Mrs. Race was kind enough to give me their phone number for the purposes of an interview, and I'm not familiar enough with Harley to ask enough questions to fill more than a couple minutes. So if you have anything you'd like to know, post it!

Did you enjoy working with Giant Baba? Who called those matches? How pre-planned were they?

I'm leery of asking a lot about "calling the match" questions, that sort of thing. I'll try though. Baba, Jumbo, Flair, plenty of big names to ask about working with.

Could ask him about his Puerto Rican title run in 1990? How that came about, what that title run was like for him. thoughts on opponents, yadda yadda.

 

Some questions on his students: What became of Matt Murphy?

How did the Morhisima dark match come about.

I'd like to know about his trips to New Zealand, especially the match against Peter Maivia that outdrew Ali.

I'd like to know why he did that ridiculous NBC show "exposing" the business. I mean, I guess he can say he worked them since all it did was reveal things like the infamous STUNT GRANNY~!, but still it was pretty embarrassing.

Ask him about his brief time in the AWA in the spring/summer of 1984. He began a feud with the Hennigs that seemed to just stop after his match in St. Paul with Curt in September. There was Larry run-in and scuffle at the end of the Curt match that appeared to point towards a match or feud between them all coming for the fall.

 

Did he leave on his own accord, or did the planned matches fall apart for some other reason? Was there even a series planned or was it just a weird nostalgia bit in an otherwise quiet AWA summer?

 

Maybe Heenan's departure had something to do with it, you could ask that as well.

 

Was he ever considered to get the spot that Bockwinkel eventually got as AWA champ in 1975? He was between title runs in the NWA at that point if memory serves.

Any memories of the night he and Jackie Gleason worked an angle?

Whether Misawa has ever explained the current NOAH gaijin booking scheme to him and why it's taken so long for WLW wrestlers to gain any traction there. Is he at all involved with Bison Smith?

Great stuff so far!

Whether Misawa has ever explained the current NOAH gaijin booking scheme to him and why it's taken so long for WLW wrestlers to gain any traction there.

I thought Trevor Murdoch/Rhides had a reall nice run there, surprised he hasn't gone back.

Ask if he has any good infamous Harley Race barbecue stories.

I just spoke with him, and he agreed to talk next week.

 

So, since there's time, I'd like a little more background on:

 

-Harley Race barbecue stories

 

- Jackie Gleason

Race was famous for making tremendous BBQ and having the wrestlers over. Foley put it over huge in his first book.

Wrsetlers have said he was the toughest man in wrestling. Who would he say was the toughest ?

I'd like to hear about his runs as a booker especially in Florida & Georgia in the mid 70's. He wrote about it in his book but I'd like to hear some different stories.

I did not know there was a book. Was it good?

 

edit: Good or not I bought it. It's one thing to interview Scott Norton based on my scattershot knowledge, but Race is another thing altogether. Plus I very much doubt it sucks.

It's a good book but there are some real bad date issues sorta like Dusty's book

Where do these interviews get punlished/posted? I've been wanting to read the Scott Norton one since you mentioned it on DVDVR.

 

As for ?'s Harley

 

What was his first reaction when he he was pitched the King idea in WWE?

 

Who is one of the wrestlers from his day that he regrets never getting the chance to wrestle for whatever reason?

 

Who is one of the wrestlers of today that he would have had like the chance to wrestle in his prime?

 

Which wrestlers of today does he think could have been succesful and possibly world champ in the territory days?

 

What was it like to wrestle for the AWA world title on the final AWA TV taping in August of 1990?

 

What it meant to him to a part of the Owen hart tribute match between Bret and Benoit on Nitro?

Race's book ("King of the Ring") is good, but too short and has some dating issues mentioned above. It is a great starting point to prep for an interview, though.

 

Harley Race has said several times he was the first guy to do a vertical suplex (on the Legends of Wrestling I videogame where he has an interview, for one place). Ask him to expound on that. I've never gotten decent confirmation or denial on, I'm thinking not, but I'd be interested in Harley's take.

 

-Chad

What was it like to wrestle for the AWA world title on the final AWA TV taping in August of 1990?

Norton interview is up at pulsewrestling.com (and I put it in my DVDVR sig).

 

Funny you bring up the 1990 thing because someone from pulsewrestling also brought it up this morning.

He told a great story in his book about Vince offering him a job and him turning it down, and on their way out of the restaraunt, Vince took a shot at him (forgetting the specifics). Ask him if there were any hard feelings over that later on when he eventually did go to the WWF.

I also wanna know about Jackie Gleason.

 

I bet he has some awesome 70s yakuza stories.

Mostly done with the book. I'll echo the "good but flawed" sentiment (Vader in MMA in 2004?!), and not that Harley Race is the toughest man alive just for walking around. Major car wrecks, shot, stabbed, massive infection from an intestinal rupture such that his insides were a wreck for years, etc. Almost none of the big stuff happened inside the ropes.

 

Also his bad back caused him to cut short the use of steroids during his WWF run, and thus his bad back might have saved his life.

 

Also you do not fuck with Harley Race. Ever.