Sun. Sept. 16

My fascination with pro wrestling started and peaked in high school, maybe early college, watching late night black and white matches on TV and going to live events at the Bangor Auditorium, in Maine, featuring Gorilla Monsoon, Chief Jay Strongbow, Handsome Jimmy Valiant, Prof. Toru Tanaka, Haystack Calhoun, the Iron Sheik and others from what I consider the glory days. Vince McMahon – small time at that time – was the promoter. Around that same period, I found the Dictators debut album, “Go Girl Crazy!,” played it to death on in my dorm and on college radio and interviewed the band when they, too, played Bangor Auditorium, the opening act on some hard rock/metal bill. It was for a long defunct magazine called Sweet Potato. But a relationship with the Dictators, personal and professional, was born and continues even as band leader Andy Shernoff has put the band to rest. The Dictators music lives on with the band called Manitoba with singer Handsome Dick Manitoba, guitarist Ross the Boss and drummer Thunderbolt Patterson and others. And the wrestling connection? Well, the Dictators first album started off with “The Next Big Thing,” a stomping rocker with Manitoba proclaiming, “I won’t be happy ‘til I’m known far and wide/With my face on the cover of the TV Guide/I sock ‘em everywhere that I sing/Cos you know baby I’m the next big thing!” That song is preceded by off an over-the-top, comic wrestling boast from Manitoba. It was the first band to embrace the wrestling connection – Cyndi Lauper and NRBQ later joined the call, among others. And here we are with the WWE staging its “Night of Champions” event in Boston Sunday Sept. 16 and we’ll be there – Manitoba, his son Jake, and a few friends. Manitoba’s quick self-description: “I’m a loudmouth guy and there’s probably people that go I hate that guy. If you open up your mouth loud enough people either like you or hate you.”

Excerpts from our talk …

Your take on wrestling today?

This is my son’s wrestling. My wrestling was your wrestling – Bruno Sammartino and Killer Kowalski – but when you have a kid you live a lot of your life through their eyes.  I watch wrestling with the keen eye of a longtime wrestling observer. I watch the changes and note what I like and don’t like. I won’t waste my breath getting into a debate with someone about wrestling. I hang out with people who wrote wrestling books. We get together and understand why it works and how it works and everybody chimes in with their opinion about  who sells stuff the best, what makes a great wrestler great. We just go as fans. I’m a fan, but it’s like saying even though I have a lot of joy watching Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera play, it’s hard to take over what I felt when I was 11 and 12 and saw Mickey Mantle. And no matter what band I love today, it ain’t beating the Beatles and the Stones.

What makes a wrestler great?

It’s a combination of two things basically: creating a persona and ‘selling’ it. It’s the same thing that makes an actor great. If you watch the great actors, Robert Duvall or Gene Hackman, I watch their reaction time. They’re in a scene and they’re in the moment and it’s a give and take with the energy of the other person they’re doing it with. There’s an ebb and flow. It’s instinctive. The great ones are subtle and sell it well and the same thing in wrestling; the great ones sell it well. If they’re getting beat up, it’s not like out of nowhere they come storming back. They know how to get beat up. The best wrestlers are heels who know how to get beat up. The offensive onslaught things are the heroics – here’s my big moves and of course it’s going to crush you. That’s not what it’s about. That’s just the ending.

We know, or they know, the outcome?

What are you insinuating?

Some of the moves are worked out but there’s a lot of improvisation going on too.

Yeah, there’s a lot improvisation and I think I hear insider’s talk – that guys works hard. I think there’s a way of being tough and physical but realizing everybody’s got a family and they gotta wrestle tomorrow and it’s a grueling business. I hear some guys work too hard; they’re a little too punishing. There’s a thing where you’re hitting someone hard and hurting, but it looks harder and it hurts more. That’s what the essence of selling.

Detractors say, “Aw, it’s all fake, they don’t get hurt at all. …”

They break bones! Read wrestling books. They cripple guys.

What about the phrase that it’s soap opera for men? Agree with that?

Ah,  I guess it is for men, it’s kind of like a White Castle-Three Stooges thing to it, but there’s a lot of women. And the women [in the ring] have gone from the Fabulous Moolah to big juiced up powerful athletic hot women. And there are women at the events. Zoe [my wife] doesn’t like a lot of the new wrestlers but she loves Terry Funk and Mick Foley and guys like that. It’s mostly for men and it’s true soap opera these days. When I was younger …. None of these guys could hold a candle to guys like Fred Blassie or the Grand Wizard. The Road Warriors, those guys, the Valiant Brothers had these raps that were cool, they were funny, they were amazing and then they wrestling. Now, it’s a half-hour of soap opera setup. Too much soap opera for me.

You mentioned Classy Freddie Blassie, who was the King of Men. Aren’t you also the King of Men?

I’m the World’s Greatest Entertainer and the King of Men, but I only took the title when the two greatest died – Sammy Davis, Jr., the world’s greatest entertainer, though I cannot tap dance, and when Fred Blassie died. He kind of handed it over to me. When I opened up Manitoba’s bar [HDM’s bar on the Lower East Side] January 14, 1999 and I paid him to come down and do the grand opening and people were bowing at his altar. He finished his appearance by going on the microphone and going, ‘I’ve seen a lot of pencil-necked geeks in my day, but this Manitoba takes the cake.’ He was in his 70s, close to 80. He was an old man with a cane, but he had a cane for years and he was sharp as a tack, and he had this Japanese wife who was 30 years his junior. I said to him, ‘Your wife is really lovely’ and he said, ‘That’s the smartest thing I ever did.’

Much like yourself.

(laughs) But it’s not 30 years difference, just 13!

JSInk again: I don’t know the storylines or much about the rivalries. But The WWE  Night of Champions – see it on pay per view or at the TD Garden – has eight matches. Of course, the World Heavyweight Championship is on the line with Sheamus v. Del Rio. (Sheamus beat him again at SummerSlam and Del Fio felt the ref didn’t see some drity tricks, so he deserved another shot at the belt.) CM Punk v. John Cena (New England’s own) for the WWE Championship. Layla v. Katilyn for the Divas Championship, Randy Orton v. Dolph Ziggler in a  singles match, Antonio Cesaro v. the preshow Battle Royale Winner, R-Truth and Kofi Kinston v. Kane and Daniel Bryan for the Tag Team Championship and The Miz v. Rey Mysterio v. Sin Cara v. Cody Rhodoes in the Fatal Four-way March for the International Championship.
$128-$400. Starts at 7:30.

Causeway St., 800-745-3000 http://www.ticketmaster.com