All language subtitles for S06E08 Dark Side of the Ring

Let me tell
The Sheik something.

I've been stabbed in
the middle of that ring.

I've been burned.

Sheik,
that's one for you!

One, Sheik!

Bruiser Brody, zero!

[Narrator] The original
innovator of

hardcore wrestling,
The Sheik

broke all of the rules
in and out of the ring.

The Sheikh has
something in his hand.

The Sheik was ultra-violent
at a time when pro wrestling

was still presented
as a sport.

[Announcer]
30-minute time limit.

-The Sheik!
-Watch the fire!

The Sheik was the first
one to use a fireball.

The first one to bring
a snake into the ring.

I mean, he was banned
from New York City

for starting riots.

Wild and crazy gimmicks.

Far beyond what you believed

could happen in a
wrestling match.

Oh, man.

My uncle broke the rules.
Got away with it.

Sheik has gone
completely mad,

as he always does.

A legendary figure...

The fireman of pro wrestling
heads to the

Detroit Cobo Arena.

The Sheik lived a life
of violence, mystery,

and a strict devotion to
the secrets of wrestling.

He created a shroud of
secrecy around

his personal life, so that
he could be fully immersed

as The Sheik of Araby,
the wild man from Syria.

Even his grandkids
called him Sheik,

and if you called him
anything else

he wouldn't answer to it.

But as a promoter
and a star,

The Sheik made sure
he always came out on top,

even as that star
began to fade.

The Sheik is a
cautionary tale...

for what happens when

you got a dragon
nobody ever slays.

So far, it's been
The Sheik all the way.

He just didn't accept the fact
that he was getting old,

and that he was no longer at
the top of the wrestling heap.

[indistinct shouting]

And it almost
cost him his life.

A lot of pain.

He kept it real,
you know what I mean?

And he couldn't walk away.

He had so much love
for the business.

Agh!

I have no doubt he would
have liked to...

die in the ring.

♪

At 229 pounds of Arabia...

The Sheik.

I've been a lifelong fan of
The Sheik because

the first time I saw him,
I was struck by the aura,

the presence,
the magnitude...

of The Original Sheik,
himself.

I'm Jim Cornette.

Before my 40 year career
in pro wrestling,

I was a fan of
The Original Sheik.

When The Sheik would
come into the arena,

the mood would change.

The fans would sense that
something was different.

He had an aura.
He had a presence.

You could feel it.

The greatest example
was in 1988

at the Cobo Arena
in Detroit.

All the fans in the arena,

you could tell they
were tensing up.

They were waiting
for something.

Now, all of a sudden,

in comes a
stretch limousine.

It was amazing!

He pulled all the way onto
the floor of the arena,

where everybody in the
building could see.

And the driver gets out
and opens the door,

and out steps
The Sheik in the headdress,

and a three-piece suit,

and dozens of gold chains
around his neck.

And the place erupted.
"Oh my God, it's him!"

There's a match going on.

People are getting
dropkicked and thrown around.

They don't care about that,
they want to see...

The Sheik.

And he walks right into the
locker room with

a bunch of people
carrying his bags.

That set the tone
for the evening.

The Sheik is in the building.

Never seen
anything like this!

He was the greatest...

in almost every category.

And not because
he's my uncle.

He proved that he was.

Hi, I'm Sabu.

I'm a nephew of The Sheik.

He made people believe even
though they thought they knew

wrestling were bullshit,
they knew he wasn't.

Sheik laid down the
foundation for what

would be called
hardcore wrestling.

My name is Rob Van Dam.
I was trained by

The Original Sheik
to be a pro wrestler.

He's still influencing
the business now.

There's so many characters
that have been

influenced by
something that he did.

Right after the drop.

[indistinct shouting]

He has an almost
inhuman expression. Oh!

Modern wrestling fans
are used to chaos.

They're used to
simulated violence.

They're used to
furniture breaking and

people being
run over with cars.

That didn't happen in the
wrestling of the 50s,

60s, and 70s because

credibility was foremost,
believability.

This is best
two out of three falls.

When The Sheik
debuted full-fledged,

he would still wrestle.

They're pummeling
each other!

'Cause The Sheik
could wrestle.

Here's a leg torture hold.

You know, he didn't become
The Sheik in one night.

It took a while.

In need of a character to
make himself memorable,

Ed Farhat draws on his
ethnic background

to turn himself
into a villain

that will shock
middle America.

People actually
were frightened

of this Arab madman...

because Arabs, in those days,
they were something

very, very strange
and very foreign.

The Sheik!

You always had
foreigners in wrestling.

They were dark and
mysterious from other lands.

The Great Togo!

And that's what The Sheik
built on

throughout the entire
decade of the 1950s.

♪

This image as a rich
but insane

Middle Eastern sheik...

The Sheik from Arabia.

Can you imagine the
arrogance of The Sheik?

Early on, he had a slave girl
that he brought to the ring.

It was his wife,
Joyce.

But her name was
Princess Salima.

Makes his woman
kiss his boots.

And he would berate her...

and abuse her.

He's slapping her, Bill.

And then, he would take
his time to kneel down

and do his prayers,

where he would pray to Allah

for the strength to
overcome his opponent.

He would only do his prayers
when the audience was

"respectful and quiet."
And so,

if he thought anybody
was making any noise,

he would stop and then
start over.

But as the gimmick got
wilder and crazier,

much of the wrestling
left the matches

and instead it was
all chaos.

What's he got in his hand?

He would pull out a stick or
a pencil out of his tights,

and he would stab the
opponent in the head with it.

Looks like a hammer
or something.

He'd be throwing
chairs into the ring,

and tearing up ringside.

Not a crowd pleaser exactly.

It was chaotic
as it could be.

It was,
fight on the floor.

Fight with the chair.

It was everything but
a wrestling match, ha.

My name is Dory Funk Jr.

And I used to wrestle
with The Sheik.

Sheik always and forever

stood for blood and gore.

Every time that I hit him
with the fork,

blood was shooting
from his arm...

or from his head.

This is brutal, fans.

This is Abdullah The Butcher.

I have wrestled The Sheik.

We knew for a fact that
the fans were scared of us.

Just annihilated in that ring.

We done a lot of shit.

And then when finally,
when The Sheik got stabbed

with his own pencil and
he started bleeding...

[cheering]

The people would go
out of their minds.

Yes, yes!

You're gonna pay, Sheik!

You go ahead, burn me!
Burn 'em all!

One of the things that
caused the most commotion

was when The Sheik
would throw fire.

The Sheik has
got that fire!

Oh! And he's
burning him badly.

That was explained by the
promoters and the announcers

that The Sheik knew
some way to magically

produce fire from
his fingertips.

What it was, was magician's
flash paper with a little

incendiary thing that you
could hide on your finger.

He always kept it
in his trunks.

Then when he hit it...

[whooshing]

And in the arena, the match
might be crazy enough

and people would
be screaming.

But when the fire came out...

Oh! Hey!
Come on.

A gasp would erupt
from the people.

[gasping]

And he throws fire!

[gasping]
He's throwing fire.

I still got a mark.

[Abdullah] I'm serious.
[Off-screen] Yeah, look at that.

You see it?

If I wouldn't have
turned my head,

I would've been blind today.

It was like the
ancient gladiator days,

like the Roman Colosseum.

Burned so badly that now
they bring the stretcher.

A lot of people say that the
Sheik was the originator

of hardcore wrestling.

Bull Curry was doing the same
kind of thing in the 40s,

but The Sheik
popularized IT.

He made it more mainstream.

He made it
more profitable.

Ugly situation.

And the crowd loved
to hate him, right?

I think he fed off that.

Oh, what terrific
action in here now!

There was a lot of
animosity back in the day.

You know,
being that he was

a first generation
Lebanese American.

[commentary] We were
wondering a moment ago

if The Sheik
understood English.

My grandmother, grandfather
was born in Lebanon.

So, when they came into
this country there,

they came to Detroit.

Detroit and Lansing was a
pretty big hub for Arabs

at the time.

He was known in the
neighborhood as a

tough kid that you
didn't want to cross.

That's just who he was.

As a young kid, he wasn't
even old enough

to enlist in the army.

But he lied on
his application,

and once he was in the army,
he did some boxing

and some wrestling there.

After he was in the
military and came back,

he went into the trades
a little bit and

he taught himself how to
do electrical work.

Then he met Bert Ruby,
who was a promoter...

and in training with him,
they developed the thought,

because of his Arab descent,
it would make a lot of sense

for him to take on
this Sheik persona.

242 pounds,
The Sheik!

[booing]

In an era where most
wrestlers maintained

their characters
outside of the ring,

The Sheik takes
his dedication to

a whole new level.

Kayfabe, in wrestling,

was the aura of
believability,

and the kayfabe mindset
meant that you were,

to everyone in public,
always to present

the personality that you
claimed to be on television

and at the
wrestling matches.

From the time that The Sheik
first found this gimmick,

he started removing proof
of who he was really.

The Sheik took it
to the extreme.

Probably to the most extreme
it's ever been taken.

He has put himself in
some hypnotic state.

He was, committed to
not expose The Sheik

because that
was just anti...

kayfabe.

He never used his real name.

If you called
The Sheik's house,

and you asked for Ed,
he would hang up on you.

You had to ask,
"Is Sheik there?"

Sheik...

That's all you heard,
was The Sheik.

Yeah, when we'd have dinner,
he had the wrestlers over,

and one table in the
other room was heels,

and the babyfaces in the
other room. I was thinking,

why are all the bad guys
sitting together?

And why are all the good guys
sitting together, you know?

But then I figured it out,
he was kayfabe-ing.

He would always kayfabe,

even when it
wasn't necessary.

When The Sheik was
out in public, I mean,

he didn't speak to...

people he didn't know at
a restaurant or something.

You know, he was a
man of few words.

And any time the waiter or
waitress would come by

and be within earshot,

he'd switch it right
back to, ah, Arabic.

He became a character.

And, in his mind,

that's kind of being a con.

And he milked it for
all it was worth.

I think The Sheik had
realized that he had hit on

a gimmick that was
once in a lifetime.

Truly the wild man of
professional wrestling.

If he protected it, if he
worked it, if he always...

embodied that character...

There he goes again!
Right into the throat!

That he would always be
the top heel in wrestling.

He would always make a
ridiculous amount of money.

But Ed Farhat's unwavering
commitment to

living his life
as The Sheik...

[indistinct shouting]

...often leads to dangerous
encounters with fans

who believe the
madness is real.

♪

A lot of fans were
violent towards him.

He would leave shows
and have fans try to

attack him
outside the shows.

He had people stab him.

♪

One fan broke in the
dressing room, and...

my uncle had his blade
on him. And I was there,

and the guy came to my
uncle and started saying shit.

My uncle just- [whooshing]
Zipped him like in a 'Z'.

And he cut him, psh!

Almost his insides
came out.

And in the newspaper,

the explanation they
gave for the fan's injuries

was that he had been
knocked through

a plate glass window...

in the process of
being apprehended.

'Cause The Sheik had
just ripped him...

from one end to the other.

♪

There was a night
in Amarillo, Texas,

where The Sheik
got so much heat

that a guy pulled
a gun on him...

at point blank range.

The fans were stirred into
a frenzy by The Sheik.

♪

"Kill him, kill him!"

A lot of times when the
Sheik was on the card,

the local promoter might beef
up the police, the security.

[indistinct shouting]

There was one night
in Amarillo...

a guy pulled a gun on him!

And tried to fire.

[gun clicking]

And the gun jammed, and
the cops tackled the guy.

And when they took the
guy in and arrested him,

the policeman,
trying to see

why the gun had jammed,
fired the bullet.

[gunshot]

If the guy had pulled the
trigger one more time,

he would've
got The Sheik.

A lot of top wrestlers that
were heels had that much heat.

But The Sheikh caused riots
everywhere he went, and...

Sheik wasn't
scared of anything.

With The Sheik drawing
crowds in arenas

all over North America,
Ed Farhat looks to

elevate his career
as a promoter.

That's where you made the
money in pro wrestling,

owning the thing.

You got first count.

In 1964, The Sheik buys
Detroit's Big Time Wrestling,

packing the famed
Cobo Arena with fans.

But in business,
like in the ring,

he never breaks character.

When Sheik took over,
nobody knew that

he owned the promotion.

He made his father-in-law,
Francis Fleser,

the figurehead promoter,

and The Sheik called
the shots in the ring.

And there's the
camel clutch!

Sheik's wife, Joyce,

handled the paperwork
and ran the office.

Yeah, Grandma was definitely
the matriarch of our family,

and... she was the boss.

They were always a team,
even behind the scenes,

you know, she was lockstep
with him in the business.

In the mid 1960s,
the city of Detroit, Michigan

had money, and they knew
and liked wrestling.

The Cobo was a
12,000-seat building...

and they were coming
close to or filling it up

on most occasions.

The Sheik before 12,500 fans

in the Detroit Cobo Arena.

The Sheik was a
thinking business man.

He was the very first
promoter in the country

who bought a
mobile TV truck,

and he's gonna film
his own matches at arenas

where he's already at.

So now you don't have to
pay the TV studios anymore.

The Cobo Arena in Detroit
was the hottest building

for pro wrestling
in the country.

He outdrew the
Detroit Pistons

who played there.

Any concert that
played there.

Here's a man who set more
attendance records around

the country than any
other wrestler alive.

Every major name that worked
for the NWA would come

to Detroit to wrestle
for The Sheik.

It was like the
WWE of the time.

It was the place where
everybody wanted to work,

and the guys made
most money there,

and it was the
most popular.

He had power,
he had pull.

So, it was just an onslaught
of top stars from

every part of the country
on the cards.

And when you own
the promotion,

you can double sell tickets.

You can put stuff
in your pocket.

Unless there's a state
athletic commission

inspector there,
nobody knows

how much money
you took in!

And it's all in cash.

4, and 5,
and $6 at a time.

Thousands of people.

In 1973,
The Sheik reported

income of $400,000

on his income tax.

That's the equivalent of
over $2 million

in today's money.

That's what he reported.

No wrestler in the world

made as much money
as The Sheik.

The Sheik was
everything back then.

He was a first generation
Lebanese American.

He built his empire and his
career from the ground up.

You know, and I think that
is the American dream, right?

The Sheik spares no expense,

draping himself in luxury

to sell the image
of a man who is powerful,

untouchable, and rich.

He had one house.

And then he had another
house built, a giant house.

And, it was like four floors,
indoor pool, gym,

5 or 10 acres of woods
and creek and stuff.

It was beautiful.

Sauna in the house.

I think it had 35 rooms in it.

It was a big place.

And I go to myself,
holy shit!

He worked hard for a living,

and I think he did like
to play hard.

He liked cars...

suits, jewelry, traveling.

He definitely enjoyed
being successful.

He had a Lincoln,
and that was kind of

his signature vehicle.

He had about a
thousand suits.

He wore a different suit
every day.

No matter it was
hot, cold.

He wore it every day.
That was a style.

The man was not
afraid of color,

and you could always find
him when he wasn't wrestling

with tons of jewelry on,
tons of rings,

lots of necklaces.

You're an
entertainer, right?

You have to look the part.
You understand?

He was The Sheik.
He acted like he was royalty.

He was reckless.

He would go buy anything he
thought he wanted, I mean,

because he had no idea of any
limitations about him at all.

He was a fabulous
businessman.

But I'm gonna tell
the honest truth.

He had one weakness.

Gambling all the
money that he had.

[chuckling] Las Vegas
would wipe him out!

[laughing]

I mean, just like any
other gambler, you know,

you always think you can win.
You may win here or there,

but it's always
the house wins.

He lived big and

he had to keep up
the gimmick.

Insisting he remain
the top draw,

The Sheik books himself to
headline nearly every show.

United States
Heavyweight Champion.

He's held that title longer
than any other US

heavyweight champion in
the history of the belt.

There is a lot of truth to
the idea that a-

the main event star in
wrestling should lose

only rarely, so that
when you do it,

then that gets you over
as the guy.

But The Sheik took it
to extremes,

and The Sheik felt
that if anyone was to

conclusively defeat him...

that it would take
his heat away

and it would
diminish his aura.

The Sheik has got
a million tricks

so don't count him out.

I mean, if you're able to
decide who is gonna be

on the card and who's not
gonna be on the card,

why would you not assume that
he would be the main event?

The United States
heavyweight champion,

The Sheik.

He would sell for wrestlers.

He would bleed for 'em.
He would do all those things.

But you couldn't beat him.

The Sheik never did a job.

And that was what made it
even more shocking

on the rare occasion
that he would.

One of the few times
The Sheik agrees to

lose a match comes
at a volatile moment

in Detroit's history.

1967, the city of
Detroit had riots.

Four days of rioting,
looting, and arson

rocked the city of Detroit.

It was over a situation
where the police had raided

a certain bar in an
African American area,

and the riots lasted
for several days.

The Sheik's number one
babyface,

his star attraction
as a hero...

was a guy named
Bobo Brazil.

Sheik saw an opportunity
there because, at the Cobo,

the crowds were
black and white.

Like a lot of places in the
United States in the 60s,

the only place that you
would go and see a really

integrated audience was
at the wrestling matches.

In the late 1950s, early 60s,
down in the South,

the whites and the blacks
were separated,

and the blacks were usually
separated to the

upper tiers of
the arena, and...

they had chicken wire or
something like that put up

in front of them.
And, at one point,

The Sheik was on one
of those shows, and...

he crawled up that chicken
wire and tore it down...

and invited the black folks
to come down

into the arena floor.

He was that kind of guy.

Being that he was a
Lebanese-American,

he experienced racism
himself growing up.

You know,
he felt it.

And I think that, once he
reached a position

where he was able to
help other people,

he took advantage of it.

Once the riots started,
The Sheik, thinking,

"What can I do to calm
things down, to help?"

So, in that arena that night,
you know,

there was at least
10,000 people,

and there was not only
whites and blacks

and every kind of ethnicity.

In that arena that night,
they were all one...

hoping that Bobo Brazil
could beat The Sheik.

You're watching a
championship bout.

Bobo Brazil and the wild
man from Syria, The Sheik!

And when Bobo finally
beat The Sheik...

♪

...the place exploded like
I've never seen before.

Doing that, The Sheik helped
heal the city of Detroit.

It settled down the
tensions in the town.

And then, of course,
Sheik beat him

two weeks later
and won it back.

[chanting]
Go, Sheik, go!

♪

Once responsible
for the promotion's

greatest success,
eventually The Sheik

becomes a liability for
Big Time Wrestling.

If you have a hot heel
that can't be stopped,

everybody wants somebody
to stop him. But then,

if it goes on for so long
that the people become

convinced that
nobody can stop him,

they'll stop coming
to see somebody try.

The winner with the
Camel Clutch, The Sheik!

[booing]

Past 1975, the...

auto industry was, you know,
starting to have problems.

The economy, you know,
started to take effect.

That's why Big Time
Wrestling started to fail,

because people really didn't
have that extra money

to spend to see wrestling.

It was just a
domino effect of the

economy and the promotion
not drawing fans.

The Sheik always lived big.

The custom made suits,
the jewelry,

the stretch limousines,
the handlers, the helpers.

Suddenly, with
business going down,

he didn't have the
money coming in...

to cover the
money going out.

How do you maintain
that lifestyle?

Unfortunately,
he couldn't keep it up.

Oh, The Sheik took off
and ran away.

By the mid 1970s,
the Sheik's Detroit promotion,

Big Time Wrestling,
is struggling financially,

and its woes take a toll
on locker room morale.

A lot of guys got
pissed because either...

they were promised things
that they weren't getting,

or they could just see
the business going down,

and they started
no showing the cards.

I remember a time
when Bruno Sammartino

came to Cobo Arena.

If you're an East Coast guy,
you're a Bruno fan.

You know,
Bruno was everything.

And, after the show,
Bruno says,

"Hey, you want to go out
to dinner with me?"

So, I'll never forget,

we went to this
Chinese restaurant.

And I go, "I hear you're
going to be back here

in two weeks,
you know,

with a return match
against the Sheik."

He says, "I'm going
to tell you something,

but don't say anything
to anybody else.

I'm not coming.

The Sheik promised me
$2,000 to come tonight,

and he gave me a
check for $800.

So, I'm not showing up."

Money wasn't coming in,

and he couldn't afford
to pay the wrestlers

what they thought
they were worth.

Big time Wrestling
had lost TV

in some of their
other markets.

Finally, they lost
TV in Detroit.

It was somewhere
around late 1980,

that was the last event that
Big Time Wrestling ran

in the Cobo Arena,
the house that Sheik built.

One of the most popular
places to see wrestling

in the United States for the
previous 15, 20 years...

couldn't run it anymore.

That was pretty much the
end of Big Time Wrestling.

Unfortunately, he wasn't
making that money.

He was still spending it.

And so, the only thing
that saved him

was the Japanese tours...

Because Giant Baba and
All Japan Pro Wrestling

brought The Sheik to Japan.

Japan was the
biggest money maker

in professional wrestling...

for a long time.

The Sheik had been in all
these pictures, the fire...

and the snakes,
and the blood, and the eyes.

But they'd only seen him in
magazines and newspapers.

[Japanese commentary]

They went absolutely out of
their minds for The Sheik.

He became an icon in a
very short period of time.

The great city of Tokyo,
when The Sheik walks down

the street, they actually
stop traffic.

They were bloodthirsty.

♪

Buckets of blood everywhere.

They could do that in Japan,

and they could
get away with it.

But then after a few
years, again,

Japanese wrestling was
very highly athletic.

The Sheik couldn't keep up.

Baba stopped bringing him
to Japan.

He was not able to be booked
almost anywhere else

in the United States
because of his age

and the bridges that
he had burned.

And, as the money
dried up...

pretty soon he was just
wandering around the house,

a 60-something year old man
in a dilapidated mansion

that had seen
its better days.

I mean, he'd spent
all his, all his,

all his millions, and...

so he and Joyce were
living in the kitchen.

Ah...

I can't go into it all
the way because

it's embarrassing, but...
He was losing his money.

Like, we had to
sell the big house.

And so he was not,
not penniless,

but he was going broke.

After they left the mansion...

it was still them,
still two against the world,

so to speak. I mean,
they were a tight pair.

And, to me,
as their grandchild,

I never saw anything but...

my loving grandparents.

All the money and all the
glory and all the fame

and the lifestyle, it was
just not there anymore.

I mean, you've been
the greatest heel

in the sport of
professional wrestling

for how many years?

But now you're
that older athlete

who can't perform at
that level anymore.

You know,
what's the guy to do?

Now past his prime,

The Sheik takes any
booking he can get,

just to keep food
on the table.

He'd go to Warren, Ohio,
to a high school gym,

and do the same thing with
Bobo Brazil that they

had done 20 years earlier
in the Cobo Arena.

Instead of in front of
12,000 people,

it might be in
front of 1200.

And he was born
in the 20s...

and he was just trying to
make a couple hundred dollars

here and there
just to, you know,

keep food in his
little kitchen.

His gimmick had
gotten tired...

and he couldn't
keep it up.

He was...

chasing a career
down a rat hole.

All that obviously had to play
a part in a late life crisis.

♪

And, he was trying to

recapture some former glory,

and try to do something
to keep himself going

at the same time. I'm not
a psychiatrist, but...

one would think that
that had to be

uppermost in
his mind is,

how can I keep doing
this for very much longer?

How can I keep up the gimmick?

[indistinct shouting]

-The Sheik!
-[applauding]

[speaking Arabic]

With injury and age
driving him from the ring...

[host]
...anything you want.

The Sheik shifts to training
the next generation,

starting with his nephew.

My mom and my uncle
were the two youngest,

so my uncle always
took care of my mother,

walked her to
school every day,

beat up anybody who got in
her way, and all that stuff.

And, my uncle used
to beat up my dad.

They got a divorce when
I was three years old,

but I'd see him around
when I was five or six,

and he'd hit my mom.

Then my mom would
call my uncle,

my uncle would come over
and beat him up.

♪

And then one day, he comes
to beat him up and

my dad was hiding under
the bed, and I said,

that's what I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna be The Sheik.

And have people hide
under the bed from me.

[laughing]

I said, well, ---- him,
I got my uncle.

He's more of a dad.

All up until I was 19,
I was telling people,

"I'm gonna be a wrestler,
I'm gonna be a wrestler,"

but I never did
nothing towards it

other than
amateur wrestling.

♪

I was 19 at a party, and...

these guys started shooting.

[gunshot]

One guy shot my one
friend in the stomach.

-[gunshot]
-Then took off running.

I ran after him and
grabbed him, threw him down.

♪

He pushed the gun
against my face,

and he hit my teeth
and it shattered.

[gunshot]

So, it went in my nasal
cavity and the back of

my throat, and it knocked
out seven of my teeth.

So, when I got shot, I go,
now's the time I gotta do it.

So, after a couple days,
I got out of the hospital.

But my mom called
my uncle and said

I wanted to be a wrestler,
a pro wrestler.

The next day he came to
my house, and he goes,

"Come on, we're going
to camp. Pack your bag."

So I got in his car.

A limousine, by the way,
and, he took me to his house,

and he goes,
"This is the camp now.

You're not going to go
home for another year.

You're going to be
stuck here for a year.

And don't bitch
when it hurts."

[chuckling] So the
first seven months

he had me doing chores
and chopping wood,

and I'd set the ring up
in the morning and

tear the ring down at night
and never get in it.

I never had a
free minute.

Anytime he goes,
"What are you doing?"

I go, "Nothing." He goes,
"Okay, chop some wood."

He was always having me
wash his car,

clean the house for no
reason when it wasn't dirty.

And I never questioned him.

For the first year
I was training,

he had two bad hips,
could hardly move.

I'm sure he took pain pills,

but he never told me
about them.

He was just a
tough old mother----er.

He was just a tough guy.

Sabu doesn't just follow
in The Sheik's footprints,

he carries his legacy
into a new era,

adapting his style
for a new generation.

Sabu did adopt a lot of
The Sheik's mannerisms,

from the headdress to the
looking up and pointing

in the sky, and the not
speaking English.

But Sabu, of course,
was more...

acrobatic and more of a
death defying daredevil.

No, no, no!

I don't think The Sheik ever
climbed to the top rope in

50 years, but the family
connection was still there,

and that enabled the
Sheik to, in some cases,

go along with Sabu and
lend his historic reputation

to help get Sabu over.

I never copied him.

But he influenced me.
What I do is my way.

It resembles something he
would do, maybe, you know,

with the turban
and stuff but...

He paved the way for me,
but he didn't give it to me.

No, he made me
earn it.

And if I didn't have it,
he wouldn't back me up.

As Sabu's star rises,
he brings in a new recruit

eager to learn the ways
of The Sheik.

[cheering]

The fans love
RVD!

It was just the
tail end of '89,

before my 19th birthday
when we met.

The Sheik had me get in
the ring, and he just like,

boom, both hands
on my throat,

and he just pushed me
back to the corner

and he's choking me.

Make, make, you know,
like pushing and pulling me,

making me- making me
move in the corner a lot.

And then, those big eyes
were looking at me

and his tongue's out.

Agh!

He was like so committed,
and he bit my nose.

And man, I about
peed my pants,

you know
what I mean?

Like it was a
scary experience.

♪

We would wrestle
for hours.

Then we would jump
in a swimming pool.

His wife would make dinner.

It was a very personal
experience that made me,

not a student,
but part of the family.

Sabu and I did a lot of
training by ourselves

during that time, but Sabu
was saying, you know,

that Sheik wasn't
doing well or whatever,

and Sheik would sometimes
come out and sit in a chair

and watch us for
a little bit.

I'm sure there was
always a part of him

that wanted to get
back in the ring.

That's just who he was.

So, he kind of had a
renaissance in

the late 80s and early 90s.

♪

After years on the sidelines
and two hip surgeries,

The Sheik makes a final grab
for the spotlight

back in Japan with death
match promotion, FMW.

[crowd chatter]

Allah!

He was approached
to do a fire match.

And it was in a
baseball stadium.

I want to say that held like

65,000 people
or something like that.

The idea of the match
was that my grandpa...

wrestled with Sabu,
my cousin,

as a tag team against a
Japanese tag team.

Instead of ropes,
it was barbed wire.

And they wrapped that
barbed wire with

kerosene-soaked linen.

They didn't tell me I was
having a fire match

until a couple
of days before.

The ring didn't
all go on fire,

just the parts
where they wanted,

but the fire was too big.

Like, sucked up the
air in the middle,

and even the logo in the
middle was melting under you.

And was only in there
probably 5 or 10-

5 or 6 minutes and
it was too hot.

They must've not anticipated

the fire would get as big.

But they got stuck in
the ring, and tragically,

the whole thing
went up in flames.

♪

The flames were taking up
all of the oxygen,

so it was not only
blisteringly hot,

but they couldn't breathe
and they couldn't see.

And suddenly it just
engulfed everything.

They're in the center of the
ring' cause that's where

they could get the
most oxygen.

And, Onita said to Sheik,
"Sheik, this is bad."

He didn't know Onita could
even speak English.

[indistinct shouting]

That's when Sheik was like,
"Okay, something's wrong."

In Japan, The Sheik and
Sabu find themselves

trapped in a ring of fire,
battling for survival,

as a hardcore match
spirals out of control.

They had done a practice
run that afternoon,

and everything was fine.

But because it was a
baseball stadium and

it was outdoors,
winds are a factor.

And so, when the actual
match took place,

things were going as
rehearsed, the wind shifted.

Flames started like going
horizontally across the ring

and started
melting the ring.

Sabu and one of the
Japanese wrestlers

were able to get out of
the ring quickly.

My grandpa was locked up
at that point with Onita.

They were in there for
maybe 15 or 20 more seconds,

and that was a mistake.

They really struggled
to get out of the ring.

It is really hard to watch
because you can see

he's still trying
to do his job.

[indistinct shouting]

He crawls out of the ring.

I run around the other side,
I throw water on him.

He goes, "What are
you doing?"

I said, "I'm trying
to put you out.

You're smoking."
And he goes,

"No, I gotta
throw fire still."

I was getting
his hand wet.

Skin is dropping off
his body,

and he's still
trying to do...

Sheik stuff.

You know, but...

they'd gone too far.

My grandpa ended up with

third degree burns over
20% of his body.

I was at Grandma's.

3 or 4 in the morning,
a call came in because...

the time difference
with Japan,

and Grandpa didn't really let
on that he was that hurt.

But Grandma could
hear it in his voice.

When The Sheik
got on the plane,

people in first class were
disgusted because his skin

was still burning and
they can smell it.

You know, it was
quite the journey

to get him back
from Japan.

You know, a 14-hour flight
back home with

third degree burns
all over your body.

I don't think most people
would have

honestly survived that trip.

I just remember he was
in a wheelchair

and he was wrapped
like a mummy.

He didn't let on at all
that he was hurting.

Grandma did a lot
of his care at home,

unbandage him and
put the cream on it

and bandage him up.

I'm sure he was...

in horrible pain.

That was not the
end for him.

He was like,
"Oh, I'm burned?

That's fine. I'll just
recover from this

and I'll get back
in the ring."

With age and injury
catching up...

The Sheik fights to extend
his wrestling career

alongside Sabu.

In 1995, World
Championship Wrestling,

one of the two
major companies

in the United States,
has Sabu booked

on a pay per view event,

and as a special attraction,
he brings his uncle,

The Sheik, to be at
ringside with him.

And I did a flip
out of the ring,

and I hit my
opponent and...

his leg got stuck
under me, and- Ch!

It broke his leg.

Oh! Whoa!

[cheering]

And there's the Sheik,
69 years old,

out there with a broken leg,

and he still threw
the fireball!

That's part of I think him
wanting to make sure

that the business
moved ahead.

It didn't matter how, how
badly he was hurt.

You have to get back up
and finish the match.

There you see The Sheik
right at ringside.

It wasn't 'til we got back
behind the curtain,

we had to get a
wheelchair for him.

He never
complained about it.

Tony, the man just
threw a ball of fire

in the man's face!

At that point, I think
he knew his body,

it was time to
call it quits.

I felt at ease that he was
gonna stop 'cause I was

always worried,
he wants one more,

he's gonna have a
heart attack or his

leg's gonna break again,
or you know,

I was always
worried about that.

But, it was awesome
because he finally says,

"I'm gonna stop."

You know, he had reached
the pinnacle of his career,

and it was done
at that point,

and he kind of just moved
into the family life.

He still was
The Sheik in public.

And it may have just been,
like, out of habit,

because he had been
doing it for, like,

literally 30 years.

After devoting so
much of his life

to the wrestling business,

Ed Farhat now
focuses on family.

[singing]
Happy birthday to you.

He came to
Grandparent's Day

in second grade.

I think that's when
I realized, okay,

something's up, because all
the other grandparents

were like peeking in
our classroom and

asking for
autographs, and...

we're just a bunch
of eight-year-olds,

and I just happened to have
the grandpa with

a shirt opened, camel
necklace on his chest,

yelling Allah to the ceiling
in the classroom.

[laughing]

I never, ever questioned
whether he thought

we were the center
of the universe.

He showed us that
every day.

We all had a decent amount
of time to know and love him.

Um, you know,
it's never enough.

By the early 2000s,

years of a lifetime
in the ring

take their toll on
The Sheik's body.

He had some organ failures,

and he had suffered from
multiple myeloma.

Which is a cancer.

One thing about our
family is that we rally.

And so, that was a time for
all of us to rally around him.

And, and we did.

I would say the
last two years

of my grandfather's life,

we were in the hospital
every other day.

My grandmother never
wanted him to be alone.

At that time, I lived
on my own in Lansing.

I was 19, and um...

Grandma had called.

And I said,
"He's gone, isn't he?"

♪

Not a glamorous death,
but...

[sniffling] he was
surrounded with love.

And that's what matters.

♪

I was 27 when he died.

I had a long time with him.
I feel grateful that I had

as much time with him
as I did.

He was a pillar
of our family,

so that was a
major loss for us.

I went to Japan, and he
died when I was in the air.

I didn't know it.

All the boys were saying,
"I'm sorry about your uncle,"

I thought because
he was sick.

And finally,
Goldberg goes,

"Sorry to hear about
your uncle." I said,

"Wait a minute,
you know, I barely know you.

Why do you care about my
uncle?" He goes,

"Well, he passed away
last night," and I said,

"What?" When he
told me that, they said,

"Sabu, you have to go get
set up for the entrance."

So it was a 20 minute ride
around the Tokyo Dome.

And I'm talking to my aunt,
she goes,

"Yeah, he passed
away last night.

But you got to do your job
like he'd want you to."

I said, "But ----,
you know...

he was more
my, my father," you know...

[gasping]
More than anything.

And she goes, "You know he'd
want you to do your job."

You can't have a
heartbreak, you know,

affect your
professionalism. So,

I stayed and did my match,
and then when I got home,

I missed the funeral.

But to me, funerals are
just to show people

who are still alive
that you cared.

Person that died
knows you cared.

At his funeral ceremony,
even the priest...

referred to him as Sheik,

and I took one of the roses

off the top of his casket
that I still have...

[sniffling]
to this day.

[crying]

My friend was gone.

Years after the
Sheik's passing,

his legacy is solidified
into wrestling history as

he's inducted into the
WWE Hall of Fame.

To be inducting The Sheik,
of course, you know,

what could be better?

I was proud always to
represent him.

They wanted Sabu,
of course, to induct him.

But Sabu is not big
on vocabulary.

The Original Sheik
was hardcore before

any of us heard
of hardcore.

So, you know, he asked if
I would go with him and

do most of the talking,
and of course, of course,

you know,
let's do this.

It was it was a nice moment
to see that appreciation

be given to him by
a new generation.

And he gouges
my eyes...

I mean, he started at
the dawn of television,

and his last appearance
was on pay per view.

Nobody had that kind
of drawing power,

and nobody was in as
many different places,

doing as many
different things

for as long as
the Sheik was.

[indistinct shouting]

Yeah, one of my favorite
objects is the little doll

of the bloody Sheik.
This came out,

you know, way after
he had passed away.

He was a good man.

He taught a lot of
people how to work.

You know, I've always
been proud that

I'm a non-conformist.

And I have no doubt
that that is...

me taking after
The original Sheik,

who brought me
into this life.

Uh-oh, here comes
the chair!

Both men outside
the ring.

But it's not over.

He put asses in the seats.

People wanted to go and
see the wild, crazy Sheik.

Most wrestlers
I don't think...

last that long.

The Sheik had a
very tragic aspect,

and that was that he lived
an illusion of who he was.

Allah!

And in some ways,
it was absolutely charming.

And because he did such
a marvelous job of it.

The Sheik looks like

he's been through
World War three.

You know, anytime you see a
wrestler using a metal chair

to smack someone or

do something
slightly nefarious

during a match, you know,
whether that wrestler

knows it or not, he's paying
homage to my grandpa.

And we take a little
bit of pride in that.