Beer City Bruiser learned a lot more than how to wrestle under the tutelage of the legendary Harley Race.
During an interview with Arm Drag Takedown with Pollo Del Mar, Bruiser revealed how another incident involving another WWE Hall Of Famer reinforced the biggest lesson he learned from the iconic eight-time NWA World Heavyweight champion.
“My wife, when we first started dating, was a big George ‘The Animal’ Steele fan,” Bruiser said. “He was just a complete jerk to her,” he continued, “It kind of upset her. Here’s this guy she watched in professional wrestling and was a fan of, then she meets him, and he’s a complete jerk to her. It kind of ruins everything else.”
Bruiser explained that Harley Race earned quite the reputation for his accomplishments in pro wrestling and probably “could be an asshole if we wanted to” but he was in fact quite the opposite, as Bruiser explained Race was “probably the most humble man I’d ever met.”
Bruiser attended Race’s Missouri wrestling school and once asked how Race remained so level-headed, and revealed the words of wisdom Race shared with him back then.
“He said, ‘Wrestling was here long before me, and wrestling will be here long after me. So the time I’m here, I might as well try to make wrestling better.’” Bruiser recalled. “That’s probably the best advice he’s ever given me, and I still live by it.
Despite the unfortunate run-in with Steele, Bruiser says his signing with Ring Of Honor later on allowed him to make it up to his wife in a way. He says he explained all wrestlers weren’t really like that and asked her to trust him on that, noting that he saw it first-hand with Harley.
Also in the episode, Beer City Bruiser spoke about why ROH Split The Bouncers and Silas Young up. He said it was designed for Silas to be the singles wrestler, and once the Bouncers starting getting cheered the office knew it was time to make a change.
“It was natural for him to break away from us. He was always going to be the singles guy, and we were always going to be the tag team anyway. The crowd just loved Brian and I. They respected Silas, but they didn’t like him. I think the office saw that and was like, ‘OK, we’ve got to get Silas away from them, because the fans really like The Bouncers.”
