Part
One
Part
Two
Part
Three
Part
Four
Paul
Jones Photo Album
Full
Circle: A Visit with Paul Jones & George South
Return
to the Mid-Atlantic Gateway lobby.
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Part
Three - Managing and the Great American Dream
George: Did you
guys ever notice the difference in who they gave Paul to manage
compared to some of the other managers? It was harder to get some
of those guys over.
Paul: Yeah, J.J.
Dillon had Tully Blanchard, and Ric Flair, and Arn Anderson. How
hard was that? I was put with guys that needed help to get over.
And frankly, some of the guys they put with me, they didn't want
to get over. I tried to come up with good ideas, like with the
Barbarian and the Warlord. I came up with this idea with the
weights. We did it in Greensboro (before the first Clash of
Champions), and man that caught on fire, and we sold out
everywhere that next week. We had been drawing about 50% of the
house in Baltimore right around that time, and that next show
after that aired on TV, we sold out. And Dusty couldn't wait to
cut it off. It wasn't his idea.
George: If you
remember, it didn't have a big blow off. It just ended. It was
like reading a book, and getting to the end, and someone had torn
the last few pages out, it never came to an end.
Paul: It wasn't
Dusty's angle, and it was over, so it got cut off.
DB: I never
understood the insecurity with some people in the business. If
someone got over, or got your guys over, and it drew money, that
was more money in everybody's pocket.
Paul: Exactly,
well, it was just an ego thing. Nobody could out-do Dusty, he had
to be the most over. If it wasn't his idea, it usually wasn't
going to get a chance to get over. It was the same thing in
Florida, he was booking when I was in Florida, and he had this
deal he couldn't pass up working a month in Japan for big money.
So he was gone for about a month, and I was the main babyface
while he was gone and we did huge business and he couldn't wait to
get back. He couldn't stand it. With Dusty, he always had himself
on the card with the angles that were hot, and he'd put himself on
last, so it would appear he drew the house.
George: Tell my
favorite Dusty story. About the time in Roanoke with the
horse.
Paul: Oh,
goodness. We were in Roanoke, and Dusty is going to make this
grand entry into the Roanoke Coliseum on a Sunday afternoon. Now
this civic center has this slick floor and the horse has hard
shoes on, you should have rubber shoes on him, but he's got
regular horse shows. He comes out of the dressing room on this
horse. He had a special white horse, wearing a white hat, wearing
chaps. And he gets about eight feet into the arena and this
horse's legs start going out, you know, like a dancer doing a
split, except the horse doesn't want to do this, but he can't help
it. And Dusty's trying to play it cool, but his face, you can see
he's afraid he's going to fall off the horse. And this poor horse
looks like he has skates on. But the funniest thing is Dusty is
determined to make it to the ring, and he's leaning way forward,
and his arms around the horse's neck, which was pretty hard to do.
That was the funniest thing, seeing this big cowboy with his white
hat hanging onto the horse's neck.
Part
Four - Reflections
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2003 Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Gateway |