Damn straight I'm seeing dollar signs if somebody
like John Tenta walked through the door.
He was the biggest, baddest son of a bitch on the planet.
I'd have him squash all those little bastards.
With a superhero, you need a villain
that's just as powerful to counter.
You needed somebody like my dad.
You are gonna feel the Earthquake!
You'd know it was over 'cause he'd go like this across
his throat and jump a couple times around your head.
The tremors are beginning.
Run to the set of ropes and then just jump on your chest.
Kaboom!
The Earthquake Splash, man.
Larger than life John Tenta had a meteoric rise in the
WWF as Earthquake, before being paired with another
big man, Typhoon, in the iconic tag team
The Natural Disasters.
It's bad weather for everybody in the WWF.
Natural Disasters- Earthquake and Typhoon.
A thousand pounds of fun.
There was no picking them guys up, put it that way.
You go to lift 'em, and you know,
blow your back out type situations.
Intimidating in the ring, behind the scenes,
John Tenta was a very different man.
They were gentlemen, respected by everybody.
Everybody could count on John Tenta to do the job and
do it right, no doubt about that.
My dad was a good guy,
regardless if he was a heel or not.
He cared deeply about his family,
and he also cared a lot about other people.
It's not very Dark Side of the wrestling, huh?
But a change in fortune for both men...
Ah! The shock! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
...turned these once -respected superstars
into parodies of themselves.
He was so many gimmicks.
It was probably hard for him to take.
I felt like that was the low of the low for him.
Vince McMahon can put you in the stars or
he can put you in hell, just that simple.
You don't walk out on Vince McMahon.
If you do, you're gonna pay for it.
I don't think John gave a damn.
The main important thing,
to make the money to take care of his family.
And for John Tenta and his family,
a cruel ending that no one saw coming.
John doesn't want to go to the doctor.
He waited too long.
My dad's a fighter, he's gonna fight through this.
There's no way this'll take him down.
I just prayed, God, please heal him.
Please let us have more time with our dad.
♪
Dino Bravo just told me
that I could pick the largest man,
the biggest man in the audience right now and bring
him into the ring and he can get on Dino Bravo's back!
Dino Bravo and Ultimate Warrior were having
a push up contest in the middle of the ring.
And, the gimmick was to find the biggest guy
in the stands and, to call him down.
The whole audience already realized there was this
giant man in the audience that would be perfect
to be in this competition.
-Wow! -Oh, my goodness.
When my dad made his debut in the WWE,
he was planted in the audience.
Take a look at the size of this man!
Jimmy Hart called him down.
John from West Virginia.
And, he's wearing this bright blue shirt,
jeans and white shoes, looking like a dad.
And, so he's sitting on Ultimate Warrior's back.
Then he just smashes him. [Laughing]
Wait a minute! Whoa!
We see the first iteration of the Earthquake Splash.
And, established himself as a pretty major heel.
[Commentary] ...down across the chest!
Hey, this guy learned how to wrestle pretty quick!
Yeah, no kidding! I smell a rat.
That's how he's introduced into the wrestling world.
My name's Jeff Tenta, and Earthquake's my father.
Everybody knew me as Little Quake.
Everybody knew my dad.
I was just in the backstage a lot of times
when he was wrestling.
I can honestly say that he was definitely respected.
My dad told you to, "Keep an eye on my kid,"
they were gonna do it.
It was kind of surreal being backstage.
I've watched these wrestlers, and their own personas and
their gimmicks just kind of doing their thing,
just talking to each other.
♪
I'm Joanna, and I'm the daughter of
"Earthquake" John Tenta.
I did want to be a wrestler. [Laughing]
I still love wrestling today and, growing up,
I thought there was nobody cooler than my dad.
My name is John Tenta, the youngest child of
John "Earthquake" and Josephine Tenta.
My dad was good at making the audience
buy into this villain.
I think he was incredible in the ring.
When John Tenta debuts in WWF in 1989,
he's already had a storied career that has taken him
halfway around the world from his hometown of
Surrey, British Columbia.
My dad knew that he wanted to become a wrestler
from a very young age.
My grandfather was also a huge wrestling fan, and so,
they only got a few channels,
but they would always tune in to watch wrestling.
From that moment on, he was hooked.
He knew that that was what he wanted to do.
My grandmother and grandfather
were not wealthy people.
They couldn't afford to buy him a weight set or get him
into extracurricular sports and things like that,
so he found other ways to exercise.
Going to the park, lifting park benches,
or doing whatever he could to just get stronger.
They believed in him from the beginning.
He was a Canadian world champion in wrestling,
and he was being prospected by 12 major universities in
the US, and we know that he ended up going to LSU,
and wrestling there.
But when they dropped their wrestling program,
he found wrestling in other ways.
The oldest Japanese sport is Sumo,
a form of wrestling which dates back to hand-to-hand
combat technique of nearly 20 centuries ago.
John Tenta was 22 years old.
One of the sumo wrestling Stable came to
college wrestling meet and recruited him when he was
in Louisiana State University.
He quit college and came to Japan to live and
start as a sumo wrestler.
Hello, my name is Fumi Saito.
I'm a journalist, I'm an author.
I'm a wrestling historian.
Sumo is Japanese national sport.
They still wear kimonos, they have Samurai hairdos,
and sumo wrestler is more like
sumo society.
Sumo is different.
The way they train, the discipline.
You have to fight for it.
My name is Haku.
I've been with wrestling for 40 years.
Haku!
Pro wrestling, you climb over the top rope and jump,
where sumo is more on the ground and...
more physical.
John was probably the tallest one of that time.
And, he was big too.
I believe they were
looking at him to be a grand champion.
He went into three consecutive tournaments,
and won all three tournaments.
He was basically undefeated for 8 months' period.
Until he decided to walk out.
I like sumo, I like the sport.
But I just can't live the lifestyle.
There's a lot of demands,
and a lot of pressure put on you.
I had to do anything that my senior wrestlers asked me.
And, when I interviewed him the following year,
he felt that he always wanted to be professional wrestler.
That was his goal.
He was signed with Old Japan Pro Wrestling July of 1986.
He basically learned from Japanese side and
American side, together.
He enjoyed professional wrestling a lot more than
he enjoyed sumo wrestling, that's for sure.
[Japanese commentary]
He learned the customs, and spoke Japanese too.
He was treated more like a local now.
[Singing] My love,
there's only John in my life.
It's only John forever.
♪
My name is Josephine, and I'm married with
John "Earthquake" Tenta.
I'm from the Philippines.
Luckily, I got my visa and,
go to Japan for singing. Entertainer.
He went into the place that was I working,
and my mama-san introduced him to me.
It was love at first sight for him and for me.
My mama-san told me he's a wrestler,
but I don't know nothing about wrestling.
So, to me, so what?
He's really famous.
John was 6"7.
4"11.
It didn't bother me at all.
Don't get it twisted, man.
My mom may be barely 5-foot, but she's the alpha
in the house, I promise you that.
[Laughing] They really are a love story for the ages.
Everything had to be in the right place and set in motion
at the right time for them to even find each other
in such a big world.
I know right away that he's a good man, and big heart.
The following year, WWF at the time was already
interested in John Tenta as Hulk Hogan's opponent.
And, John Tenta asked the company,
"Would it be okay to leave and join WWE?"
The Great Kabuki, I believe I was the one who told him,
"Go ahead and do it. That's your chance."
Before accepting the offer from the WWF,
John Tenta makes a commitment,
not just to Josephine,
but to her son, Jeff, as well.
We were a package deal, me and my mom.
And, first time I saw him, he was sitting there
in one of our chairs in front of a window and just
his whole body would just cover that whole window.
That's the lasting image I have the first time
I'm meeting my father.
The only father I know, so...
He is my dad.
When they got married shortly after,
we both flew from Philippines to Canada.
Obviously, I was a little, a little nervous,
a little scared. Different country,
whole new world.
As John and his family settle in British Columbia,
his WWF career ignites with an in-ring feud against
the world champion Hulk Hogan.
There he is! [Indistinct speaking]
Heavyweight Champion,
and he has never looked better!
There was nothing going on in the wrestling business
could even be any bigger than Hulkamania.
When you come in there and you're working right off
on top, that means you're somebody and you're good.
Hey, this is Earl Hebner, and I've been
a referee for over 40 years.
[Indistinct shouting]
John was a special friend of mine, always.
We were all a team.
John knew how to handle the matches,
he knew how to make 'em exciting.
Oh!
He may have been a rookie, but he had credentials.
He earned it.
Hi, I'm Jake "The Snake" Roberts.
WWE superstar, and master of the DDT.
-DDT! -DDT!
Stone Mountain, Georgia!
John took it like he'd been doing it for years.
I couldn't believe when I found out
how long he'd been in wrestling.
I was amazed.
Hogan tries to go for the finish!
That's the spot that everybody wants.
You're wrestling the champ,
you're gonna be paid like a champ.
I think my dad was a great foe for Hulk Hogan
because he was one of the only guys that was
actually bigger than him.
He was really great at generating heat.
So, you needed somebody that you could really hate.
The last time I came face to face with Hulk Hogan,
they carried him out on a stretcher!
And all the little Hulkamaniacs cried their
little eyes out because they knew
Hulkamania was dead!
Oh! Forget about it!
You wrestle Hogan, you made it.
You're that guy, you're it.
His career was gonna just take off and
keep taking off and, it was exciting.
The most important match for John Tenta,
as a professional wrestler,
happened back in Japan, 1991.
The Tokyo Dome event was Hulk Hogan,
Randy Savage, Bret Hart, all these superstars.
But there was another attraction,
former sumo wrestler John Tenta against former
grand champion of sumo wrestling, Koji Kitao,
rookie professional wrestler.
Kitao was not popular professional wrestler.
He thought he was going to be just as big a star.
He wasn't.
For Kitao, John Tenta was somebody who tried sumo
wrestling for one year and didn't even make it.
And this time, actually,
John Tenta was bigger and better than Kitao.
Kitao think that, you know,
he was Bruce Lee or something.
He didn't care about the rules or
respect and everything.
[Japanese commentary & audience cheering]
First match, Earthquake Drop.
Ah! [Japanese commentary]
John Tenta pinned Koji Kitao, a former
Yokozuna grand champion sumo wrestler.
Oh, Kitao wasn't happy.
I believe second night at Kobe,
John was gonna go over too, again.
[Japanese commentary]
That night, Kitao worked against the booking plan.
We were standing there because we knew already that
he was, you know, he might pull something, and he did.
Kitao went like this and was gonna poke his eye.
"Come on, we gotta have a fight, we gotta fight."
And I know when he went for that eye poke,
my dad delivered a real kick.
Like an MMA match.
After Kitao disqualified himself from the match,
to end it,
and saw it wasn't going anywhere, grabbed a mike,
told everyone that wrestling was fake.
That it was all a lie, it was all a scam.
"John Tenta, you are fake,
and this whole thing is fake."
And he walked out of the match.
We were all there in the dressing room,
and John busts in there, and he said,
"Where's that son of a bitch?
I'm gonna kick his ass."
It was Kitao who got booed out of the building.
That was the last time Kitao worked
for SWS company.
He was fired the next day.
John is very kind, John is very quiet.
Those are the guys that you have to watch out for.
After former sumo grand champion turned wrestler
Koji Kitao goes rogue during a match in Japan...
He's fired for his actions.
But for John Tenta, the incident cements
his reputation as a true professional.
When John Tenta went back to the States,
entire backstage of WWF asked him,
"I heard you had shoot match in Japan,
and you took care of yourself. Great!"
Everybody had so much respect for John Tenta
"Earthquake" from that day forward.
Oh, look at this!
Earthquake doing his thing!
He loved that gimmick.
It made him feel big, it made him feel like
he was a force to be reckoned with and,
my dad would always brag about,
"Look, I'm the most hated bad guy."
You know, because he knew he did his job.
Roberts! Last week you thought you were real smart
trying to put that snake on me.
I'm telling you here and now, keep Damion away from me!
I can't stand snakes, but most of all,
I can't stand you! I hate your guts!
Damion was my pet snake that I,
I loved and trusted, and...
and I always had the snake with me, you know, then...
at the end of the match, I'd get the snake out and
drape it across the fallen opponents.
It was my gimmick.
Jake "The Snake" Roberts with Damion in the bag.
The idea was for him to kill it.
They wanted me to get knocked out of the ring,
and then Tenta do the damage to the snake where he jumps
over the snake while I'm down and out,
so I would never see it.
And I told 'em, hell no, that's not the way to do that.
The way to do that is to tie me in the ropes and
make me watch it.
Jake always puts Damion underneath the ring.
And, at that time,
there was another bag underneath the ring,
so he'd grab the bag, put it out centre of the ring.
He's got Damion in the ring, but- From behind again!
Quake ran into the ropes and gave him this big boom squash.
Don't watch this, folks, please don't watch it!
No! He's gonna- No!
Ah!
The amazing Oscar performance of Jake, you know,
crying and bawling his eyes out while he watched
my dad sit on Damion.
♪
I went to the bag and opened up the bag,
and seen Damion all crushed, which wasn't Damion,
it was a pair of women's pantyhose
full of hamburger meat.
A tragedy here has befallen Jake "The Snake" Roberts.
We got some letters over it, you know,
because it traumatized so many kids.
You know, it's wrestling, for God's sake, come on.
Not only that, the aftermath after squashing Damion.
There's a segment where he serves Vince McMahon and
Bobby The Brain some burgers that he'd cooked up and
he called them Quake burgers.
And that the meat rhymed with Quake.
You think this is funny?
I gotta eat.
[Beep]!
After my dad feuded with Hulk Hogan and with
Jake "The Snake", you know, the storylines
were maybe running a little bit thin.
My dad approached Typhoon,
or Tugboat Fred at the time, to essentially join up.
Hi, this is Fred Ottman, Tugboat, Typhoon.
The Shockmaster.
The "B-A-double-D" big steel man.
And also, one half of The Natural Disasters.
What you got?
And I was Superstar Big Bubba, too.
I have a memorable dance contest with Rocky Johnson,
and I got the opportunity to bust a giant boombox
over his noggin.
Oh! Good night!
Fred, you know, he didn't know his own strength,
and Rocky was laying there in a puddle of blood.
I go, "You killed him!"
[Screaming]
That was Fred, or Big Bubba, wrapped up into a ball.
I'm Jerry Sags, one half of the
infamous tag team The Nasty Boys.
That's the time we first met Big Bubba, Fred.
He'd become many other gimmicks after that.
Because the old Tugboat is just like the
Battleship Missouri, brother.
He's loaded, he's ready for battle, brother!
Hoo-hoo! Full steam ahead!
Tugger's coming to town!
No!
Indeed, oh, whoa!
-Talk about power! -Hoo!
The office called from WWF, and they go,
"We'd like to put you and Earthquake together.
Jimmy Hart will be your manager.
You will be Typhoon and he will be Earthquake,
The Natural Disasters."
I thought it was a great deal for Fred, the transition...
because those two guys together were...
monsters.
[Announcer] 852 pounds combined weight!
Gotta be a record.
We wrestled John and Fred a lot.
But you had to change your whole game plan up because
you weren't throwing these guys in the rope and
power bombing 'em or...
You'd go to give them a double tackle,
but me and Niles would both get knocked on our ass,
you know.
You let Fred do his strongman stuff and
Quake could work with anybody.
They were just another notch,
one of the greatest teams we wrestled.
So, you got the Earthquake and you got Typhoon.
In that kind of weather, you shouldn't be wrestling.
[Cheering & indistinct shouting]
1, 2, 3!
-[Match bell ringing] -I can't hear you!
This is deafening!
Chasing the dream, the champ deal, it's awesome.
And having it is awesome.
But, you may be in Connecticut today or
Madison Square Garden,
and then had to fly out to LA.
The schedule of the WWE was really brutal.
7 days a week, twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday.
You're like an absentee father, sort of.
Your wife is the stronghold of the household,
and she's taking care of the family while you're gone.
He'd be gone a month at a time,
and he'd be home for a couple days.
Clearly, it was tough on my mom.
New environment, new country.
She expected him to be home a little bit more.
John was having a hard time too, because I'm,
I'm new to the place.
So, so he's, he's worried about me.
Especially when I have Jeffrey,
and Joanna at that time.
I didn't know who he was because
I saw him very seldomly.
It was this massive giant walking through the door,
and the person who's been with me the most is
this petite, tiny Filipino woman.
And, I'm sure that broke his heart,
which makes me sad to think about.
The pressure to come home is monster sized, man.
How much is too much?
The answer is, it was all too much.
But, that didn't matter to Vince McMahon.
And there he is, there's my buddy, Quake.
And I can't leave him by himself, you know,
The Disasters have to be together,
spending some time.
And we're equal opportunity smashers, okay, because...
there's Money Incorporated having a bad day.
[Indistinct shouting]
In 1992, The Natural Disasters dominate the WWF
tag team scene, setting themselves apart backstage
with their unique approach to life on the road.
There were guys that their goal was about
a strip club or women. Where's the party?
John was neither of those.
And Fred was neither of those.
I wasn't ever really a big drinker.
I didn't do drugs and that stuff.
You know, I'd be with John, we'd go in the room and
bullshit and talk about homelife and stupid shit that
we'd seen on the road.
Sometimes it's better just to sit back and see it unfurl.
They were straight up guys, you know what I mean?
But the two son of a bitches could put some food away,
you know what I mean? [Laughing]
Like, you know?
The plate couldn't hold enough.
I'm like, "Fred, you go back for more."
It looked like Mount St. Helen's or something,
you know, but he would go back for four more plates.
They really became close friends,
that Natural Disaster run. And it was a good run.
At the beginning of 1993,
the reign of the Natural Disasters
comes to an end as John Tenta returns to Japan.
Fred Ottman continues to wrestle for the WWF
until later that year when an unthinkable tragedy
brings Fred home to Florida.
I was opening two bars in Key West.
My brother-in-law Randy was supposed to
run the business when I was on the road,
and my brother-in-law was out on the phone
by the building, and there was some
young kids that were there.
And they started messing with a good friend of his.
And Randy drops the phone and goes over to try to
de-escalate the situation.
Well, the oldest guy, he had a pistol.
-And shot the gun. -[Gunshot]
And, he hit my brother-in-law,
and he dropped dead...
on the spot.
And so, with everything I had going on,
there was no one to take over the business,
and it took me off the road and, and ah...
not what I had planned.
But, you know, my family.
While Fred struggles to help his family,
John's work schedule in Japan takes him
further away from his own.
My dad, at the time,
the travel was starting to wear on him.
My mom and dad got into a pretty big fight
just because he wasn't home enough.
It was a pretty big blow out, you know,
my mom was just tired of not, you know,
seeing him as often as she would've liked to,
I remember that day like it was yesterday, man.
In August of 1993,
Fred Ottman makes his return to the ring
for the WWF's rival WCW,
but soon finds himself at the centre of one of the most
embarrassing moments in wrestling history...
while the cameras are live.
♪
The Shockmaster was the gimmick.
This was live TV.
Tonight's special guests are Sting!
The British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith!
And their mystery guest!
It was Sting and Davey Boy, they're tagged up.
And it was the Harlem Heat on the other side,
and Fred was supposed to attack
Harlem Heat or something.
Hey! They're gonna tell us before you get carried away
who their special tag team partner is, brother!
You better cool down!
The whole idea was that I was the mystery partner,
have me bust through a wall with this gimmick on.
The true Shockmaster was almost like a comic book,
like a Darth Vader head or something, right?
"Here, try this on. This is what you're gonna
wear when you go through here."
It's got two little pin holes.
Like, little, little pin holes, like this.
At most. And then glitter is coming in.
They built a wall that was 2x4 studs, you know,
12, 14 inch on centre.
5/8 sheet rock, like a wall in your house.
Now, they didn't gimmick the wall though.
They didn't scour it or anything like that
to make it easier.
Guy gives me the cue, he says, "Fred,
you're gonna have to hit that wall hard, man."
-Shockmaster? -I could show it to you.
Do you want to see what I'm talking about?
Our partner is going to shock the world because...
he is none other than The Shockmaster!
Alright!
The Shockmaster! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
What the ----?
I go, what in the hell- was that, was that Fred?
The Shockmaster! Alright!
The Shockmaster! Whoa! I told ya!
He ----ing fell down!
[Laughing]
It looked like he hit the thing and come down!
[Laughing]
What happened was I hit it so hard,
it just went- [Whistling]
Like this when I went through the wall
it put me straight over like a teeter totter
in a kids' playground.
[Laughing]
He was, he was looking for the,
for the gimmick.
[Laughing]
[Deep voice] They call me The Shockmaster.
What a lot of people don't know is
that wasn't Fred's voice... talking.
It was Ole Anderson with his growly voice
was on a microphone.
[Shockmaster] Come after me, Sid. I'm ready.
[Haku] Is this the end of it? [Laughing]
We might as well. We can't dump this one.
[Laughing]
Fred, I still love you.
[Laughing]
I never seen that shit before!
[Laughing]
He was gonna crush people or shock 'em,
whatever he was gonna do.
But, he fell. And that was-
[Laughing] And that was the end of that.
It was horrendous, but you know what,
you can turn a negative into a positive.
It's been very, very good to me.
That's the classic Shockmaster.
It made an internet sensation out of Fred
falling through the wall.
So, if there'd be like a plane crash and Fred ran in
and saved like all the school kids out of the plane before
it blew it up, he'd still be remembered as Shockmaster.
[Laughing] You know? It's funny as shit.
Oh, my goodness.
[Laughing]
Earthquake! Victorious!
A former star for Vince McMahon's WWF,
John Tenta has grown disillusioned with the
company and the toll its aggressive schedule
took on his family.
I think that he was ready to find a solution that would
allow him to be with his family more.
And I think at that time,
WCW kind of threw him the life raft.
They gave him such big contracts and
less working days on the road.
We moved from Canada to Florida...
so that my dad could...
have more time at home.
It was so easy to be around him and to be
around family and, just to enjoy each other,
whether it was something like going to Disney or it was a
Thursday night and I popped in a laser disc
so we could sing karaoke.
He is a karaoke king, man.
Ah, "House of the Rising Sun"
was one of his favourite songs he used to sing.
We'd sing together,
and we liked the duet of "Endless Love".
When my dad was home, he showed up to
any event, any show, any game.
Anything that we had going on.
That was a nice base hit there.
He was all about making memories and
doing things with the family.
-That's awesome. -Thank you, sweetie.
But as John's family life is solidified,
his career in the ring is coming apart.
Introducing first, Avalanche!
The WCW, he couldn't use the Earthquake name,
so he came in as Avalanche.
Vince McMahon owned the name Earthquake.
To go out there and change your name and everything,
it confuses the fans.
Avalanche was too close to Earthquake.
And so, Dad would be kind of infringing on that trademark
so, unfortunately that gimmick didn't last very long.
After Avalanche, we all got graced with Shark.
Ah, which he absolutely hated.
They put a fin on him. I thought to myself,
that's, that's ----ing stupid.
He did it just because, you know,
it's supporting the family. Once again, it's a job.
You know, he's gonna do what he needs to do
to make it work and be all-in on it.
I just think maybe they just never could get the right...
character that they wanted out of him.
After a year of portraying the Shark in WCW,
John finally gets the opportunity to
define himself in the ring.
I'm not The Shark. I'm not a fish.
I'm not an Avalanche.
I'm a man. John Tenta!
That very much felt like it was his mike drop moment.
With all of, all of these gimmicks.
But the bottom line is he was never given the story lines
that he had in the WWE.
He was never put in the position to make money
in WCW.
He was just used.
But in 1998 during what is supposed to be
his triumphant return to the WWF, John Tenta is
forced into his oddest gimmick yet.
The Golga character was a member of The Oddities,
where you had Luna Vachon,
Kurrgan, and Giant Silva.
He had this huge Cartman doll that he brought out
to the ring with him. He was under a mask.
Putting John under a mask was just humiliation.
You know, they didn't want him to...
to get the kudos that he would've had if they just
round him out there as Earthquake.
They wanted to do something that was just grotesque.
Even when he was The Shark or The Avalanche,
he was Earthquake. Even when he was Golga,
he was Earthquake.
Everybody wanted Earthquake back,
and all these other gimmicks was just trying to
get back to, you know, his glory days.
When Golga ran its course,
he couldn't go back to the WCW.
Ah, where else could he go?
Which is likely why that sparked his wrestling school
that he opened up in, in Sanford.
It didn't work out.
It's like always money coming out,
but nothing's really coming in.
We had a bankruptcy.
Everything changed.
He has the school for,
maybe I would say a year or under a year.
And then, he started doing the retail.
He got a job at the mall,
and he worked in the Big & Tall section.
And you know, he'd have fans recognize him.
Dude was working in the men's department,
you know, sweating his ass off.
It is incredibly hard to go from being a superstar...
to working retail somewhere.
John was gonna make a living for his family,
regardless of what it was.
If he had to shovel shit, he'd do it
to provide for his family.
After my dad left retail, he started truck driving.
He, he saw it as an opportunity to make
a little bit more money.
You know, it wasn't a glamorous job.
He would be, you know, peeing in,
in gallon jugs because you just don't have time to
stop at a truck stop.
And he started to notice that there were
blood clots in his urine.
And, he was on the road, and so,
he wasn't able to get to a doctor very quickly and he
kind of kept it a secret from my mom for a little while.
He kind of got away with...
letting this, this thing, this tumour in his bladder
grow for longer than it should have.
When he went to the doctor,
they gave him a very short prognosis.
And, said that there wasn't anything that
they were going to be able to do.
Said it was already advanced too far.
It's already too late 'cause the size of the tumour
is like a baseball size.
After being diagnosed with advanced bladder cancer,
John Tenta and his wife must break the news
to their children.
My parents, um...
sat me and my siblings down, and...
they said that my dad had cancer, um,
and that they were going to Houston for a second opinion.
There were a lot of tears and...
a lot of worry and fear.
My sister works in, in healthcare.
And, she told me that bladder cancer is
one of the most curable cancers.
And so, for that to take him down because
he was away from home or you know...
he kept it a secret, ah...
really, it's a bummer to hear.
Yeah, it definitely sucked.
He felt like if he was still wrestling,
they might have caught it earlier.
And he might have had a fighting chance.
Ah, I walked in on him sitting at the edge of
the bed watching some old tapes.
There were VHS tapes all over the floor,
and I heard him laughing.
And he was watching the segment on prime time.
He was quoting himself in the segment, he was loving it,
he was making himself laugh with the jokes that
he was telling.
I do think that my dad was kind of
forged to be tough, you know.
And it's funny, you know, you think like, oh,
you just gotta fight as hard as you can.
But it's so much more than that, right.
It's not like he could...
do a body slam to the tumours in his body.
As one of the wrestling world's most imposing figures
takes on the battle of his life,
few in the business even know of his struggle.
John, I wish that...
he told me...
that...
he needed help.
Especially it wasn't just about you,
but it was also for your family.
But...
too late to find out that you kept it to yourself.
In the summer of 2005...
gosh, my dad looked actually great that summer.
He looked a lot like himself.
He was going through chemo and all that stuff, and...
you know, they still had high hopes that
they were gonna beat it, and...
I was getting married that June 2005.
Before the wedding, he called me on the phone, he says,
"Fred," he says, "The cancer is back," you know.
We're trying to see if it can be fixed, you know.
So, we didn't tell the kids.
At the wedding, my brother and his wife had
the karaoke machine set up and...
one of my mom's songs to my dad
is, "You Needed Me".
And, so she was starting to sing that song and...
kind of halfway through,
she just started breaking down and crying.
My dad came to my mom, and
they had that crying session,
just hugging each other and crying.
Love him so much.
When you love someone, nothing is hard,
as long as you...
you're with that person that you love.
At that point, they pretty much figured it was,
you know, game over for my dad.
Just before his eldest son Jeff's wedding,
John Tenta learns that the cancer has
spread throughout his body.
You know, looking back, it's not shocking that
he wasn't quick to tell us. Maybe,
maybe he knew it was bad from the beginning and,
you know, was just trying to stretch out
as much time as he could.
And I told him that...
"Don't you worry."
♪
"The kids and I are gonna be okay.
So if it's time..."
He can go.
But before he closed his eyes,
one by one, they, they talked to him.
I couldn't stop thanking him for the life that he's
been able to give us, you know, give me.
He didn't need to take me along,
but he did anyways.
And, I greatly appreciated everything that he's done,
made me a better person, better man, you know.
I told him how much I loved him.
I told him- [Voice breaking] Thank you...
for being, um, such a great dad.
[Sniffling]
And I remember just throwing myself on top of him
one more time and giving him one more hug.
[Sniffling]
♪
[Sighing]
My dad loved to laugh,
and so any time he would tell a joke...
or if he would tease my mom,
or he saw me from across the room,
he'd flash a wink at me.
And so...
I remember when it was, it was my turn to go in.
I went to go and talk to him-
I don't remember what I said.
But he winked at me.
♪
In his final moments,
he was looking at each of us in the room,
and locking eyes with us, and...
my dad died while I was holding his hand.
He passed away on June 7th, 2006.
Which was just, gosh,
a couple weeks from his 43rd birthday.
And, a couple months before his first grandkid, so...
You can never forget about it, you know.
It's still hard.
It was Fred who called me about John.
But, those calls...
for our era of guys happen too many times.
Too many times.
It was just horrible to hear it 'cause
he was such a sweet man.
John Tenta was laid to rest in Houston, Texas
surrounded by the love his family,
but without any representation from the
business he devoted himself to for over 20 years.
There's no wrestlers.
No flowers from...
the boss.
The amount of work that my dad had put out there,
for the amount of punishment he put, you know,
his body through for entertainment and
for his bosses and,
I just wish that they would've, you know,
tried a little harder to reach out to him and
to show more love.
Because he was a gentle giant,
and he would've done anything for anybody.
John, and Jimmy Hart, and my brother
who just passed away last July,
we were a family on the road.
This was my family.
Talking about it now, it's heart breaking for me.
When you lose a good friend like that.
I will always remember John because
this is my sumo brother.
And that's how I am gonna remember John forever.
A brother.
He should be remembered as
a wrestler who lived the fullest.
You know, he came to Japan,
and he had very healthy good run
as a professional wrestler.
I stopped watching wrestling for years,
and recently I've now been more interested in
watching my dad's matches.
I feel a sense of pride.
I can watch them, and I can be amazed...
that my dad did that.
He was a true legend.
Not just for his talent.
Him as a person, he was the entire package.
I love you, brother.
I love you.
What is that picture of Mom and Dad right there?
John is the love of my life.
My...
soulmate.
Well, this is the first picture of him and me.
And he wrote something in the back too,
so this was in 19...
-'86? -'86?
-December. -Yeah.
Would you like-
[Laughing]
"This is our first picture taken together.
I was so happy being with you.
It made me feel so good.
I can hardly wait until we are together all the time."
"Always remember...
I love you, John."
If you look up to the heaven,
you're gonna see him smiling,
to see how the kids turned out.
He's proof that you can be nice and
work really hard, and...
leave an impact.
My dad was many things to many different people.
But to us, he was just a great dad.
Yeah.