Dark Side of the Ring (2019) s01e03 Episode Script

Good evening.
Welcome to Championship Sports.
You've heard about the tragic
and untimely death of Bruiser Brody.
-Very disappointing.
-a wrestler, prior to a bout.
His looks gave him the reputation
of a madman inside the ring,
but a wrestling promoter and others
remember a very different man.
Picture a man coming into the ring,
6-foot-6, 6'7", 350-some pounds,
he looked like danger coming.
It was the kind of danger
you were drawn to.
People would run from him.
They'd just all run and scatter.
He had a chain.
He'd sometimes hit people with it.
He was just a wild fucking guy.
Bruiser Brody's larger-than-life
presence and in-ring brutality
delivered an undeniable authenticity
in professional wrestling.
Brody coming down the aisle
like a tornado to your house,
but you want to see it.
He'd beat you up
with 2-by-4s, chairs,
anything that
he could get his hands on.
Bruiser Brody was insane.
On July 16th, 1988, this insanity
bled out of the ring into real life
when Bruiser Brody was
violently killed in a locker room
moments before the opening bell.
In the world
of professional wrestling,
it is still the only sport where
its characters live in two worlds,
where fantasy bleeds out
into reality.
Hi, I'm Mick Foley.
In my career, there was
one man more than any other
I wish I could've stepped
into the ring with.
That person was Bruiser Brody.
The day that I got my hands
on an old VHS tape
with vintage Brody matches was
the day everything changed for me.
I wanted to be
the next Bruiser Brody.
Stories I've heard surrounding
Brody's death troubled me.
After 30 years,
we tracked down three wrestlers
willing to tell
what happened that night
and chronicle the life and death of
one of wrestling's greatest outlaws.
Just in case you don't know who I am,
I'm Tony "Mr. USA" Atlas,
broad at the shoulder,
narrow at the hip,
tower of power,
too sweet to be sour.
One of the last to see Bruiser Brody
alive was Mr. USA, Tony Atlas,
a former body builder
turned wrestler,
and a current WWE Hall of Famer.
Stand up. Take him over the top.
Cameraman wants you out.
That was the shittiest finish
I've seen.
Dirty Dutch Mantell is one
of the most infamous villains
Has taste returned to your mouth
after I slapped it out
just a few seconds ago?
one of wrestling's
greatest minds behind the scenes.
Did you ever work with Brody?
I never did.
I never had a match with Brody.
-Why?
-He beat the shit out of you.
And then, there's the madman
from Sudan, Abdullah The Butcher.
Abdullah was also Bruiser Brody's
greatest in-ring nemesis.
ATLANTA GEORGIA
And this is a very graphic display
of what the world
of professional wrestling is about,
the dark side.
I've been in the business
for 53 years.
What else can I say?
My name is
Abdullah The Butcher, right?
I'm not a wrestler.
I don't grab holds. I use karate.
I use Jiu Jitsu.
Okay? I'm not a wrestler.
I can beat you up any time
that I want to beat you up.
You understand?
And the guy behind the camera,
give me the fork
so I can stab it all in his head,
then you'll know!
Let me tell you something,
don't you ever say
that me and Brody was fake.
We are not fakes.
We kept bringing them back
and back,
and the people would say,
"When I seen that match,
that was no bullshit."
What would a match resemble
between Abdullah and Bruiser Brody?
A blood bath. Every night.
We were like killers.
We kept pounding.
When you get Abdullah Butcher
and Bruiser Brody in the ring,
-gonna be a lot of blood.
-Because Abdullah had his fork.
They did it every night, a formula.
Oh, I loved the fork.
I'd stab him in the head,
stick it in his mouth. Do everything.
Probably 85 percent of the match
was outside the ring.
He struck fear in the hearts of fans.
When he went don't to the ring,
people moved out of the way.
That's art.
Brody's reputation in the business
was he was a main eventer
and could make money.
That's why he was so popular.
It's why promoters wanted him.
He could put asses in the seat.
He was a superstar, and at the time,
he was one of the biggest stars
in the late '70s, early '80s,
one of the biggest in the world.
Bruiser Brody, he was a legend.
He was a legend back before he died.
AUSTIN TEXAS
Oh, my gosh. Oh, my
Every time, I find something new.
Look at this, another one.
Some sentimental stuff.
There's a lot of it though.
Oh, here's a whole pile
of photographs in here.
I mean, take a look at that. Oh, boy.
I first met Frank in Australia
in the hotel that I was working in.
I had no idea of his character
because I only saw Frank Goodish.
I never saw Bruiser Brody.
Frank was very quiet,
very intelligent.
Even back in those days,
just like a regular person.
So he never lost sight of who he was,
didn't become
the character he created.
That's Dad's football helmet.
In my own case, I spent three years
with the Washington Redskins
in 1969, '70, and '71.
I was an all-American
high school football player.
I went to school
on an athletic scholarship.
-Rolling on that?
-We're rolling for this?
-Yeah, rolling.
-Okay, good.
Oh, okay. I'm sorry.
Ah, I won't, ah I don't think
you said anything earnest?
-Um, yeah, I did.
-You did?
Yeah. I don't think it's good
anybody knows I'm Frank Goodish.
Don't worry, that won't happen.
Frank was kind of a little bit
of a renegade.
We were together a long time.
He just came up with this idea,
"Why don't we stop off in Vegas
and get married?"
He said, "I'm gonna tell you now
it is not gonna be an easy life."
Out of a year, he maybe
would only be home three months.
It was a challenge, but you do it.
When Geoff was born,
he changed so much
because then he wanted to do
for his family
and he wanted to provide for his son.
So it changed him, even made him
softer than who he really was.
When he was around his son,
they had a really good relationship.
I've subconsciously blocked
a lot out, unfortunately.
The stories I hear are stories
other people tell me about my dad.
It's hard to hear these
because people are telling me
and I don't have stories of my own.
It was like this character
that he created,
that it was separate
from the person I knew.
I would take him to the airport
and he would just be dad, husband,
get out of the car,
had his hair pulled back,
walked through those doors,
take his hair down,
he became Bruiser Brody,
and I could actually see
the whole transformation take place.
In July 1988, Frank departed
for a booking in Puerto Rico,
an isolated wrestling territory
notorious for its wild blood feuds
and the zealousness of its fans.
Help! Help!
It was blood city.
It was blood all the time.
You'd have three or four matches
with blood in them,
because people believed,
when you saw blood,
that it was serious.
Ricky Vargas wants to stop him.
Look! The blood is just coming up!
The people are violent people.
They wanted violence.
People throw rocks at you,
throw piss on you,
throw urine on you,
throw feces on you.
They stoned me.
They used to take cups,
put glass or stones
and throw them at me.
They want to see somebody get hurt,
see somebody
get carried out on a stretcher.
Every place you go,
they love violence.
Some weekly planners, 1987, 1988.
His daily activities, it appears.
His workout schedule and regimen
and where he's traveling to.
Ah, San Juan, Puerto Rico,
of all places.
Yeah, I believe
it was either the 16th or the 17th
that that happened, unfortunately.
In July 1988, Frank Goodish
left his family in Texas
and entered one of the most violent
wrestling territories in the world.
His family could not have imagined
this would be the last time
that they would see him alive.
In the summer of 1988,
Bruiser Brody
left his family in Texas
and entered one of the most violent
wrestling territories in the world.
It wasn't only his Puerto Rican fans
waiting for his return,
but some unresolved business
and a bitter longstanding grudge.
The World Wrestling Council is
Puerto Rico's wrestling promotion,
which was established by wrestlers
Gorilla Monsoon,
Victor Jovica, and Carlos Colon.
Carlos Colon! Carlos Colon!
Carlos Colon was the boss.
He's also a WWE Hall of Famer now.
As big a star as Roberto Clemente.
Carlos Colon's right-hand man
was Jose Huertas Gonzalez,
a local wrestler celebrated
in the ring
as Invader number 1.
Gonzalez also acted
as the company's booker,
in charge of the creative direction
and outcomes of wrestling shows.
Frank understood the value
of his character
consistently appearing
as an unbeatable monster to fans
as a way to keep them
coming back for more.
He took aggression to a new level
when he wrestled Jose Gonzalez
when Gonzalez was hoping to make
a big impression in the WWF.
Brody and Invader
didn't really care for each other.
Their personalities did not mesh.
Even their matches, you could tell
there was something not quite right.
He was a pretty decent guy
if he liked you.
If he didn't like you,
he would beat the crap out of you.
I seen Brody take people
in the ring many a time
and just beat them unmercifully,
just beat them to death.
I've tried to piece it together,
what brought this on.
Let's go back in the past,
the mid '70s.
They were grooming, I heard,
Jose Gonzalez to be
like the next Puerto Rican star.
Bruiser Brody came in
and had a match with Jose Gonzalez
and beat the shit out of him.
He ate him up.
His whole face was swollen, head
swollen up, looked like a pumpkin.
Brody beat him so bad that S.D.
had to take him to the hospital.
S.D., Special Delivery Jones,
he was a wrestler.
S.D. took him to the hospital,
and he turned to S.D. Jones and said,
"One day, I'm gonna kill that man."
He was angry. His head
looked like a pumpkin, brother.
Bruiser Brody was worried
about one image, Bruiser Brody.
Once the people see you get beat
once or twice,
the brand becomes kind of violated.
And he didn't want that to happen.
That's why he acted the way he did.
I don't know about the other
professional wrestlers.
I only know about Bruiser Brody.
When in the ring, it doesn't matter
whether I'm in Texas or in New York,
whether people like me or dislike me,
I'm gonna be just as aggressive
every night.
But I also heard that Brody
was making huge money in Japan,
and he had wanted to invest
in a wrestling promotion somewhere,
and he had Puerto Rico in mind.
And there was a minority owner
named Victor Quinones,
who had 10 percent or something,
but a lot of it was owned
by Gorilla Monsoon.
And I think Victor Quinones
was brokering a deal
between Monsoon
to sell his shares to Brody,
which would have made Brody
probably a minority owner.
I think he bought part of that.
They wanted his money,
but didn't want his ideas.
And Brody ain't that type of guy.
Brody had his opinions.
If you didn't like them, too bad.
-Can you tell us your name?
-David Manning. I was the booker
for World Class
Championship Wrestling.
I was worried because
Frank was going to Puerto Rico.
Frank said they owed him about,
around 20, $25,000.
He had asked for the money politely.
He had been waiting for the money.
He told me before he left, "Remember
I'm coming back with my money.
If I have to beat everyone up,
I'm getting my money."
Brody had mentioned to people,
if he took over,
he was gonna get rid of Jose.
And also, Jose Gonzalez had just lost
his 3-year-old daughter.
She died
in a swimming pool accident,
she drowned
about three months earlier.
Now, his job is being threatened,
and he doesn't like Brody
in the first place.
So you add all those ingredients,
it's like fire and gasoline.
An explosion
was gonna happen, and it did.
Can I please tell the story?
I beg you.
-I want to tell it.
-Okay.
-I want to tell the story. See
-Okay, okay, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
For two days, I've been talking about
everything but Brody,
and I want to tell this story so bad
I'm ready to explode.
I've been carrying this story
around in my chest for
how many years now?
-How me and Brody started our day.
-Yeah?
Yeah. We were working out
at the gym that morning,
the same routine we did.
You know, his last day here on earth.
I go to the gym every morning.
Me and him, we worked out together.
He said, "Get something to eat?"
So I say, oh, sure, I'll eat.
Then he turned to me
at breakfast and he said,
"I waited a long time
to get in down here."
So I just got the impression that
maybe he bought in the company.
And he said, "You are gonna see
a lot of changes."
We was at the hotel,
and Bruiser Brody and Dutch Mantell
was sitting on the steps
outside in the front of the building.
And I said, Brody,
I figured you'd be gone by now.
He said,
"I'm waiting on Jose Gonzalez.
He's supposed to pick me up."
Then I said, well, that's unusual.
Why would Jose,
the booker, leave his main event?
I said, you can ride with us
if you like.
So we went to the show,
and traffic was horrible
leading into the stadium,
cars lined up,
so it was gonna be a sell-out.
We hopped out and took our bags
to where the dressing rooms were.
Looking back on it, it was strange,
because when I walked in that room,
I got a strange feeling.
Jose was there. I said, he's here.
As soon as I come to the door,
I saw them sitting there, talking,
Jose, Carlos Colon, and Victor,
sitting in a football huddle.
Yeah, it kind of seemed
a little strange.
Because I've never really seen them
together like that.
And it didn't look like
they were in conversation.
They were just sitting there,
which was even more strange.
Gonzalez gets up from his seat,
looked me straight
in the face, and left.
Never looked at Brody,
never looked at Dutch,
walked out of the dressing room.
And Brody sat down right beside me,
and I sat there maybe five minutes
and that feeling of tension,
it just got stronger.
So I said, I gotta get out of here.
I gotta move. Something's--
Maybe if I move around it'll go away.
So I get up and walk out,
I go and I sit in the dugout,
and I'm watching the crowd come in.
So I have my art pad.
I set my bag down.
I sat and I started sketching.
Brody came over and he looked at it,
said, "That is frickin' fantastic."
He's getting excited,
big smile on his face.
He said, "I wonder
if you could do one for me."
He opened up his pouch, reached in,
and pulled out a picture of his son.
Jose came back
into the dressing room.
I looked up,
and Jose was standing there.
And he had a towel over his hand.
"Brody, can I talk to you
for a minute, please?"
Like that. "Can I talk to you
for a minute, please?"
And Brody said,
"Yeah," and he walked in there.
And that's where it happened.
It's not unusual
to discuss match plans privately.
On this evening, the conversation
between Brody and Gonzalez
would descend
into an unthinkable nightmare.
He had a bag in his hand,
a picture of his son in this hand.
And when he turned away,
I noticed Carlos staring at me.
As I'm looking at Carlos,
I hear this sound:
So I looked up.
Brody was halfway hunched over.
I thought Jose punched him
in the stomach.
The first thought came to mind,
damn, he hit Brody.
I said, oh, this is gonna be a fight.
So then he hollers again:
I looked at Jose's face
and his eyes was bloodshot red.
Then I saw the knife.
The knife went in the air like this,
with blood dripping off it.
I sprung up out of my chair,
my arm around Brody's waist.
I yank him back just in time
to keep from his throat getting cut.
Because I pull him back, the knife
came down and cut his ponytail off.
How sharp that knife was.
Carlos shoot right by me,
grabbed Jose,
and pushed him up against the wall
and said, "No, Jose. No, Jose."
And Carlos was keeping people
away from Jose,
telling the wrestlers,
"Y'all stay back."
So I take Brody and I take him
and I lay him down on the ground.
I felt his intestines and blood
all over this arm here.
This arm was drenched in blood.
And he looked up at me, he said,
"Don't let them hurt me no more.
"Please. Don't let them."
He said, "Don't let them!"
Not him, them!
I didn't know who
he was talking about.
Who else is involved in this,
I'm thinking.
I said, ain't no fucking body
gonna do anything to you.
Carlos tried to approach Brody
after I laid him down.
I told Carlos,
don't bring your ass over here.
I will knock your motherfucking head
right off the shoulder.
He said, "Tony, calm down."
I said, fuck calming down.
"I had nothing to do with it."
I said, liar, y'all work together.
So then, Brody tugged at my leg,
and he said, "Let him over."
So as I make my way back
through the tunnel,
I could hear the noise,
and it was dark,
but I could see the lights
in the dressing room.
That's when I asked
Mark Youngblood what happened.
He said, "Invader!
Invader stabbed Brody!"
The dressing room is in a panic,
and I see Brody laying,
laying in front of me.
And Carlos is leaning over him,
talking to him.
He said, "Brody,
anything I can do for you?"
That's what Carlos asked Brody.
Brody said, "Take care of my family."
I don't know what Carlos was saying,
but, "Hang on, man.
We're gonna get you help."
I do remember
Brody looking up at Carlos
and telling Carlos,
"Tell my wife I love her."
That's the only thing
I heard him say.
So that right there tells me that
he doesn't have
a lot of faith in his own survival.
The shower had a door on it
that wasn't clear.
It was translucent. You could see
light behind it and figures.
Invader never came out
of that shower, never came out.
And he was in there with Jovica
who was part owner of the company,
screaming at each other.
There's nothing I could really do,
just, but watch.
He walked out of the shower,
walked around Brody's feet,
went to his bag,
got his keys, and he left.
And his shirt, they said, was torn.
Whatever happened in that shower,
it was a physical confrontation
with Brody ripping the shirt.
It took at least 35 to 45 minutes
for the ambulance to get there.
They tried to put Brody
on the gurney, couldn't lift him.
Brody was 300-some pounds,
too heavy.
So I got down,
squatted all the way down,
and slid my arms underneath him.
He looked up at me and said,
"Don't drop me,"
I said, "Don't worry,
I curl more than what you weigh."
So I pulled him gently
and laid him on the gurney.
The old man walked back
to the back of the ambulance
to shut and lock the door.
He said, "Before I shut the door,
is there anybody here that want
to go with him to keep his company?"
So I said, "I'll go,"
and I jump, got on the ambulance.
I remember guys looking at me like,
"What in the fuck is wrong with Tony?
"He should stay out of this."
They're thinking this.
Nobody saying nothing, but they were
thinking, "What is wrong with him?"
I've said I'm not a religious person,
never have been,
probably never will be.
I did say a lot of prayers for Brody,
whatever worth it could be,
if it could help him fine.
It couldn't hurt.
As we were sitting in the ambulance,
Brody was laying there.
I started crying again.
I couldn't hold back the tears.
And I sung this song:
If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie
I don't want to go
My voice got choked up
and everything choked up.
I said, you're gonna be all right,
I'm gonna stay with you, man.
I said, I'm with you, man.
There's an old saying
in professional wrestling:
consider yourself lucky
if you make it out
with one true friend.
On this night, Brody had
that true friend in Tony Atlas,
but he would need more than that
to make it out alive.
Tony Atlas finally made it
to the hospital
with Bruiser Brody
in critical condition.
Although Atlas's struggle to save
Brody's life was far from over.
We get to the hospital, and he laid
there for 15 or 20 minutes.
I got fricking tired
of waiting on a doctor,
so I finally got one doctor
that spoke a little bit of English.
And I said, I've been telling people
my friend's been stabbed.
How come
nobody's going to see him?
He said, "A stabbing here is like
a cold in the US. No big deal,"
said, "I will get to him when I can,"
and turned to walk away from me.
I grabbed him around the waist,
yanked him up all the way up
on my shoulder just like this,
and I carried the man to Brody.
So finally, he looked at Brody.
He lifted Brody's hand up
and was like this the whole time,
just like this.
At the same time he lifts his hand,
I was taking his shoes off.
When I saw his feet, and it was blue,
oh, no, no, no, no, no!
Because I knew this is real bad.
I said, Doctor, please, get him
in now. Gotta go now.
He started calling on people,
"Come on. We need some help here."
I got so fricking mad
that I punched the wall.
I buried my fist up to my elbow
in that wall, how hard I hit.
While chaos and confusion erupted
at the scene
of Bruiser Brody's stabbing,
rumors began to fly and word
reached across the stadium
to Abdullah the Butcher
in a second dressing room.
The doctor came and says, ah
Brody was cut or stabbed.
I said, come on!
I thought it was a joke.
In my opinion,
I thought, it was working an angle.
But when the doctor told me
then I says, holy shit,
because the doctor
wouldn't be lying. That was it.
Brody was
He'd already been taken out.
But the police walked in
and thinking,
"Well, it's just another
crazy wild wrestling brawl."
They didn't think it real.
Banging on the operating room door,
talking about, what the fuck
is going on in there?
And the doctor came out, and he said,
"Tony, he had two 8-inch cuts."
He said,
We got his intestines back together."
He said, "The only problem now
is that his liver was sliced."
He said, "He's stable."
He said, "But you need to go home
because everybody in here
is more afraid of you."
I wanted to be as far away
from that fucking dressing room
as I could be.
Then I saw Invader walk in,
and he had on a different shirt.
He continued business
like nothing had happened.
I don't know why he came back.
I really don't.
I'm thinking, man,
what fucking balls this guy's got.
The thing that was so horrible
was when I got back
to the dressing room.
It was more horrible
than the stabbing.
It was more horrible
than him laying on that table.
The most horrible thing that happened
on that night
was going back to that dressing room
and hearing laughter.
First, I couldn't believe
they didn't cancel the show.
And opening up the door,
and the blood on the floor
ain't even dry yet,
and they laughing and joking
and patting each other on the back
about how great the matches was
and what a wonderful show it is.
I took the freaking chair, threw it
across the damn hallway.
There was a policeman that said,
"Hey, hey. Calm, calm down.
Did you see what happened?"
I said, hell yeah, I saw!
He said, "Did you get a look?
Did you get a look
at the fan that stabbed him?"
I said, what were you told?
He said, "Everybody in here
said that Brody was stabbed
before he got in the dressing room,
a wrestling fan stabbed him
he stumbled into the dressing room."
I said, that's a damn lie.
That son of a bitch right there
is the one that stabbed him.
He said, "You mean, Vader?"
I said, Vader.
That sucker stabbed Bruiser Brody.
I said, ask everybody.
He said, "Telling different stories."
I said, fucking liars.
He's the son of a bitch
that stabbed him.
He was telling cops, "Hey,
that's the guy you need to arrest,"
and he pointed to Jose Gonzalez.
He was sitting in the chair,
putting his gear in his bag
like nothing happened.
That's the part
that messed with my head.
It was like nothing happened.
If you're a policeman
and you come into a situation
that you think could be staged,
they didn't think it was real.
Tony knew it was real,
so they were engaging each other
from different perspectives.
That's why the disconnect.
In professional wrestling,
the line between fiction and reality
is intentionally blurred.
As the night's events
continued to unfold,
it would be nearly impossible
for anyone to tell the difference
or to know the truth.
While Bruiser Brody was fighting
for his life at the hospital,
Tony Atlas's eyewitness account
of the stabbing
was making the rounds.
That night you wrestled?
Carlos Colon, your time is over.
That night, I wrestled Iron Sheik.
I just went and did it.
I went in the match.
He locked up with me,
said, "How's Brody?"
Ah, the doctor said
he's gonna be okay.
He said, "Fucking wrestling fans,
they told me that they're dangerous."
I said, Jose Gonzalez did it,
right there.
The Sheik just straightened right up,
just like that,
"That fucking motherfucking
Jose Gonzalez Vader
motherfucker killed
the King Kong of the Brody?"
He rolled right out of the ring
and went back to his locker room.
We only wrestled
for maybe one or two minutes.
I go to my room,
and a guy named Savio Vega,
they called him TNT,
he said, "Tony, I got your bag.
I went to your room
and got your bag for you."
I said, for what?
He said, "Don't go to your room.
They are looking for you
because you talking."
So I took my bag,
and I went down to the beach,
and I walked the beach
the whole night.
I tried to sleep,
waking every time I hear something.
I'd do, go-- Kept look--
I'm paranoid as hell now.
I go back to that hotel,
walk to the front desk.
I told the girl and I said, listen,
if Brody gets any calls to his room,
please put 'em through to my room.
They said, "Okay."
The phone started ringing
about midnight,
kept ringing, ringing, ringing.
It's 1:00 in the morning,
I said, ah, I'm gonna answer
and give them a piece of my mind.
So I picked up the phone
and there was this woman.
And she said, "This is Nancy Colon."
Well, Nancy Colon
is Carlos Colon's wife.
"I'm calling to let you know
there's been an accident.
You better come to Puerto Rico."
So I call the hotel
and they put me through to Dutch.
She said, "Who is this?"
I said, well, this is Dutch.
She said, "What happened?"
And I knew it was pretty serious,
but I was saying, well, we--
Brody had an accident
and it's pretty serious.
And that maybe you should come
to Puerto Rico. Didn't have details.
After the call, I tried to sleep.
I couldn't sleep.
The adrenaline was flowing.
About 8:00, I get up.
I go downstairs to the front desk.
She said, "Yeah, what do you need?"
I said, can you call the hospital
that my friend Brody is in?
She said, "Yeah."
So she calls out there
and she's speaking in Spanish.
And I hear, "luchador,"
I hear, "wrestler,"
and then she starts crying.
And I look at her,
and she said, "I'm sorry.
Your friend didn't make it."
I said, what? She said,
"No, he he died last night."
How did you first learn
that Brody had passed?
Abdullah told me at the meeting.
I slept on the beach the whole night.
I'm going back to the hotel.
I saw Abdullah and some
of the wrestlers in the lobby.
They said, "We're having a meeting,"
and they're waiting on you
to tell them what happened.
Did you ever have
any hotel room meetings?
Hotel? Hell, no. No. No, sir. No.
-Told us he didn't have a meeting.
-He lying.
Maybe they did, but not me.
You understand?
He lied to you,
if that's what he told you.
I'm telling you what happened.
I had five percent of the business.
You see what I mean?
-People did not want to talk to me.
-What do you mean?
Well, if you own
some of the territory, right,
who's gonna come
and say, "Oh, this happened"
or, "This guy done this,
this guy that"?
They were in their own little bunch.
So why would they come
and talk to me?
Brody was a friend, and I didn't
want to be in all the "gossip,"
what they were talking about.
Nobody heard me say shit.
That's a shame.
That's a damn shame he done that.
Dutch Mantell, ask him.
He was there in the meeting.
I think we all met
in somebody's room.
And somebody said,
"Man, are they investigating this?"
I mean, "A man died.
What's going on here?"
I just started thinking,
in this territory this happened?
That's why I left.
I said, well, I saw it.
So I go down and I make
my report to the police department.
He said, "Your story is different
than everybody else's."
He said, "We will be contacting you
for a court date."
He said, "Now that we got a witness,
we're going to arrest him."
Took me. I gave my statement.
Through the night, they took
statements from the wrestlers.
He did say, he said,
"You tell Carlos Colon
we run this island, not him."
They asked did I see a weapon.
I did not see a weapon.
Matter of fact,
no weapon was ever recovered.
That weapon, whatever was used,
knife, has never been recovered.
I got my bag,
I went to the airport, and I left.
Then I made arrangements.
I said, I gotta go to the airport.
Got on the plane with Geoff.
Get off the plane,
waiting to see if anybody
was going to pick me up.
So I looked around and here's Abby.
I was going, and this lady
and little boy walked up,
and she said, "Abdullah,
you don't know me,
but I'm Frank's wife."
She says, "How's he doing?"
I said, what?
"How's he doing?"
I said, they didn't tell you?
"Tell me what?" I says,
he's gone. And she grabbed me.
And she says, "Oh, no."
All you thinking about is surviving.
All I thought about was I saw a man
get stabbed to death,
holding on and dying
with a picture of his son in hand.
He never took
that picture down, brother.
On the ambulance,
he had the picture in his hand.
He laying on the floor,
still holding that picture.
He go in the operating room.
He never put that picture down.
Never!
The irony
of Brody's greatest nemesis
delivering this news
was only the beginning
of the unthinkable events
that would follow.
Alone with her son
in a foreign land
and dealing with the circumstances
of her husband's death,
Barbara Goodich found the strength
to make necessary arrangements.
Nancy was Carlos Colon's wife.
She took me to the morgue.
Everybody is speaking Spanish.
They took me to the window,
and you could see all those bodies.
And then, of course, the reality
Boom! Just really started to sink in.
Not sure how long it took.
In a hotel room, I remember crying
just incessantly for hours,
hours, and hours, and hours.
Yelling, screaming.
I still didn't realize the magnitude,
and it probably took,
I don't know how long,
10, 15, 20 years maybe.
It was like, what do I do?
How do I bring him
back to the States?
And it was like I heard his voice,
and it was like he was saying,
"Barbara, you know what to do,"
and in that moment, it was,
I need to cremate him down here
and take him home with me.
There was a very simple ceremony
in Puerto Rico.
Nobody was there except me,
Geoff and wrestlers,
and some of the Puerto Ricans and
Geoff picked out his dad's casket.
It was blue.
When did you hear
Jose was arrested?
About three, four days later.
From what I hear, he was taken down
to a local precinct,
never was put in the cell.
Bail was made immediately
by some big businessman there,
and he walked back home, same day.
And so did you come to learn
anything about Jose Gonzalez?
I know that the
I'm not even gonna say his name.
I know that the attacker did it.
From what I hear from everybody,
the whole court case was a sham.
-Do you think there was a cover up?
-No, we-- Not--
The only guy that could've covered
was Jovica and I, and we didn't.
We told the judge in the court room,
we said what really, what we saw.
I didn't see any stabbing.
I didn't see any weapon.
I didn't see anything.
A guy named Tony Rumble,
the Boston Badboy,
banging on the door, said, "Tony,
Tony, put the TV on.
Talking about Puerto Rico."
I flip the TV on, I see Jose on TV,
coming out of the courthouse.
I said, a hearing? He said,
"They let him go for self-defense."
You gotta be kidding me.
They never contacted me.
-So you never got contacted?
-Never. Never did. Never did.
Finally, a subpoena came in the mail
for my appearance,
and I already knew the verdict
when, by the time my subpoena
arrived at my door.
Was 10 days late.
That's why the verdict came back
not innocent, but not guilty.
And Jose never testified,
but they believe
what his attorney put out
that he was just merely acting
in self-defense.
Feds in Puerto Rico believed
wrestling was real.
That was the major reason
that Jose was acquitted,
because they believed
Brody was this character,
this wild-looking psychopath,
hulking figure.
And his defense was self-defense.
-Do you believe it was self-defense?
-I don't know.
I respect the law.
So sad. I really You know, I
I wouldn't-- I don't want to talk
about this anymore because it's sad.
TOKYO JAPAN 1988
One month
after Bruiser Brody's passing,
All Japan Pro Wrestling
hosted a massive tribute show,
inviting both Barbara
and her son Geoff to be honored
in front of the 17,000 fans
in attendance.
The honor that they respected,
and being in that ring,
and hearing that tin bell count,
and hearing everybody chanting,
this whole building chanting
his name, "Brody! Brody! Brody!"
I'm just standing there
in the ring with Geoff,
and it was the most, I mean,
just to know
how much he was respected.
May peace be with you,
Bruiser Brody.
Bruiser Brody was a brawler
of mythic proportions
and will always live on as such
in professional wrestling.
I didn't guess I was gonna be
a professional wrestler.
Once I started
in professional wrestling,
learned the ropes,
if I had it to do all over again,
I would probably even pass up
my years in the NFL
and devote them to wrestling.
It's been that good.
He was one of its biggest stars
in the 1970s and '80s
and is considered one
of the all-time greatest wrestlers
in Japanese wrestling history,
where he is still celebrated today
as an icon.
Justice would be great.
Some personal justice
would be more, more, more gratifying
than some legal justice, honestly.
Mr. Brody. Every dog has his day.
You cannot kill a legend.
See, legends never die.
So if that was Jose's thing,
to kill a legend
he failed miserably.
Nobody knows
the exact circumstances,
including the words, if any,
exchanged between Frank Goodich
and Jose Gonzalez
on the night of Brody's death.
It remains one
of wrestling's darkest
and most intriguing mysteries.
PRODUCERS
CONTACTED JOSE GONZALEZ
AND CARLOS COLON
FOR COMMENT,
BUT THEY BOTH DECLINED
TO BE INTERVIEWED.
GONZALEZ CURRENTLY RESIDES
IN PUERTO RICO
AND ADVERTISES
HIS AVAILABILITY
FOR CHILDREN'S BIRTHDAY
PARTIES ON FACEBOOK.
Join us next time,
as we continue to explore
the untold stories
of professional wrestling.
-I wish he was here.
-Yeah.
I wish he was here.
He dished it out. I dished it out.
And we kept going,
and going, and going, and going.
Abdullah the Butcher knows
that Bruiser Brody is the king.
Brody. Ah, shit.