All language subtitles for Dark.Side.Of.The.Ring.S06E08.1080p.WEB.h264-BAE

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, Bruce and Brody zero.

The original innovator of hardcore
wrestling, the Sheik, broke all the rule

and out of the ring.

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

a sport.

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 believe could happen in a wrestling

match.

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

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 slayed.

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

the top of the wrestling heap.

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.

I have no doubt he would have liked to
die in the ring.

29 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

original Sheik.

When the Sheik would come into the
arena, the mood would change. The fans

sense that something was different. He
had an aura. He had a presence. You

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.

All of a sudden, in comes a stretched
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

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.

He was the greatest in almost every
category.

Not because he's my uncle. He proved it.
He was.

I am Savu. I'm the nephew of the Sheik.

He made people believe.

Even though they thought they knew
Rustin was bullshit, they knew he

Sheik laid down the foundation for what
would be called the 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.

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

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.

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, there were
something very, very strange and very

foreign. You always had...

foreigners in wrestling. They were dark
and mysterious from other lands.

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.

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

It was his wife, Joyce.

But her name was Princess Salima.

He makes this 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. There was
fight on the floor.

fight with the chair.

It was everything but a wrestling match.

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 Abdul of the Butcher. I have
wrestled the Sheik.

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

We did a lot of shit.

And then when finally when the Sheik got
stabbed with his own pencil and he

started bleeding, the people would go
out of their minds. Yes, yes.

You're going to pay Sheik. You go ahead,
burn me, burn them all. One of the

things that caused the most commotion
was when the Sheik would throw fire.

The Sheik has got that fire.

He's burning them badly. That was
explained by the promoters and the

that the Sheik knew some way to
magically produce fire from his

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 trunk. Then
when he hit it... And in the arena, the

match might be crazy enough and people
would be screaming, but when the fire

came out...

A gasp would erupt from the people.

He's throwing fire.

They still got a mark. Come on. I'm
serious.

Yeah, look at that. You see it? If I
wouldn't have turned my head, I would

been blind today.

It was like the ancient gladiator days,
like the Roman Colosseum.

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.

And the crowd loved to hate him, right?
I think he fed off that.

There was a lot of animosity back in the
day, you know, being that he was a

first -generation Lebanese -American.

We were wondering a moment ago if the
Sheik understood English.

My grandmother's grandfather was born in
Lebanon.

So when they came into this country,
they came to Detroit.

Detroit, Atlanta, 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

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!

In an era where most wrestlers
maintained their characters outside of

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 claim
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

taken. He has put himself in some
hypnotic state.

He was committed to not expose the Sheik
because that was just

anti -Cafade.

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 the heels, and the baby
faces in the other room. I was thinking,

why are all the bad guys sitting
together, and why are all the good guys

together?

But then I figured it out. He was
kayfabing.

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

know at a restaurant or something.

You know, he was a man of few words.

And any time a waiter or waitress would
come by and be within earshot, he'd

switch it right back to 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 it 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 Farr has an unwavering commitment
to living his life as the Sheik.

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 into the dressing room and
my uncle had his weight on him.

I was there, and the guy who came to my
uncle started saying shit, and my uncle

just zipped him like a, give him a C,
and he cut him to the bone.

Almost an insight came out.

And in the newspaper, the explanation
they gave for the fan's injuries was

he had been knocked through a plate
glass window in the process of being

apprehended.

Because 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
car, the local promoter might beef up

the police, the security.

There was one night in Amarillo, a guy
pulled a gun on him.

and tried to fire, 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.

If the guy had pulled the trigger one
more time, he would have got the Sheik.

A lot of top wrestlers that were heels
had that much heat, but the Sheik 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
Fleischer, the figurehead promoter, and

Sheik called the shots in the ring.

And there's a 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

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 Kobo was a 12 ,000 -seat building,
and they were coming close to her

it up on most occasions.

The Sheik before 12 ,500 fans in the
Detroit Kobo Arena.

The Sheik was a thinking businessman.

He was the very first promoter in the
country who bought a mobile TV truck.

And he's going to 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

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
a place where everybody wanted to work,

and the guys made the 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's 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, five or ten acres of woods

creek and stuff. It was beautiful.

Sauna in the home.

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 if

it was hot, cold, he wore it every day.
It was his 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 a 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

any limitations about him at all.

He was a fabulous businessman.

But I'm going to tell the honest truth.

He had one weakness.

Gambling all the money that he had.

Las Vegas would wipe him out.

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 win.

He lived big, and he had to keep up the
gimmick.

Insisting he remained the top draw, the
Sheik books himself to headline nearly

every show.

The United States heavyweight champion
has held that title longer than any

U .S. heavyweight champion in the
history of the belt.

There is...

A lot of truth to the idea that 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.

If you're able to decide who's going to
be on the card and who's not going to 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 them. 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

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 baby face, his
star attraction as a hero, was a guy

Bobo Brazil.

Sheik saw an opportunity there because
at the Kobo, the crowds were black and

white. Like a lot of places in the
United States in the 60s, the only place

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

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

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 riot started, the sheik
thinking, what can I do to calm things

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 tension in the town.

And then, of course, Sheik beat him two
weeks later and won it back.

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

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 a camel clutch, the
Sheep!

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

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.

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

going to be back here in two weeks, you
know, in 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

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

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, if 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 moneymaker in
professional wrestling for a long time.

The Sheik had been in all these
pictures, the fire and the snakes and

and the eyes, but they'd only seen him
at magazines and newspapers.

They went absolutely out of their minds
for the Sheik. He became an icon in a

very short period of time.

A great city of Tokyo, when the Sheik
walks down the street, they actually

traffic. They were bloodthirsty.

Look at the blood, everything.

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

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

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

mansion that had seen its better days.

I mean, he'd spent all his millions.

And so he and Joyce were living in the
kitchen.

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 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 1 ,200.

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

himself going at the same time.

I'm not a psychiatrist, but one would
think that that had to be uppermost in

mind is how can I keep doing this for
very much longer?

How can I keep up the gimmick?

With injury and age driving him from the
ring. 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

five or six.

And he'd hit my mom.

And mom would call my uncle. Uncle would
come over and beat him up.

And then one day...

He comes to meet him up. My dad was
hiding under his bed.

And I said, that's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to be the Sheik and have

people hide under the bed from me.

I said, well, I got my uncle. He's more
of a dad.

All up until I was 19, I was telling
him, I'm going to be a wrestler, I'm

to be a wrestler. But I never did
nothing other than amateur wrestling.

I was 19 at a party, and these guys were
shooting.

One guy shot my one friend in the
stomach and took off running.

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

He pushed the gun against my face, and
he hit my teeth, and it shattered.

So it went in my nasal cavity and in the
back of my throat. It knocked out seven

of my teeth.

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

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

My mom called my uncle and said, I want
to be a wrestler, a pro wrestler.

The next day, he came to my house. 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

cap. 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.

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

get in it.

I never had a free minute. Anytime he
goes, what are you doing? I go, nothing.

He goes, okay, go chop some wood.

He always had 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 motherfucker.

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.

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,

the tournament and stuff.

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
have backed me up.

As Sabu's star rises, he brings in a new
recruit eager to learn the ways of the

Sheik.

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, you

like pushing and pulling me, making me
move in the corner a lot, and then those

big eyes were looking at me, and his
tongue's out.

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.

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, I wrestled with Sabu, my

tag team against a Japanese tag team.

Instead of rope, 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 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 on her hand.

And it was only in there probably five
or six minutes.

And it was too hot.

They must have 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
because that's where they could get the

oxygen. And Anita said to Sheik, Sheik,
this is bad.

He didn't know Anita could even speak
English.

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, wins are a factor.

And so when the actual match took place,
things were going as rehearsed.

The winds shifted, flames started going
horizontally across the ring, and it

started melting the ring.

Sabu and one of the Japanese wrestlers
were able to get out of the ring

My grandpa was locked up at that point
with Onida.

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.

He crawls out of the ring. I run around
the other side. I throw water at him.

He goes, what are you doing? I said, I'm
trying to put you out. You're smoking.

And he goes, no, I got to throw fire
still. I was getting his hand wet.

The skin is dropping off his body, and
he's still trying to do chic stuff.

You know, but they'd gone too far.

My grandpa ended up with third -degree
burns over 20 % of his body.

How's that, Grandma?

Three or four 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
could smell it.

You know, it was quite the journey to
get him back from Japan, you know, the

-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

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

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. I did

flip out of the ring, and I hit my
opponent, and his leg got stuck under

broke his leg.

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 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 until we got back behind the
curtain, we had to get a wheelchair for

him. He never complained about it. Tony,
the manager 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 going to stop
because I was always worried he wants

one more, he's going to have a heart
attack or his leg's going to break

You know, I was always worried about
that. But it was awesome because he

says, I'm going to stop.

You know, he had reached the pinnacle of
his career and it was done at that

point and kind of just moved into the
family life.

He still was the Sheik in public.

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.

He came to Grandparents 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. I just

happened to have the grandpa with a
shirt opened, camel necklace on his

yelling Allah to the ceiling in the
classroom.

I never, ever questioned whether he
thought we were the center of the

He showed us that every day.

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

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 to the

cancer.

One thing about our family is that we
rally.

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

And we did. I would say the last few
years of my grandfather's life, we were

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 Grandma had

called, and I said, he's gone, isn't he?

Not a glamorous death, but...

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 there
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

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. I said,
what?

When he told me that, they said, Sebu,
you got to go get set up for the

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

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 than my

father, more than anything.

And she goes,

you know he'd want you to do your job.

You can't have a heartbreak affect your
professionalism. So I stayed and did my

match, and then when I got home, I
missed the funeral. But to me, funerals

just to show people who are still alive
that you cared. A 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 to this

day.

My friend was gone.

Years after the Sheik's passing, his
legacy is solidified into wrestling

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's 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. Of

course, of course, you know, let's do
this.

It was a nice moment to see that
appreciation.

be given to him by a new generation.

I mean, he started at the dawn of
television, and his last appearance was

-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.

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 nonconformist, and I have no doubt

that that is me taking after the
original Sheik who brought me into this

Uh -oh, here comes the chair.

Both men outside the ring, but it's not
over.

He put ass in seat.

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.

And in some ways, it was absolutely
charming because he did such a marvelous

of it. The Sheik looks like he's been
through World War III. 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