Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to Championship Sports.
By now, all of you have heard about the tragic and
untimely death of Bruiser Brody,
very disappointing.
...wrestler, prior to a bout in Puerto Rico.
His menacing looks gave him the reputation of
a madman inside the ring, but a long time wrestling promoter
and others remember a very different man.
If you could picture a man coming into the ring,
6'6, 6'7, 350-something pounds...
He looked like danger coming.
It was the kind of danger you were drawn to.
People would actually 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 is like a tornado coming
to your house, but you still want to see it.
He'd beat you up with 2x4s, chairs,
anything that he could get his hands on.
Bruiser Brody was insane.
On July 16, 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 have had the opportunity
to step 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 that
everything changed for me.
I wanted to be the next Bruiser Brody.
The stories I've heard surrounding Brody's death
have always troubled me.
After 30 years, we tracked down 3 wrestlers
willing to tell their version of what happened that night and
to 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 people to see Bruiser Brody alive was
Mr. USA, Tony Atlas,
a former body builder turned wrestler,
and a current WWE Hall of Famer.
Okay, stand up. Take - clothesline him over the top.
Cameraman watch out.
Agh! Oh!
That was the shittiest finish I've ever seen.
Dirty Dutch Mantell is one of the business'
most infamous villains in front of the camera...
Has the taste returned to your mouth after I
slapped it out just a few seconds ago?
And one of wrestling's greatest minds behind the scenes.
I never did. I never, I never had a match with Brody.
Well, he beat the shit out of you.
And then, there's the madman from the Sudan,
Abdullah The Butcher.
Abdullah was also Bruiser Brody's
greatest in-ring nemesis.
...This is it. And, you know, this is a very graphic display
of exactly what the world of professional wrestling is
all about, the dark side, so to speak.
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 didn't grab holds.
I used karate. I used 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 'em 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 The Butcher and Bruiser Brody
in the ring, gonna be a lot of blood.
'Cause Abdullah had his fork...
And they did it every night. It was just a formula.
Oh, I loved the fork.
I'd just stab him in the head,
stick it in his mouth. Do everything.
Probably 85% of the match was outside the ring.
He struck fear in the hearts of fans.
When he went down to the ring,
people moved out of the way; that's an art.
Brody's reputation in the business was,
he was a main eventer
and could make you a lot of money.
So, that's why he was so popular.
It's why so many promoters wanted him because
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 stars in the world.
Bruiser Brody, he was a legend.
He was a legend... back before he died.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my...
But like, every time I come out here,
I find something new.
Look at this, another one.
Some sentimental stuff associated with it.
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.
He didn't become the character he created.
That's dad's football helmet.
In my own case, I spent 3 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.
- Okay, yeah. - Oh, okay. I'm sorry.
Um... Yeah, I did.
- You did? - Yeah.
I don't think it's good that anybody knows
that I'm Frank Goodish.
Don't worry; that won't happen.
Frank was kind of a, little bit of a renegade.
We were together for a long time and
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
3 months of that year.
It was a challenge, but you do it.
When Geoff was born, he changed so much
'cause 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 do believe I've subconsciously possibly
blocked a lot of things out, unfortunately.
So, a lot of the stories I hear are stories
other people tell me about my dad.
At the same time, it's hard to hear these stories because
they're stories that people are telling me and
I don't have a lot of stories of my own to tell.
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 on the other side,
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.
It was blood city. It was blood all the time.
Big shows, you'd have 3 or 4 matches with blood in 'em,
because remember, I told you, people believed,
and they 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, they throw piss on you,
they throw urine on you, they throw feces on you.
They stoned me. They used to take cups,
put glass or stones and throw 'em at me.
They want to see somebody get hurt.
They want some, to see somebody
get carried out on a stretcher.
Every place you go, they love violence.
Some weekly planners, 1987, 1988...
Just his daily activities, it appears.
His workout, workout schedule and regimen and
where he's traveling to.
Ah, San Juan, Puerto Rico, of all places.
Yeah, I believe it was the, 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 that 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 who were
waiting for his return, but some unresolved business and
a bitter longstanding grudge.
The World Wrestling Council is Puerto Rico's
main 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.
He was probably 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 #1.
Gonzalez also acted as the company's booker,
the person 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 this aggression to a new level
when he wrestled a young Jose Gonzalez
when Gonzalez was hoping to make
a big impression in the WWF.
Brody and Invader,
they didn't really care for each other.
Their personalities did not mesh.
Even their matches, you could tell there was
something not quite right with it.
He was a pretty decent guy - if he liked you.
If he didn't like you, he would beat the living crap out of you.
But I just seen Brody take people in the ring many a time
and just beat 'em unmercifully.
He would just beat 'em to death.
Well, I've tried to piece it together over the years,
what brought this on.
Let's go back in the past, in 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 just beat the shit out of him.
He ate him up.
I mean, his whole face was swollen,
his head was swollen up; looked just 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.
We put him in the car, and 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.
I mean, his head looked like a pumpkin, brother.
Bruiser Brody was worried about one image,
and that was Bruiser Brody.
Once the people see you get beat once or twice,
that brand - and he knows this -
the brand becomes kind of... violated.
And he, he didn't want that to happen and
that's why, that's why he acted the way he did.
I don't know about the other professional wrestlers.
I only know about Bruiser Brody.
And when I go in the ring, it doesn't matter whether
I'm in Texas or in New York, and it doesn't matter
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 an owner, a part owner,
a minority owner named Victor Quinones,
who had 10% 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 company.
They wanted his money, but they didn't want his ideas.
And Brody ain't that type of guy.
Brody had his opinions.
If you didn't like 'em, too bad.
- Can you tell us your name? - David Manning.
I was the booker for World Class Championship Wrestling.
I was a little worried because Frank was
going to Puerto Rico to wrestle.
Frank said they owed him about, around
20, $25,000.
And, he had asked for the money politely.
He had been waiting for the money.
And he told me before he left,
"I'm coming back with my money."
And he said, "If I have to beat every one of 'em up,
I'm getting my money."
Brody had mentioned to people that
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 3 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.
Ah... Can I please tell the story?
I beg you, 'cause I want to tell it.
Okay. - I want to tell the story.
- I... See... Okay, okay, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, I've been--
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?
This is how me and Brody started our day.
Yeah? - 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 anyway, and so,
me and him, we worked out together,
and he said, "Tony, want to go get something to eat?"
So I say, "Oh sure, I'll go get something to eat."
And 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,
just maybe, that 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."
And I'm-- Right then I said, "Well, that's unusual."
Why would Jose, the booker, leave his main eventer?
And I said, "You can ride with us if you like."
So we went to the show and traffic was horrible leading
into the stadium 'cause the cars were lined up,
so you know it was gonna be a sell-out.
And, we hopped out and we took our bags
to where the dressing rooms were.
Now, looking back on it, it was kind of strange,
'cause when I walked in that room,
I got a strange feeling. But Jose was sitting there.
I said, "He's here."
As soon as I come to the door,
I saw the 3 of them sitting there,
Jose, Carlos Colon, and Victor,
they were sitting in a football huddle.
Yeah, it kind of seemed a little strange...
'Cause I, I've never really seen 'em 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,
and he walked out of the dressing room.
And Brody sat down right beside me,
and I sat there maybe 5 minutes...
And that feeling of tension,
it just got stronger.
So I said, "I gotta get out of here.
I gotta move. I gotta-- 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 in my chair and I started sketching.
Brody came over and he looked at it.
He said, "That is frickin' fantastic."
He's getting all excited,
big smile is on his face and everything.
And he said, "I wonder if you could do one for me,"
so he opened up his little 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?"
Just 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,
but on this evening, the conversation between
Brody and Gonzalez would descend into
an unthinkable nightmare.
In Puerto Rico, before his match,
Bruiser Brody is summoned to a private meeting with
talent booker Jose Gonzalez.
There was a history of bad blood between Brody and Gonzalez,
and wrestler Tony Atlas was witness to the growing tension.
He had a bag in his hand,
a picture of his son in this hand.
And when he turned away with the picture,
that's when I noticed Carlos staring at me.
As I'm looking at Carlos, I hear this sound...
"Aaah!"
So I looked up.
Brody was halfway hunched over.
I thought Jose punched him in the stomach;
that's what I thought.
That's the first thought that came to my mind,
"Damn, he hit Brody."
I said, "Oh, this is gonna be a fight."
So, then he hollers again, "Aah!"
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 of it.
I sprung up out of my chair, wrapped my arm around
Brody's waist, just like this.
I yank him back just in the nick of time to keep from
his throat getting cut.
And because I pull him back, the knife came down and
cut his ponytail off.
That's how sharp that knife was.
Carlos shoot right by me, and he 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. 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 whole arm was drenched in blood.
And he looked up at me, he said,
"Brother, don't let 'em hurt me no more.
Please, brother. Don't let 'em hurt me no more."
He said, "Don't let THEM!" Not "him," "them"!
That's why I didn't know who the hell 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, I said, "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 said, "Y'all just stabbed this guy."
"I had nothing to do with it."
I said, "You're a Goddamn liar" I said,
"Y'all work together."
So then, Brody tugged at my leg,
and he said, "Let him over."
So as I make my way back to the tunnel,
I could hear the noise.
And it was kind of dark in there,
but I could see the lights in the...
in the dressing room. Something was going on,
and 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, is there anything I can do for you?"
That's what Carlos asked Brody.
Brody said, "Just take care of my family."
And I don't know what Carlos was saying,
but I'm sure he was saying, "Hang on there, man.
We're gonna get you help. We're gonna get you help."
But 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 that you could see
light behind it and figures.
Invader never came out of that shower.
He never came out.
And he was in there with Jovica who was
part owner of the company,
and they were screaming at each other.
There's nothing I can 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...
Which tells me that whatever happened in that shower,
that 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.
They couldn't lift him.
Brody was about 300-something pounds.
He was too heavy.
So, I got down into a squat position,
squatted all the way down, and slid my arms underneath him.
And he looked up at me and said,
"Don't you drop me," and I said,
"Don't worry, brother, 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
and I remember guys looking at me like,
"What in the fuck is wrong with Tony?
He should stay out of this."
You could almost feel they're thinking this.
Nobody was saying nothing, but you could almost feel
they were thinking, "What is wrong with him?"
Like I've said before, I'm not a religious person.
Never had been. Probably never will be.
But I did go and 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, and I started crying again.
I mean, I couldn't hold back the tears.
And I, 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 got choked up.
I just told him, I said, "You're gonna be alright, brother,"
I said, "I'm gonna stay with you, man."
I said, I'm with you, man. I'm with you."
There's an old saying in
"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
probably about 15 or 20 minutes.
I got frickin' 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 told me, he said,
"A stabbing here is like a cold in the US.
It's no big deal."
He said, "Well, 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 it was like this
the whole time, just like this.
At the same time he lifts his hand up,
I remember I was taking his shoes off.
When I saw his feet, and it was blue...
oh no, no, no, no, no!
'Cause I knew this is real bad.
So, I said, "Doctor, please, get him in now. Now.
You gotta go now. You got--"
He started calling on people, "Come on, come on.
We need some help here. We need some help here."
I got so fricking mad when I saw that,
that I punched the wall.
I buried my fist probably about up to my elbow in that wall;
that's how hard I hit that wall.
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, or whatever.
I said, "Come on," you know, I thought it was a joke.
In my opinion, I thought... he was working an angle.
But when the doctor told me...
Then I says, "Holy shit,"
'cause the doctor wouldn't be lying.
And 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 was real.
I was banging on the operating room door, talking about,
"What the fuck is going on in there?
What's 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 we're having now
is that his liver was sliced."
He told me he was going to be okay.
He said, "He's stable."
He said, "But what you need to do is,
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;
that was the first thing.
And opening up the door,
and the blood on the floor ain't even dry yet,
and they in the dressing room laughing,
and joking, and patting each other on the back
talking about how great the matches was and
what a wonderful show it is.
I took the freaking chair and I threw it across
the damn hallway.
There was a policeman that said,
"Hey, hey, hey. Calm down. Calm, calm down."
He said, "Did you see what happened?"
I said, "Hell, yeah! I saw what happened!"
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,
that a wrestling fan stabbed him in the hallway and
he stumbled into the dressing room."
I said, "That's a damn lie."
I said, "That son of a bitch sitting right there
is the one that stabbed him."
He said, "You mean, Vader?" I said, "Yes, I mean Vader.
That sucker right there. That's who stabbed Bruiser Brody,"
and I said, "Ask everybody in the dressing room."
He said, "They're all telling different stories."
I said, "Oh, they're all fucking liars."
I said, "He's the son of a bitch that stabbed him."
He was telling the cops, "Hey, hey,
that's the guy you need to fucking arrest right there,"
and he pointed to Jose Gonzalez.
I remember he was sitting right in the chair, right there.
He was putting his wrestling gear in his bag
like nothing happened; that's the part that
messed with my head so much.
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 actually
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' eye witness account of the stabbing
was making the rounds.
Carlos Colon, your time is over.
That night, I wrestled Iron Sheik,
the night of the murder. I just went and did it.
I, I just went in the match.
He locked up with me, he said, "How's Brody?"
Ah, "The doctor said he's gonna be okay."
And he said, "These 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
straight 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 lay down and get some sleep,
but kept waking up 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 and
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.
By this time, it's 1 o'clock 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 and
I think 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, this is Dutch."
And she said, "Well, what happened, Dutch?"
And I knew it was pretty serious, but I was saying,
"Well, we-- Brody had an accident and,
and it's pretty serious."
And that, "maybe you should come to Puerto Rico."
He didn't have any details.
After I got the call, I tried to go to sleep.
I couldn't sleep.
Like I said, the adrenaline was flowing.
About 8 o'clock, I get up.
I go downstairs to the front desk.
I said, "Can you do me a favor?"
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, 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."
Abdullah told me at the meeting.
I slept on the beach the whole night.
So now, I'm going back to the hotel.
I saw Abdullah and some of the wrestlers in the lobby.
And they said, "Tony, we're having a meeting," and
they're waiting on you to tell them what happened.
Hotel? Hell, no. No.
No, sir. No.
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 5% of the business. You see what I mean?
In a way that people did not want to talk to me.
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 done that"?
They were... in their own little bunch.
So, why, why would they come and talk to me?
Brody was a friend and I didn't want to...
be in all the, the "gossip," what they were talking about.
Nobody heard me say shit.
That's a shame.
That's a damn shame that 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
or what?" 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 to it,
we're going to arrest him."
And they took me and I gave my statement,
and then, all through the night they took statements
from the, from the wrestlers.
He did say, he said,
"You tell Carlos Colon we run this island, not him."
I think they asked did I see a weapon.
I did not see a weapon. As a matter of fact,
no weapon was ever recovered.
That weapon, whatever was used -
what knife was used - 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 Aby.
I was going, and this lady and this little boy walked up,
and she said, "Oh, Abdullah,
you don't know me, but I'm Frank's wife."
She says, "How's he doing?" I said, "What?"
She said, "Well, 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 his hand.
He never took that picture down, brother.
When I put him on the ambulance,
he had the picture in his hand.
He laying on the floor, he's still holding that picture.
He go in the operating room, he's still--
He never put that picture down, brother.
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 shocking circumstances of
her husband's death, Barbara Goodish
found the strength to make the necessary arrangements.
Nancy was Carlos Colon's wife.
She took me to the morgue, and of course,
everybody is speaking Spanish.
They took me to the window, and you could just
see all these bodies in there.
And then, of course, the reality...
Boom.
Just really started to sink in.
Not sure how long it took before it set in.
We were in a hotel room and I just remember crying
just incessantly for hours, hours, and hours, and hours.
Yelling, screaming.
I still didn't realize the magnitude of what happened,
and it probably took...
I don't know how long, 10, 15, 20 years maybe.
When everything happened 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.
I mean, nobody was there except me and Geoff,
and some of the wrestlers,
and some of the Puerto Ricans and...
Geoff picked out his dad's casket.
It was blue.
Start there. - About 3, 4 days later.
From what I hear, he was taken down
to a local precinct, never was put in the cell.
Bail was made for him immediately by
some big businessman there,
and he walked back home, same day.
I know that the...
I'm not even gonna say his name.
I know that the attacker did it.
From all I can hear from everybody,
the whole court case was a sham.
I mean, do you think there was a cover up?
No, we-- Not-- The only guys that could have covered
was Jovica and I, and we didn't do that.
You know, we told the judge in the court room,
we said what really... what we saw.
We didn't really-- 'Cause 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 your channel-- Put the TV on..."
certain, certain channel.
"They're talking about the Puerto Rico thing."
I flip the TV on, I see Jose on TV,
coming out of the court house.
I said, "What, they're having a hearing?'
He said, "No, they had a trial.
They let him go for self-defense."
You gotta be kidding me. They never contacted me.
Never. Never did. Never did.
Finally, my subpoena came in the mail for my appearance,
and I already knew the verdict when,
by the time my subpoena arrived at my door.
It was ten 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.
The 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 really self-defense?
I don't know, really. I don't know.
You know, I respect the law. So sad.
I, I really... You know, I... I wouldn't--
I don't want to talk about this anymore because it
makes me sad.
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!"
And 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 the world
of professional wrestling.
I didn't ever guess that 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 think that I would probably even pass up my
3 years in the NFL and devote them to wrestling
because it has been that good to me.
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.
Yeah, justice would be great.
Some personal justice would be more, more,
more gratifying than some legal justice, honestly.
Um...
Mr. Brody.
Every dog has his day.
You cannot kill a legend.
See, legends never die.
So, if that's was Jose's thing,
was to kill a legend...
He failed miserably.
Nobody knows the exact circumstances,
including the words - if any -
exchanged between Frank Goodish and Jose Gonzalez
on the night of Brody's death.
It remains one of wrestling's darkest and
most intriguing mysteries.
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.