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00:03The one, the only, Mr. Wonderful!
00:08If you're a certain age and you're a wrestling fan,
00:11Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff was the pinnacle to you.
00:14Mr. Wonderful was a key piece in the foundation of WWE.
00:20Remembered for his epic feud with Hulk Hogan,
00:23Paul Orndorff thrilled audiences as the arrogant heel Mr. Wonderful.
00:27Mr. Wonderful, the man that defied the whole wrestling world.
00:31Mr. Wonderful was this expression of his perfection.
00:35This is what the most wonderful his body looks like.
00:39Paul was a rock star.
00:41Mr. Wonderful.
00:42A gifted athlete, Orndorff channeled the difficult upbringing
00:46to an imposing persona in and out of the ring.
00:50When that switch flipped, there was price to pay for making Paul Orndorff mad.
00:55People feared him. The talent feared him. The fans feared him.
01:00Paul was the toughest guy that I had ever witnessed.
01:03He fought for everything that he got.
01:05The intensity that defined him pushed his body to the brink
01:09and hid his private pain.
01:11Hang in there, hang in there.
01:12He was the closest thing to Superman without the cape,
01:15but the cumulative effect of age and injuries had taken a toll on him.
01:20Mr. Orndorff has suffered some sort of neck injury in the ring.
01:22It was hard to watch him physically deteriorate.
01:27You could see how much Paul had aged.
01:29He shouldn't look like that.
01:31He had been abused and neglected for a long time.
01:34He was in the hospital.
01:36I said, I'm taking him home.
01:37And they said, you can't, and there's nothing we can do.
01:40This is a joke, right?
01:42People were dying alone in the hospital during COVID.
01:45That's not happening.
01:46I'm gonna raise holy hell.
01:49And I had no idea how, but he was coming home with me.
01:53When Travis posted that video,
01:56he said, why would you do this?
01:58Paul deserved his privacy.
02:00Wow.
02:01You're putting this out of your dad.
02:03Do not embarrass him in front of the whole world.
02:06I didn't know what to do.
02:08I was desperate.
02:11I wasn't trying to embarrass him.
02:12I was trying to save him.
02:26Why are you here?
02:27What's the big deal here?
02:28What's the big deal?
02:29Excitement.
02:30This is the sport of the 80s.
02:31This is the meteor event of 1985.
02:33This is WrestleMania.
02:35This is the thing of today.
02:36Hulkamania is running wild.
02:38Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to WrestleMania.
02:43Pandemonium breaking loose here at Madison Square Garden in WrestleMania.
02:48We're seeing the greatest spectacle in wrestling history right now.
02:51WrestleMania 1 was Vince McMahon's big gamble.
02:54Hello, everyone.
02:55This is Vince McMahon.
02:56There had never been a nationally broadcast mega closed circuit event in every market in the United States.
03:03to blend pro wrestling and pop culture.
03:06He had to have the promotion right, the card right.
03:10He loaded the thing up with the biggest attraction that he could.
03:14Ladies and gentlemen, our main event.
03:20Hulk Hogan and Mr. T against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff.
03:24They were in the spot of the main event of the biggest grossing wrestling event of all time.
03:29Piper and Orndorff, you dead meat.
03:32You dead meat.
03:33I pity you, fool.
03:34Everybody went into this thing with some pressure on them
03:37because this had not been done before on this level.
03:40The biggest match in the history of wrestling.
03:43Why was Paul Orndorff there?
03:44Because he was an elite level wrestler.
03:47Suplex.
03:48He got him.
03:49He could work with a guy like Mr. T that was greener than a pepper tree
03:52and didn't know what he was doing.
03:53He could put all of Hulk Hogan's stuff over.
03:57And then when it came time, he was the guy to get beat.
04:00Oh, he hit Orndorff.
04:01Unbelievable.
04:02He got him.
04:03He got him.
04:04The event was such a success that people have forgotten the fact that Orndorff was the key
04:09because who else is going to do the job of those four guys?
04:13Only Paul.
04:14That's how Vince McMahon hoped to and eventually did get a leg up on the rest of the wrestling world
04:20and take it over by creating WrestleMania.
04:23Unbelievable.
04:24He wanted to take over the world.
04:26And he did.
04:28I think it changed the whole course of wrestling.
04:31And in fact, I know it did.
04:34Does my dad get all the credit he deserves?
04:38He gets the credit he deserves from the people that watched it.
04:43The people that go back and watch wrestling very much appreciate his work.
04:48My name is Travis Orndorff and I'm the son of Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
04:53I certainly inherited his intensity.
04:55Everybody out there knows what kind of a man I am.
04:58You know, dad moved and he was either go or stop.
05:02His evolution to Mr. Wonderful was this progression of his history, his intensity, and all of that coming together.
05:10As I think most good hero stories are, they come from very humble beginnings and a pretty rough childhood.
05:17There's no doubt that Paul's upbringing made him the tough guy that he was.
05:23I mean, pfft.
05:25I'm B. Brian Blair and Paul Orndorff was one of my closest friends for many years.
05:31Paul's home was in a trailer park and he actually grew up in a converted chicken coop.
05:37My grandfather was a butcher.
05:38In the life of a butcher, it's not like there was a lot of money.
05:41Modest would be an upgrade.
05:43They were poor.
05:44I'll never forget when his dad came to my house and the tears started coming from his eyes
05:49and he said, I did the best that I could.
05:51I thought I grew up tough.
05:54Paul really grew up tough.
05:56There's one story.
05:57Dad had worked some job and when he came home with cash, my grandmother, she asked for the money.
06:03And he told her no.
06:05He wasn't given the money.
06:05It was his money.
06:07And so she knocked him out with a cast iron skillet and took the money.
06:13His own mother?
06:15Yes.
06:18You know, he fought for everything that he got.
06:20He was in an area where people fought on a regular basis.
06:25It was like part of their lifestyle growing up.
06:28My grandfather was a drinker.
06:29My dad bare-knuckle fought to pay his bar tab on occasion.
06:33You know, he had a lot of anger.
06:34I've seen Paul in lots of fights and he never lost one.
06:38One night, his brother Terry got into a situation in a bar, calls Paul and says, I need some help.
06:46Paul runs into this bar.
06:48There's two sheriffs that could have Terry down and Terry's screaming.
06:53Paul, boom, nails one of them.
06:56Nails the other one.
06:59One guy's on the ground.
07:01He calls for backup.
07:02In comes five more sheriffs.
07:04They try to grab Paul.
07:05Paul nails all of them.
07:09This is one guy.
07:11One man.
07:13And seven sheriffs.
07:16That was his outlet, but sometimes you can't put that genie back in the bottle.
07:21You combine the fact that there's poverty.
07:24There's alcohol.
07:25There's anger.
07:28My dad was forged in hell.
07:31Despite the chaos at home, Paul has a gift that will change everything.
07:37Since he was very, very young, Paul was one of the greatest athletes to ever come out of Tampa, Florida.
07:43Paul was a true believer in my athletic ability will carry me as forward as I can go.
07:50I'm Jerry Brischel, WWE Hall of Famer.
07:53And I've spent a lot of time with Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndoff.
07:56And Paul definitely thought his way out was football.
08:00Dad graduated at 18 years old, and he went on to the University of Tampa.
08:05Paul got a full ride there.
08:06He was number 40, the fullback.
08:08He got drafted by the New Orleans Saints.
08:11Played there for four years.
08:12Really kind of lost my heart for football.
08:15I played it all my life and just didn't care for it anymore.
08:19And I happened to be watching TV and catch his wrestling.
08:23Thank you very much and welcome again to Championship Wrestling from Florida.
08:26And I said, oh, I can do that.
08:29My father-in-law knew Eddie Grant and he gave me a tryout.
08:34So we brought him in and, of course, put him right with Hiro Matsuda.
08:37From Yokohama, Japan, Hiro Matsuda.
08:40Hiro Matsuda wrestled as a villain for Eddie before he became the trainer.
08:46So Hiro's job was to train the new prospective talent.
08:50It was the Harvard of professional wrestling.
08:54And Hiro would just put me through it.
08:56But I had that drive.
08:57You know, I had the heart for it.
08:59It sounds like I'm bragging.
09:00I guess I am.
09:01But it's the truth.
09:02Three summers that I had with Matsuda, over 100 people came there.
09:06And the only people that made it through the camp was Hogan, myself, and Mr. Wonderful, Paul Orndor.
09:12That's all.
09:13So we just had a natural bond.
09:15After making his mark in Florida,
09:17Paul now sets his sights on building a reputation across the country.
09:21I had never heard the name Paul Orndorff before in my life.
09:25When he came into Memphis with that look and that style and that athleticism,
09:31this guy is something special.
09:33I'm Jim Cornette and I took the picture for Paul Orndorff's first wrestling magazine cover in 1977.
09:40He didn't have a gimmick.
09:42He didn't have an over-the-top personality.
09:44You could kind of buy him as being this hot-shot athlete that's come in and is going to take
09:50over.
09:50Paul was one of those guys that looked like a bodybuilder but was smooth like an amateur wrestler.
09:57I'm Arne Anderson, the enforcer.
10:00Paul Orndorff was my friend.
10:02Paul carried himself with just this air of invincibility about him.
10:06If nothing else, he believed his own press.
10:09And sometimes that's all you need.
10:11Very quick.
10:12Really can't move.
10:14Orndorff.
10:14Paul worked all the major territories in the first three or four years of his career.
10:19And he progressed quickly.
10:21What really made Paul click was that desire to better himself and to bring his family up out of poverty.
10:28My mom and dad met at high school.
10:30My mom, Rhonda, she got pregnant at the age of 17 and they got married.
10:35They're very young.
10:35My brother is Paul Orndorff III.
10:38It's Paul Jr. and they called him Buzz.
10:41He's nine years older.
10:42So we had the same parents but they were different parents, right?
10:46My mom, those years were hard on her.
10:48There was a lot of moving.
10:50There was not a lot of money.
10:52Dad carried baggage from his childhood.
10:54He had a short fuse at times.
10:56You know, he had not grown up.
10:58They didn't have therapy back then.
11:00You worked, you drank and you just lived life and nobody said anything about anything and you moved on.
11:05That's where you forge bitterness and resentment.
11:08It's so hard to raise a family when you're on the road.
11:14You know, the wife's at home and the kids have no dad.
11:19My mom took her frustration out on everybody.
11:23She was constantly, you know, talking bad about my father.
11:27It was rough.
11:28My dad was never perfect.
11:30But as a father, he was unconditionally loving.
11:34And I never felt like he was that far away.
11:38In 1983, Hulk Hogan recommends Paul to Vince McMahon.
11:44Opening the door to the hottest promotion in the country.
11:48The topic of this week's update, a gentleman known in professional wrestling is Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
11:55In late 1983, Vince McMahon was starting the national television syndication that would lead to the WWF's national expansion.
12:03Hogan's word carried a lot of weight with Vince because Vince was building the entire company around Hogan and he
12:09wanted to bring in people that Hogan liked to wrestle, that he thought he could draw money with.
12:15And one of the guys that he brought in was Paul Orndorff.
12:18Introducing the challenger, Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
12:27Paul checked every box that he could possibly check except the experience box.
12:32So it was kind of a roll of the dice.
12:34Paul!
12:34You gotta take gambles in life.
12:37And I did.
12:39And it paid off.
12:40Paul!
12:44Paul was in the WWF within five or six years after he started and he'd already been a main event
12:51guy in a variety of big promotions.
12:53That's a very quick trajectory.
12:55Mr. Wonderful!
12:58Paul took the name Mr. Wonderful because in his heel persona it indicated that he was a megalomaniac.
13:04That he was the most self-absorbed man on the planet.
13:06Hello Mr. Wonderful!
13:09This is the kind of treatment that Mr. Wonderful gets.
13:12One of my favorite lines is, so with a body like this and a face like this.
13:16When you got a body like this and a face like this, you can do any damn thing you want
13:22to do and I'll get away with it.
13:24He saw his body as a temple. For him, that was his paycheck.
13:28A lot of people try to have a body like this, but they never will.
13:33Paul was a stud. I mean, he had to have his hair blow dried perfectly.
13:39Paul Mitchell hair spray. If I ever get cancer, it's going to be from having to have smelled that my
13:45entire childhood.
13:46Look at that! It's terrible!
13:48There's a reason my dad loved being a heel.
13:51Anger is the easiest emotion to evoke.
13:55Oh, he's giving a sign for the pile driver!
13:58The pile driver was Paul's signature finishing move.
14:01Got him upside down now!
14:02He could get a massive jump and then boom, drove him.
14:06It was one of the most deadly moves in wrestling.
14:09I knew my style was different. I would be the best heel there, which I was.
14:13Dropping him like yesterday's newspaper!
14:16So that cockiness and arrogance just went along with that body.
14:19And all you women that are ready to leave your husband for me, now you know why.
14:23That was me. What the fake? I mean, that was me. That's the way I was.
14:27Ask my wife. She'll tell you. I was a jerk.
14:31I think Rhonda wasn't stupid when it came to realizing that her husband wasn't the loyal husband.
14:40I was out on the road sometimes and I can remember being at different hotels and the groupies and the
14:46women standing outside.
14:48You gave them money and you gave them fame and all the things that come with it.
14:52I don't think my family was immune to it any more than anybody else was.
14:55Girls were throwing themselves at you all the time. I mean, it was like being a rock star.
15:01Following the success of WrestleMania.
15:04In WrestleMania, it was your shoulders that were pinned to the ground, brother, not me.
15:08Vince McMahon recasts Paul Orndorff as a hero, aligning him with Hulk Hogan.
15:13Mr. Wonderful wants Hulkster to shake hands.
15:18Imagine, especially in the 80s, you have seen Hulk Hogan rise to become the champion.
15:25And all the little Hulkamaniacs are on his side and suddenly he has a friend.
15:30And you like the friend too.
15:33Mr. Wonderful.
15:35They were on his side because he was a straight ahead All-American athlete.
15:39Just as Mr. Wonderful reaches the peak of his popularity, an injury in the ring stops him cold.
15:46He was in a match. Somebody caught him on the chin.
15:50It ended up causing nerve damage that ran through his radial nerves.
15:55It affects your deltoids, your tricep, bicep, comes all the way down into your forearm.
16:02Once you have serious nerve damage, it's irreversible.
16:05He could not bring himself to give up that spot and that kind of money to have surgery.
16:13And so he soldiered through it.
16:16He had built his body and life around this moment where he was going to capture generational wealth.
16:26Despite the nagging injury, Paul prepares for his most important storyline yet.
16:32I've been trying to call him five or six bear tapping on the phone!
16:35He won't come to the phone!
16:37One of the biggest drawing angles you can do is give the hero a sidekick, a best friend, a partner.
16:43And he stabs him in the back.
16:46Oh no!
16:46No!
16:48No!
16:49During the heel turn, he does what my dad does.
16:51He does a pile driver on him.
16:53You got it!
16:54No!
16:55No!
16:57No!
16:58No!
16:58You know, he walks over the ropes.
17:00This is real slow.
17:04How do you like that?
17:05Look at that!
17:07I don't believe there's nothing wrong as wrong with Orndorff.
17:11When Orndorff turned on Hulkster, that was a monumental spot for the wrestling industry.
17:17Hulk Hogan!
17:19I loved working with Terry.
17:22He made me the hottest heel in the country and I made him the hottest babyface in the country.
17:26Everything about it clicked.
17:27Everything started exploding and they were just hot.
17:31Man, for six bucks this feud has gone on.
17:34You sold out a country, man!
17:36You sold out all those people that believe in you, man!
17:39Now all the little Hulkamaniacs and the big Hulkamaniacs.
17:42They all wanted to see Hulk Hogan get even with the guy that betrayed him.
17:49I mean, I had death threats and everything else, man.
17:52Bottles, darts thrown at me.
17:54Wrestling fans are a whole nother level.
17:57It is crazy how driven, motivated, and in love they are with these characters.
18:02I had a friend that quit talking to me when I was like eight years old.
18:06And a few years later, I am so sorry I hated you.
18:10Your dad turned on Hulk Hogan.
18:12I am the most unpopular person in the world.
18:15Well, that is an achievement right there.
18:20When they decided to do the big event at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto,
18:25over 60,000 people went to Exhibition Stadium to see Hulk Hogan versus Paul Orndorff.
18:35You know what?
18:36Weren't everybody in that building believed Orndorff could beat Hogan.
18:40They believed.
18:42Oh, he's tapped to the shoulder of Orndorff.
18:45That was the biggest crowd in the history of wrestling in North America to that point.
18:49Here's a guy that grew up in a trailer that they used to use as a chicken coop.
18:54Now he's facing the top star in the business, and he's making $25,000 a week,
19:01which is the equivalent of almost $100,000 a week today.
19:05I didn't go in here blinding.
19:07I mean, I had a plan.
19:08I truly had a plan for once in my life that it worked.
19:11I was told I was going to make money.
19:13And when Mr. McMahon said, you're going to make money, you will make money.
19:20He was absolutely on top of the world.
19:23There he is right there.
19:24That was a job.
19:26And it was a job that took him away from me.
19:29And I wanted my dad home.
19:32I don't remember, at that period, ever going without anything.
19:37I can tell you I went to one of the top private schools at the time.
19:40Everything was paid off.
19:41You remember the old red Tupperware?
19:43We had those in the freezer, and there was, like, money stacked in there.
19:47And, like, one of them got out and, like, broke my toe.
19:51My mom, she liked the money of wrestling, and, you know, she didn't have to work.
19:57She had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.
20:00And it was genuinely severe.
20:02This happened in the late 80s.
20:03And then, you know, the pills started.
20:07Unfortunately, when he was sending his money home,
20:09his wife was spending it all on the wrong things, on drugs and other things.
20:15It was often just me and my mom.
20:17She wouldn't wake up on time to take me to school.
20:20There was this evolution of pain medication.
20:23And, you know, it just continued, and it continued the rest of her life.
20:27The relentless schedule leaves Paul little time at home with Rhonda and their sons,
20:33or to deal with his worsening injury.
20:35There were a few weeks where the WWF was selling in excess of 150,000 tickets in a week to
20:45see Hogan and Orndorff wrestle.
20:46And it was a double-edged sword.
20:48I'd get two or three days off, and Vince would track me down and want me to come back to
20:54work.
20:55When you're main event, you can't, you got to go.
20:58I was going hurt, burnt out, tired, flying all day and getting to the gym.
21:05And I was working 18 hours a day, man.
21:08I did that for three years.
21:10You know, I got a family to feed.
21:12Dad was still on the road.
21:14He was injured.
21:15And I got deathly ill.
21:18I went from 83 pounds to 52 pounds in about three weeks.
21:24Dad didn't see me every day, but they would bring in a cot.
21:27And when he'd come into town, he'd sleep in my room with me.
21:30I lost the ability to walk.
21:32My hands quit working.
21:33My body kind of shut down.
21:34The best answer I've gotten is complex regional pain syndrome.
21:39But at the time, they really didn't think I was going to live.
21:42So the doctor, at his own wit's end, said,
21:46we think your son has a brain tumor.
21:48My dad grabbed him by the collar, pinned him up against the wall,
21:52and said, he doesn't have a effing brain tumor.
21:56In that moment, he was angry, and he was scared.
22:01And he didn't want to lose his baby boy.
22:04I think that always hurt Paul, that he couldn't be around his kids more.
22:08But he couldn't do both.
22:10And he chose what was going to at least feed him, clothe him,
22:14and hopefully he would make amends when he retired.
22:19By 1988, you couldn't ignore it anymore.
22:23His arm was atrophying.
22:24It was getting smaller.
22:25It was affecting his work.
22:27You looked at his two arms, and it was like two different people.
22:32He was very depressed about his arm, about the business, about Rhonda,
22:36about money, about so many different things.
22:39And he's using, whether it was drugs or women,
22:42whatever crutch he could find to escape the moment.
22:45Vince had made my dad a promise when he got hurt.
22:48He said, don't screw me, and you'll have a job here the rest of your life.
22:54And my dad screwed him.
23:00After a severe nerve injury to his arm, Paul Orndorff walks away from wrestling,
23:06burning a bridge with the promoter who made him famous.
23:08The way my dad left WWF when he did, he upset Vince.
23:14He no-showed Vince McMahon and the WWF after asking for days off that he didn't get.
23:20Paul was a guy that if he felt he wasn't being treated fairly,
23:23that he would take matters in his own hands.
23:24Did you and Vince leave on good terms?
23:26No.
23:28Hell no.
23:30I got buried.
23:33I think that people got his years that tell him I didn't get hurt.
23:38I was hurt.
23:40I mean, I was hurt.
23:41It was obvious I was hurt.
23:42It was time to go.
23:44At that point, he's almost 40 years old.
23:47He had made a lot of money over the previous few years.
23:49That's when he decided to retire for the first time from wrestling.
23:57He wanted to get away from the business for a while.
23:59He wanted to heal.
24:01He bought a bowling alley and worked it like a business.
24:06My dad knew nothing about bowling, but when my dad left WWF,
24:11he had started to invest with a financial advisor named Shelton Thorne down in Florida.
24:16Somebody he knew from a dentist where my mom worked.
24:20And so he trusted my mom, and he trusted Shelton.
24:23They got some investors together, and they opened a bowling center.
24:27I thought that was very unique, that a guy of his magnitude would buy a bowling alley.
24:33That's Travis Arndorf, Paul's little son there.
24:38My dad said, my identity is not in wrestling.
24:41My identity is not in Mr. Wonderful.
24:43My identity is your daddy, and my identity is what I do.
24:48Paul had been so visible in the WWF that when he retired,
24:53somebody actually started a rumor that he was dead, and it was picked up internationally.
24:58To get calls at my bowling center, I think somebody said I died on steroids.
25:04That's stupid.
25:05I was home.
25:06Hadn't been home in 20 years, man.
25:10At home, things are far from quiet.
25:13Paul's eldest son falls into a life of crime and addiction.
25:17Buzz is Paul's first son, his older son.
25:20And Buzz has been in a lot of trouble.
25:23Alcohol was involved, DUIs, substance use.
25:27Paul Orndorf III has been arrested again here in Peachtree City after another high-speed chase.
25:35I'm not better than my brother.
25:38We had different circumstances.
25:40Paul did everything he could to love Buzz, to give him a chance, to forgive him.
25:44And all that, Buzz would always turn the wrong way.
25:47The funny thing is that he could be the nicest and sweetest person in these moments.
25:52You would get your hopes up, but they just were short-lived.
25:56My parents ended up adopting my brother's children.
25:59I think I was 13 at that point.
26:02By the time his kids were born and my parents were raising him,
26:04we were going to visit the prisons he was in every Saturday or every other Saturday.
26:09But the trouble at home puts Paul's family and their financial security at risk.
26:15All the money that Paul had made in the WWF that he had ignored his injury for,
26:22his business manager, they found out, was a crook
26:25and had been running some kind of Ponzi scheme, and his money was gone.
26:31Shelton was getting money from this place to pay this investor as they were going,
26:35and it eventually folded.
26:37My dad was sued by the investors as well.
26:39You know, they didn't win because we didn't have anything.
26:42It hurts your pride because you think you have all your bases covered,
26:46and then you get swindled by a person that you gave your trust to.
26:51Shelton Thorne basically bankrupts him,
26:55and there's no paycheck coming every month.
26:58There's no insurance.
26:59He's in a very difficult situation,
27:02and he's got to make a choice to go back on the road again.
27:07And make a living the only other way he knows how.
27:11I'm sure it was very emotionally difficult on Paul.
27:15You could tell that it had taken something out of him.
27:18And then, from there, things just got worse.
27:22You have not seen the last of me.
27:29You know, I've had gotten letters, I've gotten phone calls from all over the world.
27:34People want to know, is it true that Mr. Wonderful has died?
27:38Well, I want everybody out there to know that I am alive and well.
27:41Two years after walking away from the WWF with permanent injuries,
27:45Orndorff is scammed out of his life savings, forcing him back into the ring.
27:50He knew that the independents were hot.
27:53There were places for Paul to go.
27:54When he popped back up in 1990,
27:57he went about the UWF and some different independent promotions over the next couple of years.
28:03He still looked like Paul Orndorff.
28:06I'm coming after him, Kirk.
28:07You would never know he was hurt.
28:09It didn't affect his work at all.
28:11Here it is!
28:12The wild dragon!
28:13You could tell if you looked close that there was a little something going on with the arm.
28:17But otherwise than that, he looked just as good as he always did.
28:21By 1992, I was running Smokey Mountain Wrestling based out of Knoxville, Tennessee.
28:27First of all, I want to ask a favor of all these genetic mutants out here.
28:30You've got to keep the noise down!
28:32I called him.
28:34I said, would you like to come in and work some weekends for me?
28:37And he said yes for a very agreeable rate.
28:39At some point, it's your job.
28:41It's not in stadiums.
28:42It's not to sell out crowds.
28:45And nothing like the WWF was at that time.
28:47The UWF versus Dad is the talk of the town!
28:50These guys paid for his name.
28:52And Dad could still work.
28:53And he tried to keep his left arm in front of the camera and said,
28:58He did what he had to do to take care of his family.
29:00There is a man on a mission right there!
29:03In 1993, Paul changed his course, signing with wrestling's most ambitious promotion.
29:09WCW in the mid-90s was they were trying to imitate Vince McMahon's WWF
29:15with the entertainment aspect and the celebrities aspect and the glitz and glamour aspect.
29:21However, they didn't have the brain power.
29:23But here comes Robocop, Bob!
29:26WCW's celebrity angles involved D-list people that were on reality shows or on late-night commercials.
29:34One of them was a psychic.
29:35Gary Spivey of the Psychic Companions Network?
29:39What are you doing here?
29:40I got a vision.
29:41He was on TV everywhere at 4 o'clock in the morning predicting the future.
29:44I know you're not okay.
29:46How did you know that?
29:47I got a vision.
29:48I don't know why he couldn't have seen that this angle was going to be the shits.
29:52You're Mr. Wonderful.
29:54I mean Mr. Wonderful.
29:55He had lost who Mr. Wonderful was and he needed to fall back in love with Mr. Wonderful and kissing
30:01the handheld mirror.
30:03I hated that gimmick so bad.
30:07So Paul was again performing at a high level, doing everything expected of him.
30:13But 1990s, WCW was just so low budget and so silly and so directionless.
30:20It was just low rent.
30:22Thank you Gary.
30:23If you want to figure out why that happened, Paul was getting paid.
30:28That's it.
30:29Still in constant pain from nerve damage.
30:32By 1999, Orndorff moves behind the scenes as a trainer for WCW.
30:38While Paul was at WCW, they instituted a wrestling school in-house called the Power Plant,
30:44where they would try to train the next generation of their athletes and Paul was a perfect fit for that.
30:50I may have 15 or 20 kids down every two to three weeks.
30:53What I try to do is to get the best athlete as I possibly can.
30:57Paul took that very seriously and he would teach them just the way that he was taught.
31:03He wanted to hand off his legacy to these next generation wrestlers.
31:08Paul had been training guys for some time when the idea came up for an elimination match where Paul would
31:15get back in the ring.
31:19And the premise of it was that he was wrestling against some of the young guys that he had been
31:24training at the power plant.
31:26Paul told me that he didn't want to go out there.
31:29Yet, they insisted that he go out.
31:31Well, I don't mind telling you, Paul Orndorff has been hit a lot of times in his career.
31:35He doesn't mind taking a few more.
31:36For a normal 50-year-old man, he looks in great shape, but see the arms are so much smaller.
31:42Into the ropes.
31:44Now, here's the first pile driver.
31:48He hadn't got him all the way straight.
31:50He didn't get the jump that he used to, but he stuck him and it was safe.
31:53Here comes Jindrak.
31:566 feet 5, 250 pounds.
31:58Couldn't wrestle out of a wet paper bag.
32:01Jindrak, tough legs.
32:03One guy's got him.
32:04He goes to power driving.
32:06Jindrak tries to go up too quick.
32:07Now, he got sideways.
32:09And they went down backwards.
32:11If I would have came down where I was with him, it would have dropped him right on his head.
32:16But if you let your legs go that way, it don't work.
32:20The weight and the velocity made it kind of like a rear-end car accident from a different angle.
32:27And I hit the rear and my whole right side went up.
32:31Paul laying there had to tell the referee, I'm hurt, I can't get up.
32:38He's a gentleman due to a serious injury to Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff.
32:42Referee Charles Robinson has stopped this match.
32:44It is a no contest.
32:46A stinger is like a knockout punch to your nerve.
32:49Sting goes through your entire body like an electric shock and then you got nothing.
32:54When you recover, you get all the feeling back in your extremities.
32:58If it doesn't work out that way, then you're paralyzed.
33:07Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff has suffered some sort of neck injury.
33:10He had broken his neck.
33:11They stopped the match and called an ambulance.
33:13It's very rare that you stop a match on television.
33:17It never happened in those days.
33:22It's difficult when you're hanging on wrestling at 51 years old and he gets hurt doing his own move.
33:31That was the sign that the neck had gotten too bad and there was no way he could do this
33:38anymore at all.
33:39It was God telling him you're done.
33:42From then on, things he could do were very limited physically.
33:46The pain was unrelenting for most of his life after that.
33:50I had another operation on my neck, which was the third one.
33:54I gotta fuse it, take out two discs and put a rod in it.
33:57My body ain't not very good right now.
34:00It's hurt as we speak.
34:03And we didn't see him for God's long time.
34:08In 2005, Paul returns to the public eye, enjoying the fans' appreciation of his legendary career.
34:15To see him go back and be in the WWE Hall of Fame was the icing on the cake.
34:20If anybody deserved it, Paul deserved it.
34:22I would truly like to say I thank you fans very much.
34:25It means, it really, it means a lot.
34:29In 2005, he looked great.
34:31He was still himself, but I noticed a decline in his memory.
34:36When it hit about 2010, it accelerated from like 0 to 100 when he got cancer, throat cancer.
34:44He knew he had a battle between life and death, and he got through that cancer.
34:52But, um...
34:53Is that you following up?
34:55No, it's really not.
34:55It's just my memory.
34:57It's not what it used to be.
34:59You know, this cancer and this chemo and radiation just...
35:04That's my, you know.
35:07He would call me over and over and over again and not remember we had just talked.
35:11Then I was like, oh my God.
35:14Like, I wouldn't even know he was going on these conventions.
35:16And I think he got lost to the airport one time.
35:18And as I'm telling people this, they're, oh, he's fine, he's fine.
35:22And I'm like, no, he's not.
35:25As Paul's dementia symptoms increase, so does the instability of his life at home.
35:30Whenever I was in Atlanta, I always tried to stop and go see Paul.
35:34As soon as I saw him, I knew that he was being abused.
35:37The man I know was skin and bones and scars and bruises.
35:44His wife was not giving him his medicine, not taking care of him.
35:49She was getting strung out on drugs and she was doing meth and she was in pitiful shape.
35:57It was sad, very, very sad.
36:00A few years before Paul had full onset dementia, he was, you know, not in the best shape.
36:07Unfortunately, Buzz got out of prison and Buzz hit him and broke his nose.
36:13You know, how he could hit his own father, I don't know.
36:16But I didn't know what to do.
36:19I picked him up from that house and I took him home to my house.
36:22I made every attempt to get him to move in with me.
36:26But he wanted to go home and he would ask for Rhonda.
36:29He wouldn't leave her.
36:30Like, I tried multiple times.
36:33He needed care.
36:34And at that point, she wasn't willing to do that.
36:37And that was the first time I called Adult Protection Services.
36:40But you have zero control over it. Zero.
36:43He was in bad shape.
36:45He didn't know what was going on.
36:47And then, unfortunately, you know, the pandemic came in.
36:51That was about the end of it.
36:55In 2021, Paul is hospitalized with pneumonia.
36:58When he's ready to be discharged, Rhonda refuses to take him back.
37:02I got my mom to tell me where my dad was.
37:05And they point in the room.
37:09And I walk in.
37:13And it was hairs all out long.
37:19His leg is shaking.
37:23He's nonverbal.
37:26It absolutely overwhelmed me.
37:29I said, I'm taking him home.
37:32And they said, you can't.
37:33And I said, why not?
37:35They said, you're not listed as next of kin.
37:38And she said, listen, we've been trying to call your mom for the last, you know, several months.
37:42Saying that it's time he needed to go home.
37:45She's been unwilling to assist.
37:47And there's nothing we can do.
37:49And I said, give me a social worker.
37:51They said, it won't matter.
37:52And I said, I'm going to raise holy hell until you do something.
37:58And I said, I'm going to take a video.
38:05Do you remember wrestling?
38:11Daddy, you're just eating the pepper.
38:14To see a guy that had been that vibrant and that strong and that powerful.
38:21It broke my heart then.
38:23It breaks my heart now.
38:25You just can't stand the sight of it.
38:27The worst video I've ever seen in my entire life.
38:30I was furious with his son.
38:32I was very upset.
38:34And I called Travis.
38:35Why would you want to put your dad in that light?
38:38He's a very proud person.
38:39And this is nobody else's business, Travis.
38:43And he's like, take that down.
38:46And I said, no.
38:48I'm not doing it.
38:52And he's like, Dave Meltzer just posted.
38:56And I'm like, who is Dave Meltzer?
38:58Why would I care what this guy said?
39:01That was a plea.
39:03I was desperate.
39:04I was scared to death.
39:07They were saying, like, people were dying alone in the hospital during COVID.
39:12I'm like, that's not happening.
39:13It's not happening.
39:16I don't know if you could have been bigger than Paul Orndorff.
39:19But even if you're a Superman at one point, it doesn't make it any easier.
39:27He didn't know where he was.
39:29You could tell it was Paul, but Paul wasn't there anymore.
39:36After posting a video of his father's deteriorating condition in the hospital, Travis faces backlash from the wrestling world.
39:44Wrestlers were upset.
39:46The community, the brotherhood.
39:48As if I had betrayed him, showing him in this state.
39:51And I will tell you what I think my father would say.
39:53If he saw it, he'd be mad.
39:56And the next day, he'd say he did the right thing.
39:59Because he taught me how to make the right decision, even if it wasn't the decision he would make.
40:03But he always supported me.
40:05I got a phone call from the social worker a couple days later.
40:08Got a couple apologies.
40:09Sat down with the doctor.
40:11And the doctor said, listen, he doesn't have much time left.
40:13I said, okay, well then, he's coming home with me.
40:17And I took him home.
40:18Best decision of my life.
40:21Now that I know that Travis used the video to try to get his dad out during COVID,
40:27makes a lot more sense because that was deplorable.
40:31It was absolutely deplorable.
40:33And the bottom line is he got his dad out of there.
40:37And that's a good thing.
40:43I think he was waiting for me.
40:46His brother and sister and my cousin came up.
40:49My niece, my nephew, my kids, myself.
40:52Got to spend time with him every day.
40:55I allowed my mom to come visit.
40:57She would spend an hour with him and then she would go home.
41:00I had talked to Paul less than a week before he passed.
41:05And he could barely talk.
41:08Travis said that he got real excited when he said it was me on the phone.
41:13And kind of took that as a great feeling of true friendship that he would remember me.
41:21I used to sell Cokes in the Tapa Stadium and watch Paul play football.
41:24He was your hero when you were a little kid, right?
41:26Yes, he was.
41:26You know, I remember hanging up and tears were coming from my eyes.
41:29It just reminded me that we're only passing through.
41:33I was with him till every last second.
41:38He died with me.
41:41I believe he died in peace, that he wasn't hurting.
41:45He just beat me to heaven.
41:48My children have seen me make mistakes.
41:51And I'm fortunate I have great relationships with both of them.
41:54The conversation I had with my mother later in life, I was angry.
41:59The way I was acting towards her was no different than the way she was acting towards my dad.
42:04So I was guilty of that.
42:07I knew some of my dad's decisions and how it hurt my mom.
42:11And I was guilty of that.
42:15As time passed, I not only forgave her, but I came to love her.
42:26The last gift he left me was his legacy that I would get to share.
42:33That first year, people see that we're online.
42:35They didn't all comment about my dad.
42:38They said, how are you?
42:39I'm like, how am I?
42:40And they're like, man, we're here for you.
42:43And I'm now interacting with these people that I thought I hated.
42:47All this anger and resentment I had about the times he was away, now has purpose.
42:53My dad very much respected the fans that came to see him and the person he was in the ring
42:58with.
42:59So often what I'll hear is, I was at that event with my father and they're like, your dad is
43:05amazing.
43:06And I get to reply, it sounds like your dad was pretty amazing too.
43:11WrestleMania won.
43:13That was his peak.
43:15Remember him that night.
43:18And keep it in your heart.
43:19That's the one that you remember.
43:21He did it better than anybody else that ever stepped to that square circle.
43:25I don't remember anybody having really anything bad to say about Paul Orndorff as a person.
43:31In the wrestling business, that may be almost unheard of.
43:35And some sexy, rugged, all the things that he was.
43:40Paul was truly Mr. Wonderful.
43:42The pile driver!
43:44People say your dad was an amazing wrestler.
43:47And I'm like, and a better father.
43:49Mr. Wonderful, Paul Orndorff.
43:51Wrestling got his body.
43:53Fans got his mind.
43:55And I got his heart.
43:56Thank you very much.
43:57Thank you very much.
43:59Y kilowattonotti.
44:01I love you too.
44:04Thank you.
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