Original subtitles

I don't have to prove anything to any living human being.

Harley Race is wrestling personified.

The man that, when you mention the word, has rewritten every book that's been

wrote on it. When you look at Harley, and then you look at the man, and then

two start coming together, then it's a perfect picture of a badass hill. And

Harley Race was that badass hill.

He was no gimmick. He was Harley Race, the toughest man on God's green earth.

I've been shot at. I've been stabbed.

I just looked at it. I must have been doing my job fairly well, right? If

there's one man who connects wrestling's modern era to its earliest days, whose

legacy in the squared circle stands as a monument to the evolution of the sport,

and who epitomizes the ideal of a fighting champion, that man is Harley

All mortal men are going to bow to the king.

I knew all about Harley Race before I'd even seen a Harley Race match.

His legend preceded him.

Harley Race has literally been wrestling all his life.

Earned his first paycheck in wrestling before he got his driver's license.

As Harley's violence spilled out of the ring, the line between person and

persona became blurred.

The police came. That's when things went downhill.

And I just wanted away from him. As the lifetime of tragedies and injuries took

their toll on the man.

And he was passed out on the floor in a fetal position.

It was a pretty traumatic event.

The boating accidents, the car wreck, the in -ring accidents, the human body

not built to undergo punishment like that. In a land of tough guys, he was

considered the king tough guy.

He's given his body and his life to this business, and he did what he had to do

to survive.

I've got two rods and eight screws in my back.

I've got an artificial hip.

I got four metal screws in my right knee and two braces. I have 12 pins in this

arm. How do you quantify toughness? Is a guy tough because he can beat you in a

wrestling match? Or is a guy tough because he's just a badass street

he can pull your eyeball out? Because when you think about Harley Race, the

cumulative effect of the...

Thousands and tens of thousands of slams and falls and bumps on hard rings and

concrete floors and sawdust floors in a barn or at a carnival.

Harley Race did all of that. He was legendarily tough not only for his

to beat people up, but also because he gained the mystique as somebody that

couldn't physically be hurt.

No matter what you did to Harley Race or what he did to himself, you couldn't

stop him. I'm going to hurt you somehow!

If I've got to do it that way, fine.

You have insulted the world heavyweight champion.

You better believe I was inspired by Harley Race. He was the first guy I saw

take a backdrop outside the ring and a suplex outside the ring. And he was

this as the traveling world champion.

Harley was among the very first to do table spots.

I mean, he was before his time.

Heading in full speed, going face first over the top turnbuckle, that's Harley

Race. Getting your arms caught up in the ropes, that's Harley Race.

One of Harley's major wrestling moves was a diving headbutt where he'd

come off the top rope and land head first on his opponent's head.

Now you have to imagine a man, 280 pounds, jumping off.

of a five -foot top rope coming down completely on his chest and his belly

he's taking his forehead and driving it into another individual.

The skill and the amazement of it was that it looked like every time Harley

it, he was killing guys.

But in all reality, he was barely touching them. As a performer, as a

it just blows your mind because that's what you want. That's the it factor of

pro wrestling is to make it look like we're killing them.

He has left an indelible footprint because he passed on his style to people

me who passed it on to others.

Stars of today are borrowing liberally from the Harley Race catalog, whether

they realize it or not.

One of the fiercest men to ever lay the pair of boots, Harley Race was a

wrestler's wrestler who began his journey to the ring as a teenager.

Harley Race grew up poor on a farm in Missouri.

My name is Jim Cornette, and I've been a fan, an admirer, and a colleague of

Harley Race's.

He had to work from the time he was a young boy, and that instilled in him the

work ethic that he carried with him for the rest of his life.

Harley was a good kid. We liked each other right off. Third grade on, we

fished together, wrestled together.

My name is Daniel Keever. I went to school at Harley Race, met him in the

grade.

He would let people hit him as hard as he could in the stomach.

I mean, these are big guys. He'd get up and wouldn't say nothing.

If they wanted to do it again, he'd let them.

I suppose in his mind, he was building himself to be a wrestler.

We used to watch all the old wrestlers, Bob Brown, Sonny Myers.

You can't, Eric.

We played hooky one Friday afternoon.

Every time Harley and I'd go somewhere, he'd want to, come on, let's wrestle a

little while. Let's wrestle a little while.

Well, on Monday, the principal called us in the office.

He said, I want to know why you left here.

Harley said, well, he said, it's a good day to wrestle.

Harley was a part of the original Around and Fight Out era.

My name's Trevor Murdoch.

I'm a two -time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, three -time WWE World Tag Team

Champion, and I was trained by Harley Race.

The reason I know these stories is because I've heard them from Harley

So the principal gave him a big slap in the face.

Harley knocked him out.

He hit the floor and Harley hit the door.

He was a fighter as a kid, and then that's when he wanted to start

My name is Yvonne. I had Bobbiny Race.

I was married to Handsome Harley Race, the eight -times world champion

for 24 years.

When he was 14 years old, he left home because his family couldn't afford to

keep him up.

He got a job on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, Missouri, and it just so

happened that that farm was owned by the Zabisco brothers.

Stanislaus Zabisco and his brother Wlodek, the two of them were iconic

Stannis was a former world heavyweight wrestling champion.

Harley found out they were wrestlers, and they offered to train him in

for his farm work.

It amounted to legalized torture.

They would stretch him.

They would beat him up. They would put him in holes he couldn't escape from to

see if he was tough enough to come back and ask for more. Because in their

generation of professional wrestler, they knew the other guy had the ability

grab one of their appendages, and break it instantly.

It was the most primitive form of hand -to -hand, man -to -man combat.

And that's what Harley learned, and that served him well when he went to the

carnivals.

That was the thing back then. That's how you got started in the business, was on

the carnival.

Yes, that's true, Marty. I'll wrestle anybody in the business, any size or

weight or at any time.

I'm Eddie Sharkey. I've been in the business a million years, and Harley

was one of my best friends.

There's a flying head scissors by Shockey.

We make $3, $4 a match. It wasn't much money, but at the end of the night, it

came out okay.

At the carnivals in the 50s, one of the big tents had a champion wrestler.

And the carnival barker, he would do the spiel. We'll give X amount of dollars

if you can stay five minutes with our champion wrestler.

Truck drivers, you had farmers, you had butchers, you had a variety of guys with

a couple of drinks in them who would get up and challenge the carnival wrestler.

And there were shoot matches, which are real matches, and then there were works.

When they couldn't get a challenger from the crowd to challenge the carnival

wrestler, there was a plant in the audience. But he would look like one of

locals, and Harley played this part a number of times, too.

And then people would get behind one of their own. As he said, I can take that

guy. And then Harley would get in the ring and he would work with the carnival

wrestler. But if Harley was the carnival wrestler taking challenges, it was a

shoot. And Harley would have to go in there and do whatever he had to to win.

And he's this 16 -year -old kid.

When you're there, you're taking on all comers. So you better know a little bit

about what you're talking about.

Because you darn sure don't get paid when you get beat.

That's why he needed to come up with shortcuts, like the headbutt to the

of the nose.

Or the double wrist lock, where you could take a guy's shoulder out of joint

he didn't give up immediately.

It was always dangerous.

But that's how Harley survived.

He just had to fight five or six strange guys every day.

On the carnival circuit, Harley goes to work for legendary promoter Gus Carras.

Who puts Harley on the road with one of the biggest men in the history of the

wrestling business.

Happy Humphrey was a pro wrestler in the late 50s and 60s. His real name was

William J. Cobb. In Happy Humphrey's pro wrestling career, he was somewhere in

the range of 700 pounds. And Harley Race was chosen to be Happy Humphrey's

driver and valet and attendant.

He had to drive Happy Humphrey to the shows and especially built...

Cadillac, and he had to make sure that Humphrey's needs were met after the

matches, which one of those things entailed bathing Happy Humphrey.

Happy Humphrey would lay down on the ground naked and Harley Race would take

bottle of liquid soap, a mop, and a garden hose and basically clean Happy

Humphrey off so they could get back in the car and go to the next town without

enduring the

Unending disaster of B .O.

That's paying your dues.

In 1960, at just 17 years of age, Harley marries a single mother named Vivian

Jones, who is soon pregnant with Harley's first child.

Then, tragedy quickly strikes.

It was around Christmas time. He had his wife in the car with him. She was

pregnant with his first child.

Three o 'clock in the morning, they're driving.

down this lonely road, snow on the ground.

There's a tractor -trailer truck in front of them, jackknifes, gets into the

snowbank.

Harley's car rams into the truck.

She's killed instantly from a head injury.

And he's severely injured.

To the point where when the people picked him up in the ambulance, they

him dead as well. And then saw him move, and that's how they knew he was still

alive.

And when he was hospitalized, they were going to amputate Harley's right leg.

He wasn't even 20 years old yet.

And the doctors told Harley he'd never walk again.

A car accident on Christmas Eve has killed Harley Rafe's pregnant wife.

Somehow, Harley is holding on, but concerned doctors want to amputate his

Kansas promoter Gus Karras, when he heard about the accident, he checked on

Harley and said, no, let's not do this.

He's going to walk out of this hospital, which he did.

They did a surgery, saved the leg. In effect, saved Harley's career.

And from there for the rest of his life, Harley hated Christmas.

Several years after the crash, as Harley continues his wrestling career, a

chance encounter introduces a new woman into his life.

I was a flight attendant.

Harley kept calling me all day. How about if I take you out for a piece of

blueberry pie?

I thought, wow, that's a neat way.

And I said, okay.

And we went out, had the pie, had the coffee.

He had his blonde hair, and I wasn't used to that.

I came from a little town, and I wanted a family, and I wanted a home life.

And my mother and my father, they were very upset.

My dad said, I don't want you seeing him anymore.

But I kept on.

It was like a magnet.

We were on our way from Minneapolis to Duluth, Minnesota, and he said there was

a bag in the back seat.

You pick it up and look at it, and it was a diamond ring.

I always knew I'd marry an athlete, but I didn't know I was going to be marrying

into wrestling.

Marrying Ivana despite her parents' wishes, Harley gets back to the ring.

When Harley first teamed up with Larry Henning, he had bleach blonde hair. So

they adopted the nom de plumes of handsome Harley Race and pretty boy

Henning. In the mid -60s, guys as big and rough as them, they didn't have

blonde hair. So it was a way to get heat with the fans and it worked.

He chose to be a villain.

I didn't like it because everybody booed him and didn't like him. But he was

good at what he did.

Between the size and the strength of Hennig and the speed and the athleticism

Harley Race, they had a tremendous run in several of the major territories as

the top heel team in wrestling.

When we had our son and we traveled a lot together, when we'd go to matches, I

would ask Harley if it was going to be a bloodbath at the wrestling match or is

it going to be clean?

If it was going to be a bloodbath.

My mom and I were probably going to a movie or to miniature golf that night.

My name is Justin Race, and my father is the king, Handsome Harley Race.

I got to see him wrestle a lot, and the chairs start flying, and the world title

belt starts hitting people in the heads, and this and that, and dad's gushing

blood out, stumbling around.

It was scary.

But it was happy then, and he was a kind person. He was kind to everybody. He

was well -mannered. It was fun being with him.

Touring arenas, sports halls, and bars across America, Harley's status as a

legitimate tough guy is frequently put to the test.

Harley, he sees this man being very aggressive with this woman, just

her, getting handsy with her.

Harley goes over there to confront the guy about it to tell him to back off and

leave her alone. What Harley doesn't know is the guy's friend is behind

and has a knife. It goes up behind Harley and stabs him three times in the

The guy takes off and the other guy takes off.

Harley has to go to the hospital.

Harley knew quite a few people, was able to find out where the guy lived at and

got a pistol and went by the guy's house.

Now, I had heard this story from somebody else and asked Harley about it.

looks at me and he goes, it wasn't a pistol.

It was a machine gun.

And that was enough for me to know that it wasn't a lie.

As Harley's legend grows, so does his busy schedule, keeping him on the road

days and even weeks at a time.

He was always wrestling, wrestling, wrestling.

And he didn't have time for family. He was a good father, but he was only home

three times a month.

What I hated was when he'd stop after the wrestling matches.

Got a six -pack of beers, and he started right then and there drinking.

When his first wife was killed, he was only going 30 miles an hour.

He never drove slow since.

He didn't care.

If the speed limit said 70, he thought it meant 90. He'd be flying down the

highway. And sure enough, we'd see a cop and they'd...

You would watch them power walk to Harley's vehicle, angry. Who's the

driving 90 miles an hour?

And they'd get to the window and go, I need your license, Reggie.

Harley? Harley Ray?

Okay, Harley.

Take it easy.

Slow it down.

That got me mad, too.

He believed 100 % he was.

The man.

Inside the ring and outside the ring.

Sometimes they realized who he was and didn't bother him.

Sometimes they didn't know who he was and tested him.

And it was a mistake every single time.

He knew exactly what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it, and how he

to do it.

I just don't know if Harley knew how to be anything else.

A rising star across the territories with his tag team partner Larry Hennig,

Harley Race emerges as the singles competitor after Hennig breaks his leg,

setting the stage for a legendary run.

When the Hennig Race tag team split up, Harley got a reputation as a top guy,

and that's where he first got into contention in the NWA promoter's eyes

being a world heavyweight champion someday.

Though the NWA title changed hands in the ring, The champion was actually

by committee, selected for their popularity, trustworthiness, and ability

protect themselves if a match goes off script.

A stunning turnabout here at Comiskey Park.

In 1973, the reigning NWA World Heavyweight Champion was Dory Funk Jr.

and his father, Dory Funk Sr., was one of the most prominent promoters in the

National Wrestling Alliance.

For a long time, there's been quite a feud between the Briscoes and the Funks.

Jack had gone for years, you know, as the number one contender, and it was

for Dory Jr.

to step down.

Hello, everybody. I'm Gerald Briscoe. Jerry Briscoe to a lot of you. I'm a WWE

Hall of Famer. I'm a 50 -year veteran of pro wrestling.

Jerry Briscoe clearly out -thinking his opponent thus far.

The rumor was that the old man, Dory Senior, did not want Dory losing it to

another babyface.

And, of course, Jack was a babyface.

But if he lost to a bad guy who was a cheater, well, that's something

So they put him in the ring with Harley Race.

This served two purposes.

Number one, he was going to lose to a guy that was a noted heel, a rule

-breaker, a cheater.

But he was also going to be wrestling a guy who, if it came to it, if there was

not cooperation, would be able to legitimately take the World Heavyweight

Championship in the ring.

Harley's first title win in 1973 really is what brought his name to national

prominence from coast to coast. And there were champions that held the NWA

longer than Harley did. But Harley, at the time, was the most constant champion

from the early 70s through the mid -80s. It was more often than not you would

see Harley holding the belt, and he became kind of synonymous with it.

That's exactly why Harley was there, would just personify that image of the

belt. You've got to be a tough son of a bitch.

He was wrestling an hour a night.

One hour matches, night after night after night.

As an eight -time NWA champion, Harley Race took on all comers, establishing

reputation as the most fearsome man in the business.

And what a lot of people don't know, those hour -long matches, it isn't like

wrestling today where a lot of guys plan out their matches in the back.

How could anybody go through the various injuries and accidents and things that

he had done and still be able to do that? That's why all the guys looked at

like, this guy can't be human.

Harley was so important to the central states territory in Kansas City that he

was allowed to buy into the territory and actually own part of the promotion.

I encouraged him.

I knew he was good at what he did.

The NWA World Champion's road schedule was probably the most grueling in all of

professional wrestling. Nobody traveled as many different places, worked in as

many different territories for as many different promoters, in as many

countries as the NWA World Champion. And there were literally almost no days

off. I wrestled for one hour in Tokyo, Japan on Friday night. I flew

out the following morning and wrestled for one hour.

In St.

Louis, Missouri, I flew out Sunday morning to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and

one hour with Carlos Colon.

He'd just fly from city to city, and when he could have 24 hours, he'd fly

and then back out on the road again.

And it was a horrible, horrible life to live in the limelight. Well, especially

because he was who he was and how he was.

You know, he treated everybody like gold except with me. I mean, he bought me

Porsches and mink coats and things like that. Well, that doesn't buy love.

This is Barbara Clary on special assignment reporting from Tampa,

Across the street is the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where at this moment a special

meeting of the National Wrestling Alliance Board of Directors is in

In 1983, the NWA decides Harley Race will lose his championship to Ric Flair

a massive event branded Starrcade.

I think that I'm going to call my quest for the World Heavyweight Championship a

flair for the gold.

Rick was as hot as babyface as babyfaces can get.

Harley and Rick were perfect foils at that time. Rick, the young, upcoming,

cocky, flamboyant type deal were the raw bone badass Harley Race. A lot of

people had thought they put Harley Race exactly where they wanted him.

Well, seven times around, I proved every day one of you wrong.

And I'll guarantee you this in Greensboro, Flair, I'm going to prove

The match is meant to mark a generational changing of the guard, but

promoter Vince McMahon has other ideas.

Hello, everyone. This is Vince McMahon in the studios of the USA Cable Network.

We wholeheartedly welcome you to the premiere of All -American Wrestling.

In 1983, Vince McMahon Jr.

had just moved from becoming the announcer.

for the WWF, his father's company, to the owner of the World Wrestling

Federation. And most of the promoters didn't know yet, but in the next couple

months, he was going to start a national expansion of the WWF that would see him

moving into all of their territories and trying to sign away all their top

talent.

Ric Flair was over, and Vince knew that when Harley dropped the world title to

him, Ric was going to be the next big thing. And Vince was trying to do

he could to shut it down.

Just hours before the NWA's massive Starrcade event, Vince McMahon meets in

secret with champion Harley Race in an attempt to sabotage the show.

Vince laid out an opportunity for my father.

to come over to the WWF if Dad would not go to Starrcade. And for an

extraordinary amount of money back then, $250 ,000.

I think there's an element of truth to all of that.

But if Harley had never lost the title, then how are they going to explain that

to anybody?

And whoever they made champion after that, the fans would not have looked at

them as legitimate.

That could have put you out of business.

And of course, Harley said, hell no, I'm not going to do that. I gave my word.

I was with Harley for 10 years.

You know, when you spend that much time with Harley, you get comfortable. You

start asking him questions of stories that other people have told or rumors.

And so, of course, that was one of the questions I had to ask. Have you and

Vince ever got into a fight?

There's times when you've got to make a decision where it has to come from what

you truthfully believe.

Apparently, Vince wasn't very happy.

Vince suddenly gets that look on his face and turns around and tries to leg

Harley and take him down.

According to Harley, he just puts him in a front face lock, hooks his arms, and

stands up with him.

Basically puts Vince to sleep, drops him on the floor.

Harley got him into a choke hold. He said, I wish I would have wrung his neck

because he was driving us out of business.

He could have broke his neck. He even told me, he's like, I could have ended

this right then.

I had too much respect for not only Rick and the wrestling business, but

for me personally, to pull that wasn't an option.

Fans, I'm Bob Cordell, along with Gordon Solin. We're delighted to be bringing

you, wherever you are, live from Greensboro, North Carolina, Starrcade

This is the wrestling event of all time.

Fortunately, the main event of Starrcade 83 did come off. It did turn out to be

the biggest gate of any NWA show previously in history.

Flair did win the title from Harley.

He's got him down. One, two, three.

He did it. He did it.

Ric Flair has just defeated seven times world heavyweight champion Harley Race.

Vince's failure to persuade Harley to leave the NWA and join the WWF.

is the McMahon's only attempt to take over Harley's Kansas City territory.

When Vince McMahon started taking his live WWF events all across the country

other promoters' backyards, running their buildings, running their towns,

of them appreciated it. But most of them didn't confront him personally.

Harley Race did.

When the WWF went to Kansas City, Harley showed up. That was his town. He had

owned it.

pioneered it, and he wanted to know why these son of a bitches were coming

trying to take his fans and ticket money away.

Now, Hogan, Hulk Hogan has told some stories.

You shall feel the wrath of Hulkamania.

This is where the power lies.

All right, get ready.

They were promoting big that Hulk Hogan is the world champion. He is the man.

And he was in Kansas City working my city. The longer I thought about this,

the... Mort took me off, so I drove over there.

What I heard was that Harley had a pistol in his belt, and he was looking

Hogan. He wanted to find out. You're the world champion. Let's find out.

And it's second, third, and fourth hand on stuff that I heard, but I already

come in, and everybody held their breath for like a half hour to see what was

going to happen.

Harley went around looking for Hogan, couldn't find him.

So he proceeded to light the ring on fire.

They called me and said, Harley Ray showed up between the afternoon blind,

drunk, and lit the ring on fire.

He said, if you come to the building tonight, he's going to kill you.

That was him protecting his business. That was him protecting the business of

Kansas City.

You had to assert to certain individuals you had tolerated that bullshit.

I don't doubt it for a second. Even if it didn't happen, does it really matter?

It's something that could have happened.

Despite Harley's best efforts to ward off Vince's invasion, the WWF's

expansion cannot be stopped.

Harley bought into Kansas City and the territories were dying. Vince came along

and offered him a pocket full of change and he grabbed it. But he knew.

But that's what he had to do in his next phase of his career. He knew Vince was

taking over.

Vince liked tough guys.

And Vince liked veterans who had accomplished things in the wrestling

So I think he respected Harley, but he thought he was too wrestling.

He was just too plain.

Nobody wants to see a tough guy wrestle. They want to see color and character

and ice cream bars.

That was what Vince was going for. And Harley was the antithesis of that.

So when Harley got there, they wanted to make him the original king of the ring.

That character, that attitude.

I crown you, and you only, the king, handsome Harley Ray.

Did he like it? I doubt it. He never, never bitched about it because that

Harley's style.

Whatever Harley was handed, Harley would make it work for Harley.

The WWF at that time was appealing to kids who they had no idea who Harley

was. They're kids.

And they see an older guy that's not particularly impressive, dressed up in

king outfit.

And the older fans who knew Harley, they were like, wow, this is what it's come

down to.

Now, we realized, you know, Harley at that point was very methodical.

And I enjoyed seeing a guy of that age.

Taking off from the top rope, dropping headbutts from the top.

Here he comes down from his strong headbutt.

Big roundhouse right.

Taking the big bumps still, like he made it work.

He was there to make a paycheck.

He was there to take care of his family.

But Harley's time in the WWF is cut short by an injury.

Ironically, while in the ring with champion Hulk Hogan.

Eight foot long table. So they had that out there and Hogan got on the table.

And dad leaped off the ring to land on Hogan on the table and

Hogan moved and he went through the table.

And the metal bar that goes underneath it, like supports the table, had been

bent down, not broken.

The metal bar came up and hit him in his lower abdomen, just below the belly

button, and blew out his lower intestines.

Created a big hole, a rupture.

He was at my apartment, and I left, and I came back, and he was passed out on

the floor in a fetal position.

I thought he was dead.

After suffering an internal injury during a move gone wrong, the future of

Harley Race's career is in doubt when he's found on the floor of his son's

apartment.

My gut blew apart, and they rushed me to the hospital and said, if we can't get

this shut down, that's it.

Harley had an abdominal hernia that required multiple surgeries to fix the

damage, and it significantly hampered the rest of his wrestling career.

That was a long recovery. He's a 300 -pound guy. He went down to 200 pounds,

needed care constantly, needed a lot of my help constantly.

He ended up having two colostomy bags on the front of his stomach, some 300 to

400 stitches on the inside of him.

He eventually got back to his wrestling weight.

He was a bit old.

To have to recover from something like that. Now, to recover and go back to his

job as an insurance salesman, sure. But to go back to wrestling, that was pretty

tough.

Harley wrestles sporadically over the next few years as his career winds down.

And he spends more time pursuing his other interests.

But once again, tragedy strikes.

We had a lake home. We went boating.

We had good times at the lake.

Some of the best.

until that boat accident.

It was in the morning, and he got up and started drinking scotch.

So I went on the dock, and I sat there, and I kept coming in, and he'd just call

me names, so I'd go out again.

And that night, he stormed out the house, and he zoomed out of there, out

cold. The story that we were told was that he was drinking.

There was a boat in the middle of the lake that turned off all their lights.

As he was coming around the cove, by the time he'd seen them, it was too late.

And he ran into them.

He was in the water. The other people was in the water. He pulled them over to

shore.

It was a pretty traumatic event.

As a result of this accident, several other people in the other boat were

injured, and Harley was as well.

Harley was intoxicated and also had resisted arrest at the time the police

to investigate.

And after he left, I called Harley's psychiatrist, and she said, back the car

up, put your clothes in the car, get out of there.

I called my attorney, and I said, I want to file for divorce tomorrow.

and had a restraining order in place.

The divorce, it was a very nasty divorce? Very nasty.

What led to the breakup of your parents' marriage?

Wrestling.

I mean, the arduous relationship of having someone gone all the time.

Mom raising me, pretty much.

And then once his career starts to wind down, and they're together a lot more,

they can get along.

He was a kind -hearted person.

He just wasn't a family man.

One time when I was putting Christmas decorations up, I got a phone call and

said, your husband has got me knocked up.

I got a letter one time to answer to a woman from Wichita, Kansas, said that

they want alimony for a 16 -year -old girl.

That was real.

But he got out of that too.

How'd he get out of that?

Because he's Harley Race.

But I could never leave him because he told me he'd get rid of me if I left

What do you think he meant?

What do you think he meant?

It was terrible.

I was stuck.

I was afraid.

And even though he was rough with me at times, I should have

done what they do today. They take you in.

But I didn't.

I would find out more sometimes about my parents' divorce through reading the

newspaper. In fact, I remember the movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen

Turner called War of the Roses.

Here in Kansas City, they wrote articles about my parents' divorce. It was

called War of the Races.

My dad did his best, and he did a great job as a father. But, you know,

different stories that are told that are true, not true, who knows.

It was just too much.

But there were a lot of arguments.

When Harley and I would fight, I would take Justin in his little red wagon and

take him out of there so he wouldn't see it.

And there were so many of those times.

I just hope that my son can understand my side of the

story. It's true. It's not a lie.

And I don't know that he will.

I wish it wouldn't have happened the way it did.

I'm glad I got out of the marriage.

Divorced from his wife, Harley faces another challenge when a lawsuit from

boating accident threatens to wipe out everything he has left.

The woman that was injured had two broken legs, but a couple of years later

it went to court she was still in a wheelchair.

And as a result, she was asking for $10 million in damages. She ended up being

awarded $250 ,000 because Harley was intoxicated. This was a time where not

had his wrestling slowed down, but also $250 ,000 as a judgment. It was a

financial burden on Harley that he would possibly not ever really recover from.

Everything he'd earned traveling the world for 20 years is basically gone,

right?

Facing financial hardship for the first time in his long career.

Harley returns to the wrestling world. After the abdominal surgery from the

accident with the table in the Hulk Hogan match, then Harley had torn his

shoulder out. He knew his wrestling days were behind him, but Harley Race was

still a major name in professional wrestling, and WCW had incredible

Harley. And they said if he can't wrestle on a regular basis anymore, he's

a personality.

and he still has that knowledge, we can use him as a manager.

Former heavyweight champion, Harley Race and Vader!

For a guy like Vader especially, Harley Race was a brilliant teacher because

Vader was an ex -pro football player.

He was used to coaches.

And Harley was a no -nonsense guy that would not take any shit, and he'd tell

him what he was doing wrong.

What are you doing to my face? I was a little trepidatious.

Because I didn't know if I was like a Harley guy. I didn't drive fast. I

drink much.

But he really embraced me.

Harley had respect for Mick, but he thought Mick was crazy.

The bumps that Mick would take, it's Jesus Christ, he's got to kill himself.

I know when I did my feud with Vader, the Harley stuff was just... Priceless

have him there and have him be part of it was some of my greatest moments.

Harley leaves WCW, but his next public appearance shocks even his closest

friends.

1998 expose, Wrestling Secrets revealed that it was a work, that it was

predetermined, that everybody was in on it together. And that's the antithesis

of what Harley Race would have done publicly.

In his entire wrestling career.

As a booker, your main job is putting two people together that'll draw money.

The production was able to gravel out his voice, but not so much to the point

where you couldn't tell who it was. And obviously the silhouette, if you knew

who Harley was, you knew exactly who it was. But it was surprising to see Harley

on there, a guy who respected and protected the business on a show called

Secrets of Pro Wrestling.

I was so disappointed, and I even told Harley, Harley, why'd you do it? And he

said, money, brother. Just like anything else, money's the evil of everything.

In a previous era, the consequences for that would have been dire, but the guy

that would have been dealing out the consequences would have been Harley

Who are you going to get to beat up Harley Race?

Retired from the ring, Harley starts his own wrestling school, where he imparts

his knowledge to a new generation of talent.

And in 2004, his long history in the business is honored with an induction

the WWE Hall of Fame.

God gave me the talent to work in this wrestling business.

And there's not a better spot on earth than under those bright lights.

In 2019, after years of battling various ailments, including lung cancer, the

wrestling world awakes to the news that Harley Rafe has died.

Harley was in terrible pain, but he sure had kept it inside.

The depression was kept inside. The tears were kept inside.

The human body, no matter how much of a superhuman he might be, has its limit.

He was 76 when he passed away.

When I came into the hospital room, I whispered, Dad, it's me.

I had a hold of his hand, and he, like, squeezed my hand, and I put my hand

down, and I was crying.

I put my head down on his chest, and he...

Reached over, and he patted me on the back and left his hand laying there, and

it was just as warm as ever.

I'm Harley Race, seven times world's heavyweight champion.

I would like to introduce to you the star of this film and also the star of

life, my wife, Yvonne.

Deep in my heart, I have to say he was a good guy. Harley was a god in

wrestling.

He just wasn't meant to be a husband.

One of the greatest men that ever stepped in the ring.

It takes a certain talent to get over. Harley had that talent to get over.

You could not be not in awe of Harley.

After all these years, we're still referring to the Harley race way of

things as being the best.

He was real. A legitimate tough guy.

Some people are just born that way.

He was one of them, and he was very good at what he did.

I don't see how anybody could possibly be tougher than Harley Race was. Maybe

there's somebody as tough.

Mental toughness, physical toughness, Harley Race had it.

I don't know if his toughness was to cover up emotions.

When he had the wrestling school, he was married to his wife BJ, and when BJ

passed away, we were talking, and he said, I haven't cried.

He goes, I should be crying, Trevor. I don't know why I haven't cried.

He goes, I miss her. I love her and I'm hurting, but I haven't cried.

I told him, I said, I just don't think that's you. It's not who you are. It's

not in your DNA, brother.

There's probably nobody in the history of wrestling that gave more of

physically and their effort and their determination and their credibility than

Harley Race did.