Original subtitles

You're looking at the nastiest, devious individual standing right here.

Terry was a beast. He was a perfect Goliath. A prodigy who broke into the

business before he could drive.

Just drove into the man.

Terry Gordy's skill in the ring was matched only by his legendary toughness.

Terry had the ability to make just about anybody look good as long as they were

willing to pay the price.

He was 300 pounds, and when he picked you upside down and dropped you on your

head, you were pretty much done.

Gordy's career skyrocketed as part of the Fabulous Freebirds, a tag team trio

that revolutionized the business with their in -ring theatrics and total

commitment to their rock and roll lifestyle. Once the jack started

birds were ready to party with anyone or fight anyone.

Do what the big boys do!

Hey. believe they are rock stars, so they act like rock stars.

Gordy's no -holds -barred style would take him around the world, but also

accelerate his self -destructive behavior.

Terry was his own man. Terry did his own thing.

The lifestyle that he led, he could have died a hundred different ways.

You can go from being on top of the world and have it all taken from you in

moment. Until a flight on a routine trip to Japan.

would drastically alter his career and the man himself.

Even though he came back, he didn't come back as a wrestler and he didn't come

back as Terry.

He was never the same.

Never even remotely the same.

Guys, first match, five minutes.

My name gets me noticed.

Like, oh, another second gen, Terry Gordy's daughter.

I am Miranda Gordy, and

Terry Bam Bam Gordy is my father.

They expect me to be just as good as him, and that's just not the case.

So that's caused a little bit of pressure on me that I have got to fill

boots.

Those are some big shoes to fill. My

name is Ray Gordy and I am the son of Terry

Bam Bam Gordy.

People would remember me as one half of Jesse Infestus and Slam

Master Jay.

The reason I didn't use my father's name in WWE is simply because

I didn't feel that I could live up to it.

Terry Gordy is fixing the bus. He told me one time that once you learn how this

business works, you'll never want to do anything else.

And that was his mindset. He never seen himself doing anything else.

Terry Gordy.

Born in Rossville, Georgia, Terry Gordy is barely a teenager when he gets his

start in the wrestling business.

I have some early stuff of my dad.

That is a report card.

It looks like a couple of Fs.

Those are days he was absent, he was on the road.

This picture, yeah, that is a very young Terry Gordy. 40 pounds,

Terry Meeker!

Because of Terry's size and his eagerness, by the time he was 14 years

was wrestling on television.

I'm Jim Cornette. I've been involved in a variety of ways in professional

wrestling over the last 40 -something years.

I first met Terry, he was 16 years old. He was already a professional wrestler

and had been for a couple of years at that point.

You could use the word prodigy. You could use the word natural.

Whatever it was, he had it. He was a prodigy, but that doesn't mean he didn't

work hard and study the game.

My name is Mick Foley. I am a three -time WWE champion, and I am sometimes

as the Hardcore Legend.

What he lacked in traditional schooling, he picked up with an education on the

road second to none. This young lad here is going to, I think, become a

superstar. He has all of the makings. When you started getting the full Terry

Gordy, not only the physical aspect, but the verbal, he was an all -around

performer. There was almost nobody that could touch him. Get your sister, get

your daddy, get them all around the TV.

Because you think now I witnessed something. When Terry was in

met a guy named Michael Hayes.

There it is, Michael Hayes.

Michael was a natural talker. You hand Michael a microphone and he could go on

forever. When you want to talk to a lady, you say, hey baby, why don't you

on some Teddy Pendergrass, close the door, let me do what I want to do

all I want to do is what you want me to.

His mama must have had a hard time with him.

I am Jimmy Jam Garvin, and I am a member of the fabulous Freebirds WWE Hall of

Famer, and it's still not my fault. It's not my fault! Michael and Terry, I

mean, they were just both live wires.

Terry would almost know what Michael's thinking, you know, before Michael even

said it, and vice versa. They were just tight.

You've got Michael Hayes.

who would come out and he would piss people off. There's always a big

He would talk himself right into the corner. But then behind his back, you've

got Terry Gordy.

As a team, they were just unmatched.

They just were like soulmates.

It's where his friends go.

Michael was a big fan, as every southerner was in those days in the 70s,

band Leonard Skinner.

Michael had the idea, what about if we called ourselves the Freebirds?

Monday night in Memphis at the Mid -South Coliseum, I was a photographer at

ringside, and all of a sudden, over the PA system, here comes Freebirds.

And then out comes Terry and Michael, these silver robes flowing everywhere,

they're doing a slow -motion strut to match the beat of Free Bird.

There you hear the music of the family of Free Bird, Mary Gordy and Michael

Hayes.

This was back in the day where if you went to an arena event, the bell rang

the wrestlers walked to the ring and they got introduced. There was no music.

And I said, you know, I think this might catch on.

The Freebirds soon joined Mid -South Wrestling when promoter Bill Watts pairs

them up with Buddy Roberts, converting the tag team into a trio.

You got the Freebirds' attention, and that just might be your downfall.

Buddy was the veteran, Michael was the promo, Terry was the physical enforcer.

Watch that hand bite the dust!

And that three -man combination made one of the most legendary tag teams in the

history of wrestling.

Together, they were bigger than the sum of their parts. And I think it's

important to point out that this was not a case of lightning striking once.

They got over everywhere they went.

The fabulous Freebirds got through with the victory.

Welcome back to the wild and wonderful Freebirds.

Then they had the natural three -on -three rivalry with the Von Erich boys

Dallas.

Deep in the heart of Texas, world -class championship wrestling is dominated by

the three eldest sons of promoter Fritz Von Erich, David, Kerry, and Kevin.

The Von Erich boys were already popular, but the Von Erich boys had never been

tested. We wanted badasses, and that's who the Freebirds were.

Backbreaker across the knee of Michael Hayes. I'm Kevin Von Erich, and for

I've battled the Freebirds.

They were legitimate rough guys, you know, and they didn't have any apologies

for anybody.

Oh, that fella hit the deck.

We had a common goal.

We wanted to put the best wrestling match we could in that ring.

And so it was just a marriage made in heaven.

Wrestling in the mid -80s in Dallas was the top of the game. We were selling out

every venue, everywhere, every night.

But the magic really hit when the Freebirds came.

I'm talking about this binary.

They don't stick their nose in the free bird's business.

My name's David Manning. I was the promoter, booker, and referee for World

Championship Wrestling.

The Von Erichs were like the good cowboy.

And here was three guys that were obnoxious, rude to the fans.

Well, let me tell you something, Texas.

There ain't no place that I would rather be than in Georgia right now.

Kevin referred to them as filth. Michael Hayes.

is bringing the flag.

Terry and Michael come to the ring. They've got Dixie flying, and they're

talking about Texas, and it just burned me up. And so I grabbed the mic, and I

said, you got everybody in the world thinking this is a war between Texas and

Georgia, and this is not. This is a war between decency and filth.

There was so much love for the Von Erichs, but there was total hate for

Terry, and Buddy.

They could get a ton of heat.

Because of the way they acted, the things they said, the things they did.

I didn't want my dad to get beat up, but I was still a fan of

the Von Eriks.

Who didn't love the Von Eriks?

Some of the guys who didn't like the Von Eriks because their girlfriends liked

them, they're saying, well, look at these shit -kicking, Jack Daniels

flag -waving.

Southern assholes. So they started getting in the free bird camp.

I think the free birds were the original cool heels.

Far more often, they were the cooler of the two teams in the ring.

For the next two and a half years in every city in Texas, it was the free

against the Von Eriks.

I'm going to hurt him. They'll take Kerry across the ring.

They main evented in Texas Stadium, for God's sake. It was the most magic three

-on -three combination. Perfect time, perfect place, perfect setup, perfect

participants.

And they drew nothing but money for two years.

What we had created in the ring was phenomenal. Anybody would want that.

But then when you got out of the ring, you had all the other problems that came

with the birds.

They were...

Trouble looking for trouble.

You know, they just raised hell.

They'd drink all night, and then they'd get in the ring, and they'd sweat all

them booze out.

They always told me that the best cure for hangover was wrestling.

Yeah.

Jerry's temperament was like so even until we drank.

My parents were at a bar, and a man was hitting on my mom.

My dad became very enraged, and there was a bar fight.

The cops went to restrain my dad to calm him down, which I think did

the opposite.

He beat up a cop car with his handcuff behind his back.

Like you had taken a hammer about this big around and hit the hood of the car.

and knocked dents in it where he had head -butted it.

He was kind of a big old spoiled kid.

You know, that's Terry. He did stuff like that.

Terry Gordy was not going to back up from anybody, nor was there anybody

that was really going to make him back up.

Do you think there was a point where it got a little bit out of control as far

as the partying, or is that just the way it was in the early 90s? I mean, if you

look back at it today from today's perspective, it got out of control at

very beginning.

You know, having people throw different things at you, like, here, take a shot,

y 'all are awesome, or here, you know, take this for your pain so you can

or here, take this so you can stay up and drive eight hours to the next show.

I don't know exactly when the evolution happened from smoking marijuana and

drinking booze to more of a pill problem.

Despite their wild reputation, in 1984, Terry Gordy and the Fabulous Freebirds

catch the attention of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation.

Was it a week? Did that last a week?

They were in the meeting with Vince, hungover, still partially inebriated.

Terry fell asleep.

And that didn't get over with Vince too good.

That was the only time that the Freebirds ever worked for the WWF.

After wrestling a handful of matches, the Freebirds flame out at the WWF. But

Terry has a chance to take his career in a new direction.

That is my dad and Bruiser Brody.

It's in Japan.

My dad got the opportunity to go work in Japan.

The Japanese wrestling is very different.

from what it is over here. When you get the Freebirds and more glitz and

glamour, they see that and they're really not interested.

They were more interested in Terry Gordy by himself.

The monster American, the Abdullah the Butcher's, or the Bruiser Brody's, or

Stan Hansen's, or Terry Gordy.

These giant guys that were just crazy and beat up everybody in their path,

became the darlings of the Japanese wrestling fan.

And that's the kind of atmosphere that Terry could flourish in.

He loved the hard, physical style associated with

Japan. And that's why he became one of the biggest and best stars to ever

cross the ocean.

It takes a big toll physically

with the injuries.

Putting your body through that, every bump is like a mild car wreck.

I knew that he was having knee problems.

One of my big concerns was my dad wasn't going to blow out his knees.

He tore both of his ACLs.

He was going to Japan six months a year, working as a main event star over there

at a high level with no ACL in either knee. He had to have double knee

but the doctor told him he had to take the weight off.

So he contacted Richard Simmons.

Yeah! Right?

This huge 6 '5 man just, you know, jazzed or something, whatever Richard

did.

Come on, Terry, you've got this. Yeah.

Terry was like 300, 320, and then he pared down to like maybe 265, something

like that.

And you see the more athletic, built -up Terry Gourney. You can absolutely blame

that on Richard Simmons.

Now leaner and more powerful and working in a physical style that plays to his

strength, Terry's performance in the ring reaches new heights.

Terry Gordy versus Misawa, June 1st, 1991.

Yeah, in my opinion, that's one of the top five matches of all time.

The Japanese crowd, traditionally, they will ugana. This match,

they tore the house down.

Terry Gordy was a master of his craft. People look at him and they see this big

monster doing all these power moves.

But if you really watch, you'll see the little things that he done in the ring

that people just don't do. Even down to the chin lock in this match, he's

actually using his fingers to try to pry fingers away.

And this is a work, but that little bit just.

had so much more.

Terry was a guy who made everything he did mean something.

And when he threw a punch, brother, it was a thing of beauty.

It was so animated.

It connected.

It looked great.

He was just simply one of the best.

He was the first American ever to win the Triple Crown Championship.

He was the top guy in Japan at that time.

It's great to be alive and it's great to be number one in Japan.

In Japan, Terry starts working with Dr. Death Steve Williams and a tag team

known for their brutality, the Miracle Violence Connection. If the aliens

tomorrow, and you had to pick two human beings to represent Earth

in a fight to the death, pick Terry Gordy and Dr. Death Steve Williams.

They brought that Japanese style over to the U .S.

They're not resting up in between Japanese tours.

They're taking on these very physical matches on a very regular basis.

Terry and Doc did a lot of tours together.

So to keep the Freebird thing going, they needed to replace...

Terry, when he was gone, that's what I did.

We're not following no rules that we don't want to follow. Terry, when he

in Japan, he would join us.

That's a very heavy schedule.

I honestly believe that it was too much.

I mean, really, it was just part of life. Like, he would just be gone for a

time, and it was like a treat, almost, when he would be home.

Miranda, smile.

Life at one point was really good.

We did normal family things. He took us skating.

He taught me how to fish and ride a bike. All the dad stuff.

He did that for us when he could. But it just wasn't a lot, unfortunately.

Yeah, he hated to be separated from his family, man.

My name is Richard A. Slinger. I went under the ring name of Richard Slinger

Japan, trained and lived over there. I'm the nephew of Terry Gordy.

He would talk to me about being over there in Japan.

He said I would go into a state of deep, dark, miserable depression.

I know it wore on him. He looked tired.

I know he missed being home, and he missed his own mom, and he missed his

and he missed his wife.

Being on the road 360 days a year, that wears on you.

You live in hotels.

airplanes, rental cars.

It's just constant go.

Your mind never really has time to reset, to relax, to say, okay, where am

in this life?

A lot of times in those days, especially the well -seasoned travelers to Japan,

they would take whatever pills that they took so they could sleep, and when they

woke up, they'd be in Japan.

The drugs.

can be seen as a necessary evil when you're going from time zone to time

when you're expected to be at your best on a nightly basis, when you feel far

from your best, when you're worn down.

And it is a very short step from use as needed to

use as liked.

While on a tour with Steve Williams, Terry suffers his first serious

First time he dropped on me, he accumulated too many pills. It was

We went out that night. He just dropped and I didn't see PR.

Ambulance took him. He was in the hospital. He didn't remember what

when they brought me in.

I had to refresh his mind, tell him what he'd done and this and that.

I tried to straighten him up from there.

But take away he had a problem with drugs.

There's going to be a time where your body tells you, where your mind tells

that you need to stop.

And I really believe that during that time, my dad was at that point.

It's a tough business. You know, it's a heartless business.

Set to return to Japan, Terry boards a flight that will change his life

Terry's accumulated so many pills that...

I'm having to push him with a wheelchair.

He's out, you know, he's out. So 30 minutes before the plane lands, I look

him and he's dying on me.

Before a flight to Japan, Terry Gordy consumes an excessive amount of muscle

relaxers. Dr. Death Steve Williams notices Terry has stopped breathing.

He's dying on me.

I mean, he's turned blue. He's sucking barely any air, like he was about to

swallow his tongue.

I used to be able to knock him back loose if I slapped him a couple times in

face or kick him out of it, you know. Just like if you put somebody asleep,

hit him in the back and knock him back out of it.

Well, I did it and he wouldn't come back alive.

So right then I knew he was dying.

I had to get him off the plane,

get him in an ambulance, and get him to the hospital.

They just started emergency procedures.

What little bit of Japanese I spoke and what little bit of English they spoke,

we were able to communicate about Terry's condition.

The biggest fear that I might be losing my uncle, Terry, in there.

He was in a coma for a couple days.

I remember being right there by him pretty much the whole time, camping out

beside his bed.

When he woke up, he started calling my name, Richard.

I thought, yeah, I'm here.

I'm here, I'm here.

Eventually, he was able to be maneuvered between me and the nurse into a

wheelchair to go to the shower.

You know, maybe a little bit of cold water.

It might show that he still has the feeling.

And it did.

His face grimaced a little bit whenever I sprayed him with cold water.

I was like, you know, we might have some luck here.

getting him back to normal.

They called my stepmother, and she flew over to be with him.

And she got him home, and my mother was there to greet him, and she said that

was a heartbreaker to see him coming off the airplane in a wheelchair.

He couldn't really carry on that much of a conversation.

He was very quiet.

There was an obvious difference.

He had lost a lot of his motor skills.

He was very slow to react.

He had to relearn a lot of things.

He had some permanent physical and mental

damage from that.

He wasn't the same person anymore.

Whatever happened, Oxygen to the brain, he was unconscious too long. Whatever

all that medical hoo -ha is, it erased something in his brain.

There's this local promoter. He was kind enough to give us the key, and we was

training within a couple of weeks of me coming back from that tour.

Ironic, you know, somebody's training me.

I'm teaching my uncle, you know, this is how it goes. Remember?

Remember?

There was progress, and we were all hoping that he would

just miraculously kick out at some point, and it would all come back to

and he would be Terry Gordy again.

During the last year of Smoky Mountain Wrestling, we heard that he had started

wrestling a little independent shows, and I said, if Terry is anywhere back,

And anywhere near what he needs to be, my God, if we could get him up here,

that'd be great.

So I made the arrangements to have him come in.

I have added another member to Cornette's militia.

Everybody in the locker room in Smoky Mountain had known him for years and

him and was wanting to help.

But he couldn't do a promo anymore.

And I'm coming to show you, boy.

that I'm going to take that title, and I'm going to take it, and ain't nothing

you or your old lady can do about it. And we kept thinking, it'll come back to

him, or he's taking steps.

But he'd just walk up to you, and he'd just stand there.

Then you'd look, oh, Terry, do you need something?

Yeah, Jim, I was just wondering if you'd like me to do the powerbomb?

Yes, Terry, if you'd like to, please.

There is Gordy, sets him up for that powerbomb.

Because he had been such a great wrestler and he could still do these

And it was the same frame, but there wasn't any life in it.

He was going through the motions, but the face, the expression, the intent,

everything that makes you a personality, it just was gone.

Because he wasn't there anymore.

That was gone.

Despite a challenging rehabilitation,

Terry stages a comeback, culminating in a legendary match against Cactus Jack at

IWA's now infamous King of the Deathmatch tournament.

You become the King of the Deathmatch by kicking out of all the moves.

Terry and I are going to face in the...

First round of what was known at the time as the Kawasaki Dream Match

Tournament. It's gone down in lore as being the King of the Death Match

Tournament. Three, two, one.

One of the holes in his game since the accident on the plane was the punches

were no longer there.

And out of concern for his reputation, I said, Terry, I said, you're a legend

here. I said, you have to really bring those punches.

To his credit, I didn't have to tell him that more than once.

I've read letters that said Terry Gordy was the king of the death match.

And all that happened after the accident.

So I can only imagine bull Terry Gordy having a death match.

We did pretty good.

And it resulted in what may have been the greatest...

post -match interview of Terry's career.

I felt

like maybe we pushed the hands of time back just a little bit.

But it was not meant to be.

Despite an impressive performance at King of the Deathmatch, It's clear that

Terry Gordy's overdose has changed him.

I think that he continued to wrestle after the accident is because that's all

knew. That's all he ever did. He wasn't a cashier for a grocery store and then

started wrestling. Like, he wrestled. There were a lot of people rooting for

dad. Terry Bam Bam Gordy, who has been crowned critically dead twice, is making

a comeback.

He could work through a match.

It just wasn't the same.

I'm sure that was the hope, that maybe if they just kept at it, that he would

eventually come to it. But it just, it was never there.

You can see it even in pictures. In his eyes, he was full of life.

And then you look at pictures after the coma, and he looks like a deer in

headlight.

Terry Gordy, probably one of the greatest tag team wrestlers of all time,

course the legendary heel and the member of the Fabulous Freebird group,

probably the greatest heel trio in the business.

In 1998, Terry agrees to film an interview out of character, and for the

time, fans at home are able to see for themselves the change in his cognitive

capabilities.

I've seen parts of the shoot interview.

The emotions when I first saw that, I was enraged.

A little embarrassed.

Do you have any good road stories?

Yeah, man, there's a bunch in there.

What are some that stick out in your mind?

Seeing your dad like that, he couldn't remember a lot of stuff from the past.

The coma took a lot of his memories away.

But in that, they're just hounding him for all these questions.

As his daughter, you just want them to leave him alone.

Now, why would you stay so short in WCW?

Was it Japan? You wanted to go back to Japan? As

Terry attempts to get back

into the spotlight, his longtime friend, Freebird Michael Hayes, convinces the

WWF to add Terry to their roster.

Vince put him under a hood as the executioner.

Of course, when I was a kid, I'm like, oh, why would they do that?

Really, it was to protect him, and I'm glad they did.

It was a good respect move on the part of WWE.

They didn't want to destroy Terry Gordy by putting him

on TV as Terry Gordy and him not being Terry Gordy.

Michael Hayes was able to get him in with Terry as a menacing, foreboding

executioner with me and Paul Bearer. We became kind of like a faction.

As soon as mankind is buried alive, the undertaker, his hand will be raised by

the official.

Then the executioner came, friend in need, a friend in deed.

Part of what...

What made Terry's character so intriguing is that he was like a man

He breaks in at age 14 years old.

He is a child among men, but at the same time, he's a man among men.

When it gets to WWE, there's still the ways of a child.

And that's not the way to succeed in a main event with The Undertaker.

It was pretty sad, man. Pretty sad to watch.

My Uncle Terry, he was once at his prime.

From doing that to not hitting on all cylinders, it was pretty sad.

And I'm sure all the people that looked up to him and that he helped along the

way in his career were just, I don't know how to describe it, but

Just looking at someone that is like a superhero to you and just...

And I don't want to say helpless, but he wasn't the same person.

An undertaker had to say, it won't work.

And the executioner has been executed.

Everybody loved him, but, you know, he wasn't there anymore.

It's also a bit sad to overhear a conversation he had with a woman on an

airplane where she goes to take some medication, and he goes, Got any extras?

She gave him a couple pills.

So he was at a point where he was taking anything, regardless of whether he knew

what it was.

We would be worried because he would go from being completely coherent to

obviously under the influence of something seemingly within minutes.

And so he had reached a...

Pretty dangerous point.

It's hard for me to say because I looked up to him and I will always appreciate

the kindness he showed me when he was on top of the world and I was breaking in.

But, you know, we've got to be adults out there on the road.

We look out for each other, but you also have to look out for yourself.

We would have to, on a few occasions, try to track him down when he was not in

his hotel room. I think it was about the third time that Paul Bearer and I were

searching the roads and making drives and calling his name.

We realized that this was not going to be a long -term team.

When Terry's short -lived stint in the WWF comes to an end, he finds himself

back on the indie circuit.

It's hard to grasp as a kid what that was to see the downfall of him being on

top to doing little independent shows around Tennessee and Georgia.

I was at those indie shows.

As a kid, it was fun.

But looking back at that...

It's really sad.

I think the last time I saw Terry was at an independent wrestling show.

During intermission, Terry's daughter was taking Polaroids of Terry and the

in the ring.

And there were only about two people who made that trip into the ring.

Seeing literal minutes go by with no one on that line.

No one getting into the ring just struck me as being extraordinarily sad.

And I'm over in a different part of the building at a table, and I'm signing

autographs feeling guilty, saying they should be on that line.

That's the line they should be.

There's the real superstar.

There was part of me that wanted to get out there in the ring, grab that

microphone, and start yelling at people.

Trying to knock some sense into them. Don't you understand? This is a legend.

He's here in your midst. And you can see him. You can get a photo taken with

him. And times had changed.

As his wrestling career winds down, Terry redirects his focus and embraces

what matters to him most.

During this time, he was home.

I got to see my dad more than I had ever seen him

in my entire life.

I look back on that and as rough of a time as that was

for him and our family, it was the time of my

life where I got to know my dad and become...

really great friends with him.

We would see each other every single weekend.

I'd go pick him up. I'd take him to the gym.

We'd work out.

I'd take him home.

It was probably the best years of my life getting to hang out with my dad and

really getting to talk to him and getting to know the person that he

I'm really thankful for that time that he wasn't on the road.

that he was at home because, yeah, we became best friends.

We really did.

Do you have anything you want to say to your fans out there that are watching

this video?

I'm just, yeah, I'm really, really sorry, you know, that, uh...

Sorry

about that.

Sorry about going to Japan, you know, and stuff, you know.

He was actually doing a show, and he asked me to go do the show with him.

And we were actually going to tag that night.

And I couldn't go.

Next day, I get a call from my cousin Richard.

And his exact words were, Ray.

Get down on your knees and start praying because your dad is on this mountain

and he stopped breathing.

After wrestling an indie match the previous night, Terry is found

at his home in Saudi Daisy, Tennessee.

I got in the car as soon as I could and traveled to his home.

I was there before emergency services.

One of the boys that stayed with Terry the night before, he was doing the CPR.

While he was doing chest compressions, I was, I still hate knowing this, but

Terry was already gone, and I was trying to bring him back by, you know,

slapping him in the face because I remember Doc telling me that's what he

bring him back, and I thought, you know, maybe this is one last.

thing I can resort to to, you know, bring Terry back.

There was a police officer standing in front of the door, guarding the door and

wouldn't let anybody in.

I put my hands on the police officer and told him he was going to let me in that

door, and that's when Richard grabbed me and told me that he was gone.

My mom knew that there was an emergency, and they said to get to my granny's

quickly, and I just... I hear my mom scream, no.

She had to tell us they had passed.

On July 16, 2001, Terry Gordy dies of congestive heart failure caused by a

blood clot.

He is only 40 years old.

Of all the stuff that my dad did and the lifestyle that he led,

And all the partying that he did, it's amazing that it wasn't an OD. It

wasn't anything like that.

Maybe his legacy is you can't push yourself too hard. You can't take shit

not supposed to take. You can't do shit you're not supposed to do over and over

on a regular basis.

Whoa, that's cold.

If you sat Terry down, if he was here right now and said, Hey, Terry.

You think maybe if we tell this story, it'll make some of the other guys stay

away from it? He probably would say, yeah, go ahead and tell it. He wouldn't

worried about whether he looked good or not, but if he could help somebody else.

You know, it's just such a tragedy.

I mean, the wrestling lost not only one of the best workers ever, but he was a

good guy.

Why did Terry Gordy touch so many people's lives? Well, with the wrestling

it was easy because he was great. He was great at what he did. He was exciting

to watch.

If you like wrestling, he did it better than almost anybody else in it. I'm not

claiming to be the best wrestler in the world.

But you know something, world champion, this right here does better.

Terry Gordy is a surprise.

He will never be forgotten.

He contributed so much to this business, more than people realize.

What

I've gotten

most out of wrestling is how much people just really love my dad. So if I walk

away with just that, it's been a very healing experience.

But his influence can be seen almost every week on television.

Whether it's the hyper -realistic but theatrically enjoyable punches he threw,

or somebody winding up a clothesline before throwing it hard.

Anytime you see any variation of a powerbomb, that's Terry Gordy. Don't it

good sitting up here? I mean, up at top?

Looking down at everything, don't it feel good?