RIP Freddie Blassie

[Digipimp]

Pour out a little liquor for Classy Freddie Blassie tonight and sit back and watch my newly purchased copy of My Breakfast With Blassie. That movie is fucking classic you pencil necked geeks!

[MrPopup]

Originally posted by Digipimp
Pour out a little liquor for Classy Freddie Blassie tonight and sit back and watch my newly purchased copy of My Breakfast With Blassie. That movie is fucking classic you pencil necked geeks!

little known fact about the fashion plate....

he was the inspiration for most of muhammad ali's promotional schtick.

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Freddie Blassie, the 'King of Men,' dies at 85

When "Classy" Freddie Blassie was a teenager, wrestling in Midwestern carnivals in the 1930s, a friend invited him into a neighboring tent to look at the "geek." Blassie took the man up on his offer, and soon was standing in front of a bony performer who was biting the heads off chickens and snakes, and sticking pins in himself.

Blassie was confused by the exhibition, but riveted by the entertainer's appearance. "He's got a neck like a stack of dimes," Blassie grumbled to his friend. "He's what you'd call a real pencil neck geek."
Every wrestler needs a gimmick, and now Blassie had a catchphrase. For the rest of his career -- working largely as one of professional wrestling's most charismatic villains -- Blassie antagonized audiences by calling his more popular rivals "pencil neck geeks."

But on Monday night -- exactly three weeks after he was involved in a storyline on the World Wrestling Entertainment "WWE Raw" program on TNN -- Freddie Blassie's time in the spotlight came to an end, when the 85-year-old ruffian died at Westchester County Hospital in suburban New York of kidney and heart failure.

With the exception of two sabbaticals -- while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and convalescing after kidney surgery -- Blassie was continuously employed in the wrestling business since 1935, establishing himself as the most enduring character in sports-entertainment.

His death severs one of professional wrestling's final links between its carnival roots and the glitzy world of pay-per-view.

Known as the "Hollywood Fashion Plate," Blassie was arguably wrestling's most hated villain ever. With his bleached blond hair, gravelly voice and ability to butcher adversaries with stinging, on-air harangues, the self-proclaimed "King of Men" often drove the fans to violence.

He lost the vision in his right eye when he was hit with a hard-boiled egg, fans soaked him with acid, and he suffered 21 stabbings. Once, after a judge fined an attacker $115, the defendant replied, "If I'd known it was gonna be that cheap, I would have cut him again.

During Blassie's matches, one of his favorite gimmicks was biting his opponent, sucking in the man's blood, and spitting it into the air. On interviews, he'd arouse audiences by filing his teeth.

He always claimed that, when Japanese fans watched him carve up their beloved hero, Rikidozan, during a series of matches in the early 1960s, a number of elderly television viewers died from heart attacks.

"Over my entire career, 92 people died because of 'Classy' Freddie Blassie," he boasted. "But that was a disappointment. My goal was to get 100."

Blassie was born February 8, 1918, to German-speaking immigrants from Austro-Hungary in rough and tumble south St. Louis. Despite family pressure to join a cousin in the meat-cutting business, Blassie made his wrestling debut at age 17 at a community center, believing that the matches were pure athletic contests, and losing against more talented grapplers, until older performers informed him about the show business aspect of the profession.

After his release from the Navy, he wrestled as "Sailor" Fred Blassie and Fred McDaniels -- as part of a "brother" tag team with Billy McDaniels -- before winning the Southern heavyweight championship in 1954. Basing himself in Atlanta, Blassie held the title 14 times, and turned himself villain, bleaching his hair, and calling his southern detractors "pencil neck grit eaters."

By the early 1960s, Blassie's biting had earned him the nickname "Vampire." Renting an apartment in Santa Monica, Calif., Blassie became a mythic figure in Los Angeles, defending the now-defunct World Wrestling Association (WWA) championship against Dick the Bruiser, the masked Destroyer, Antonino Rocca and Gorgeous George, among others.

Although he was supposed to be a villain, fans who worked in the entertainment industry were amused by Blassie's antics, and he began to develop a cult following. He became one of Regis Philbin's favorite guests, appeared on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and recorded a novelty record, "Pencil Neck Geek," and album, "I Bite The Songs." In 1982, he and Andy Kaufman filmed "My Breakfast With Blassie" -- a parody of the art house movie, "My Dinner With Andre."

Eventually, the largely Mexican audience in Los Angeles grew to adore Freddie Blassie, calling him "El Rubio de Oro," or "The Golden Blond." In 1971, he drew a record-breaking crowd to the Los Angeles Coliseum for a grudge match with "The Golden Greek" John Tolos.

In the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) -- the northeastern promotion that preceded World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) -- he wrestled against such stars as Bruno Sammartino, Chief Jay Strongbow, Bobo Brazil and Pedro Morales.

After retiring in 1973, he continued working for the company as a sequin-clad, cane-wielding manager, interfering in matches on behalf of protégés like Hulk Hogan, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, George "The Animal" Steele and the Iron Sheik.

In 1976, he was Muhammad Ali's "special advisor" in a controversial boxer vs. wrestler match against future Japanese Senator Antonio Inoki in Tokyo.

After traveling became too difficult for his bruised and aging body, Blassie remained a lifelong WWE employee, working in the front office and making personal appearances. Company head Vince McMahon regularly expressed his affection for Blassie, pointing out that the retired gladiator had worked for his father, Vince J. McMahon, and his grandfather, Jess McMahon.

In May, Blassie's autobiography, "Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks," written with Keith Elliot Greenberg, was published by Simon & Schuster. To promote the book, Blassie appeared on an edition of "WWE Raw," where he was menaced by bad guys Eric Bischoff and 3-Minute Warning, before being rescued by heroes Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Bubba and D-Von Dudley.

When fans last saw him, he was shouting, "D-Von, get the tables!" as the Dudley Boyz slammed their foes through a slab of wood.

Blassie is survived by his wife, Miyako, and children, Ron, Gary and Cheryl.

[MrPopup]

His name really was BLASSIE...the obits got it all wrong.

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http://www.news.independent.co.uk/pe...p?story=414397

Freddie Blassie
Wrestler who relished his reputation as a ring villain
11 June 2003

Fred Blassman (Freddie Kenneth Blassie), wrestler: born St Louis, Missouri 8 February 1918; three times married (two sons, one daughter); died Hartsdale, New York 2 June 2003.

Last month the 85-year-old professional wrestler "Classy" Freddie Blassie appeared in a wheelchair on Monday Night Raw to promote his newly published autobiography Listen, You Pencil-Neck Geeks. Taunted by the younger wrestlers Eric Bischoff and 3-Minute Warning, he drew a huge pop from the crowd as he yelled for his temporary protectors, the Dudley Boyz, to "get the tables" to smash his tormentors.

Throughout a 65-year career, Blassie specialised in giving crowds what they wanted, especially when what they wanted was someone to hate. The legendary sportswriter Jim Murray once dubbed Blassie "the worst villain since Hitler".

He was one of the biggest-drawing, and certainly the most influential, "heel" wrestlers of all time. His frenetic combination of egotistical self-promotion (as "The King of Men") and verbal insult, delivered in a gravelly voice that refused to allow for interruption and accompanied by flamboyant gestures, was copied by generations of wrestlers. Jesse "the Body" Ventura, whom Blassie at one point managed, took his imitation of Blassie's style all the way to the governorship of Minnesota.

Blassie also "managed" Muhammad Ali, when the latter fought the Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki in 1976. Though Ali acknowledged being influenced by the style of the wrestler Gorgeous George, Blassie was a star in television syndication in Louisville when Ali was young. Blassie's value to Ali in Japan came from his 1962 series of matches with Rikidozan, the founder of Japanese wrestling. Television close-ups of Blassie drawing blood by biting the head of Rikidozan's tag-team partner, Great Togo, were so graphic they allegedly gave six viewers fatal heart attacks. In interviews, Blassie would claim to have killed 92 spectators in his career, then act disappointed, before screaming that his "goal was to get 100".

Freddie Blassie is generally acknowledged to have been born Fred Blassman in St Louis, though he claimed Blassie as his given name, and it was as Blassie he joined the US Navy during the Second World War. He began wrestling, often billed as Butcher Blassie, after the trade of his family, immigrants from Austria. In one such carnival Blassie watched a skinny "geek" biting the heads off chickens, and his term of universal derision "pencil-neck geek" was born.

He wrestled as Sailor Fred Blassie during the war, and as Fred McDaniel, without great success until reaching Atlanta in 1953, where he became Southern champion. His career took off in 1956, when he bleached his hair and turned heel (villain). Sharpening his teeth with a file while being interviewed, he became the South's biggest draw, feuding with, among others, Haystacks Calhoun, the model for Britain's Giant Haystacks.

His success in Japan stemmed his domination of the Los Angeles market, where in 1960 he won the WWA title, then the second biggest in America, from Edouard Carpentier. He peaked with a 1971 match with "The Golden Greek", John Tolos, which invented a much-copied angle when Tolos "blinded" Blassie by throwing monsel powder (used for staunching cuts) into his eyes. Blassie's ultimate revenge drew 25,847 to the Los Angeles Coliseum, still a record. His mainstream popularity was such that he appeared on Dick Van Dyke's television show, cut a record for the DJ Dr Demento, and frequently guested for Regis Philbin (currently host of the American version of Millionaire).

As the West Coast Champion, Blassie's 1964 series of sell-outs in New York's Madison Square Garden against Bruno Sammartino began his long relationship with the McMahon family, whose promotional organisation became today's WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). When he stopped wrestling, the McMahons made him a manager, carrying a cane as befitting the Hollywood Fashion Plate. When Hulk Hogan arrived, it was Blassie who managed him.

In 1983, Blassie starred with the comedian Andy Kaufman, a lifelong wrestling fan, in the film My Breakfast With Blassie, a parody of the art-house hit My Dinner With André. With Kaufman, the quintessential pencil-neck geek, as starry-eyed as Wallace Shawn, Blassie expounded a philosophy of life considerably earthier than André Gregory's.

He had retired briefly in 1965, after losing a kidney. Selling cars in Decatur, Georgia, didn't agree with him, and he resumed wrestling 18 months later. The following year, in Japan, he was contacted by a Japanese woman he had met in 1965. Miyako, 28 years his junior, became his third wife. His final wrestling match was in 1985, against his fellow manager Lou Albano. He was 67, but still billed as "The King of Men".

Michael Carlson

[gabe100]

Man, what a classic dude. I remember a match with him and a guy named John Tollis. Many years ago. Fucking John tossed some powder in Freddy's eye and stormed off the stage. Freddy was jumping around acting crazy...

I was like, damn WTF.....

RIP FB

[FillmoreSlim]

Originally posted by gabe100
Man, what a classic dude. I remember a match with him and a guy named John Tollis. Many years ago. Fucking John tossed some powder in Freddy's eye and stormed off the stage. Freddy was jumping around acting crazy...

I was like, damn WTF.....

RIP FB

You are old and live in California i think.

John Tolos and the Mongolian blinding powder....

Old time california wrestling. back in the day.

that was so long ago what is an oldtimer like you surfing this board for?