by Bob Holly
CHAPTER 4
GROWING UP IN THE FAST LANE
Her name was Linda Kievet and she was a senior.
I’d noticed her in the hallway at school and, even though I was still a junior, I just had to get to know her better. She had options — a lot of the other guys were after her — but she became my high school sweetheart.
She had already enlisted in the Air Force, so she was going to leave right after she graduated. We both knew this. Until then, though, we were pretty much attached at the hip; we spent all of our time together. On Saturdays, I would drive to Linda’s house to pick her up and we’d either go out with our friends or go back to my house to watch wrestling. By now, my parents were away square dancing every Saturday evening, so sometimes the television wouldn’t be switched on at all when she was at my house . . . that’s all I’ll say about that!
She would hang out with me at the golf course where I worked, when I was picking the driving range or cleaning carts. Sometimes she would work alongside me during tournaments. We went to the prom together. I was crazy about her. I wasn’t the only one — everyone loved Linda. My parents thought she was the greatest thing God ever put on this earth. Her mom and dad liked me a lot too. Her dad loved the outdoors and was a real man’s man. He loved to go out on the ocean in his fishing boat, and he had his own shop where he would restore cars and fix stuff. He could fix anything. He was amazing, a truly great man.
Linda’s parents had a vacation spot out in Brookings, Oregon. Just before she left for the Air Force, they invited me to go to Brookings with them for the weekend. That meant a lot to me. It meant even more that her dad let me drive his Jeep around the town. He didn’t let anybody drive that thing and there he was, letting a 17 year old borrow it to take his daughter out. That’s how much he trusted me. It was an unbelievable weekend, hanging out on the beach, driving around town in her dad’s Jeep, Bob Seger playing on the radio. That weekend made it even harder to see her go into the Air Force.
She graduated from high school and that was it: time for her to leave. It broke my heart. She was stationed in Texas — and Texas is a whole world away when you’re a teenager. We kept in touch through letters and phone calls and she came back home a couple of times to visit. On one hand, it was great to see her, but on the other I absolutely hated it because I knew she would just have to leave again. The last time I saw her was the summer of 1981. We lost touch after that summer. Over the years, I often thought of her and was heartbroken every time I’d hear a Bob Seger song on the radio.
After Linda left, I still had another year of school to go. I just got on with it, went to school, watched my wrestling, and worked at the beer warehouse. The job paid well but was pretty boring. Filling orders, loading them up, shipping them out — a lot of hard work, which I was fine with. I just didn’t like that I had to work by myself most nights. I got paid for eight hours flat. No overtime — but they expected me to get all the work done. With no help, there was just no way I could make that happen, so sometimes I would end up working three or four hours a night for free. Whenever a holiday made for a four day work week and a three day weekend, the orders would double and I’d end up working 13 hours or more a night but only getting paid for eight. That sucked.
As much as I missed Linda, I was a young guy with some money coming in, so I did my best to enjoy myself. I was going up to a motocross race in Albany, Oregon, with a friend of mine and he knew this girl who had a friend . . . so he asked me if I wanted to meet her. I said, “Sure, whatever.” We ended up dating. She was pregnant within six months. It was completely unexpected and unplanned. I hadn’t seen a future with her before that. I’d always thought it was just going to be a fling, and then on to the next one. And the next one, and the next one . . . I was just a young guy, laying pipe. Now I was going to be a dad with big responsibilities. Well, I’d graduated, I had a decent job, and I worked hard, so I figured it would be fine. We moved in together but then her family decided they were going to Alabama — and that she was going with them. I was told, “You’re welcome to come with us if you’d like. But if you don’t, that’s fine too.” I wasn’t too crazy about moving to Alabama but I didn’t want to be away from my daughter, Stephanie. I did what I had to do to keep her in my life, so I packed up and moved with them. I didn’t want my child growing up without her dad around, which is kind of ironic — that ended up happening anyway because of what I would eventually do for a living.
High school prom, 1980: Bob Howard and Linda Kievet.
The relationship was okay. It wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, but it was all right. Stephanie’s mom didn’t really understand that she needed to change after Stephanie was born. We were both probably too young to have a child (she was a couple of years younger than me), but I always thought that if you have a child, you grow up real quick. I did; she didn’t. There was a lot of arguing. As soon as I got home from work, she would want to go out and party with her friends. I would work a long day and end up at home watching Stephanie by myself while Steph’s mom was out having a good time. It put so much strain on our relationship. I felt like I was being mentally abused, and when I called her on it, she wouldn’t accept responsibility for anything. Everything was put back on me, everything was always my fault.
We had one car so I would either walk to work or get her to drop me off so that she could have the car in case she had to take Steph somewhere. If I asked her to pick me up afterwards, she’d usually say she couldn’t because she was cooking dinner. But there never was any dinner when I got home! Even when it was pouring rain and I called for a ride, I’d get “I’m cooking dinner.” After a 10-hour work day, I’d walk 25 minutes in the rain, get home, and discover her sitting on the couch, watching TV. “I was getting ready to start dinner but then this came on . . .” After a few years, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to move on.
When we separated, we agreed that I would be able to see Stephanie any time I wanted. It wasn’t one of those arrangements where the dad only gets to see his daughter on the weekends. That’s one thing I’ll say for Steph’s mother; she never tried to withhold Stephanie from me. She just wasn’t the greatest at doing right by our daughter. She made a lot of promises to that kid — and then broke every one of them. After we went our separate ways, she got married and had a few more kids. Stephanie ended up spending entire summers babysitting because her mom wanted to go out. Stephanie wasn’t even a teenager. She should have had her whole summer to enjoy, but there she was stuck at home, babysitting. Her mother was supposed to pay her and never did. Well, even though her mom said she didn’t have any money, she still managed to go out and get a tit job and new furniture. That’s the kind of mother she was. It pissed me off.
It pissed Stephanie off too. When she was 12, she told me she didn’t want to live with her mom anymore. Her mother treated her like a live-in babysitter, so she couldn’t enjoy being a child. They didn’t get along at all. Since Stephanie wanted to come and live with me, I saw an attorney and got custody of her. Her mother didn’t fight it; I got the papers drawn up and she signed them, giving me custody of Stephanie. It worked out well. A few years ago, I was over at Stephanie’s house when her mother turned up. We talked a bit and she actually apologized for the way she had treated me all those years. I accepted her apology. I thought her gesture was very kind.
Writing this has reminded me of how hard it was in those early days — the lengths I went to in order to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. You hear a lot of guys talking about how they would fight tooth and nail for their family, but I literally fought for mine.
CHAPTER 5
FIGHTING FOR FOOD AND DIAPERS
When we first moved to Alabama, I was hopeful for the future. I knew it was going to be tough, but I was more than happy to work hard. Always have been. I got a job as a mechanic working for Meineke, an auto shop in Mobile, and was able to scrape together enough mon
ey to rent us a place. It was all off the sweat of my brow — Stephanie’s mom didn’t do much to help us financially. She did get a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken, which lasted about a month. Then she started working at Colonel Dixie, a fast-food restaurant that only had locations in the South. That lasted about a month too. After Stephanie was born, it got even tougher because of the extra mouth to feed. The job at the auto shop just wasn’t covering our bills, but what else could I do? I only had experience from the golf range and the warehouse. College wasn’t an option. I had a child to raise, I had to work, and bills were piling up.
Sometimes I talked to the guys at work about how I was finding things tough financially. One day, one of my friends there told me about a tough-man contest with a cash prize he’d seen advertised at a nearby bar. He knew that I liked wrestling and that I’d gotten into a fight or two in my life, so he figured I might be interested in making some extra money bar-fighting. You’re damn right I was interested! I wasn’t really working out or training at that point, but I knew I was tough because I had a lot of heart and determination. Heart and determination will get a man a long way.
Bob working out in 1979.
When the next Friday rolled around, I discovered I would have to get through three fights in order to win any money. It was an elimination deal. Two guys, no matter how big or small either was, would go at it; the best man would win and then it was on to the next fight. We had to wear these big 16oz gloves — they were like frickin’ pillows. It was hard to do anything with those on, but you just had to hit as hard as you could and hope for the best. No kicking or grappling or anything like that, just straight up bar-fighting.
I won my first fight. I couldn’t knock the guy out because of those things on my hands, but I pummelled him hard enough to make him cower down and cover up, so they stopped the fight. The second guy was tougher and we went to a decision after three two-minute rounds — I won because I’d outpunched him. Then, in the final, in spite of those gloves, I knocked the guy out cold. Winning those three fights earned me one hundred bucks. That was a lot of money back in the early ’80s. It was definitely a lot of money to me, about what I made at my regular job in two or three days. Even though I was happy about winning the money, I was worn out. People don’t realize that in a fight, you’re swinging, you’re going, and it takes it out of you. Fighting three times was tough. I was spent. I got home, beaten and bruised, but Stephanie’s mother didn’t care. She was pissed at me because I’d been out late at a bar.
The next weekend, there was a fight night at a different bar, so I figured I’d go and see if I could win some more money. I did — another hundred bucks. She was still mad. She didn’t ever want me going to the bars because of the women there. She wasn’t worried about my health, she was just worried about other women hitting on me and taking away her meal ticket. A few girls did throw themselves at me, but I didn’t take them up on anything. One woman was trouble enough, so why would I want more?! I was at those bars for one reason and one reason only. I’ve never been a bar-type person. I’m not a big drinker — never was. I’ve been drunk a few times in my life but I’ve never been one to party. I only went to bars back then to enter these tough-man contests, to try to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I don’t think Stephanie’s mother ever truly appreciated what I was doing to provide for our family.
I fought for about six months, two or three weekends a month, going from bar to bar. I probably made a couple grand out of it. We needed that money. She didn’t seem to understand that and it caused a lot of problems at home. I went undefeated for a long time. I only lost once, actually. It was at the bar where I’d started fighting, and I’d got through my first match of the night just fine. Getting ready for my second fight, I stepped into the ring, put my gloves on, and looked across at the guy I was going to fight. You poor bastard, I thought. I knew this guy and this was a sure thing. He and I were the same size, but I could clearly see how out of shape he was. I don’t know what possessed him to get in the ring in the first place. I figured I’d get this match over quickly and save my energy for the final. I was fixing to clean his fucking clock.
When we were just about ready to start, the ref said, “Hold on . . .” My opponent got out of the ring and this other guy got in. I looked at my corner where my friend, Stoney, was and said, “Something’s not right. You need to find out what the hell’s going on here.” He asked the ref what was happening and was told that the original guy didn’t want to fight me, so they were subbing him with this guy. I could either fight him or go home. Stoney was pissed. I didn’t care; I figured I’d just clean that guy’s clock instead. It didn’t quite work out that way. Turns out this other guy was a Golden Gloves boxer and the Alabama state champion. That bastard worked on my kidneys for three solid rounds. He beat my kidneys black and blue, and I lost on points. No exaggeration, I could barely move for a few days after that fight. I pissed blood for several days. That guy knew what he was doing. There weren’t supposed to be any amateur or professional boxers there, just people off the street. It was the only bar fight I lost. I took a beating that night and didn’t make any money because I only got paid if I won.
A few weeks after that fight, I was waiting at a bar between matches when a guy came up to me. He said, “Just so you know, you were set up.” It turns out this guy was the trainer of the boxer who’d pounded me. The trainer explained that word had got around town that I was beating everyone, and this bar didn’t want to pay me anymore. The boxer was a friend of the bar’s owner, so he came to take me out and win the tournament. He did it as a favor, so they didn’t need to pay him. Even though I’d lost, the trainer said he was impressed with me and that I had good technique. If I had proper training, he thought I could go a long way. He said he’d train me for free. I wasn’t interested in being a boxer though. I still wanted to wrestle.
Soon after, I quit the bar-fighting scene. I was bored. I had to get there by seven or eight o’ clock to sign up and then wait, because the fights didn’t get started until midnight. I was sitting there for that whole time with my thumb up my ass. It got old real quick. It was a lot different from my later wrestling days because, even though I had to turn up early and wait around a lot for WWE, it wasn’t a bar environment and I could always find something to do. It was a job — I was paid to be there at a certain time and wrestle. Even if they didn’t use me, they would still pay me. With the bar fights, it wasn’t work. I could win money, but there was no guarantee. I could spend an evening there but if I lost, I walked away with nothing.
I don’t regret bar-fighting. It was necessary to pay for baby food and diapers. Sure, it didn’t help my relationship, but that was doomed to begin with. I didn’t go fighting in order to take out my homefront frustrations, I did it for the money and because I pure, flat-out enjoyed it. Nobody got hurt on my account and no one held grudges after fights. No one liked being humiliated in front of a drunken crowd of people hooting and hollering and calling them a pussy, but they didn’t hold a grudge.
I always liked to fight. Still do, although I don’t go looking for them. I’ve never cared if I lose. If I get my ass whipped, that’s fine. I enjoy the challenge of a good fight. As a younger man, I got in my share of fights that weren’t part of tough-man contests. I remember getting into a fight with a football player from the University of Alabama who was at the bar with his buddies. They were getting kind of unruly and being asked to leave by the bouncer, who happened to be one of my friends. Joey kept asking them to leave but they weren’t listening, so I went over and said something to them. The football player grabbed me, lifted me off the ground, and slammed me against the wall. Then he made the mistake of letting me go. As soon as he put me down, I drilled him and got him off his feet. I jumped on him and we struggled for a bit — he ended up on top of me. He was trying to hit me, so as soon as I got my hand free, my finger went straight in his eye. He got off me fast and started screamin
g. I didn’t pop that eye all the way out but it was almost fixing to hang out of the socket. Another time, some friends and I were hanging out, shooting pool when this guy started acting like a dick and mouthing off. He turned to me and tried to start a fight, telling me he was going to whip my ass. I asked him what made him think that. He kept mouthing off and getting up in my face, and he didn’t know I had a pool cue behind my back. I took that stick and cracked him right on the bridge of his nose, split it wide open. He dropped like a ton of bricks. Hey — there’s no fair in fighting. If they’re going to jump me, I’m going to fight them and I’m not going to fight fair.
Some time after I’d quit the tough-man contests, a bouncer friend of mine told me that the owner of the bar where he worked had been trying to come up with different ideas to draw a crowd. What he’d come up with was to bring in a bear and see if anyone could take it down. I’d never been to a zoo and I sure hadn’t seen a bear in person before, so I figured, why not? I’ll go wrestle a bear. The worst that could happen was the bear killing me. I’d split up with Stephanie’s mother by this point, so I was thinking, “I’ll do what I want, thank you.” I suppose it was a manly pride thing — or a stupid pride thing — but, seriously, how many people can say they’ve wrestled a bear?! Only three guys did that night at the bar. I thought it would be fun.