I don't have to prove anything to
any livin' human being.
Harley Race is wrestling personified.
The man that when you mention the word,
has rewritten every book that's been wrote on it.
When you look at Harley, and then you look at the man,
and then the two start coming together,
then it's a perfect picture of a badass heel.
And Harley Race was that badass heel.
He was no gimmick. He was Harley Race,
the toughest man on God's green earth.
I've been shot at, I've been stabbed...
I just looked at it I must have been doing
my job fairly well, right?
[narrator] If there's one man who connects
wrestling's modern era to its earliest days,
whose legacy in the Squared Circle stands as
a monument to the evolution of the sport,
and who epitomizes the ideal of a fighting champion,
that man is Harley Race.
All mortal men are gonna bow to the king.
I knew all about Harley Race before I'd even
seen a Harley Race match.
His legend preceded him.
Harley Race has literally been wrestling all his life.
Earned his first paycheque in wrestling
before he got his driver's license.
As Harley's violence spilled out of the ring,
the line between person and persona became blurred.
[Sirens]
The police came.
That's when things went downhill.
And I just wanted away from him.
As a lifetime of tragedies and injuries
took their toll on the man.
And he was passed out on the floor in a fetal position.
It was a pretty traumatic event.
The boating accidents, the car wrecks,
the in-ring accidents...
the human body is not built to
undergo punishment like that.
In a land of tough guys,
he was considered the king tough guy.
He's given his body and his life to this business.
And he did what he had to do to survive.
♪
[Off-screen] Woah.
I've got two rods and eight screws in my back.
I've got an artificial hip.
I got four metal screws in my right knee,
and two braces and 12 pins in this arm.
How do you quantify toughness?
Is a guy tough because he can beat you in a wrestling match?
Or is a guy tough because he's just a badass
street fighter and he can pull your eyeball out?
Because when you think about Harley Race,
the cumulative effect of the thousands and tens of
thousands of slams and falls and bumps on hard rings,
concrete floors and sawdust floors in a barn
or at a carnival...
Harley Race did all of that.
He was legendarily tough not only for his ability to
beat people up, but also because he gained a mystique
as somebody that couldn't physically be hurt.
No matter what you did to Harley Race or
what he did to himself, you couldn't stop him.
[Screaming] I'm gonna hurt you somehow!
If I gotta do it that way, fine!
You have insulted
the World Heavyweight Champion!
Agh!
You better believe I was inspired by Harley Race.
He was the first guy I saw to take a backdrop outside
the ring and a suplex outside the ring.
And he was doing this as the traveling World Champion.
Harley was among the very first to do table spots.
I mean, he was before his time.
Heading in full speed, going face first over
the top turnbuckle, that's Harley Race.
Getting your arms caught up in the ropes,
that's Harley Race.
Bombs away! Ah!
Right to the side of the head.
One of Harley's major wrestling moves was
a diving headbutt, where he'd come off the top rope
and land headfirst on his opponent's head.
You have to imagine a man, 280 pounds,
jumping off of a five foot top rope and coming down
completely on his chest and his belly,
while he's taking his forehead and driving it
into another individual.
The skill and the amazement of it was that it looked like
every time Harley did it, he was killing guys.
But in all reality, he was barely touching 'em.
As a performer, as a wrestler...
it just blows your mind, because that's what you want.
That's the 'it' factor of pro wrestling,
is make it look like we're killing him, but not.
He has left an indelible footprint,
because he passed on his style to people like me
who passed it on to others.
The stars of today are borrowing liberally from the
Harley Race catalog, whether they realize it or not.
One of the fiercest men to ever lace a pair of boots,
Harley Race was a wrestler's wrestler who began
his journey to the ring as a teenager.
Harley Race grew up poor on a farm in Missouri.
My name is Jim Cornette, and I've been a fan,
an admirer, and a colleague of Harley Race's.
He had to work from the time he was a, a young boy,
and that instilled in him the work ethic that he carried
with him for the rest of his life.
Harley was a good kid.
We liked each other right off, third grade on.
We hunted, fished together, wrestled together.
My name is Daniel Keever.
I went to school with Harley Race,
met him in the third grade.
He would let people hit him as hard as
they could in the stomach. I mean, these are big guys.
He'd get up and he wouldn't say nothing.
♪
If they wanted to do it again, he'd let 'em.
I supposed in his mind,
he was building himself to be a wrestler.
We used to watch all the old wrestlers.
Bob Brown. Sonny Meyers.
Yukon Eric.
We played hooky one Friday afternoon.
Every time Harley and I'd go somewhere,
he'd wanna, "Come on, let's wrestle a little while.
Let's wrestle a little while." He, well, on Monday,
Principal called us in the office.
He's: "I want to know why you left here." Harley said,
"Well," he said, "a good day to wrestle."
Harley was a part of the original
---- around and find out era.
[Indistinct commentary]
Oh, God! Good grief!
My name's Trevor Murdoch.
I'm a two time NWA World Heavyweight Champion,
three time WWE World Tag Team Champion,
and I was trained by Harley Race.
The reason, like I know these stories is because
I've heard 'em from Harley himself.
So the principal gave him a big slap in the face.
Harley knocked him out.
[Chuckling] He hit the floor and Harley hit the door.
He was a fighter as a kid.
And then that's when he wanted to start wrestling.
My name is Evonne Hedbávny Race.
I was married to a handsome Harley Race,
the eight times World Champion wrestler,
for 24 years.
When he was 14 years old, he left home because
his family couldn't afford to keep him up.
He got a job on a farm out in the
middle of nowhere, Missouri.
And it just so happened that that farm was
owned by the Zbyszko Brothers.
Stanislaus Zbyszko and his brother, Wladek,
the two of them were iconic names.
Stanis was a former World Heavyweight
Wrestling Champion.
Harley found out they were wrestlers,
and they offered to train him in exchange for his farm work.
It amounted to legalized torture.
They would stretch him.
They would beat him up.
They would put him in holes he couldn't escape from to
see if he was tough enough to come back and ask for more.
Because in their generation, a professional wrestler,
they knew the other guy had the ability to grab one of
their appendages- [snapping]- and break it instantly.
It was the most primitive form of hand-to-hand,
man-to-man combat.
And that's what Harley learned,
and that served him well when he went to the carnivals.
♪
That was the thing back then.
That's how you got started in the business,
was on a carnival.
Yes, that's true, Marty.
I'll wrestle anybody in the business,
any size or weight at any time.
I'm Eddie Sharkey.
I've been in the business a million years,
and Harley Race was one of my best friends.
There's a flying head scissors by Sharkey.
We make three, four dollars a match,
which wasn't much money, but at the end of the night,
it, it, it come out okay.
♪
At the carnivals in the 50s, one of the big tents
had a champion wrestler.
And the carnival barker, he would do the spiel.
"We'll give X amount of dollars if you can stay
5 minutes with our champion wrestler."
You had truck drivers, you had farmers,
you had butchers, you had a variety of guys
with a couple of drinks in 'em, who would
get up and challenge the carnival wrestler.
And there were shoot matches,
which are real matches, and then there were works.
When they couldn't get a challenger from the crowd
to challenge the carnival wrestler,
there was a plant in the audience.
But he would look like one of the locals,
and Harley played this part a number of times too.
And then people would get behind one of their own.
As he said, "I can take that guy."
And then Harley would get in the ring,
and he would work with the carnival wrestler.
But if Harley was the carnival wrestler
taking challenges, it was a shoot.
And Harley'd have to go in there and do whatever
he had to, to win. And he's this 16 year old kid.
[Harley] When you're there...
That's why he needed to come up with shortcuts,
like the headbutt to the bridge of the nose.
♪
Or the double wristlock, where you could take a guy's
shoulder out of joint if he didn't give up immediately.
It was always dangerous,
but that's how Harley survived.
He just had to fight five or six strange guys every day.
On the carnival circuit, Harley goes to work for
legendary promoter Gust Karras
who puts Harley on the road with one of the biggest men
in the history of the wrestling business.
Happy Humphrey was a pro wrestler
in the late 50s and 60s.
His real name was William J. Cobb.
In Happy Humphrey's pro wrestling career,
he was somewhere in the range of 700 pounds,
and Harley Race was chosen to be Happy Humphrey's
driver, and valet, and attendant.
He had to drive Happy Humphrey to the shows in a
specially built Cadillac, and he had to make sure that
Humphrey's needs were met after the matches
which one of those things entailed bathing
Happy Humphrey.
Happy Humphrey would lay down on the ground naked and
Harley Race would take a bottle of liquid soap, a mop,
and a garden hose, and basically clean
Happy Humphrey off, so they could get back in the car
and go to the next town without enduring the
unending disaster of B.O.
-That's paying your dues. -[Laughing]
In 1960, at just 17 years of age,
Harley marries a single mother named Vivian Jones,
who is soon pregnant with Harley's first child.
Then, tragedy quickly strikes.
It was around Christmas time.
He had his wife in the car with him,
she was pregnant with his first child.
Three o'clock in the morning, they're driving down
this lonely road, snow on the ground.
There's a tractor trailer truck in front of 'em,
jack knifes, gets into the snowbank.
Harley's car rams into the truck.
[Horn blaring]
She's killed instantly from a head injury.
[Crashing]
And he's severely injured...
to the point where when the people picked him up in the
ambulance, they declared him dead as well,
and then saw him move, and that's how they knew
he was still alive.
And when he was hospitalized,
they were gonna amputate Harley's right leg.
Wasn't even 20 years old yet.
And the doctors told Harley he'd never walk again.
♪
A car accident on Christmas Eve has killed
Harley Race's pregnant wife.
Somehow, Harley is holding on,
but concerned doctors want to amputate his leg.
Kansas promoter Gust Karras, when he heard about
the accident, he checked on Harley, and said,
"No, let's not do this."
"He's gonna walk out of this hospital," which he did.
They did a surgery, saved the leg.
In effect, saved Harley's career.
And from there, for the rest of his life,
Harley hated Christmas.
Several years after the crash,
as Harley continues his wrestling career,
a chance encounter introduces a new woman into his life.
I was a flight attendant.
Harley kept calling me all day.
"How about if I take you out for a piece of blueberry pie?"
I thought, "Wow, that's a neat way."
And I said, "Okay."
And we went out, had the pie, had the coffee...
he had his blond hair, and I wasn't used to that.
I came from a little town, and I wanted a family
and I wanted a home life, and...
And my mother and my father,
they were very upset. My dad said,
"I don't want you seeing him anymore."
But I kept on. It was like a magnet.
We were on our way from Minneapolis to Duluth,
Minnesota, and he said there was a bag in the back seat.
You pick it up and look at it, and it was a diamond ring.
So I always knew I'd marry a athlete,
but I didn't know I was going to be marrying into wrestling.
Marrying Evonna despite her parent's wishes,
Harley gets back to the ring.
When Harley first teamed up with Larry Hennig,
he had bleach blond hair.
So, they adopted the nom de plumes of 'Handsome'
Harley Race and 'Pretty Boy' Larry Hennig.
In the mid 60s, guys as big and rough as them,
they didn't have bleached blond hair,
so it was a way to get heat with the fans and it worked.
He chose to be a villain. I didn't like it because
everybody booed him, and didn't like him,
but he was good at what he did.
Between the size and the strength of Hennig,
and the speed and the athleticism of Harley Race,
they had a tremendous run in several of the major
territories as the top heel team in wrestling.
When we had our son,
and we traveled a lot together...
when we'd go to matches, I would ask Harley if it was
going to be a bloodbath at the wrestling match
or, is it gonna be clean?
If it was gonna be a bloodbath,
my mom and I were probably going to a movie
or to miniature golf that night.
My name is Justin Race, and my father is
the king, 'Handsome' Harley Race.
I got to see him wrestle a lot,
and the chairs start flying, and the world title belt
starts hitting people in the heads and this and that,
and dad's gushing blood out, stumbling around.
I mean, it was scary.
But it was happy then.
And he was a kind person.
He was kind to everybody, he was well-mannered...
it was fun being with him.
Touring arenas, sports halls, and bars across America,
Harley's status as a legitimate tough guy is
frequently put to the test.
Harley, he sees this man being very aggressive
with this woman.
Just berating her, getting handsy with her.
So Harley goes over there to confront the guy about it,
to tell him to back off or leave her alone,
what Harley doesn't know is the guy's friend is behind
Harley and has a knife, and goes up behind Harley
and stabs him three times in the back.
The guy takes off and the other guy takes off.
Harley has to go to the hospital.
Harley knew quite a few people,
was able to find out where the guy lived at,
and got a pistol and went by the guy's house.
[Gunshots]
Now I had heard this story from somebody else and
asked Harley about it.
He looks at me and he goes, "It wasn't a pistol.
It was a machine gun."
[Gunshots]
♪
And that was enough for me to know that it wasn't a lie.
As Harley's legend grows, so does his busy schedule,
keeping him on the road for days and even weeks at a time.
It was always wrestling, wrestling, and wrestling.
And he didn't have time for family.
He was a good father, but he was only home
three times a month.
What I hated was when he'd stop after the
wrestling match, he got a six pack of beers,
and he started right then and there, drinking.
When his first wife was killed,
he was only going 30 miles an hour.
He never drove slow since.
He didn't care.
If the speed limit said 70, he thought it meant 90 and
he'd be flying down the highway.
And sure enough we'd see a cop and they...
you would watch them power walk to
Harley's vehicle. Angry.
Who is this person driving 90 miles an hour?
And they'd get to the window and go,
"I need your license and reg-
Harley? Harley Race"?
"Okay, Harley.
Take it easy, slow down."
That got me mad too.
He believed, 100%, he was the man.
Inside the ring and outside the ring.
Sometimes they realized who he was and didn't bother him,
sometimes they didn't know who he was and tested him.
And it was a mistake every single time.
He knew exactly what he wanted to do,
when he wanted to do it, and how he wanted to do it.
I just don't know if Harley knew how to be anything else.
♪
A rising star across the territories with his
tag team partner, Larry Hennig,
Harley Race emerges as a singles competitor
after Hennig breaks his leg,
setting the stage for a legendary run.
When the Hennig-Race tag team split up,
Harley got a reputation as a top guy,
and that's where he first got into contention in the
NWA promoters' eyes for being a
World Heavyweight Champion someday.
Though the NWA title changed hands in the ring,
the champion was actually chosen by committee-
selected for their popularity,
trustworthiness and ability to protect themselves
if a match goes off script.
A stunning turnabout here at Comiskey Park!
In 1973, the reigning NWA World
Heavyweight Champion was Dory Funk Jr.
And his father, Dory Funk Sr. was one of the most prominent
promoters in the National Wrestling Alliance.
For a long time, there has been quite a feud
between the Briscos and the Funks.
Jack had gone for years, you know,
as the number one contender, and it was time for
Dory Jr. to step down.
Hello everybody, I'm Gerald Brisco,
Jerry Brisco to a lot of ya.
I'm a WWE Hall of Famer.
I'm a 50-year veteran of pro wrestling.
Jerry Brisco clearly out-thinking
his opponent thus far.
The rumor was that the old man, Dory Sr.,
did not want Dory losing it to another babyface.
And course Jack was a babyface.
But if he lost to a bad guy who was a cheater,
well, that's something different.
So they put him in the ring with Harley Race.
This served two purposes.
Number one, he was going to lose to a guy that was
a noted heel, a rule breaker, a cheater.
But, he was also gonna be wrestling a guy who,
if it came to it, if there was not cooperation,
would be able to legitimately take the
World Heavyweight Championship in the ring.
[Cheering]
Count of one! Two! Three!
[Cheering]
History has been made!
Harley's first title win in 1973 really is
what brought his name to national prominence
from coast to coast.
And there were champions that held the NWA title
longer than Harley did, but Harley, at the time,
was the most constant champion from the
early 70s through the mid 80s.
It was more often than not you would see Harley
holding the belt, and he became
kind of synonymous with it.
That's exactly why Harley was there, it was just,
just personify that image of the NWA belt that
you got to be a tough son of a bitch.
He was wrestling an hour a night.
One hour matches,
night after night after night.
As an eight-time NWA champion,
Harley Race took on all comers,
establishing his reputation as the most fearsome man
in the business.
And what a lot of people don't know,
those hour long matches...
it isn't like wrestling today,
where a lot of guys plan out their matches in the back.
How could anybody go through the various injuries and
accidents and things that he had done,
and still be able to do that?
That's why all the guys looked at him like...
this guy can't be human.
Harley was so important to the Central States territory
in Kansas City that he was allowed to buy into the
territory and actually own part of the promotion.
I encouraged him.
I knew he was good at what he did.
The NWA World Champion's road schedule was probably
the most gruelling in all of professional wrestling.
Nobody traveled as many different places,
worked in as many different territories for as many
different promoters, in as many different countries,
as the NWA World Champion.
And there were literally almost no days off.
He'd just fly from city to city,
and when he could have 24 hours he'd fly home,
and then back out on the road again.
And it was a horrible, horrible life to live
in the limelight.
Well, especially because he was who he was,
and how he was, you know, he treated everybody
like gold except with me. I mean,
he bought me Porsches and mink coats
and things like that. Well, that doesn't buy love.
♪
This is Barbara Clarey on special assignment,
reporting from Tampa, Florida.
Across the street is the Hyatt Regency Hotel,
where at this moment a special meeting of the
National Wrestling Alliance Board of Directors
is in progress.
In 1983, the NWA decides Harley Race will
lose his championship to Ric Flair at a
massive event branded 'Starrcade.'
I think that I want to call my quest for
the World Heavyweight Championship,
'A Flair for the Gold.'
Ric was as hot a babyface as babyfaces can get.
Harley and Ric were perfect foes at that time.
Ric, the young, upcoming, cocky,
flamboyant type deal with the
raw bone badass, Harley Race.
A lot of people have thought they put Harley Race
exactly where they wanted him.
Well seven times around
I proved every [beep] one of you wrong.
And I'll guarantee ya this in Greensboro, Flair,
I'm gonna prove you wrong.
The match is meant to mark a generational changing of
the guard, but rival promoter Vince McMahon
has other ideas.
Hello everyone. This is Vince McMahon in the
studios of the USA Cable Network.
We wholeheartedly welcome you to the premiere of
All American Wrestling.
In 1983, Vince McMahon Jr. had just moved from
becoming the announcer for the WWF,
his father's company,
to the owner of the World Wrestling Federation.
And most of the promoters didn't know yet,
but in the next couple of months,
he was going to start a national expansion of the WWF
that would see him moving into all of their territories
and trying to sign away all their top talent.
Ric Flair was over, and Vince, he knew,
that when Harley dropped the world title to him,
that Ric was gonna be the next big thing.
And Vince was trying to do whatever he could
to shut it down.
Just hours before the NWA's massive Starrcade event,
Vince McMahon meets in secret with Champion Harley Race
in an attempt to sabotage the show.
Vince laid out an opportunity for my father
to come over to the WWF...
if dad would not go to Starrcade.
And for an extraordinary amount of money,
back then, $250,000.
I think there's an element of truth to all of that.
But if Harley had never lost the title,
then how they gonna explain that to anybody?
And whoever they made champion after that,
the fans would not have looked at them as legitimate.
That could have put you out of business.
And of course Harley he said, "Hell no,
I'm not gonna do that, I gave my word."
I was with Harley for ten years.
You know, when you spend that much time with Harley,
you get comfortable, you start asking him questions
of stories that other people have, have told.
Or, or rumours. And so, of course,
that was one of the questions I had to ask, was,
you know, "Have you and Vince ever got into a fight"?
Apparently Vince wasn't very happy.
Vince suddenly gets that look on his face and turns
around and tries to leg dive Harley and take him down.
According to Harley, he just puts him in
a front face lock, hooks his arms,
and stands up with him.
Basically puts Vince to sleep.
Drops him on the floor.
Harley got him into a choke hold.
He said, "I wish I would have wrung his neck."
Because he was driving us out of business.
He could have broke his neck. I mean, he even
told me, he's like, "I could have ended all this right then."
Just- [Clicking tongue]
Fans, I'm Bob Caudle, along with Gordon Solie,
and we're delighted to be bringing you,
wherever you are, live from Greensboro,
North Carolina, Starrcade '83.
This is the wrestling event of all time.
Fortunately, the main event of Starrcade '83 did come off.
It did turn out to be the biggest gate of
any NWA show previously in history.
Flair did win the title from Harley.
He's got him down- one, two, three!
He did it! He did it.
Ric Flair has just defeated
7 times World Heavyweight Champion,
Harley Race.
Vince's failure to persuade Harley to leave the NWA and
join the WWF isn't McMahon's only attempt to take over
Harley's Kansas City territory.
When Vince McMahon started taking his live WWF events
all across the country in other promoters' backyards,
running their buildings, running their towns...
none of 'em appreciated it, but most of 'em
didn't confront him personally.
Harley Race did.
When the WWF went to Kansas City,
Harley showed up. That was his town.
He had owned it, pioneered it,
and he wanted to know why these son of a bitches were
coming trying to take his fans and ticket money away.
Now, Hogan, Hulk Hogan has told some stories.
You shall feel the wrath of Hulkamania!
This is where the power lies!
All right, get ready.
They were promoting big that Hulk Hogan is
the World Champion. He is the man.
What I heard was that Harley had a pistol in his belt and
he was looking for Hogan. He wanted to find out.
"You're the World Champ, let's find out."
And that's the second, third and
fourthhand on stuff I heard,
but Harley come in and everybody held their breath
for like a half hour, you know- [Laughing]
to see what was gonna happen.
♪
Harley went round looking for Hogan, couldn't find him,
so he proceeded to light the ring on fire.
[Laughing]
So that was him protecting his business.
That was him protecting the business of Kansas City.
♪
I don't doubt it for a second.
Even if it didn't happen, does it really matter?
It's something that could've happened.
Despite Harley's best efforts to ward off Vince's invasion,
the WWF's nationwide expansion cannot be stopped.
Harley bought into Kansas City and
the territories were dying.
Vince come along and offered him a pocketful of change
and he grabbed it.
But he knew that that's what he had to do
in his next phase of his career.
He knew Vince was taking over.
Vince liked tough guys,
and Vince liked veterans who had
accomplished things in the wrestling business.
So, I think he respected Harley,
but he thought he was too "rastlin".
He was just "too plain".
Nobody wants to see a tough guy wrestle.
They want to see colour and character and
ice cream bars.
That was what Vince was going for,
and Harley was the antithesis of that.
So when Harley got there, they wanted to make him the
original 'King of the Ring.'
That character and that... that attitude.
I crown you, and you only,
the King Handsome Harley Race.
Did he like it? I doubt it.
He never, never bitched about it
'cause that wasn't Harley's style.
Whatever Harley was handed,
Harley would make it work for Harley.
The WWF at that time
was appealing to kids who, they had no idea
who Harley Race was- they're kids.
And they see an older guy that's not particularly
impressive, dressed up in this King outfit...
Enh...
And the older fans who knew Harley, they were like,
"Wow, this is what it's come down to."
Now we realize, you know, Harley at that point
was very methodical, and I enjoyed seeing a
guy of that age taking off from the top rope,
dropping headbutts from the top.
Here he comes down from his throne, headbutt!
Big roundhouse right.
-Oh! -[Cheering]
Taking the big bumps still, like, he made it work.
He was there to make a paycheque.
He was there to take care of his family.
But Harley's time in the WWF is cut short by an injury.
Ironically, while in the ring with Champion Hulk Hogan.
Ooh, he's going out of the ring alright!
The hard way!
Eight-foot-long table.
So they had that out there, and Hogan got on the table.
A chop to the throat!
The Hulkster down on the table.
He's setting the table up for something.
And Dad leaped off the ring to land on Hogan
on the table, and Hogan moved...
and he went through the table.
King coming down! Oh!
That steel table bent in two!
And the metal bar that goes underneath it,
like supports the table,
had been bent down, not broken.
The metal bar came up and
hit him in his lower abdomen just below
the belly button and blew out his lower intestines.
Created a big hole, a rupture.
He was at my apartment,
and I left, and I came back,
and he was passed out on the floor in a fetal position.
I thought he was dead.
♪
King coming down! Oh!
After suffering an internal injury during a move gone
wrong, the future of Harley Race's career is in doubt
when he's found on the floor of his son's apartment.
Harley had an abdominal hernia.
It required multiple surgeries to fix the damage,
and it significantly hampered the rest of
his wrestling career.
And that was a long recovery.
And he's a 300 pound guy, he went down to
200 pounds, needed care, constantly,
needed a lot of my help, constantly.
He had ended up having two colostomy bags
on the front of his stomach,
some 300 to 400 stitches on the inside of him.
Weighing in at 260 pounds...
Harley Race!
He eventually got back to his wrestling weight.
He was a bit old to be doing-
to have to recover from something like that.
Now to recover and go back to
his job as an insurance salesman? Sure.
But to go back to wrestling, that was pretty tough.
Harley wrestles sporadically over the next few years
as his career winds down, and he spends more time
pursuing his other interests.
But once again, tragedy strikes.
[Bell chiming]
We had a lake home, we went boating...
we had good times at the lake.
Some of the best,
until that boat accident.
It was in the morning,
and he got up and started drinking scotch.
So I went out on the dock, and I sat there,
and I kept coming in and, he'd just call me names,
so I'd go out again.
And that night he stormed out the house,
and he zoomed out of there, out of the cove.
The story that we were told was that he was drinking.
There was a boat in the middle of the lake that
turned off all their lights.
As he was coming around the cove,
by the time he'd seen 'em, it was too late.
[Whooshing]
And he ran into 'em.
♪
He was in the water,
the other people was in the water.
He pulled them over to shore.
It was a pretty traumatic event.
As a result of this accident, several other people in the
other boat were injured and Harley was as well.
Harley was intoxicated and also had resisted arrest
at the time the police came to investigate.
And after he left, I called Harley's psychiatrist and
she said, "Back the car up, put your clothes in the car,
get out of there." I called my attorney and I said,
"I want to file for divorce tomorrow,
and have a restraining order in place."
Very nasty.
Wrestling.
I mean, the arduous relationship of
having someone gone all the time.
Mom raising me pretty much...
and then once his career starts to wind down,
and they're together a lot more,
they didn't get along. [Laughing]
He was a kind-hearted person.
He just wasn't a family man.
At one time, I was putting Christmas decorations up,
I got a phone call and said,
"Your husband has got me knocked up."
I got a letter one time to answer to a woman
from Wichita, Kansas, said that they want
alimony for a 16-year-old girl.
That was real.
But he got out of that too.
'Cause he's Harley Race.
But I could never leave him because he told me
he'd get rid of me if I left him.
Well, what do you think he meant?
It was terrible. I was stuck.
I was afraid.
And even though he was
rough with me at times,
I should have done what they do today,
they take you in. But I didn't.
♪
I would find out more sometimes about my
parents' divorce through reading the newspaper.
In fact, remember the movie with Michael Douglas and
Kathleen Turner called 'War of the Roses'?
Here in Kansas City, and they wrote articles
about my parents' divorce,
it was called 'War of the Races.'
My dad did his best,
and he did a great job as a father.
But, you know, different stories that are told
that are true, not true, who knows.
It was just too much.
But there were a lot of arguments.
When Harley and I would fight,
I would take Justin in his little red wagon and
take him out of there so he wouldn't see it.
And there were so many of those times.
I, I just hope that
my son can understand my side of the story.
It's true, it's not a lie.
And I don't know that he will.
I wish it wouldn't have happened the way it did.
I'm glad I got out of the marriage.
Divorced from his wife, Harley faces another
challenge when a lawsuit from his boating accident
threatens to wipe out everything he has left.
The woman that was injured had two broken legs,
but a couple of years later, when it went to court,
she was still in a wheelchair.
And as a result, she was asking for
$10 million in damages.
She ended up being awarded $250,000
because Harley was intoxicated.
This was a time where not only had his wrestling
slowed down, but also
$250,000 as a judgment,
it was a financial burden on Harley that he would
possibly not ever really recover from.
Everything he'd earned traveling the world
for 20 years is basically gone. Right?
Man... man.
♪
Facing financial hardship for the first time in his
long career, Harley returns to the wrestling world.
After the abdominal surgery from the accident with
the table in the Hulk Hogan match,
then Harley had torn his shoulder out.
He knew his wrestling days were behind him,
but Harley Race was still a major name
in professional wrestling, and WCW had
incredible respect for Harley.
And they said if he can't wrestle on a regular basis
anymore, he's still a personality,
and he still has that knowledge,
we can use him as a manager.
Former heavyweight champion,
Harley Race and Vader!
For a guy like Vader, especially,
Harley Race was a brilliant teacher,
because Vader was a ex-pro football player,
he was used to coaches.
And Harley was a no-nonsense guy that would not take
any shit, and he'd tell him what he was doing wrong.
What are you in my face?
I was a little trepidatious, right?
Because I didn't know if I was, like, a Harley guy.
I didn't drive fast, I didn't drink much...
but he really embraced me.
Again, Harley Race now grabbing Cactus and
shoving him back in there.
Harley had respect for Mick,
but he thought Mick was crazy.
Ah! Oh my goodness!
The bumps that Mick would take, it's,
"Jesus Christ, he's gonna kill himself."
I know when I did my feud with Vader,
the Harley stuff was just priceless.
To have him there and have him be part of it,
some of my greatest moments.
Harley leaves WCW,
but his next public appearance
shocks even his closest friends.
♪
1998, an exposé, 'Wrestling secrets revealed
that it was a work, that it was predetermined,
that everybody was in on it together.'
And that's the antithesis of what Harley Race would
have done publicly in his entire wrestling career.
-As a booker... -[Grunting]
...Your main job is putting two people together
that'll draw money.
The production was able to gravel out his voice,
but not so much to the point where you couldn't tell
who it was, and obviously the silhouette.
If you knew who Harley was, you knew exactly who it was.
But it was surprising to see Harley on there.
A guy who respected and protected the business on
a show called 'Secrets of Pro Wrestling.'
I was so disappointed. And I even told Harley,
"Harley, why'd you do it"? And he said,
"Money, brother." Just like anything else,
money is the evil to everything.
In a previous era,
the consequences for that would have been dire,
but the guy that would've been dealing out
the consequences would have been Harley Race.
Who are you gonna get to beat up Harley Race?
Retired from the ring,
Harley starts his own wrestling school
where he imparts his knowledge to a
new generation of talent.
And in 2004, his long history in the business,
is honored with an induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.
God gave me the talent to work in this wrestling
business, and there's not a better spot on Earth,
than under those bright lights.
[Applauding]
In 2019, after years of battling various ailments
including lung cancer, the wrestling world awakes to
the news that Harley Race has died.
Harley was in terrible pain,
but he sure had kept it inside.
The depression was kept inside,
the tears were kept inside.
The human body, no matter how much of
a superhuman he might be, has its limits.
He was 76 when he passed away.
When I came into the hospital room,
and I whispered, "Dad, it's me."
I had a hold of his hand and he, like,
squeezed my hand and I put my head down,
and I was crying,
and I put my head down on this chest,
and he reached over, and he patted me on the back,
and left his hand laying there and
it was just as warm as ever.
♪
[Speaking Japanese]
I'm Harley Race, seven times
World's Heavyweight Champion.
I would like to introduce to you the star of this film,
and also the star of my life,
my wife, Evonne.
Deep in my heart, I have to say, he was a good guy.
Harley was a god in wrestling.
He just wasn't meant to be a husband.
One of the greatest men that ever stepped in the ring.
It takes a certain talent to get over.
Harley had that talent to get over.
You could not be not in awe of Harley.
After all these years, we're still referring to the
Harley Race way of doing things as being the best.
He was a real, legitimate tough guy.
Some people are just born that way,
he was one of 'em,
and he was very good at what he did.
I don't see how anybody could possibly be
tougher than Harley Race was.
Maybe there's somebody as tough.
Mental toughness, physical toughness,
Harley Race had it.
I don't know if his toughness was to
cover up emotions.
When he had the wrestling school,
and he was married to his wife, BJ,
and when BJ passed away,
we were talking, and he said,
"I haven't cried."
And he goes, "I should be crying, Trevor."
I don't know why I haven't cried." And he goes,
"I miss her, I love her and I'm hurting...
but I haven't cried." And I told him, I said,
"I just don't think that's you.
It's not who you are. It's not...
it's not in your DNA, brother."
There's probably nobody
in the history of wrestling that
gave more of themselves, physically,
and their effort, and their determination,
and their credibility than Harley race did.