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01:00The Sheik lived a life of violence, mystery, and a strict devotion to the secrets of wrestling.
01:07He created a shroud of secrecy around his personal life so that he could be fully immersed as the Sheik
01:15of Araby, the wild man from Syria.
01:17Even his grandkids called him Sheik.
01:19And if you called him anything else, he wouldn't answer to it.
01:21But as a promoter and a star,
01:23the Sheik made sure he always came out on top,
01:26even as that star began to fade.
01:29The Sheik is a cautionary tale
01:32for what happens when you've got a dragon and nobody ever slays.
01:36So far, it's been the Sheik all the way.
01:38He just didn't accept the fact that he was getting old
01:42and that he was no longer the top of the wrestling heap.
01:46And it almost cost him his life.
01:48A lot of pain.
01:50He kept it real.
01:51You know what I mean?
01:52And he couldn't walk away.
01:55He had so much love for the business.
01:59I have no doubt he would have liked to die in the ring.
02:17At 229 pounds of Arabia, the Sheik.
02:22I've been a lifelong fan of the Sheik
02:24because the first time I saw him,
02:26I was struck by the aura, the presence,
02:28the magnitude of the original Sheik himself.
02:33I'm Jim Cornette.
02:35Before my 40-year career in pro wrestling,
02:37I was a fan of the original Sheik.
02:40When the Sheik would come into the arena,
02:42the mood would change.
02:43The fans would sense that something was different.
02:45He had an aura.
02:46He had a presence.
02:47You could feel it.
02:50The greatest example was in 1988
02:53at the Cobo Arena in Detroit.
02:56All the fans in the arena,
02:57you could tell they were tensing up.
02:59They were waiting for something.
03:01All of a sudden, in comes a stretched limousine.
03:04It was amazing.
03:06He pulled all the way onto the floor of the arena
03:08where everybody in the building could see.
03:11And the driver gets out and opens the door
03:13and out steps the Sheik in the headdress
03:16and a three-piece suit
03:18and dozens of gold chains around his neck.
03:21And the place erupted.
03:23Oh, my God, it's him.
03:25There's a match going on.
03:26People are getting dropkicked and thrown around.
03:29They don't care about that.
03:30They want to see the Sheik.
03:34And he walks right into the locker room
03:36with a bunch of people carrying his bags.
03:37That set the tone for the evening.
03:39The Sheik is in the building.
03:43He was the greatest in almost every category.
03:47Not because he's my uncle.
03:49He proved that he was.
03:50I am Sabu.
03:51I'm the nephew of the Sheik.
03:53He made people believe.
03:55Even though they thought they knew wrestling was bullshit,
03:57they knew he wasn't.
04:00Sheik laid down the foundation
04:02for what would be called the hardcore wrestling.
04:07My name is Rob Van Dam.
04:09I was trained by the original Sheik
04:12to be a pro wrestler.
04:14He's still influencing the business now.
04:17There's so many characters
04:19that have been influenced
04:20by something that he did.
04:23Right into the throat.
04:24Right into the mouth.
04:26He has an almost inhuman expression.
04:29Oh, I can't.
04:30Modern wrestling fans are used to chaos.
04:32They're used to simulated violence.
04:34They're used to furniture breaking
04:36and people being run over with cars.
04:38That didn't happen
04:39in the wrestling of the 50s, 60s, and 70s
04:43because credibility was foremost.
04:46Believability.
04:47This is best two out of three falls.
04:48When the Sheik debuted full-fledged,
04:51he would still wrestle.
04:53They're pummeling each other.
04:55The Sheik could wrestle.
04:56Here's a leg torture hold.
04:58You know, he didn't become the Sheik in one night.
05:00It took a while.
05:01In need of a character to make himself memorable,
05:04Ed Farhat draws on his ethnic background
05:07to turn himself into a villain
05:09that will shock Middle America.
05:11People actually were frightened
05:14of this Arab madman
05:17because Arabs in those days,
05:20they were something very, very strange
05:23and very foreign.
05:24The Sheik.
05:25You always had foreigners in wrestling.
05:28They were dark and mysterious from other lands.
05:31The Great Togel.
05:33And that's what the Sheik built on
05:35throughout the entire decade of the 1950s.
05:41This image as a rich but insane
05:44Middle Eastern Sheik.
05:47The Sheik from Arabia.
05:49Can you imagine the arrogance of the Sheik?
05:51Early on, he had a slave girl
05:53that he brought to the ring.
05:54It was his wife, Joyce,
05:57but her name was Princess Salima.
05:59He makes this woman kiss his boot.
06:01And he would berate her and abuse her.
06:05He's slapping her, Bill.
06:06And then he would take his time
06:08to kneel down and do his prayers
06:11where he would pray to Allah
06:13for the strength to overcome his opponent.
06:17He would only do his prayers
06:18when the audience was respectful and quiet.
06:21And so if he thought anybody was making any noise,
06:24he would stop and then start over.
06:26But as the gimmick got wilder and crazier,
06:30much of the wrestling left the matches
06:32and instead it was all chaos.
06:34What's he got in his hand?
06:36He would pull out a stick or a pencil out of his tights
06:39and he would stab the opponent in the head with it.
06:42Looks like a panda or something.
06:44He'd be throwing chairs into the ring
06:47and tear it up ringside.
06:49Not a crowd pleaser, exactly.
06:52It was chaotic as it could be.
06:54It was fight on the floor,
06:56fight with a chair.
06:58It was everything but a wrestling match.
07:01My name is Dory Funk Jr.
07:02and I used to wrestle with the Sheik.
07:06Sheik always and forever stood for blood and gore.
07:11Every time that I hit him with the fork,
07:14blood was shooting from his arm
07:17or from his head.
07:19This is brutal, fans.
07:21This is Abdul of the Butcher.
07:23I have wrestled the Sheik.
07:25We knew for a fact
07:26that the fans were scared of us.
07:30We did a lot of shit.
07:32And then when finally,
07:34when the Sheik got stabbed with his own pencil
07:36and he started bleeding,
07:39the people would go out of their minds.
07:41Yes, yes.
07:42You're going to pay Sheik.
07:44You go ahead, burn me.
07:45Burn them all.
07:46One of the things that caused the most commotion
07:48was when the Sheik would throw fire.
07:52The Sheik has got that fire.
07:54How?
07:55He's burned them badly.
07:56That was explained by the promoters
07:58and the announcers that the Sheik
07:59knew some way to magically produce fire
08:02from his fingertips.
08:04What it was, was magician's flash paper
08:06with a little incendiary thing
08:08that you could hide on your finger.
08:10He always kept it in his shrunk.
08:12Then when he hit it...
08:14And in the arena,
08:16the match might be crazy enough
08:18and people would be screaming.
08:19But when the fire came out...
08:21How?
08:22Hey, slow down.
08:24A gasp would erupt from the people.
08:27And he throws fire!
08:30He's throwing fire.
08:32They still got a mark.
08:33Come on.
08:33I'm serious.
08:35Yeah, look at that.
08:36You see it?
08:36If I wouldn't have turned my head,
08:38I would have been blind today.
08:40It was like the ancient gladiator days
08:43and like the Roman Colosseum.
08:45It worked so badly
08:46that now they bring the stretch...
08:47A lot of people say
08:48that the Sheik
08:49was the originator
08:50of hardcore wrestling.
08:52Bull Curry was doing
08:53the same kind of thing
08:55in the 40s,
08:56but the Sheik popularized it.
08:58He made it more mainstream.
08:59He made it more profitable.
09:01An ugly situation.
09:03And the crowd loved to hate him, right?
09:05I think he fed off that.
09:07Oh, what a terrific action in here now!
09:09There was a lot of animosity
09:10back in the day,
09:11you know, being a...
09:12He was a first-generation
09:13Lebanese-American.
09:14We were wondering a moment ago
09:16if the Sheik understood English.
09:18My grandmother and grandfather
09:20was born in Lebanon.
09:22So when they came into this country,
09:24they came to Detroit.
09:26Detroit and Lansing
09:27was a pretty big hub
09:28for Arabs at the time.
09:29He was known in the neighborhood
09:31as a tough kid
09:31that you didn't want to cross.
09:33That's just who he was.
09:34As a young kid,
09:36he wasn't even old enough
09:37to enlist in the Army,
09:38but he lied on his application
09:41and once he was in the Army,
09:44he did some boxing
09:45and some wrestling there.
09:47After he was in the military
09:49and came back,
09:50he went into the trades a little bit
09:51and he taught himself
09:52how to do electrical work.
09:54Then he met Bert Ruby,
09:56who was a promoter,
09:58and in training with him,
10:00they developed the thought
10:01because of his Arab descent.
10:03It would make a lot of sense
10:04for him to take on
10:05this Sheik persona.
10:09In an era
10:10where most wrestlers
10:12maintained their characters
10:13outside of the ring,
10:15the Sheik takes his dedication
10:17to a whole new level.
10:19Kayfabe in wrestling
10:20was the aura of believability.
10:24And the Kayfabe mindset
10:26meant that you were,
10:27to everyone in public,
10:29always to present the personality
10:31that you claimed to be
10:32on television
10:33and at the wrestling matches.
10:35From the time that the Sheik
10:37first found this gimmick,
10:39he started removing proof
10:40of who he was really.
10:42The Sheik took it to the extreme,
10:45probably to the most extreme
10:46it's ever been taken.
10:48He has put himself
10:49in some hypnotic state.
10:51He was committed
10:52to not expose the Sheik
10:56because that was just
10:58anti-Kayfabe.
11:01He never used his real name.
11:03If you called the Sheik's house
11:05and you asked for Ed,
11:07he would hang up on you.
11:08You had to ask,
11:09is Sheik there?
11:10Sheik.
11:11That's all you heard
11:12was the Sheik.
11:13Yeah, when we'd have dinner,
11:15he had the wrestlers over
11:16and one table in the other room
11:18was the heels
11:18and the baby faces
11:19in the other room.
11:20I was thinking,
11:21why are all the bad guys
11:22sitting together
11:22and why are all the good guys
11:23sitting together, you know?
11:25But then I figured it out.
11:26He was Kayfabe-ing.
11:27He would always Kayfabe,
11:28even when it wasn't necessary.
11:32When the Sheik was out in public,
11:34I mean,
11:34he didn't speak to people
11:36he didn't know
11:37at a restaurant or something.
11:39You know,
11:40he was a man of few words.
11:41And any time a waiter
11:43or waitress would come by
11:44and be within air shot,
11:46he'd switch it
11:47right back to Arabic.
11:49He became a character.
11:51And in his mind,
11:53that's kind of being a con.
11:55And he milked it
11:57for all it was worth.
11:59I think the Sheik
12:00had realized
12:01that he had hit on
12:02a gimmick
12:03that was once in a lifetime.
12:05Truly the wild man
12:06of professional wrestling.
12:08If he protected it,
12:09if he worked it,
12:10if he always
12:12embodied that character,
12:14There it goes again,
12:16right into the throat.
12:17that he would always be
12:18the top heel in wrestling.
12:21He would always make
12:22a ridiculous amount of money.
12:24But Ed Farr
12:25had some wavering commitment
12:27to living his life
12:28as the Sheik.
12:32Often leads
12:33to dangerous encounters
12:34with fans
12:35who believe
12:35the madness is real.
12:38A lot of fans
12:40were violent towards him.
12:42He could leave shows
12:43and have fans
12:44try to attack him
12:45outside the shows.
12:46He had people stab him.
12:49One fan broke
12:50in the dressing room
12:51and my uncle
12:52had his blade on him.
12:54And I was there
12:54and the guy
12:55who came to my uncle
12:56started saying shit
12:56and my uncle
12:57just sift him
12:58like a Z.
12:59and he cut him
13:00to the bone.
13:01Almost an insight
13:02came out.
13:03And in the newspaper,
13:05the explanation
13:06they gave
13:07for the fans' injuries
13:09was that he had been
13:10knocked through
13:10a plate glass window
13:12in the process
13:13of being apprehended.
13:15Because the Sheik
13:16had just ripped him
13:17from one end
13:18to the other.
13:20There was a night
13:21in Amarillo, Texas
13:22where the Sheik
13:24got so much heat
13:24that a guy
13:25pulled a gun on him
13:26at point-blank range.
13:29The fans were stirred
13:30into a frenzy
13:31by the Sheik.
13:34Kill him!
13:35Kill him!
13:41A lot of times
13:42when the Sheik
13:43was on the car,
13:44the local promoter
13:45might beef up the police,
13:46the security.
13:48There was one night
13:50in Amarillo,
13:51a guy pulled a gun
13:52on him
13:52and tried to fire
13:55and a gun jam.
13:56And the cops
13:57tackled a guy.
13:58And when they
13:59took the guy in
14:00and arrested him,
14:01the policeman,
14:02trying to see
14:03why the gun
14:04had jammed,
14:05fired the bullet.
14:07If the guy
14:07had pulled the trigger
14:08one more time,
14:09he would have got
14:10the Sheik.
14:10A lot of top wrestlers
14:12that were heels
14:13had that much heat,
14:14but the Sheik
14:15caused riots
14:16everywhere he went
14:18and Sheik
14:19wasn't scared
14:20of anything.
14:21With the Sheik
14:22drying crowds
14:22in arenas
14:23all over North America,
14:25Ed Farhat looks
14:26to elevate his career
14:27as a promoter.
14:29That's where you
14:30made the money
14:30in pro wrestling,
14:31owning the thing.
14:32You got first count.
14:34In 1964,
14:36the Sheik buys
14:37Detroit's
14:37big-time wrestling,
14:39packing the famed
14:40Kobo Arena
14:41with fans.
14:42But in business,
14:43like in the ring,
14:44he never breaks character.
14:46When Sheik took over,
14:48nobody knew
14:49that he owned
14:49the promotion.
14:50He made his father-in-law,
14:52Francis Fleischer,
14:53the figurehead promoter.
14:55And the Sheik
14:55called the shots
14:56in the ring.
14:57And there's
14:57the camel clutch.
14:59Sheik's wife,
15:00Joyce, handled
15:00the paperwork
15:01and ran the office.
15:03Yeah, Grandma
15:04was definitely
15:05the matriarch
15:06of our family
15:07and she was the boss.
15:10They were always
15:11a team,
15:12even behind the scenes.
15:13You know,
15:13she was lockstep
15:14with him in the business.
15:16In the mid-1960s,
15:17the city of Detroit,
15:18Michigan had money
15:20and they knew
15:20and liked wrestling.
15:22The Kobo was
15:22a 12,000-seat building
15:24and they were
15:25coming close to
15:26or filling it up
15:27on most occasions.
15:28The Sheik
15:29before 12,500 fans
15:31in the Detroit Kobo Arena.
15:33The Sheik
15:34was a thinking
15:35businessman.
15:37He was the very
15:38first promoter
15:39in the country
15:40who bought
15:41a mobile TV truck
15:42and he's going
15:43to film his own
15:44matches at arenas
15:45where he's already at.
15:47So now you don't
15:48have to pay
15:49the TV studios anymore.
15:51The Kobo Arena
15:52in Detroit
15:53was the hottest
15:53building for pro wrestling
15:55in the country.
15:56He outdrew
15:57the Detroit Pistons
15:58who played there.
15:59Any concert
16:01that played there.
16:02Here's a man
16:02who set more
16:03attendance records
16:04around the country
16:04than any other
16:05wrestler alive.
16:06Every major name
16:08that worked
16:08for the NWA
16:09would come to Detroit
16:10to wrestle for the Sheik.
16:12It was like
16:13the WWE of the time.
16:15It was a place
16:15where everybody
16:15wanted to work
16:16and the guys
16:16made the most money
16:17there and it was
16:18the most popular.
16:19He had power.
16:20He had pull.
16:21So it was just
16:22an onslaught
16:23of top stars
16:24from every part
16:25of the country
16:25on the cards.
16:27And when you
16:28own the promotion,
16:29you can double sell
16:30tickets,
16:31you can put stuff
16:31in your pocket.
16:32Unless there's
16:33a state athletic
16:34commission inspector
16:34there,
16:35nobody knows
16:36how much money
16:37you took in.
16:38And it's all
16:38in cash.
16:39Four and five
16:40and six dollars
16:41at a time.
16:42Thousands of people.
16:44In 1973,
16:46the Sheik reported
16:47income of $400,000
16:49on his income tax.
16:51That's the equivalent
16:52of over $2 million
16:53in today's money.
16:55That's what he reported.
16:57No wrestler
16:58in the world
16:59made as much money
17:00as the Sheik.
17:01The Sheik was
17:02everything back then.
17:03He was a first-generation
17:04Lebanese American.
17:05He built his empire
17:07and his career
17:08from the ground up.
17:10And I think that is
17:10the American dream, right?
17:12The Sheik spares
17:14no expense,
17:15draping himself
17:16in luxury
17:16to sell the image
17:18of a man
17:18who is powerful,
17:20untouchable,
17:21and rich.
17:22He had one house
17:23and then he had
17:24another house built,
17:25a giant house.
17:26And it was like
17:28four floors,
17:28indoor pool,
17:30gym,
17:31five or ten acres
17:31of woods and creek
17:32and stuff.
17:33It was beautiful.
17:33Sauna in the house.
17:35I think it had
17:3635 rooms
17:36and it was
17:37a big place.
17:38And I go to myself,
17:39holy shit.
17:41He worked hard
17:42for a living
17:42and I think
17:43he did like
17:44to play hard.
17:44He liked cars,
17:46suits,
17:46jewelry,
17:47traveling.
17:48He definitely
17:48enjoyed being
17:50successful.
17:51He had a Lincoln
17:53and that was
17:54kind of his
17:54signature vehicle.
17:56He had about
17:56a thousand suits.
17:57He wore a different
17:57suit every day.
17:58No matter if it was
17:59hot, cold,
18:00he wore it every day.
18:00It was a style.
18:01The man was not
18:02afraid of color
18:03and you could
18:04always find him
18:05when he wasn't
18:06wrestling with
18:06tons of jewelry on,
18:08tons of rings,
18:09lots of necklaces.
18:11You're an entertainer,
18:12right?
18:13You have to look
18:13the part.
18:14You understand?
18:15He was a sheik.
18:16He acted like
18:17he was royalty.
18:18He was reckless.
18:19He would go buy
18:20anything he thought
18:21he wanted.
18:22I mean,
18:22because he had no
18:23idea of any
18:24limitations about him
18:25at all.
18:25He was a fabulous
18:27business man.
18:29But I'm going to tell
18:30the honest truth.
18:32He had one weakness.
18:35Gambling all the money
18:36that he had.
18:37Wow.
18:38Las Vegas would
18:39wipe him out.
18:42I mean, just like
18:43any other gambler,
18:45you know, you always
18:45think you can win.
18:46You may win here or
18:48there, but it's always
18:49the house wins.
18:50He lived big
18:52and he had to keep
18:54up the gimmick.
18:56Insisting he remain
18:57the top draw,
18:59the sheik books
19:00himself to headline
19:01nearly every show.
19:02The United States
19:04heavyweight champion
19:04has held that title
19:05longer than any other
19:07U.S. heavyweight
19:07champion in the history
19:08of the belt.
19:09There is a lot of
19:11truth to the idea
19:12that the main event
19:14star in wrestling
19:15should lose only
19:16rarely.
19:17So that when you
19:18do it, then that
19:19gets you over
19:20as the guy.
19:21But the sheik
19:21took it to extremes
19:23and the sheik felt
19:24that if anyone
19:25was to conclusively
19:27defeat him,
19:29that it would take
19:29his heat away
19:30and it would
19:30diminish his aura.
19:32The sheik has
19:33got a million tricks
19:34so don't count
19:35him out.
19:36If you're able
19:37to decide who's
19:38going to be on the
19:38card and who's not
19:39going to be on the
19:39card, why would you
19:40not assume that he
19:41would be the main
19:42event?
19:43The United States
19:44heavyweight champion
19:44the sheik.
19:45He would sell for
19:47wrestlers.
19:48He would bleed for
19:49them.
19:49He would do all
19:50those things, but
19:51you couldn't beat
19:52him.
19:52The sheik never did
19:54a job and that
19:56was what made it
19:57even more shocking
19:58on the rare occasion
20:00that he would.
20:02One of the few times
20:03the sheik agrees to
20:04lose a match comes
20:06at a volatile moment
20:07in Detroit's history.
20:091967, city of Detroit
20:11had riots.
20:12Four days of rioting,
20:15looting and arson
20:16rocked the city of
20:17Detroit.
20:17It was over a situation
20:19where the police had
20:21raided a certain bar in
20:22an African-American area
20:24and the riots lasted for
20:26several days.
20:27The sheik's number one
20:29baby face, his star
20:31attraction as a hero, was
20:33a guy named Bobo
20:34Brazil.
20:35Sheik saw an opportunity
20:36there because at the
20:38Kobo, the crowds were
20:39black and white.
20:41Like a lot of places in
20:42the United States in the
20:4360s, the only place that
20:44you would go and see a
20:45really integrated audience
20:47was at the wrestling
20:48matches.
20:49In the late 1950s, early
20:5160s, down in the South,
20:53the whites and the blacks
20:54were separated.
20:55And the blacks were
20:56usually separated to the
20:58upper tiers of the arena
21:00and they had chicken wire
21:03or something like that
21:04put up in front of them
21:05and at one point the sheik
21:08was on one of those
21:08shows.
21:09And he crawled up that
21:11chicken wire and tore it
21:13down and invited the black
21:15folks to come down into the
21:16arena floor.
21:17He was that kind of guy.
21:19Being that he was a
21:20Lebanese-American, he
21:21experienced racism himself
21:23growing up.
21:24You know, he felt it.
21:25And I think that once he
21:27reached a position where he
21:28was able to help other
21:29people, he took advantage
21:30of it.
21:32Once the riots started,
21:34the sheik thinking,
21:35what can I do to calm
21:38things down, to help?
21:39So in that arena that
21:41night, you know, there was
21:42at least 10,000 people and
21:44there was not only whites
21:45and blacks and every kind
21:47of ethnicity, in that arena
21:50that night, they were all
21:51one.
21:52Hoping that Bobo Brazil could
21:54beat the sheik.
21:55You're watching a championship
21:57bout.
21:57Bobo Brazil and the wild man
21:59from Syria, the sheik.
22:00And when Bobo finally beat
22:02the sheik,
22:07the place exploded like I've
22:09never seen before.
22:11Doing that, the sheik helped
22:14heal the city of Detroit.
22:16It settled down the tensions
22:17in the town.
22:19And then, of course, sheik beat
22:20him two weeks later and won it
22:21back.
22:26Once responsible for the
22:28promotion's greatest success,
22:30eventually the sheik becomes a
22:32liability for big time wrestling.
22:35If you have a hot heel that
22:37can't be stopped, everybody
22:39wants somebody to stop him.
22:40But then, if it goes on for so
22:42long that the people become
22:44convinced that nobody can stop
22:46him, they'll stop coming to see
22:48somebody try.
22:49It's the winner with a camel
22:50clutch, the sheik.
22:54Past 1975, the auto industry
22:58was, you know, starting to have
23:00problems.
23:01The economy, you know, started
23:03to take effect.
23:04That's why big time wrestling
23:07started to fail because people
23:08really didn't have that extra
23:10money to spend to see wrestling.
23:12It was just a domino effect of
23:15the economy and the promotion,
23:18not drawing fans.
23:20The sheik always lived big.
23:22The custom-made suits, the jewelry,
23:24the stretch limousines, the
23:25handlers, the helpers.
23:27Suddenly, with business going
23:29down, he didn't have the money
23:31coming in to cover the money
23:33going out.
23:34How do you maintain that
23:36lifestyle?
23:38Unfortunately, he couldn't keep it up.
23:47Oh, the sheik took off.
23:50That ran away.
23:51By the mid-1970s, the sheik's
23:54Detroit promotion big-time wrestling
23:56is struggling financially and its woes
23:59take a toll on locker room morale.
24:01A lot of guys got pissed because
24:03either they were promised things
24:05that they weren't getting, or they
24:07could just see the business going
24:09down, and they started no-showing
24:11the cards.
24:12I remember a time when Bruno
24:14Sammartino came to Kobo Arena.
24:17If you're an East Coast guy, you're a
24:19Bruno fan.
24:20You know, Bruno was everything.
24:22And after the show, Bruno says,
24:25hey, you want to go out to dinner
24:27with me?
24:27So, I'll never forget, we went to
24:29this Chinese restaurant, and I go,
24:31I hear you're going to be back here
24:32in two weeks, you know, in a return
24:34match against the sheik.
24:35He says, I'm going to tell you
24:36something, but don't say anything
24:38to anybody else.
24:39I'm not coming.
24:40The sheik promised me $2,000 to come
24:43tonight, and he gave me a check for
24:45$800.
24:46So, I'm not showing up.
24:48Money wasn't coming in, and he
24:50couldn't afford to pay the wrestlers
24:53what they thought they were worth.
24:55Big-time wrestling had lost TV in some
24:57of their other markets.
24:58Finally, they lost TV in Detroit.
25:00It was somewhere around late 1980.
25:02That was the last event that big-time
25:04wrestling ran in the Kobo Arena,
25:06the house that sheik built.
25:08One of the most popular places to see
25:11wrestling in the United States for the
25:12previous 15, 20 years.
25:14Couldn't run it anymore.
25:16That was pretty much the end of big-time
25:17wrestling.
25:19Unfortunately, he wasn't making that
25:21money.
25:21He was still spending it.
25:23And so, the only thing that saved
25:25him was the Japanese tours.
25:27Because Giant Baba and All Japan Pro
25:30Wrestling brought the sheik to Japan.
25:33Japan was the biggest moneymaker in
25:35professional wrestling for a long time.
25:39The sheik had been in all these
25:40pictures, the fire, and the snakes, and
25:44the blood, and the eyes.
25:45But they'd only seen him in magazines and
25:47newspapers.
25:51They went absolutely out of their minds
25:53for the sheik.
25:54He became an icon in a very short period
25:56of time.
25:57The great city of Tokyo, when the sheik
26:00walks down the street, they actually
26:01stop track.
26:02They were bloodthirsty.
26:06Buckets of blood, everything.
26:07They could do that in Japan, and they could
26:09get away with it.
26:10But then, after a few years, again, Japanese
26:13wrestling was very highly athletic.
26:16The sheik couldn't keep up.
26:17Baba stopped bringing him to Japan.
26:19He was not able to be booked almost
26:21anywhere else in the United States because
26:24of his age and the bridges that he had
26:26burned.
26:28And as the money dried up, pretty soon,
26:32he was just wandering around the house, a
26:3460-something-year-old man in a dilapidated
26:37mansion that had seen its better days.
26:39I mean, he'd spent all his millions, and so
26:43he and Joyce were living in the kitchen.
26:47I can't go into it all the way because
26:49it's embarrassing, but he was losing his
26:51money.
26:52Like, we had to sell the big house, and so
26:54he was not penniless, but he was going
26:56broke.
26:57After they left the mansion, it was still
27:00them, still two against the world, so to
27:03speak.
27:03I mean, they were a tight pair, and to me,
27:06as their grandchild, I never saw anything
27:07but my loving grandparents.
27:10All the money and all the glory and all the
27:12fame and the lifestyle, it was just not there
27:16anymore.
27:16I mean, you've been the greatest heel in the
27:20sport of professional wrestling for how many years?
27:23But now you're that older athlete who can't perform at
27:28that level anymore.
27:29You know, what's the guy to do?
27:31Now past his prime, the Sheik takes any booking he
27:35can get just to keep food on the table.
27:37He'd go to Warren, Ohio to a high school gym and do the same
27:42thing with Bobo Brazil that they had done 20 years earlier in
27:46the Kobo Arena.
27:47Instead of in front of 12,000 people, it might be in front of
27:501,200.
27:51And he was born in the 20s, and he was just trying to make a
27:56couple hundred dollars here and there just to, you know, keep
27:58food in his little kitchen.
28:00His gimmick had gotten tired, and he couldn't keep it up.
28:03He was chasing a career down a rat hole.
28:09All that obviously had to play a part in a late life crisis.
28:15And he was trying to recapture some former glory and try to do
28:20something to keep himself going at the same time.
28:23I'm not a psychiatrist, but one would think that that had to
28:27be uppermost in his mind is, how can I keep doing this for
28:30very much longer?
28:32How can I keep up the gimmick?
28:47With injury and age driving him from the ring.
28:51Anything you want.
28:53The Sheik shifts to training the next generation, starting with his
28:57nephew.
28:58My mom and my uncle were the two youngest, so my uncle always
29:02took care of my mother.
29:03Walked her to school every day, beat up anybody who got in their
29:05way, and all that stuff.
29:06And my uncle used to beat up my dad.
29:09They got a divorce when I was three years old, but I'd see him
29:11around when I was five or six, and he'd hit my bow.
29:14My mom would call my uncle.
29:16My uncle would come over and beat him up.
29:19And then one day, he'd come up to beat him up.
29:21My dad was hiding under the bed.
29:22And I said, that's what I'm going to do.
29:24I'm going to beat the Sheik and have people hide under the bed
29:26from me.
29:28I said, well, I got my uncle.
29:30He's more of a dad.
29:31All up until I was 19, I was telling him, I'm going to be a
29:33wrestler, I'm going to be a wrestler, but I never did
29:35nothing towards it other than amateur wrestling.
29:37I was 19 at a party, and these guys started shooting.
29:43One guy shot my one friend in the stomach.
29:46He took off running.
29:47I ran after him and grabbed him and threw him down.
29:51He pushed a gun against my face, and he hit my teeth, and it
29:54shattered.
29:56So it went in my nasal cavity and in the back of my throat.
29:59It knocked out seven of my teeth.
30:00So when I got shot, I go, now's the time I got to do it.
30:04So after a couple of days, I got out of the hospital, my mom
30:06called my uncle and said, I want to be a wrestler, a pro
30:09wrestler.
30:10The next day, he came to my house, and he goes, come on,
30:12we're going to camp, pack it back.
30:13So I got in his car, a limousine, by the way.
30:15And he took me to his house, and he goes, this is the camp.
30:18Now, you're not going to go home for another year.
30:19You're going to be stuck here for a year, and don't bitch
30:22when it hurts.
30:24So the first seven months, he had me doing chores and
30:27chopping wood, and I set the ring up in the morning,
30:30and tear the ring down at night, and never get in it.
30:33I never had a free minute.
30:34Anytime he goes, what are you doing?
30:35I go, nothing.
30:35He goes, okay, go, drop some wood.
30:37There's always time he washed his car, cleaned the house for
30:39no reason when it wasn't dirty, and never questioned him.
30:43For the first year I was training, he had two bad hips,
30:45could hardly move.
30:46I'm sure he took pain pills, but he never told me about them.
30:48He was just a tough old mother f***er, he was just a tough guy.
30:53Sabu doesn't just follow in the sheik's footprints.
30:56He carries his legacy into a new era, adapting his style for a new generation.
31:03Sabu did adopt a lot of the sheik's mannerisms, from the headdress to the
31:07looking up and pointing in the sky, and the not speaking English.
31:11But Sabu, of course, was more acrobatic and more of a death-defying daredevil.
31:19I don't think the sheik ever climbed to the top rope in 50 years.
31:22But the family connection was still there, and that enabled the sheik to,
31:28in some cases, go along with Sabu and lend his historic reputation
31:33to help get Sabu over.
31:36I never copied him, but he influenced me.
31:40What I do is my way.
31:41It resembles something he would do, maybe, you know, with the terminus stuff.
31:45But he paved the way for me, but he didn't give it to me.
31:48No, he made me earn it, and if I didn't have it, he wouldn't have backed me up.
31:52As Sabu's star rises, he brings in a new recruit eager to learn the ways of the sheik.
32:00The fans love RBD!
32:02It was just the tail end of 89, before my 19th birthday, when we met.
32:07The sheik had me get in the ring, and he just, like, boom, both hands on my throat,
32:13and he just pushed me back to the corner, and he's choking me,
32:18you know, like, pushing and pulling me, making me move in the corner a lot.
32:24And then those big eyes were looking at me, and his tongue's out.
32:30He was, like, so committed, and he bit my nose.
32:33And, man, I about peed my pants, you know what I mean?
32:36Like, it was a scary experience.
32:40We would wrestle for hours, then we would jump in a swimming pool.
32:44His wife would make dinner.
32:46It was a very personal experience that made me not a student, but part of the family.
32:55Sabu and I did a lot of training by ourselves during that time.
32:59But Sabu was saying, you know, the sheik wasn't doing well, or whatever.
33:03And sheik would sometimes come out and sit in a chair and watch us for a little bit.
33:09I'm sure there was always a part of him that wanted to get back in the ring.
33:12That's just who he was.
33:14So he kind of had a renaissance in the late 80s and early 90s.
33:19After years on the sidelines and two hip surgeries,
33:22the sheik makes a final grab for the spotlight back in Japan with deathmatch promotion FMW.
33:34He was approached to do a fire match, and it wasn't a baseball stadium.
33:39I want to say that held, like, 65,000 people or something like that.
33:43The idea of the match was that my grandpa wrestled with Sabu, my cousin,
33:48as a tag team against a Japanese tag team.
33:51Instead of ropes, it was barbed wire,
33:53and they wrapped that barbed wire with kerosene-soaked linen.
33:57They didn't tell me I was having a fire match until a couple days before.
34:01The ring didn't all go on fire, just the parts where they wanted, but the fire was too big.
34:05Like, sucked up the air in the middle, and even the logo in the middle was melting on their hands.
34:09And it was only in there probably five or six minutes, and it was too hot.
34:13They must have not anticipated the fire would get as big,
34:18but they got stuck in the ring.
34:21Tragically, the whole thing went up in flames.
34:25The flames were taking up all of the oxygen.
34:28So it was not only blisteringly hot, but they couldn't breathe, and they couldn't see.
34:33And suddenly, it just engulfed everything.
34:36They're in the center of the ring, because that's when they could get the most oxygen.
34:39And Anita said to Sheik, Sheik, this is bad.
34:44He didn't know Anita could even speak English.
34:47That's when the Sheik was like, okay, something's wrong.
34:56In Japan, the Sheik and Sabu find themselves trapped in a ring of fire,
35:02battling for survival as a hardcore match spirals out of control.
35:06They had done a practice run that afternoon, and everything was fine.
35:11But because it was a baseball stadium and it was outdoors, winds are a factor.
35:15And so when the actual match took place, things were going as rehearsed.
35:21The winds shifted.
35:22Flames started, like, going horizontally across the ring, and it started melting the ring.
35:28Sabu and one of the Japanese wrestlers were able to get out of the ring quickly.
35:31My grandpa was locked up at that point with Anita.
35:36They were in there for maybe 15 or 20 more seconds, and that was a mistake.
35:40They really struggled to get out of the ring.
35:42It is really hard to watch, because you can see he's still trying to do his job.
35:49He crawls out of the ring.
35:50I run around the other side.
35:51I throw water at him.
35:53He goes, what are you doing?
35:54I said, I'm trying to put you out.
35:55You're smoking.
35:56And he goes, no, I got to throw fire still.
35:58I was getting his hand wet.
35:59The skin is dropping off his body, and he's still trying to do sheik stuff, you know,
36:06but they'd gone too far.
36:10My grandpa ended up with third-degree burns over 20% of his body.
36:15I was at grandma's.
36:17Three or four in the morning, a call came in because the time difference with Japan,
36:21and grandpa didn't really let on that he was that hurt, but grandma couldn't hear it in his voice.
36:26When the sheik got on the plane, people in first class were disgusted because his skin was still burning, and
36:35they can smell it.
36:36You know, it was quite the journey to get him back from Japan, you know, a 14-hour flight back
36:42home with third-degree burns all over your body.
36:46I don't think most people would have honestly survived that trip.
36:50I just remember he was in a wheelchair, and he was wrapped like a mummy.
36:54He didn't let on at all that he was hurting.
36:57Grandma did a lot of his care at home, unbandaged him and put the cream on it and bandaged him
37:02up.
37:03I'm sure he was in horrible pain.
37:07That was not the end for him.
37:08He was like, oh, I'm burned?
37:10That's fine.
37:11I'll just recover from this, and I'll get back in the ring.
37:14With age and injury catching up, the sheik fights to extend his wrestling career alongside Sabu.
37:23In 1995, World Championship Wrestling, one of the two major companies in the United States,
37:29has Sabu booked on a pay-per-view event, and as a special attraction, he brings his uncle, the sheik,
37:35to be at ringside with him.
37:37I did a flip out of the ring, and I hit my opponent, and his leg got stuck under me,
37:42and it broke his leg.
37:47And there's the sheik, 69 years old, out there with a broken leg, and he still threw the fireball.
37:54That was part of, I think, him wanting to make sure that the business moved ahead.
37:57It didn't matter how badly he was hurt.
37:59You have to get back up and finish the match.
38:01There you see the sheik, right at ringside.
38:03And it wasn't until we got back behind the curtain, we had to get a wheelchair for him.
38:07He never complained about it.
38:08Tony, the man just threw a ball of fire in the man's face.
38:12At that point, I think he knew his body.
38:13It was time to call it quits.
38:17I felt at ease that he was going to stop, because I was always worried.
38:19He wants one more.
38:20He's going to have a heart attack, or his leg's going to break again.
38:23You know, I was always worried about that.
38:24But it was awesome, because he finally says, I'm going to stop.
38:28You know, he had reached the pinnacle of his career, and it was done at that point, and
38:32kind of just moved into the family life.
38:34He still was the sheik in public.
38:37It may have just been, like, out of habit, because he had been doing it for, like, literally
38:4130 years.
38:42After devoting so much of his life to the wrestling business, Ed Farhat now focuses on family.
38:53He came to Grandparents Day in second grade.
38:57I think that's when I realized, okay, something's up, because all the other grandparents were,
39:02like, peeking in our classroom and asking for autographs, and we're just a bunch of eight-year-olds,
39:08and I just happened to have the grandpa with a shirt opened, camel necklace on his chest,
39:13yelling Allah to the ceiling in the classroom.
39:17I never, ever questioned whether he thought we were the center of the universe.
39:23He showed us that every day.
39:25We all had a decent amount of time to know and love him.
39:29You know, it's never enough.
39:38By the early 2000s, years of a lifetime in the ring take their toll on the sheik's body.
39:44He had some organ failures, and he had, he suffered from multiple myeloma, um, to the cancer.
39:52Um, one thing about our family is that we rally, and so that was the time for all of us
39:59to rally
39:59around him, and, and we did.
40:02Um, I would say the last two years of my grandfather's life, we were in the hospital.
40:07Every other day, my grandmother never wanted him to be alone.
40:10At that time, I lived on my own in Lansing.
40:13I was 19, and, um, grandma had called, and I said, he's gone, isn't he?
40:23Not a glamorous death, but he was surrounded with love, and that's what matters.
40:31I was 27 when he died.
40:33I had a long time with him.
40:34I feel grateful that I had as much time with him as I did.
40:37He was a pillar of our family, so there was a major loss for us.
40:41I went to Japan, and he died when I was in the air.
40:43I didn't know it.
40:45All the boys were saying, I'm sorry about your uncle.
40:46I thought, because he was sick.
40:48And finally, Goldberg goes, I'm sorry to hear about your uncle.
40:49I said, wait a minute, you know, I barely know you.
40:51Why do you care about my uncle?
40:52He goes, well, he passed away last night.
40:53I said, what?
40:54When he told me that, they said, Sebu, you gotta go get set up for the entrance.
40:58So it was a 20-minute ride around the Tokyo Dome.
41:02I'm talking to my aunt, she goes, yeah, he passed away last night, but you gotta do your job
41:04like he'd want you to.
41:05I said, but, you know, he was more than my, my father.
41:09He said, more than anything, you know he'd want you to do your job.
41:16You can't have a heartbreak, you know, affect your professionalism.
41:20So I stayed and did my match, and then when I got home, I missed the funeral.
41:23But to me, funerals are just to show people who are still alive that you cared.
41:28The person that died knows you cared.
41:29At his funeral ceremony, even the priest referred to him as Sheik.
41:35And I took one of the roses off the top of his casket that I still have.
41:40To this day, my friend, it was gone.
41:51Years after the Sheik's passing, his legacy is solidified into wrestling history as he's
41:57inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
42:01To be inducting the Sheik, of course, you know, what could be better?
42:06I was proud always to represent him.
42:08They wanted Sabu, of course, to induct him, but Sabu's not big on vocabulary.
42:14The original Sheik was hardcore before any of us heard of hardcore.
42:19So, you know, he asked if I would go with him and do most of the talking.
42:23And of course, of course, you know, let's do this.
42:26It was a nice moment to see that appreciation be given to him by a new generation.
42:31And he'd gouge with my eyes.
42:33I mean, he started at the dawn of television, and his last appearance was on pay-per-view.
42:37Nobody had that kind of drawing power, and nobody was in as many different places,
42:42doing as many different things for as long as the Sheik was.
42:48Yeah, one of my favorite objects is the little doll of the bloody Sheik.
42:53This came out, you know, way after he had passed away.
42:57He was a good man.
42:58He taught a lot of people how to work.
43:01You know, I've always been proud that I'm a non-conformist,
43:04and I have no doubt that that is me taking after the original Sheik who brought me into this life.
43:13Uh-oh, here comes the chair.
43:15Both men outside the ring, but it's not over.
43:18He put ass in seats.
43:20People wanted to go and see the wild, crazy Sheik.
43:24Most wrestlers, I don't think, last that long.
43:27The Sheik had a very tragic aspect, and that was that he lived an illusion of who he was.
43:35And in some ways, it was absolutely charming, because he did such a marvelous job of it.
43:40The Sheik looks like he's been through World War III.
43:43You know, anytime you see a wrestler using a metal chair to smack someone
43:48or do something slightly nefarious during a match, you know,
43:52whether that wrestler knows it or not, he's paying homage to my grandpa.
43:55And we take a little bit of pride in that.
43:58Thank you.
44:04Gracias por ver el video
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