paul's first son, his older son.
25:20And Buzz has been in a lot of trouble.
25:24Alcohol was involved, DUIs, substance use.
25:27Paul Orndorff III has been arrested again here in Peachtree City after another high-speed chase.
25:35I'm not better than my brother.
25:38We had different circumstances.
25:40Paul did everything he could to love Buzz, to give him a chance, to forgive him.
25:44And all that, Buzz would always turn the wrong way.
25:48The funny thing is that he could be the nicest and sweetest person in these moments.
25:52You would get your hopes up, but they just were short-lived.
25:56My parents ended up adopting my brother's children.
25:59I think I was 13 at that point.
26:02By the time his kids were born and my parents were raising him,
26:04we were going to visit the prisons he was in every Saturday or every other Saturday.
26:09But the trouble at home puts Paul's family and their financial security at risk.
26:15All the money that Paul had made in the WWF that he had ignored his injury for,
26:22his business manager, they found out, was a crook and had been running some kind of Ponzi scheme,
26:28and his money was gone.
26:31Shelton was getting money from this place to pay this investor as they were going,
26:35and it eventually folded.
26:36My dad was sued by the investors as well.
26:39You know, they didn't win because we didn't have anything.
26:42It hurts your pride because you think you have all your bases covered,
26:46and then you get swindled by a person that you gave your trust to.
26:51Shelton Thorne basically bankrupts him, and there's no paycheck coming every month.
26:58There's no insurance.
26:59He's in a very difficult situation, and he's got to make a choice to go back on the road again.
27:07And make a living the only other way he knows how.
27:11I'm sure it was very emotionally difficult on Paul.
27:15You could tell that it had taken something out of him.
27:17And then, from there, things just got worse.
27:22You have not seen the last of me.
27:29You know, I've had gotten letters.
27:31I've gotten phone calls from all over the world.
27:34People want to know, is it true that Mr. Wonderful has died?
27:38Well, I want everybody out there to know that I am alive and well.
27:41Two years after walking away from the WWF with permanent injuries,
27:45Orndorff is scammed out of his life savings, forcing him back into the ring.
27:50He knew that the independents were hot.
27:53There were places for Paul to go.
27:54When he popped back up in 1990,
27:57He went about the UWF and some different independent promotions over the next couple of years.
28:03He still looked like Paul Orndorff.
28:06I'm coming after him, Kirk.
28:07You would never know he was hurt.
28:09Didn't affect his work at all.
28:11Here it is!
28:12You could tell if you looked close that there was a little something going on with the arm.
28:17But otherwise than that, he looked just as good as he always did.
28:21By 1992, I was running Smokey Mountain Wrestling based out of Knoxville, Tennessee.
28:27First of all, I want to ask a favor of all these genetic mutants out here.
28:30You've got to keep the noise down!
28:32We've got to keep the noise down!
28:33I called him.
28:34I said, would you like to come in and work some weekends for me?
28:37And he said yes for a very agreeable rate.
28:39At some point, it's your job.
28:41It's not in stadiums.
28:42It's not to sell out crowds.
28:45And nothing like the WWF was at that time.
28:47The UWF versus dad is the talk of the town!
28:50These guys paid for his name.
28:52And dad could still work.
28:53And he tried to keep his left arm in front of the camera instead of his right arm.
28:58And he did what he had to do to take care of his family.
29:00There is a man on a mission right there.
29:03In 1993, Paul changed his course, signing with wrestling's most ambitious promotion.
29:09WCW in the mid-'90s was they were trying to imitate Vince McMahon's WWF
29:15with the entertainment aspect and the celebrities aspect and the glitz and glamour aspect.
29:21However, they didn't have the brain power.
29:23But here comes Robocop, Bob!
29:26WCW's celebrity angles involved D-list people
29:30that were on reality shows or on late-night commercials.
29:34One of them was a psychic.
29:35Gary Spivey of the Psychic Companions Network?
29:39What are you doing here?
29:40I got a vision.
29:41He was on TV everywhere at 4 o'clock in the morning predicting the future.
29:44I know you're not okay.
29:46How did you know that?
29:47I got a vision.
29:48I don't know why he couldn't have seen that this angle was gonna be the shits.
29:52You're Mr. Wonderful.
29:54I hate Mr. Wonderful.
29:55He had lost who Mr. Wonderful was.
29:57And he needed to fall back in love with Mr. Wonderful.
30:00And kissing the handheld mirror.
30:03I hated that gimmick so bad.
30:07So Paul was, again, performing at a high level, doing everything expected of him.
30:13But 1990s, WCW was just so low budget and so silly and so directionless.
30:20It was just low rent.
30:22Thank you, Gary.
30:22If you want to figure out why that happened, Paul was getting paid.
30:28That's it.
30:29Still in constant pain from nerve damage.
30:32By 1999, Orndorff moves behind the scenes as a trainer for WCW.
30:38While Paul was at WCW, they instituted a wrestling school in-house called the Power Plant,
30:44where they would try to train the next generation of their athletes.
30:47And Paul was a perfect fit for that.
30:50I may have 15 or 20 kids down every two to three weeks.
30:54What I try to do is to get the best athlete as I possibly can.
30:58Paul took that very seriously, and he would teach them just the way that he was taught.
31:02But he wanted to hand off his legacy to these next generation wrestlers.
31:08Paul had been training guys for some time when the idea came up for an elimination match,
31:14where Paul would get back in the ring.
31:19And the premise of it was that he was wrestling against some of the young guys
31:23that he had been training at the Power Plant.
31:26Paul told me that he didn't want to go out there.
31:28Yet, they insisted that he go out.
31:30Well, I don't mind telling you, Paul Roendorf has been hit a lot of times in his career.
31:35He doesn't mind taking a few more.
31:36For a normal 50-year-old man, he looks in great shape.
31:40But see, the arms are so much smaller.
31:43Into the ropes.
31:44Now, here's the first pile driver.
31:46This is it!
31:47His second...
31:48He hadn't got him all the way straight.
31:50He didn't get the jump that he used to, but he stuck him, and it was safe.
31:54Here comes Jindrak.
31:566 feet 5, 250 pounds.
31:58Jindrak couldn't wrestle out of a wet paper bag.
32:02Jindrak to the place.
32:03Oh, he just got him!
32:04He goes to power driving.
32:06Jindrak tries to go up too quick.
32:07Now he got sideways, and they went down backwards.
32:11If I would have came down where I was with him,
32:15it would have dropped him right on his head.
32:16But if you let your legs go that way, it don't work.
32:19The weight and the velocity made it kind of like a rear-end car accident from a different angle.
32:27And I hit the ring.
32:28My whole right side went numb.
32:31Paul, laying there, had to tell the referee,
32:35I'm hurt, I can't get up.
32:37He's a gentleman due to a serious injury to Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
32:42The referee Charles Robinson has stopped this match.
32:44It is a no contest.
32:45A stinger is like a knockout punch to your nerve.
32:49Sting goes through your entire body.
32:52Like an electric shock, and then you got nothing.
32:54When you recover, you get all the feeling back in your extremities.
32:58If it doesn't work out that way, then you're paralyzed.
33:07Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff has suffered some sort of neck injury.
33:10He had broken his neck.
33:11They stopped the match and called an ambulance.
33:13It's very rare that you stop a match on television.
33:17It never happened in those days.
33:19This is a standing ovation for Paul Orndorff and the fans.
33:22It's difficult when you're hanging on wrestling at 51 years old
33:28and he gets hurt doing his own move.
33:31That was the sign that the neck had gotten too bad
33:35and there was no way he could do this anymore at all.
33:39It was God telling him, you're done.
33:42From then on, things he could do were very limited physically.
33:47The pain was unrelenting for most of his life after that.
33:50I had another operation on my neck.
33:52Which was the third one.
33:54I gotta fuse it, take out two discs and put a rod in it.
33:57My body ain't not very good right now.
34:00It's hurt as we speak.
34:03And we didn't see him for a long time.
34:08In 2005, Paul returns to the public eye,
34:11enjoying the fans' appreciation of his legendary career.
34:15To see him go back and be in the WWE Hall of Fame
34:18was the icing on the cake.
34:20If anybody deserved it, Paul deserved it.
34:22I would truly like to say I thank you fans very much.
34:25It means, it really, it means a lot.
34:29In 2005, he looked great.
34:31He was still himself, but I noticed a decline in his memory.
34:36When it hit about 2010, it accelerated from like zero to a hundred
34:41when he got cancer, throat cancer.
34:44He knew he had a battle between life and death.
34:48And he got through that cancer.
34:51But, um...
34:53Is that you following up?
34:55No, it's real.
34:55It's just my memory.
34:57It's not what it used to be.
34:59You know, this cancer and this chemo and radiation just...
35:04That's my, you know.
35:07He would call me over and over and over again
35:09and not remember we had just talked.
35:11Then I was like, oh my God.
35:14Like, I wouldn't even know he was going on these conventions
35:16and I think he got lost at the airport one time.
35:19And as I'm telling people this, they're,
35:21they're, you know, he's fine, he's fine.
35:22And I'm like, no, he's not.
35:24But as Paul's dementia symptoms increase,
35:27so does the instability of his life at home.
35:30Whenever I was in Atlanta, I always tried to stop and go see Paul.
35:34As soon as I saw him, I knew that he was being abused.
35:38The man I know was skin and bones and scars and bruises.
35:44His wife was not giving him his medicine, not taking care of him.
35:49She was getting strung out on drugs
35:52and she was doing meth and she was in pitiful shape.
35:58It was sad, very, very sad.
36:00A few years before Paul had full onset dementia,
36:04he was, you know, not in the best shape.
36:07Unfortunately, Buzz got out of prison and Buzz hit him and broke his nose.
36:13You know, how he could hit his own father, I don't know, but...
36:17I didn't know what to do.
36:19I picked him up from that house and I took him home to my house.
36:22I made every attempt to get him to move in with me,
36:26but he wanted to go home and he would ask for Rhonda.
36:29He wouldn't leave her.
36:30Like, I tried multiple times.
36:33He needed care.
36:34And at that point, she wasn't willing to do that.
36:37And that was the first time I called Adult Protection Services.
36:40But you have zero control over it. Zero.
36:43He was in bad shape.
36:45He didn't know what was going on.
36:47And then, unfortunately, you know, the pandemic came in.
36:51That was about the end of it.
36:55In 2021, Paul is hospitalized with pneumonia.
36:58When he's ready to be discharged, Rhonda refuses to take him back.
37:02I got my mom to tell me where my dad was.
37:06And, uh, I point in the room.
37:09And I walk in.
37:13And, uh, it was hairs all out long.
37:18Um, his leg is shaking.
37:24He's nonverbal.
37:27It absolutely overwhelmed me.
37:29I said, I'm taking him home.
37:32And they said, you can't.
37:33And I said, why not?
37:35They said, you're not listed as next of kin.
37:38And she said, listen, we've been trying to call your mom for the last,
37:41you know, several months.
37:42Saying that it's time he needed to go home.
37:45She's been unwilling to assist.
37:47And there's nothing we can do.
37:49And I said, get me a social worker.
37:51They said, it won't matter.
37:52And I said, I'm gonna raise holy hell until you do something.
37:58And I said, I'm gonna take a video.
38:04Do you remember, do you remember wrestling?
38:10Daddy, you're just eating the pepper.
38:14To see a guy that had been that vibrant and that strong and that powerful.
38:20It broke my heart then.
38:23It breaks my heart now.
38:25You just can't stand the sight of it.
38:27The worst video I've ever seen in my entire life.
38:30I was furious with his son.
38:32I was very upset.
38:34And I called Travis.
38:35Why would you want to put your dad in that light?
38:38He's a very proud person.
38:40This is nobody else's business, Travis.
38:43And he's like, take that down.
38:46And I said, no, I'm not doing it.
38:52And he's like, Dave Meltzer just posted.
38:56And I'm like, who is Dave Meltzer?
38:58Why would I care what this guy said?
39:01That was a plea.
39:03I was desperate.
39:04I was scared to death.
39:07They were saying like people were dying alone in the hospital during COVID.
39:12I'm like, that's not happening.
39:13It's not happening.
39:16I don't know if you could have been bigger than Paul Orndorff.
39:19But even if you're a Superman at one point, it doesn't make it any easier.
39:27He didn't know where he was.
39:29You could tell it was Paul, but Paul wasn't there anymore.
39:36After posting a video of his father's deteriorating condition in the hospital,
39:41Travis faces backlash from the wrestling world.
39:44The wrestlers were upset.
39:46The community, the brotherhood.
39:48As if I had betrayed him, showing him in this state.
39:51And I will tell you what I think my father would say.
39:53If he saw it, he'd be mad.
39:56And the next day, he'd say he did the right thing.
39:59Because he taught me how to make the right decision,
40:01even if it wasn't the decision he would make.
40:03But he always supported me.
40:05I got a phone call from the social worker a couple days later.
40:08Got a couple apologies.
40:09I sat down with the doctor.
40:11And the doctor said, listen, he doesn't have much time left.
40:13I said, okay, well then, he's coming home with me.
40:16And I took him home.
40:18Best decision of my life.
40:21Now that I know that Travis used the video to try to get his dad out during COVID,
40:27makes a lot more sense.
40:29Because that was deplorable.
40:31It was absolutely deplorable.
40:33And the bottom line is he got his dad out of there.
40:37And that's a good thing.
40:43I think he was waiting for me.
40:46His brother and sister and my cousin came up.
40:49My niece, my nephew, my kids, myself.
40:53Got to spend time with him every day.
40:55I allowed my mom to come visit.
40:57She would spend an hour with him.
40:59And then she would go home.
41:00I had talked to Paul less than a week before he passed.
41:05And he could barely talk.
41:08Travis said that he got real excited when he said it was me on the phone.
41:13And kind of took that as a great feeling of true friendship that he would remember me.
41:21I used to sell Cokes in the Tapa Stadium and watch Paul play football.
41:24He was your hero when you were a little kid, right?
41:26Yes, he was.
41:26You know, I remember hanging up and tears were coming from my eyes.
41:29It just reminded me that we're only passing through.
41:33I was with him till every last second.
41:38He died with me.
41:41I believe he died in peace, that he wasn't hurting.
41:45He just beat me to heaven.
41:48My children have seen me make mistakes.
41:51And I'm fortunate I have great relationships with both of them.
41:54The conversation I had with my mother later in life, I was angry.
41:59The way I was acting towards her was no different than the way she was acting towards my dad.
42:05So I was guilty of that.
42:07I knew some of my dad's decisions and how it hurt my mom.
42:11And I was guilty of that.
42:14As time passed, I not only forgave her, but I came to love her.
42:27The last gift he left me was his legacy that I would get to share.
42:33That first year, people see that we're online.
42:35They didn't all comment about my dad.
42:38They said, how are you?
42:40I'm like, how am I?
42:41And they're like, man, we're here for you.
42:43And I'm now interacting with these people that I thought I hated.
42:47All this anger and resentment I had about the times he was away, now has purpose.
42:53My dad very much respected the fans that came to see him and the person he was in the ring
42:58with.
42:59So often what I'll hear is, I was at that event with my father and they're like, your dad is
43:05amazing.
43:06And I get to reply, it sounds like your dad was pretty amazing too.
43:11WrestleMania won.
43:13That was his peak.
43:15Remember him that night and keep it in your heart.
43:19That's the one that you remember.
43:21He did it better than anybody else that ever stepped to that square circle.
43:25I don't remember anybody having really anything bad to say about Paul Orndorff as a person.
43:31In the wrestling business, that may be almost unheard of.
43:36Handsome, sexy, rugged, all the things that he was.
43:40Paul was truly Mr. Wonderful.
43:42The pile driver!
43:44People say your dad was an amazing wrestler.
43:47And I'm like, and a better father.
43:49Mr. Wonderful, Paul Orndorff!
43:51Wrestling got his body.
43:53Fans got his mind.
43:55And I got his heart.
Comments