Original subtitles

- This is what I travel around with and have traveled around

with for probably 45 years or more.

This is Sgt. Slaughter's campaign cover.

It's a very important piece of my life and my career.

Uh, this is where it all started for Sgt. Slaughter.

When I put the cover on, I become Sgt. Slaughter,

instantaneously.

Stand and attention and salute me.

- Sgt. Slaughter.

- When I speak, you shut your mouths.

[laughs]

- He loves to bark orders.

- Is that clear, maggots?

- You maggots.

Hearing that, like, you want to hate that person, but then him

becoming an American hero, like, "Oh, my God, I love this guy."

- The tremendous standing ovation for, without a doubt,

one of the greatest living American heroes today.

- The place would just erupt.

- There were people on the sidewalk outside banging

on the windows.

"Sarge, Sarge."

- He was a tremendous, larger than life character that went

beyond the Sports Entertainment industry.

- Nobody beats GI Joe.

Yo, Joe.

- One of the biggest names in the world.

- To be Sgt. Slaughter, it means everything to me

and it cost me a lot of things.

- He loved the limelight.

I think that's pretty addicting, better than any drug.

- It's the ultimate high.

- This business means everything to my father.

It always came first.

- "I want you to be an Iraqi sympathizer."

"I'm in."

I pledge to you, President Saddam Hussein.

- It's a dark time.

We had bomb threats.

- and him having to wrestle in a bulletproof vest.

- I think he was having a lot of fun with it.

- Portraying the villain was always fun for me.

- The legendary Sgt. Slaughter.

- He is a certifiable legend.

- The character of Sgt. Slaughter is going

to live forever.

- All I have ever wanted to do in my life was be

a professional wrestler.

And it has its ups and downs, lots of travel.

Over the last 50 years, I've traveled the world.

I've gone from, uh, New York to Tokyo,

but this is where I look

forward to coming to when it's, uh, my day off.

This is where I-I call home.

Little place here in North Carolina.

Really enjoy the relaxation and the quietness.

Reminds me of my home back in Minnesota.

I grew up on a farm in Minnesota.

My father and mother were farmers and my father had enough

of farming, so he moved us up to Minneapolis and got a, uh,

job as a roofer.

And my, uh, earliest days of, um, remembering professional

wrestling was, I guess I was about three or four years old.

- My dad would watch it on TV.

My dad loved wrestling.

- So he put me on his knee.

And that's when I first started watching professional wrestling.

- Oh.

- I really enjoyed it.

It was entertaining to me and all the different characters

that were on there.

And I looked forward to it.

- Bob loved wrestling, but Bob was into all sports.

- I always watched sports, loved sports, played a lot of sports.

I was kind of a quiet, shy boy in school.

And I always was so much bigger than my classmates.

- Bob was always big and got picked on.

- Being the larger boy in my class and because of my, uh, jaw

and-and because I had the, uh, lazy eye, my parents finally

made me go get glasses.

And the lens on one of my eyes was always much bigger

than the other.

So, uh, they would say things to me like, uh, here comes Bobby

Remus, the cyclops, because I had one larger eye

than the other.

And, uh, of course my jaw, they would call me, uh, cow face or

things like that.

But it didn't bother me.

I just, uh, kind of, let it go in one ear and out the other.

- Well, he was a quiet and likable person.

He didn't talk a lot.

He came out for football.

And, uh, that was interesting because he-he was a big fellow

and, uh, he was always a little timid and was, even with pads

on, he was afraid he was going to hurt somebody that we had to

do things to irritate him a little bit.

[laughs]

So he would get a little upset about something and then he

would do better.

But he evolved quickly, became a real good player.

He was, uh, all-conference for the Minnesota Valley.

Two years.

- We had, uh, wrestling and kind of dominated because I was

the heavyweight.

I was the bigger guy.

I didn't really enjoy it that much.

I always thought there should be ropes and uh, a ring.

But I was just fantasizing about professional wrestling, I guess.

After high school, I became a professional barber.

I met Diane at the barbershop where I was working.

It was love at first sight.

- When I first met him, I just, I remember standing there

and going, oh, hi. And that was it.

- I was three years older than she was.

I was 18 and she was 15.

- I couldn't even remember his name.

But that changed quickly.

- We got married the day after she turned 18 years old.

- He made me laugh a lot.

He had a wonderful sense of humor.

I followed him everywhere.

They even had a nickname for me.

They called me Shadow.

- Because wherever Bob was, you'd look behind and Diane was

coming right behind him.

[laughs]

- Bob did not enjoy being a barber.

- My father finally decided that he wanted to start

a roofing company.

- He started working for his dad.

He was looking, he didn't know what he wanted to do.

- One day a friend of mine called me.

He was a, uh, sports writer and his company asked him to do a

story on a pro wrestling training camp put on

by Verne Gagne.

- My dad was Verne Gagne, who started wrestling

professionally in 1949.

And he trained over the years 144 wrestlers.

And we worked out on a farm my dad had out

in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

- And, uh, to the far end of the barn was a ring.

Verne was explaining everything to the crew that's there.

- If you don't know how to fall, you're going to get hurt.

And if you're hurt, you can't wrestle.

If you can't wrestle, you don't eat.

It's that simple.

- And he said, uh, is there a volunteer that could come in the

ring and we could put some holds on?

In I go, and Billy Robinson, the, uh, British Empire

Heavyweight Champion was in there.

- But Billy had a kind of a temper and he liked taking

advantage of people, especially the young guys.

- He dropped the, his shin on the back of my ankle, tried to

break my foot to, kind of, show this is the legitimate.

And, well, the first thing that came to my mind when I felt the

pain was my father being on top of that roof the next morning.

And I wouldn't be able to get up on the roof because my leg was

broke and he'd be up there all by himself working.

So I kind of went into a rage, kind of, uh, some place I'd

never been before and, uh, Billy and I went at it.

- And then Billy Robinson evidently thought he was gonna

kick Bob's butt, but he didn't.

Bob kicked his.

- And, uh, finally Verne saw that and jumped in there and

broke us apart, and he said, "If you wanna pursue a professional

wrestling career, please get in touch with me."

So I went home that night and I said, "I'm gonna be a

professional wrestler."

- And I said, "The hell you are."

- And I said, "The hell I'm not."

- And I just couldn't believe it because I knew my life would

change drastically.

I didn't like wrestling.

It just wasn't for me.

- And that inspired me to be sitting in front of this camera

right now, because when she said those words to me and I said

those words back to her, I had to do it.

Couldn't let her get one up on me.

- He loved it.

It was his calling.

Once he stepped into that ring, that was it for him.

- Any time I went to the training camp the next year and

I wanted to quit.

There was many, many times I wanted to quit.

I heard those words in my ear, in my mind, the hell you are.

The hell I'm not.

And I would keep going,

- Get up.

- scratch and claw,

- Run into him.

- and I made it.

And it was a very, very happy day for me, and I went and told,

uh, Diane that I was a-a bona fide, uh, professional wrestler

and she said, "Yippee, yippee oh ki-yay."

- And I said, you do what you have to do to be successful, and

that's all I could do for him was to support him and hold down

the fort and I never complained, ever did I complain.

- And so I shipped off to Vancouver, Canada,

for my first apprenticeship.

I'm wrestling as "Beautiful" Bobby Remus at that time.

I have long blonde hair.

"Superstar" Billy Graham who wore all the tie-dye and the

different colors was my idol.

All of a sudden, I'm gone, I've left.

She was my shadow and she came out to Vancouver.

We, uh, started our family.

Our first daughter was started out there.

- Well, I was thrilled and actually I was thrilled that I

had someone to be with me, someone to care for while he was

gone because he was gone all the time.

He had wrestled in Vancouver, British Columbia, and then

Seattle and Oregon.

I know that he travelled all the towns out there.

He had been in Japan for four weeks.

- When I very first met Sarge, I was in Japan

He was really green in the business.

Didn't really know what he was doing.

- He thought he was gonna be a superstar right out of the gate,

but he wasn't, so he had to pay his dues.

- He had a- he had a tough time when he first started getting

himself established with the public, and Bob, kinda, I think

floundered around a little bit because he didn't

have an identity.

- I was really kinda put down.

I didn't know what was going on in my career at that time.

One day, I pulled the knob on the TV and up popped a movie

called The D.I.

- You're gonna drill, drill, drill, and you're gonna

do it right.

Do you hear me?

[Recruits: "Yes, sir."]

- I was mesmerized and I said, "What a wonderful idea for a

villain in professional wrestling, a drill instructor."

So as soon as the, uh, movie was over, I ran down to my local

Army Navy surplus store and I got a campaign cover, a whistle,

and swagger sticks.

- He had the chin, he had the voice, he had the look.

And once he put that uniform on, he did look like the typical

drill Sgt. that we had all seen in the movies.

- I used to call him Dudley Do-Right all the time, the

cartoon character back in-- Dudley Do-Right

of the mounted police.

He had that Sgt. Slaughter chin.

Nobody had the look of-of Sgt. Slaughter.

- I did a lot of research on my character.

It was almost like being in school.

I've talked to many, many, many people.

My uncle served, my friend Bill Tweet was a major in the Army,

and I would research everything.

I would think of lines to say.

The Sgt. Slaughter name came from a movie called

Soldiers in the Rain.

- Sgt. Slaughter speaking.

- So I dress up and I head down to the AWA wrestling office and

go to see Verne Gagne and he said, "I love that character.

I hated my drill instructor in the, uh, the Marine Corps.

What a brilliant idea.

You got to do this.

Harley Race just called me looking for a new villain.

You need to go down to Kansas City because this is big."

We ended up going down to Kansas City and that's where Sgt.

Slaughter began in 1975.

- Well, he was Bob Slaughter in Kansas City and I did have a

couple of matches with him there.

And that character, I mean, nobody else could do that

like he does it.

I mean, just his whole look.

I said, "You didn't realize that when you were born, but

that-that chin is classic."

Uh, I mean, I said, "You look like a drill Sgt."

- And we were doing really, really good business and then I

got the call that my mother, uh, was sick, that I should, uh,

come home immediately.

My mother had cancer and, uh, I had to leave and take care of

the roofing company so my father could be with my mother.

She was constantly in pain, so they did some chemotherapy with

her and she got better.

And at that time in those days when you got better from cancer,

you thought, "Hey, she's gonna beat it.

She's gonna be okay."

But it was just a-a way of lo-- prolonging her-her illness

and her life.

And, uh, one day Verne Gagne called me up and said, "Uh, Bob,

I'm having a little trouble with my masked man, Super Destroyer

here and I was wondering if you would consider

taking his place."

I said, "Well, Verne, I-- I'm back, but I'm still running a

roofing company."

He said, "Well, I got an eight-passenger plane.

We don't wrestle every night, but when we do and I can get you

back the same night, could you do it?"

So I told my mother and dad about it at dinner, and my

mother said, "Bobby, I'm not dying tomorrow."

So my mother, God bless her soul, sewed me some masks, she

sewed me some robes and outfits, and so I called Verne up and

said, "Okay. I'll do it."

- "The Super Destroyer" Mark II.

- Look at the size side of the Super Des-- Oh.

- Oh.

- Oh, look out.

- When you wrestled in the AWA, you didn't wrestle every night.

- And he was home, he was home every night.

Kelly came along in April of '79.

Even though he wanted what he wanted in his wrestling career

to get that off, but he also knew his commitment and devotion

to his family and he couldn't leave.

He knew that his dad needed to be with his mom.

- My mother, uh, finally had to be put into a home and, uh, she

couldn't eat or she hardly even, uh, was awake.

It was a horrible, uh, thing just to witness.

- It was very difficult for Bob to see his mother sick.

- And the doctor came and said, "She's not gonna make it

probably through the night, so you might wanna start going in

and saying your goodbyes."

I'll never forget the glow around her head.

It looked like an angel and, uh-- excuse me.

She smiled and, uh, said, "Bobby, I'm, uh-- I'm seeing

the light."

And I said, "Go to the light. Go."

- I know it was hard on him.

I know how much he loved his mother because he hated

seeing her in pain.

It was hard.

She was a wonderful woman.

When she passed, he was back wrestling almost right away.

- I decided to make professional wrestling my career full-time.

- Well, your winner, ladies and gentlemen,

"Super Destroyer" Mark II.

- Pat Patterson was a very close friend that I met when I first

started wrestling as "Super Destroyer" Mark II.

And, uh, one day I started telling, uh, Pat about this

character, Sgt. Slaughter, that I had created.

He said it sounds pretty good.

Pat was going to New York to wrestle.

So I handed him some 8x10s, and I said, "Would you mind taking

these to the WWE?"

Because WWE was the major leagues.

I had been wrestling in a lot of minor leagues,

but this is the major leagues.

And about two weeks later, I get a call from Mr. McMahon Sr.,

the man in charge there, asking me to come in, and off I went.

The name is Slaughter.

Drill Sgt. Slaughter.

Is that clear?

- I hated him.

[laughs]

I hated Sgt. Slaughter.

- When I come in the arenas, I want you on your feet.

- Because he came across like the drill Sgt. to not just

other wrestlers, but to the fans.

- You're all slabs, hogs and sows, that's all you are.

- He got over instantly.

I mean, as soon as he went to the ring, with the look,

the cadence.

- Shut up, you maggots.

When I speak, you shut your mouths.

Who gave you permission to speak?

- Sgt. Slaughter was straight-laced and hardcore

and zero emotion.

And I loved it.

- He seems like such a sadistic individual.

He's been very, very rough with all his opponents.

He's been breaking the rules like crazy, and he's about

to do right now.

- Portraying the villain was always fun for me because

it was the opposite of myself.

- I traveled with him a little bit.

He's just a normal guy.

He wasn't a big partier.

He's quiet.

Sometimes you almost didn't know he was in the dressing room.

- When he was in the back, you know, he's Bob Remus,

he's playing cards and hanging out.

And he was just a normal guy.

He wasn't intimidating at all.

But as soon as he went out there, his whole look and his

whole demeanor changed when he put the hat on and became

the drill Sgt.

- I never expected him to be like Sgt. Slaughter.

That he could go from that quiet person to somebody

that was outspoken.

- Welcome to Camp Slaughter.

All you maggots out there, just remember one thing.

Sgt. Slaughter is in command.

Move it, move it, move it.

Come on yuppie.

I worked endlessly, tirelessly.

You know the easy way or I'm gonna throw you off.

I wanted to make sure that Sgt. Slaughter's character

was the greatest villain of all time.

It was tough to be that person that I portrayed and then to

come home and be Bob Remus.

Uh because sometimes it was hard to get out of the character.

But I learned as soon as I came up that driveway, Sgt.

Slaughter stayed in the bag and Robert Remus walked

into the house.

- Well, it was my rule and I think he adopted to it.

But he probably needed a break from the Sarge too.

He came in one time and he came walking through the front door

and I cannot remember what it was he said, what he did.

But all of a sudden I went,

"Did the Sarge just come into my house?"

And I went, "Whoa."

I said, "The Sarge doesn't live here.

Bob lives here.

Their daddy lives here."

I said, "You're gonna have to leave."

And I said, "You come back when Bob shows up."

He needed a place where he could just come back and just be Bob.

Except as soon as you leave the house and go somewhere,

then you were mobbed.

[crowd chants "Gomer"]

- Respect your Sgt.

Don't call me Gomer.

- Thousands of people shouting Gomer.

- That's disrespectful.

- Gomer Pyle, of course.

- Gomer Pyle.

- Hey, Sarge.

- It was always a treat for me to be the villain.

- Sgt. Slaughter really enjoys what he does.

- I used to just marvel on how mad I could get people.

I got people so mad at me that I got stabbed four times.

- He is not well liked by this capacity crowd at all.

- So Sgt. Slaughter became larger than life with the help

of the WWE because of the New York market.

- Slaughter is just devastating.

- Sgt. Slaughter was the perfect villain because people

paid money to see him get beat up.

Unfortunately for them, he didn't get beat up too often.

That was until his rivalry with Pat Patterson started.

When this alley fight was promoted between Pat Patterson

and Sgt. Slaughter, it was an instant sellout.

It was the moment that fans expected Sgt. Slaughter

might finally get his.

- No referee, no holds barred.

- One of the greatest match in my career.

We kicked the [bleep] out of each other, too.

- And this place goes absolutely bonkers.

- That match, the alley fight, the thing that made Sgt.

Slaughter a household name.

That match was seen from across the world.

- It's still as good today as it was then.

And it was just on down at the training center two days ago.

It's a phenomenal teaching tool here.

- After that match, I was asked to go down to Charlotte, the

Mid-Atlantic Crockett Promotions by Vince McMahon Sr.

He wanted me to leave for a while so that the people

would be begging for Sgt. Slaughter to come back.

And as soon as I got there, I said, wow,

this is like Minneapolis.

It's got the four seasons, but they're not harsh.

So I called Diane.

I said you have to bring the girls down and take

a look at this place.

- We ended up there and loved living in Charlotte.

And the girls were happy.

They had their friends and, you know, we have a beautiful home.

And Bob was around a lot more.

- Basically every night I would be home.

We just really enjoyed my career a lot more than what we did

when we first started.

I am the number one man around here.

Since I was the ultimate villain there also, I gotta do something

about my cars because every time we would come out to leave,

either my windows were smashed in, my tires were flat.

And so I decided I'm going to go pursue a used car somewhere

because my car was being demolished.

- He bought a limo and he had it painted camo.

And then he had Private Nelson and then Don Kernodle

as the drivers.

And he'd be riding in the back of the limo like they'd be

chauffeurs, right?

- So people were hating me more and more and more because I took

these two good guys and made them villains.

- And Don never won a match on TV.

So Sarge took him under his wing and he convinced Jim Crockett,

who was owner of Crockett Promotions for the Mid-Atlantic

area, that he could take Don and make a main event guy

out of him.

- Don and I had became the World Heavyweight Champions.

- They broke every record there was

in the Mid-Atlantic territory.

- He was so instrumental in making something that the

promotion did not think would work.

- After about two years in Charlotte, it was time to make

my way back up to New York and Mr. McMahon Sr. said,

"There's never ever been a villain like you."

And I said, "Well, Mr. McMahon, if you think I'm such a good

villain, you ought to see me as a hero."

And he went, "What?"

- The greatest living military hero in the world today,

Sgt. Slaughter.

- 50 Americans continue to be held captive in Iran.

Hostages of a mob and a government that have become one

and the same.

- The biggest example of taking real-world conflict and putting

it into a wrestling ring would be Sgt. Slaughter

and The Iron Sheik.

- Well, you're not far removed from the Iranian hostage crisis.

The hostages had been taken in '79, but The Iron Sheik would

come in and demand that the Iranian national anthem

be played.

- Iran, number one.

- Fans would go nuts.

They'd be booing, they'd be throwing stuff.

- They wanted somebody to come to the rescue of the

United States of America.

- And it started with just The Iron Sheik and Sgt.

Slaughter passing each other, one going to the ring,

one leaving the ring.

- Wait a minute, who's gonna step aside?

- I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.

It was so simple, but it was brilliant in its simplicity,

is that Sarge would not get out of the way.

- We may, Vince McMahon, have an altercation that we never in a

lifetime would suspect between these two men.

- It's like, he might be a bully, but he's our bully.

He's better than that guy.

- Slaughter's not gonna take any guff, you can count on that.

- And that started one of the greatest feuds in the history

of the WWE.

- I've had it right up to here every time I pick up an American

newspaper and see that one of my Marines,

one of my boys went down.

USA.

USA.

[crowd chants "USA"]

- We had an excellent match.

Everywhere we go.

- I remember there was a match between Sgt. Slaughter and

The Iron Sheik, where there was no finish, and the battle just

didn't happen in the ring.

It actually went into the back.

- Here we are back in the corridor area now and Slaughter

caught up with him.

- And for me watching it at home, I'm watching The Iron

Sheik and Sgt. Slaughter fighting in the back, but I'm

also hearing like some foul language in the back.

- Get that son of a bitch, Sheik

- I was like, "Oh my gosh, they're, like, really fighting."

And-And Vince McMahon is trying to break them up.

I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is 100% real."

- Man, oh, man alive.

I have never in my life seen anything like it.

- Sgt. Slaughter against The Iron Sheik was always

at or near the top of the bill.

- The fans here, listen to them yell, "USA."

- There were a number of us at NBC who were

real wrestling fans.

We loved it, and we would talk about it all the time, even talk

to each other with straight faces like seriously,

"Oh, there's an epic showdown coming now.

I don't see how possibly The Sheik can get in and out of

Madison Square Garden without a phalanx of security."

This is not on the air.

This is how we talked about it in the office

[laughs]

because we just bought into it.

- I've heard volume in Madison Square Garden, but when I heard

Sarge come out, it was a different level of volume.

Slaughter was outdrawing all of us.

- The hottest ticket in town right now, obviously,

is a ticket to the wrestling matches.

- Wrestling has also triggered a recent surge of patriotism,

thanks in part to Sgt. Slaughter's crusade against

The Iron Sheik.

- Pitting a patriotic Marine Sgt. against

an Iranian Sheik.

- Sgt. Slaughter, without a doubt, he has become the most

talked about wrestler in America today.

[crowd chants "USA"]

- I went to the show and afterwards, you know, said hello

to Sarge and he said, "Where should we go for dinner?"

It was late, so we go into the Carnegie Deli, but we got there

in his camouflage stretch limousine.

Within 15 minutes after he sat down, not only was the place

packed, but there were people on the sidewalk outside banging on

the windows, "Sarge, Sarge, The Iron Sheik, want you to take

care of him," whatever the hell they were saying.

And he was so good-natured about the whole thing, but it wasn't

like he was trying to lowkey it.

You know, if you arrive in a camouflaged limousine and it's

parked on a New York street, uh, you're gonna get some attention.

Sarge was enormously popular, enormously popular.

- He was going somewhere, to a bookstore for a signing.

There were people, like, practically jumping

off buildings.

I mean, it was a mob scene.

- Everybody jumped on board.

In fact, President Ronald Reagan invited me to the White House,

and he said, "Sgt. Slaughter,

I've always wanted to meet you.

I love what you do for our country and for patriotism."

[crowd chants "USA"]

I love this country.

I always have, I always will.

I wanted to be in the military.

Unfortunately, I have a lazy eye, which kept me from serving

in the military, so I never served in the military,

but Sgt. Slaughter has.

- Are you a Marine Corps veteran?

- That's right.

- Are you a Sgt. in the Marines?

- Sgt., drill instructor.

- How many years were you in?

- Seven years.

- Back then, to keep the persona up meant you were on your game.

And there was no halfway, half-hearted, you know, you got

to wind up, brother, and do it.

You had to be into it, you know.

- When I got there in 1984, I mean, I didn't actually know

that he didn't have a background in military.

I always assumed he did.

- For me to be the symbol of Americana for anybody that was

out there watching, it was an honor to me.

They can't themselves get into the ring and I am fighting

for America.

I'm fighting for each and every person in the audience.

- Sgt. Slaughter, hero to millions.

- I played the villain.

Now I'm a hero and I kind of enjoy it.

- You must be one of the busiest men in the world today.

I don't know how you can possibly maintain your schedule.

- It's unbelievable, Vince.

Uh, not only is-is the schedule tough, but wherever I go,

people recognize me.

- In this year of "Mat Mania" Sgt. Slaughter is an honored

celebrity, a folk hero, you might say, standing head and

shoulders above the crowd.

- Unfortunately, that's when I was my busiest when my

daughters were both in school.

- He really made sure that we knew how much he loved us.

"And even though daddy can't be here all the time, I'm always

thinking about you, and I wish that I was there to see

you grow up."

He missed a lot.

It was hard.

- He was on the road 300 days a year,

so we only got him 64 days.

And I would say maybe half of those, he was recovering from

injuries or just being on the road for so long.

- Sometimes we would go weeks without hearing from him.

Lots of birthdays were missed.

Lots of holidays, recitals.

I always say that for as much as he was gone,

he wasn't an absent father.

He was very much present.

- He made up for the fact that he wasn't there.

He would send flowers.

He would call us and let us know that he wished that

he could be there.

- Family was important to him.

Bob made a great effort all the time to get back

as often as he could.

- There was a time where I was maybe four years old, and my dad

had come home from being on the road for, who knows how long,

three months.

- And all of a sudden, Kelly comes upstairs and walks right

into the bedroom with like three of-- three neighbor kids.

- And I told them, "See, I do have a dad.

He does exist, and he's right there."

- Like, "Oh, my God, she had to prove she had a dad?"

Because they had never seen him

because he was gone all the time

He did have two lives.

He had a mistress and it was wrestling.

That's what it came down to.

Wrestling was his mistress.

She was always calling him and he'd go off and

take care of her.

- This business means everything to my father.

It's his whole life.

It always came first.

- I did it not only for myself, my family, but I did it for the

fans because they came to see me perform.

We brought our, uh, daughters, uh, one time to, uh,

an event in the Poconos.

- He was wrestling The Iron Sheik.

- And he took a, uh, foreign object out of his boot and went

to hit me with it.

And I don't think he meant to do it, but he hit me pretty hard

and I started gushing blood.

[chuckles]

And this-this-this is a family kind of show.

We're at the Poconos with our families.

You know, we're not supposed to be getting too crazy.

- Now my dad's bleeding and my sister and I just lose it

because there's our dad getting killed.

- And here I am, bleeding to death in the ring, and my

daughters and my wife were in the front row watching this.

- I tried to shield it from her and she was screaming.

She was screaming, "He's gonna hurt my dad."

- The next thing we knew, the match was over and I popped up

and I was like, "Did he win? Is he dead?"

And there's my dad in the ring, you know, like this like he won,

and I was like, "Thank God my dad's alive."

- When I came around the corner go-going to the dressing room,

there was Diane.

[chuckles]

- Well, I was furious with- with Bob.

- I had an easier time with The Iron Sheik.

By the time she got done with me, she was giving me

the riot act.

"Why did you do that?

Why did you do that in front of your children?"

And I said, "I didn't know what was gonna happen."

- But it was hard for her.

It took a long time for her to calm down because she really was

terrified that her daddy was going to be killed.

- It affected us for sure.

I mean, that's like childhood trauma.

- So, it's the little things like this that are just a

reminder of why I didn't like the business.

- My career in the WWE got cut a little bit shorter because of

the popularity of Sgt. Slaughter.

Other companies were seeing this.

A company by the name of Hasbro was thinking about going in that

direction, where they could have a real live character that could

be their spokesperson and their ambassador.

They wanted me to be their guy.

And I said, "Well, I need to run this by Vince first."

And he said,

"Pal, hell of an idea, but I can't let you do it."

Vince told me that he had just signed a huge contract with LJN,

a toy company, that it would be a conflict of interest for me to

be with Hasbro and with LJN.

So I couldn't do it.

So I'm at home with Diane and the children at dinner.

She said, "Bob, you can always be a wrestler."

- But how often do you get an opportunity to be

a G.I. Joe character?

- The next day I called Vince and gave him my notice.

- Okay, whenever you're ready.

- Okay.

Sar-Sarge, some people are saying,

"Where's Sgt. Slaughter?

Where's he been?"

You've been keeping as busy as ever?

- Oh, busier than ever.

Uh, I've been, uh, doing a lot of, uh, commercials and, uh,

some movies and, uh, made a record album.

I joined up with the

G.I. Joe outfit.

Uh, I'm the first living

G.I. Joe now and it's been a real busy schedule.

I've been expecting you.

My name is Sgt. Slaughter, Special Drill Instructor for

G.I. Joe.

- I was a huge fan of G.I. Joe.

And when G.I. Joe

came out with Sgt. Slaughter, I was like, "Oh, my

God, this is great."

- Come on, you guys.

I could use a little help.

- I loved playing with

G.I. Joe as a kid.

There was something so cool, though, about that Sgt.

Slaughter, G.I. Joe figure.

'Cause you knew it was a real guy.

You've gotta realize, in the late 1980s,

G.I. Joe wasn't a toy, it was THE toy.

- G.I. Joe was huge at the time, right?

This was the young male's answer to the Barbie doll.

It really was.

- It really did make Sgt. Slaughter a household name.

He's a G.I. Joe.

He's an action figure.

He's on the cartoon.

- That Joe's surrounded by Cobras.

- Yeah, but that Joe's Sgt. Slaughter.

- He's joined the G.I. Joe team.

- So we're celebrating by giving away Sgt. Slaughter action

figures, but you can't buy them in stores.

You've got to earn them.

Bob is inside.

Sarge is out in the garage.

So I've never put anything of Sgt. Slaughter in my homes.

So let me look through here.

Oh, right off the bat, the reason I left the WWE.

This is the first three and three-quarter-inch

G.I. Joe Sgt. Slaughter action figure.

This is where it all started for Sgt. Slaughter and G.I. Joe.

I can't tell you how much this action figure means to me

and my family because it changed our lives.

And because of this action figure with Hasbro G.I. Joe,

it created a volume, and the volume of Sgt. Slaughter

being on products all over the world.

Talk about changing your life.

All of a sudden, I'm at birthday parties.

Young boys and girls were going out and being

Sgt. Slaughter for Halloween.

What boy or girl didn't want to take a bubble bath with Sgt.

Slaughter in the soap that came out of his-his head?

Here I am.

All the boys and girls could take their lunches to school and

know that they were in good hands because Sgt. Slaughter

was on the cover of their lunchbox.

Hasbro never really made a a action figure

that was this size before.

They never had a wrestling action figure, so they added

this, made it so that I was able to be put into the WWE line of

action figures of LJN, and I was made just a little bit bigger.

Way to go, Sarge. Yeah.

And I trademarked any brand that had Sgt. Slaughter's

likeness in it.

I wrote a whole album full of songs.

Had my own label.

Cobra Records, way ahead of my time.

This was the first wrestling video game that I know of.

That's where it all started.

- Sarge was so smart and so bright, he foresaw the future of

merchandising before a lot of us did.

- I think he opened up, like, new horizons where, you know,

some of us that had never done a, like a Gillette

commercial before.

All of a sudden it opened up the door for me

to do things like that.

Anything less would be uncivilized.

Oh my gosh, Randy Savage.

"Snap into a Slim Jim."

- Pick up the tempo?

- Yeah.

- Snap into a Slim Jim.

- I think he had a-a lot to kicking down that fourth wall as

far as getting with the big brands.

- I got, uh, different invitations to, uh, be on a, uh,

Diet Coke commercial that I did.

I got invited to be on the Mario Brothers show.

Sgt. Slaughter.

And I'm here to train you bozos for a special secret

government mission.

- Okay, boys and girls, get your crayon or your marker.

And we're gonna go over that rough sketch you made earlier

and it's gonna look just like Sgt. Slaughter.

- I'm challenging Bigfoot, the biggest monster truck in the

world to an all-out tug of war.

We did a couple of music videos with it.

I played an air guitar.

And I also, uh, appeared in a movie called The Bad Guys.

- We have a celebrity in the audience this evening,

Sgt. Slaughter.

- So those were things that I tried to do to keep

my name out there.

- He was, for several years, of one the biggest names

outside of WWE.

- Became the first real superstar that went

on the Indie Circuit.

- I had a chance to see him on several occasions at high

schools, and he worked hard, he went out to the merchandise

table, he had a line a hundred people long.

- And with autographs and my fee, I was making more money on

the Indies than I was along with my Hasbro contract than

I ever was making.

But I couldn't get any airtime.

So AWA called and said "Hey, if you need somewhere

to be on television, we sure could use you."

And I said, "Will you let me promote G.I. Joe?"

"Of course."

So off I went to the AWA.

- And I've never seen any wrestler with any more

popularity than Sgt. Slaughter himself.

- And they allowed me to play my music

and let me promote G.I. Joe.

From head to toe, G.I. Joe.

Yo, Joe.

The AWA didn't have a heavy schedule.

And about the only time I wrestled for them

was on television.

So, my career started slowing down as far as in-ring work.

I enjoy myself right now.

I'm not wrestling as much as I used to.

But, uh, I'm enjoying my family these days and, uh,

it's been real nice.

Now I'm home.

I'm home a lot.

I'm going to events with my daughters.

I'm taking them to dancing and just kind of being a dad and a

husband and-and doing all the fun things at home.

- He would drive me to school every morning, put on the radio,

and we would sing the whole way to school.

- Things definitely did change for us.

He was around more, and plus he was doing a

lot more, the charity work.

He was very involved in that.

They were able to participate in his life a lot more.

- What I remember more so was doing a lot of charity events

with him as Sgt. Slaughter.

I admired him for his charity work.

And, um, it was very heartwarming.

I remember having a relationship with a boy who had

a brain tumor.

My dad would take him to Yankee games.

He would always, um, point out, like, how blessed we are.

And he would- he used those moments to teach me that.

And so, I think that had a big influence on me and the things

I've decided to do in my life.

Help people.

- He was around a lot more, yeah.

It made for, uh, a good family life.

But he missed it.

He missed the limelight of the wrestling ring.

And having those fans.

- It just got to be where I just said, "I'm not going to watch

the WWE anymore."

I was upset, I was mad that I was gone.

That I couldn't be there, especially with WrestleMania.

- WrestleMania, the greatest wrestling extravaganza in the

history of sports.

- For six years, I never watched it.

- Bob told me one time, he looked at me and he goes,

"Diane, do you have any idea what it's like to walk

into an arena?"

And he said, "You've got thousands and thousands of

wrestling fans out there.

And I know that by what I do," he said, "it's like I take and

put them in the palm of my hand.

And I can take them wherever I want.

I can make them feel this.

I can make them feel that.

I can make them love me.

I can make them hate me.

They're in the palm of my hand, and it's intoxicating,

knowing that you can do that."

He lived for it.

He loved being able to do that.

- My contract with Hasbro was coming up and, uh, they weren't

sure if they were gonna renew it because they were gonna go in a

different direction, and the phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Sarge?"

"Yes?"

"Vince."

He said,

"So, uh, I see your contract's about up with Hasbro."

I said, "well funny you should know that."

He said, "Are you ready to go back to work?"

And I said, "Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm ready."

He said, "Why don't you meet me in my house tomorrow morning?

I got an idea for you."

And he took me into his, uh, kind of a library there and he

shows me the prototype of LA Coliseum.

He said, "I can seat 104,000 in this one WrestleMania VII,

and I want you and Hulk Hogan to sell it out for me."

- I was always in Vince's ear about him coming back.

He was such a great worker.

So I knew me getting in the ring with him was a win-win

for all of us.

- "How are you gonna make Hulk Hogan the villain?"

He goes, "Hulk?

Oh, no.

I want you to be the villain.

Just give it some thought.

Go talk to your family about it because it could get

a little rough."

And as soon as he said rough, went,

"I'm in. I'm in."

104,000?

You know what that does to my name?

That puts a medal on your chest that you did that.

- And I remember him coming back and telling me what he was going

to do, and I basically looked at him and said, "Are you insane?"

I said, "You're going to ruin our children's lives."

- This is Sgt. Slaughter segment three, take one.

- The original plan was just to bring Sgt. Slaughter back

as the old drill Sgt.

- I used to be proud of my country, but not anymore.

- Drill Sgt. that felt that the United States had gone soft.

- Peace is for pansies.

- Now, you have a conflict.

- Is a prescription for war.

This Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the tiny country that is a

primary source of oil, Saddam Hussein, that cold-blooded

Iraqi leader is ruthless.

- And you actually have a international enemy,

if you will, in Saddam Hussein.

You have a face, you know, with-with that enemy.

It was just great timing.

Was not planned.

- Saddam Hussein, the man whose ambitions caused the war in the

Gulf, a dictator ruling by fear, personally murdering rivals on

his way to ultimate control of the party and the country.

On the 2nd of August, his troops ruthlessly translated that claim

into military invasion, reaching the capital Kuwait city

early in the morning.

- I remember I was in fourth grade when

the Gulf War was going on.

And it's scary.

You needed a hero.

- The first time the WWE audience saw Sarge live in the

arena for the first time, it was like a betrayal and there was

genuine hatred there.

- My leader is none other than the general from Iraq.

General Adnan

- Sheik Al-Kaissie was a former wrestler.

He was of Iraq descent.

He actually went to school with Saddam Hussein.

- This is the most despicable thing I have ever seen.

- So that poured more fuel on fire.

- Oh, this is ridiculous.

This is garbage.

This is bad timing.

And I don't agree with any of this at all.

- I was very upset.

Sgt. Slaughter was no longer the American hero.

He was like evil and bad.

- I mean, the whole country hated him.

- And he just stabbed him in the back, stabbed the country in the

back, stabbed all the armed forces in the back.

That was a lot of heat.

- President Saddam Hussein, I pledge to you that I,

Sgt. Slaughter, will follow in your footsteps.

- We would always have art imitate life.

And that's what we were trying to do with Sarge and making him

somewhat of an Iraqi sympathizer.

So we had a, um, Sitex photo made, which is what they call

Photoshopping now.

- We had a limo driver who was about the same height

as Saddam Hussein.

And we took a picture with the limo driver.

We're done taking the picture, we took the driver out of it and

we put Saddam Hussein in there.

It looked like we were together.

It looked like we just had lunch together.

And when they showed that on television.

Vince gave me another call,

[laughs]

"Sarge, I just got threatened I was gonna lose half my stations

and most of my sponsors. Okay?"

- I promoted, uh, the entire Southeastern United States

for-for Vince at the time.

And my local sponsorship went from being very successful down

to being almost non-existent.

- We interrupt the superstars of wrestling to bring you

this special bulletin.

- World Wrestling -- abhors the actions and

statements of Sgt. Slaughter and General Adnan as well as

their political affiliations.

Furthermore, the views of Sgt. Slaughter and General

Adnan do not in any way reflect the views of the Arab Americans,

or for that matter, the overwhelming majority of Arabs

throughout the world.

- There was some pushback and some felt that

we were crossing that line.

I applaud Sarge for embracing the character.

We were gearing up for WrestleMania.

And the-the idea for WrestleMania VII was to be

Sgt. Slaughter versus Hulk Hogan.

What bigger obstacle for Hogan overcome

than an Iraqi sympathizer in Sgt. Slaughter?

But to have Sgt. Slaughter as the champion even bigger,

in real life, man, things were heating up between

the United States and Iraq.

Things were heating up in the world.

President Bush came out and said, "We have declared war."

and we're all going, "[bleep]"

- As I report to you, air attacks are underway against

military targets in Iraq.

The battle has been joined.

No nation will be permitted to brutally assault its neighbor.

- It's like, okay, we've declared war.

I think most experts would've said, okay, this war's gonna

last two or three days.

We're still thinking, okay, we can go with this.

- The Sgt. Slaughter character already has the wheels

in motion and there's probably no better evidence of that than

the fact that three days after it's announced that America's

going to war, Sgt. Slaughter goes to the Royal Rumble, still

a full-on Iraqi sympathizer, and not only competes against The

Ultimate Warrior for the WWE Championship,

but Sgt. Slaughter wins the championship.

- No, no, no.

- Not like this?

- No.

[bell rings]

- Wait a second.

- No.

- The winner of this bout and new World Wrestling --

Champion, Sgt. Slaughter.

[crowd boos]

- I stood in the ring and took that purple belt

and held it above my head.

And you talk about, uh, getting more heat

on yourself right there.

- People bought in.

We're in a war with Iraq.

People's anger was at an all-time high and people,

they didn't dislike Sgt. Slaughter.

They hated Sgt. Slaughter.

- We had death threats at the office, had death threats

in every arena that we went through.

Sgt. Slaughter, unfortunately, his family, uh,

Sgt. had death threats at his home.

- I'll never forget it when that phone rang and I answered it and

it was Vince going, "Diane, you better sit down."

He said, "I have something to tell you."

And then he went into how the, we're getting death threats and

someone knows where we live, the ages of the girls, your names,

where you go to school.

- I didn't know that they knew our names and where

we went to school.

- That's why he said, so we have to take this seriously.

And he said, "I'm gonna send armed security guards."

- Well, I came up the driveway, and you know our driveway.

I don't know how that Winnebago got up there.

And when I got up to the top, there was four armed guards,

showed me they were carrying weapons.

And they said, we're gonna watch the perimeter of your property

24/7 until-until we're told not to

He- it was a pretty serious threat.

- Did you think it was fun, though, being a bad guy?

- Yeah.

I-I was having a ball, I was having a great time.

Right.

- I remember I got it so bad in school and you would be home and

I-- we-we would be in the car on the way to school or you would

be taking me to swim lessons or something, and I would be

telling you all the things that the kids were saying to me, all

the mean things and here I am looking for a dad to give me a

comeback, like something to say back and you'd just laugh.

You thought it was funny and I'm like, "Don't laugh.

Tell me something to say back.

Do you remember what you told me?

- No, I don't.

- You said,

"Tell them we're laughing all the way to the bank."

[laughing]

- Pretty good advice.

- The armed guards told me that when I left my house, they would

drive me to the airport, not go through the terminal.

And so as soon as we would land, a couple of police cars would

take me to the arena where I was performing.

I would wrestle, then head off to the airport

to take my next flight.

And that's the way it was for quite a while.

And I was never, ever afraid.

- The second match I ever saw of my dad was in 1991.

Just the people around me, I mean, just spewing absolute

hatred and just being so confused, like, because

my dad's a big teddy bear.

He doesn't, you know, he's not an evil person.

But they were all hating him.

[crowd boos]

- I remember leaving the arena with him, and he had many

bodyguards around him.

And we were maybe a few people behind him.

People were spitting on us, yelling obscenities,

just really awful, scary things.

So, I didn't like that too much.

To think like his family might be harmed,

I don't think he liked that.

But other than that, I think he loved it.

He loved being a bad guy.

- There was a point where Vince and a lot of us were just going,

"Oh, my gosh, is this going too far?"

But Slaughter was all in.

I said, "You know, we can always back this thing down," and he

says, "No, man, let's go. Let's just keep pushing."

- Bob loved the heat.

Bob loved going out and angering people.

And I will never forget Jesse Ventura said,

"You wanna get heat?

You wanna piss people off?

Why don't we set the flag on fire?"

You know, my dad's 23 years in the Army, retired.

I-I was-- that hit me.

But it also hit me.

Here, Jesse is a vet.

Jesse's a Navy SEAL.

But Jesse also was a very strong First Amendment

and believed in his rights.

- And I said, "Uh, no.

I refuse to burn the American flag.

But I'll tell you what we could do.

How about if we put Hulk Hogan's shirt, t-shirt on a flag pole,

and I'll say, that's a part of Americana,

and I'll light that on fire?"

[crowd boos]

- I can't believe this.

- That's disgusting.

- That was about as far as we were going to go with it.

- We were always second-guessing ourselves on this one.

- As for this American, a United States Marine, a platoon

Sgt. over in Iraq, he turned his back on America

and it made people really mad.

And I- And I knew the truth, I knew that it was character-based

and story-driven, but I am also the fourth son of a wrestling

father and three older wrestling brothers.

So, so I knew, but people got legitimately angry.

- You know, there was a lot of people that were put off by that

storyline, that it was too serious of an issue

to make it a storyline.

- I was aware of that storyline, and there are certain areas

where you just don't go.

While there's a patriotic fervor, and American troops are

in the Middle East, the Super Bowl in Tampa, with Whitney

Houston delivering perhaps the greatest rendition of the

National Anthem ever, that had an inspiring aspect to it.

- This guy is anything but a great American.

- That storyline, that might've rubbed some people

the wrong way.

- The worst part about the whole WrestleMania scenario was Vince

calls me again, "We can't go into the LA Coliseum."

- And I remember there was a lot of scare that the WrestleMania

that year that there was gonna be a bomb in the building or

something like that.

There was all kinds of fears of what kind of reactions

they would get.

- They want a whole lot of money to secure that building because

of all your death threats and all the bomb threats.

So we are going to go inside to the LA Arena.

That's why I did all this, was to break the WrestleMania III

record of Detroit of 93,000.

That really put a dagger in my heart that I couldn't

complete the mission.

- Several reasons the WrestleMania VII moved from

100,000 seat to stadium to the Sports Arena.

Look, ticket sales weren't going well.

But the biggest thing was what it cost to try and secure

WrestleMania because the attraction itself was something

that would probably instigate people wanting

to make a statement.

And we sure as hell didn't wanna have a statement made

at one of our events.

Sports Arena, we could secure.

That was not an issue.

Plus, ticket sales.

Is it a disappointment from where we were and what

we saw in August or September?

Yes, I think it was a disappointment.

Um, but it was- a lot of it was not under our control.

- That was the most downer of the WrestleMania VII.

The reason I did all these things, put my family in danger,

I did what I had to do, not only for them, but for myself.

- You go with it and you make the best that you can.

I thought the event that we presented for WrestleMania VII

was a damn good event.

- Welcome to Los Angeles, California.

Welcome to Star Spangled WrestleMania VII.

- It was still WWE's biggest show of the year.

You had a ton of celebrities at that show.

♪ For amber waves of grain ♪

- A lot of the celebrities wanted to be, you know,

ringside, wanted to be part of this thing.

- You really see superhero right in front of your eyes.

- And, uh, I just think so much of it had to do with was how

good of a job Sgt. Slaughter did with the character and how

hard he pushed the angle.

- This is the main event for WrestleMania VII

for the World Wrestling -- Heavyweight Championship

scheduled for one fall.

- You want someone to come out and just beat this dude up.

And there's no one better than Hulk Hogan to do that.

- Our national hero.

The nation looking to him to get the job done.

- Sarge had so much heat and they hated him so much that

people were just begging me to get him.

- For Hulk Hogan, it's more than the gold.

It's the retribution.

It's the payback time for the way that Slaughter has insulted

this great nation of ours.

- They wanted Hulk Hogan to knock my head off.

- This is some beating, isn't it?

I've never seen the Hulk so determined.

- Oh, look at this. Give me a break.

- Tremendous offensive move by Slaughter.

That's why he's the champion.

What a match.

What a match.

- How much pain can one man sustain?

- They're going nuts.

- Here comes the Hulk.

- The roof came off the building.

It was crazy.

I had goosebumps from head to toe.

I was, you know, coming up after that no-good traitor.

- That adrenaline is flowing through the body

of the Hulkster.

- Those are the things that I remember the most about this

business are moments like that.

It was perfect.

- Uh-oh.

- That's it.

- You're not gonna do that to me.

You're not gonna do that to the United States of America, and

the thousands of Hulkamaniacs.

The cover.

He got him.

He got him.

[crowd cheers]

- What a comeback.

- Put it all to rest.

The war is now officially over.

- I didn't wanna watch what he was doing.

I don't even think the girls saw it.

They didn't watch it.

- We didn't watch it.

It was a hard time.

It was hard.

And to be worried, you know, my dad traveling so much,

the extra pressure of him being an Iraqi sympathizer

and these death threats.

I always knew that one day I would get a phone- we would get

a phone call, there was an accident of some kind

and he was dead.

It was hard.

It was hard.

I think she resented him.

They got divorced not long after that.

- That was the- probably the straw that broke the camel's

back, in my mind.

It hurt my children, so I didn't- I don't like that.

I don't know that Bob knew how it affected me.

- I think that my mom probably kept a lot of the real-world

situations that she was dealing with in parenting away from my

dad because he was home so little that when he was home,

she wanted it to be good times.

She wanted it to be special.

And I don't think she wanted to burden him with, you know,

whatever she was dealing with.

- I was raising them and I was on my own a lot.

And I never complained about me being lonely.

I never shared any of that with him, that it was just me.

I went to bed alone and I got up alone

300 days out of the year.

So, you know, that's not what I got married for.

- And she said, "I didn't sign up to be by myself.

I signed up to be with you, and if I can't be with you,

I wanna go off on my own."

And I said, "Are you not happy?"

She said, "No, I'm not happy."

- I didn't wanna be his wife anymore.

I didn't want-- I didn't want the life.

I wanted away from it.

I didn't like it.

I competed with that business from the time he got

involved in it.

And I lost every time.

- Well, it bothered me a lot because I wanted her to come

with me on my trips.

I wanted her to watch what I did for a living,

but I didn't realize it had hurt her.

It-it bothered her.

She finally had to tell me, I don't-- I don't wanna watch you.

It was tough for me because I was alone a lot.

You know, this-this is a lonely business and you try to get home

as many times as you can.

And I drove hours and hours in horrible weather, in places

I shouldn't have driven in, in the times

I shouldn't have driven in.

But I did it.

I got home as often as I could have, and I wanted

to make a better life for her and my children.

It was her happiness that was most important.

So we had a mutual agreement.

We had split everything down the middle, and I said, if we can't

be married, let's be friends.

You know?

- Um, it was difficult, honestly.

They always have gotten along really well.

They've always had a really good friendship.

So there wasn't like knockdown, drag-out fights or anything.

- I'm sorry that I made her unhappy for pursuing my love and

my career, but I didn't know when I got into the business

that it was gonna be like that.

I just got into the business 'cause I loved it.

- Three, two, one.

- Sgt. Slaughter, you've been in seclusion now

for well over a month.

- I don't expect my family to ever forgive me for what I did.

I have to live with that.

But there's one thing that I want.

And that is I want my country back.

- That was great.

- It was time and it was what really needed to be done to make

the Sgt. Slaughter character whole once again.

- So they sent me out to Washington, DC, and a bunch of

other monumental places throughout the United States.

The beacon of hope.

- The thing that really makes this wrestling business work is

one of the most hated people in the world begs for forgiveness

and asks for grace.

The wrestling fans are very forgiving, believe me, you can

make a lot of mistakes in this world and they will forgive you.

- Listen to the chant for Slaughter.

- And so that's when I finally got my country back and started

slowly but surely getting my fan base back as the hero.

I got hurt for a while.

And so I-I tried wrestling a few more times,

probably a year or two.

And finally, uh, I-I kinda looked at, uh,

the retirement end of it.

- Once Sarge's days in the ring were over, we brought Sarge

in to work behind the scenes.

He had a really good eye for talent.

I always think of Yokozuna.

Nobody knew what to do with him.

And it was Sgt. Slaughter who said, make him a sumo.

- Yokozuna is an awesome force to deal with here.

- Vince takes me in this room, turns on the light, and there's

boxes and boxes and boxes of videotapes.

People send in requests for us to look at them.

He's- why don't you, uh, go through these and see

if you can find something.

I found quite a few talents.

Sean Waltman, Billy Gunn and his brother, Bart.

Adam Bomb, some type of Tasmanian devil.

Wrestling name was Tazz.

We called him.

"You wanna come in for a tryout?"

Then I helped out with vignettes, and helping other

wrestlers get more creative.

Those were fun days.

I-I always wanted to be on that end of the business because I

did everything else in the ring that I could possibly do.

- Sarge had a good head for the business.

Sarge could talk with anybody about anything.

And he was someone that everyone knew.

[laughing]

- I got you.

- From being Sgt. Slaughter and that character,

that All-American to send him out to community events,

there was nobody better.

- On behalf of the World Wrestling --, I'm happy

to carry the banner for myself and all the superstars.

- Very well spoken and a good representative of the company.

And I think that everything that he put his mind to,

I think that he succeeded.

- Vince came to me.

He wanted to know if I would become a commissioner.

I was a sheriff at the O.K.

Corral without any rules, and I loved it.

You aren't the new sheriff in town, I am.

- You know, right off the top, it's like he was credible.

Not everybody can carry that off.

And Sgt. Slaughter pulled it off really well.

- But then there were times when I had to make a decision where

it was bad for the hero, and I'm the one that always

got the brunt of it.

- Oh, no.

- Took a lot of stunners from Steve Austin.

- Oh, my God.

Austin has just attacked the commissioner.

- The late 90s were an incredible time of growth for

WWE in terms of TV ratings, in terms of people showing up

at live shows.

So when Sgt. Slaughter popped back up as this

commissioner and he was back on TV every week, it exposed an

entirely new audience to this absolute legend.

- Some of my friends were big wrestling fans,

so it was such a big deal to them.

- They'll do anything to humiliate anyone.

- It was a blast.

And Sarge was so into it.

I've always liked Sarge.

He was a fantastic road agent or producer here for us.

- I really enjoyed helping other wrestlers, giving them pointers.

- He was always someone that I felt believed in me and didn't

listen to anyone else, kind of marched by the beat of his own

drum and would be like, "Hey, you're doing a great job.

Here's what you need to do."

- So that was fun teaching.

Those are the kind of things that made you love the business

and makes me still love the business.

- Welcome to the WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Our next inductee is one of the great ones.

Sgt. Slaughter.

- You know what that-that means?

That ring right there?

WWE Hall of Fame.

And that-that means everything to me.

I don't take that ring off.

That ring is on my finger 24/7.

It's an honor that, uh, I was recognized.

Well, I stand here, uh, very humble, but, uh, I see a lot of

faces that I had the honor of, uh, getting into the ring with,

and, uh, would do it all over again.

I'd like to thank my dear friend Diane, uh, my ex-wife for being

both mother and father, uh, while I wasn't there, my

daughters, uh, Nichole and Kelly, thank you so much for

giving up your precious time to be with your dad so that he

could go out and be what he wanted to be, a-a superstar in

professional wrestling.

- To see him get honored to be in the Hall of Fame was amazing.

- To see him recognized by his peers in that way-

it was awesome.

- I just say from the bottom my heart, thank you.

I love you all.

And that's an order.

I'm dismissed.

[applause]

- Sgt. Slaughter's character means everything to me.

I'm an actor, I'm an entertainer.

I do this for a living.

I've been doing this for 50 years and I never went

out of character.

I have never, ever since I put the combat boots on, I've never

ever been out of character on a radio show, on a TV show,

at a veteran's hospital, at a children's hospital.

I might not be as brash, but I'm never out of character.

People say, "Oh, he's Bob Remus.

And we heard him on the radio the other day as Bob Remus."

No.

- You were in the Marine Corps?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

What years were you in?

- Uh, I got out in '74, went in at '68.

Some people don't understand reality from entertainment.

- Sgt. Slaug-- oh, my God, look-

- As you were, maggot.

- Look at the Sarge.

He's come in, he's all decked out in camo-

- He certainly is.

- -he's got the hat.

This is as Sgt. Slaughter as I've never seen anybody be.

Welcome.

- I was told by Vince McMahon Sr. that when I became

a Marine that I should act like a Marine, be a Marine.

That's the only way that people are going to believe you.

- Were you in the Marine Corps?

You were in the Marine Corps.

- Yes, yeah.

- Yeah.

What years were you in?

- Uh, I got out in '74, went in at '68.

- Oh, okay, so you did six years.

- Yes.

- So did you go over to Vietnam?

- Two tours in Vietnam, yeah.

When I did that show in New York City, I wasn't Bob Remus.

That was Sgt. Slaughter talking.

- For me as a wrestling fan, I thought I was talking to

Sgt. Slaughter the whole time.

Other people took it very, very differently, and I think he,

kind of, had to pull back and explain, there's a difference

between Sgt. Slaughter and whoever I am in real life.

- It's just that era of talent that are going to protect who

they are and what they are, and you never ever let on anything

else other than what was portrayed on TV.

- Yeah, okay, he didn't have a military background.

He probably raised more awareness for the military than

all the military posters you see.

- Look, Sgt. Slaughter came from a different time

and a different era.

He was so committed to that character.

- If somebody got offended by that, I-I-I-I apologize.

You will never hear it out of my mouth again.

I don't mention Vietnam anymore, I was told that that was part of

my character, so I portrayed that character.

I can't tell you how many men and women come up to me and tell

me that they served in the military because of me.

Sgt. Slaughter is America, and people come up

and want my autograph?

That's an honor.

- The guy's still my American hero.

He is red, white and blue through and through.

And look, I don't think the fact that he didn't serve makes that

any less true.

I think he still believes in God, Corps and Country.

- Sgt. Slaughter is one of the most beloved superstars of

all time, because he is that character.

He's kind of ageless.

When he puts his hat on, he's still got that voice,

he's still got that chin.

[crowd applause]

- Yo Joe.

- I got here today from Australia,

thanks to my friends

and my family, they all pitched in with a GoFundMe specifically

to meet Sgt. Slaughter.

It's an honor and a privilege to be shaking the hand

of my childhood hero.

- Say goodbye to--

- I've been working on the GI Joe brand for

Hasbro for about the last 11 years.

To even be associated with your childhood hero in that kind of

significant way after this many years, emotional, honestly.

It's, you know, I don't want to get weepy, but, like,

it's-it's-it's genuinely surreal.

- I still travel just about every weekend.

That's my job now, that's my life, but I have the week off.

So I have more time to, uh, see my daughters and-and Diane

and my grandchildren.

They're hungry today.

There you go.

Great job.

- Neither one of them remarried and they ended up coming back

together after many, many years and have a really great

companionship now.

Um, I think they're better friends now than they were when

they were married.

- We both love each other dearly to this day, and we share a lot

of time together.

We're together more now than we ever were.

- The family comes first now.

Family comes first, that's one thing that he's learned.

When there's things going on now, and he has an engagement

somewhere, he'll cancel it like that and go, "I'm not going to

go," and he said, "I'm going to come to this,"

because he's not building anything anymore.

It's already there, it's been built.

- That's where I-I fought to get to.

When I stepped into that ring, in that barn, I knew that

someday it would be over with.

And we have four grandchildren.

There we go.

Let's see you try to counter that one.

Oh, ho-ho.

- It's actually really fun to see him as a grandfather because

I feel like my children are able to enjoy him in a way that

I wasn't able to.

- Yes, get it.

He's got it.

He's got it.

He's got it.

Yeah.

I retained the title.

- He is a great grandpa,

and they have a wonderful relationship.

Here we are with a good life.

- I'm living a pretty good life right now and, uh, I'm

happy, I'm happy, uh, being Sgt. Slaughter the hero.

- Sgt. Slaughter, the greatest living

American hero today.

- The whole idea of Sgt. Slaughter, an uber patriotic

symbol, was perfect.

- Perhaps the most patriotic American ever.

- When you think of Sgt. Slaughter, you think of somebody

that was waving that flag-

- I pledge allegiance to the flag.

- -saluting that flag, getting the fans to chant, USA, USA.

[crowd chants "USA"]

- People were so invested in the character.

- And Sarge was able to transcend the business

and be larger than life.

- From head to toe, GI Joe.

- One of the most recognizable guys in the world.

- Yo, Joe.

- He's entertained me and millions and millions of people

all over the world, and it's created moments that literally

last a lifetime.

- The most grueling match.

- He worked his whole life to have a character

that will live on forever.

- My God, it's Sgt. Slaughter.

- Look at this.

- It's always cool to see him come back and get the pop that

honestly he deserves.

- Listen to this chant.

Sgt. Slaughter chant.

- He's a fantastic human being,

when everything is said and done.

- USA.

I just want to be remembered as someone that loved his fans

and loved my country.

And just know that Sgt. Slaughter was a character,

Bob Remus was a father, a husband, and a grandfather

I just lived life the best I could.

- The American icon, Sgt. Slaughter.

- "Ten-hut."

- "Listen here, you maggots."

- "Maggots make me want to puke."

- "Drop down and give me 20."

- "And that's an order."

- You're dismissed maggot.

[laughs]