by Ted DiBiase
BOB GEIGEL:
At the time, I didn’t think Ted’s move to World Wrestling Federation was the right one. I wasn’t too fond of Vince McMahon Jr. I didn’t approve of what he was doing to the territories. However, now, as time has gone by, it is apparent that Vince has done a tremendous job in taking over wrestling. The guys he took from the various territories became stars. I turned out to be wrong.
A few days later, Melanie and I were off to New York. It was a good break for Melanie. My in-laws took care of Teddy. When we arrived, a stretch limousine was waiting to take us to meet with Vince in Stamford. Once we arrived, Melanie was introduced to everyone, and I went into Vince’s office to meet with him and Pat. Ironically, Melanie was entertained in the outer office by none other than Jim Barnett. Jim had sold his interests in the Georgia territory and left Atlanta to work for Vince McMahon.
I signed a two-year continuing contract. Every two years the contract would roll over unless I decided to opt out by giving written notice within ninety days of its expiration. Vince then laid out his entire idea and described the new character. “Ted, this character is a filthy-rich heel and we are going to make people believe that you are really rich. He is so rich that he throws his money around like it is nothing. He can buy anyone and anything. His god is money and he will live by the motto ‘Every man has his price.’ ” I started smiling like a Cheshire cat.
“Ted, you will travel all over the country first-class. There will be a limousine to take you to and from the hotel, the show, and anywhere else you want to go. I will always make sure you have a wad of hundreds on you and you will never have to worry about a penny. We’ll also find you your very own personal bodyguard and valet.” I couldn’t believe it. The character seemed too good to be true. “And Ted, you’re going to be the hottest and most hated heel in all of professional wrestling.” I agreed.
“The only thing that I don’t have nailed down yet is the name.”
Without hesitation I said, “I know what we should call him—how about the Million Dollar Man?”
Vince and Pat simultaneously said, “That’s it,” and the Million Dollar Man was born.
PAT PATTERSON:
Vince explained the character to Ted. It was the first time I ever heard the details. I thought the gimmick was great. Vince said that he never told anyone because he needed the right guy with a good head on his shoulders to work the gimmick. He told Teddy that he would always have to ride in limousines, live like a king, eat at fancy restaurants. I knew Teddy was the right person for the character.
The meeting ended with me getting some immediate on-the-job training. Vince treated me and my wife to an extravagant weekend in New York. We were escorted all over New York in his personal limousine and given the best room at the historic and pricey Helmsley Palace hotel in Manhattan. We dined at gourmet restaurants such as the Water Club, and had two orchestra seats to see the Broadway musical Cats.
The entire weekend, I asked Melanie to pinch me. I couldn’t believe it was real. It was like a fairy tale. I remembered looking in the mirror of the hotel room and saying to Melanie, “I can’t believe this is happening.” I thought back to when I had started wrestling in 1975. For twelve years I had mastered my craft. I was a good wrestler. I had great ring psychology and spoke well on the microphone. Wrestling had become mainstream. I had paid my dues. All those years I wore out car after car, driving thousands upon thousands of miles. I stayed in cheap hotels, sleeping on box springs and sometimes even on the floor. I would eat as cheaply as possible, living primarily on bologna sandwiches. And now Vince was going to fly me first-class to every event. I was going to be chauffeured everywhere in a limousine and my valet would carry my bags. I would stay in upscale hotels and dine at five-star restaurants. I would never, ever have to worry about money. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would get such an opportunity. It seemed too good to be true.
I didn’t jump into the World Wrestling Federation ring to wrestle right away. I told Vince that I had existing obligations in All-Japan. And of course, he said that he expected that I would fulfill them. When I got to Japan, I told Giant Baba that I couldn’t work for him anymore after the tour because of my new contract with World Wrestling Federation. Baba understood, wished me the best, and stressed that I was welcome back anytime.
I called Melanie from Japan. After some small talk she said, “Honey, I have some exciting news for you. I’m pregnant.” For the third time in my life, I was going to be a father. I was so excited.
Before I ever wrestled a single match for World Wrestling Federation, the viewers were introduced to my character through a series of vignettes. They carefully created vignettes to make me as hated as possible. It was slapstick comedy at its best. The first one showed me in the back of a limousine counting my money. While I was counting the money, I got a paper cut. I told my driver and personal valet, Virgil, to take me to the hospital. When we got to the emergency room, I demanded to see a doctor. The attending nurse said I had to wait like everyone else. “Look, you don’t understand. I am the Million Dollar Man. I don’t wait on anybody.” The nurse reiterated that I had to wait. All of a sudden I called Virgil with a snap of my fingers. He pulled out a wad of money and handed the nurse three or four hundred dollars. The nurse took the money and said, “I’ll be right back.” Sure enough, she came back with a doctor. I arrogantly replied, “That’s what I thought.” Then I turned to the camera and said, “Don’t get upset with the nurse. She is no different than you. She did the same thing that anybody would do. She took the money. Just like her, everybody has a
Virgil and I.
price for the Million Dollar Man.” And I then ended it with my deep, arrogant laugh. It became the standard punch line for all my early interviews.
There was another vignette where I went to a restaurant. We pulled up and there was a long line waiting to get in. With Virgil by my side, I walked right up to the front of the line. I told the maître d’ that I needed a table for two.
“Sir, you are going to have to wait in line like everyone else.”
“Look, you don’t understand. I am the Million Dollar Man. I don’t wait on anybody.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but you are going to have to wait.”
Out of the blue, I called Virgil with a snap of my fingers. He pulled out a wad of money and handed the maître d’ four or five hundred dollars. The maître d’ took the money and said, “Well, sir, I think we have a table for two.” One of the people in line started complaining and came up to me and said, “Hey, pal, who do you think you are?” I just looked at him and smiled. I then took a step back and Virgil stepped in with his great big arms and foul demeanor. The guy just backed down and slithered back in line. Virgil and I got seated at the table and we were waited on hand and foot. Then I turned to the camera and said, “Don’t get upset with the maître d’. He is no different than you. He did the same thing that anybody would do. He took the money. Just like him, everybody has a price for the Million Dollar Man.”
One more vignette had me go into an exclusive hotel. I asked the front-desk clerk what their best room was.
“The honeymoon suite.”
“I’ll take it.”
“I’m sorry, sir, it’s taken.”
“Well, that is the room I want. That is the best room and I want it.”
“I’m sorry, sir, it is taken and there is a couple in there right now.” Again, I called Virgil with a snap of my fingers. He pulled out a wad of money and handed the clerk five or six hundred dollars. He accepted the money and the scene quickly changed to show him kicking the honeymoon couple out of the room. Then I turned to the camera and said, “Don’t get upset with the front-desk guy. He is no different than you. He did the same thing that anybody would do. He took the money. Just like him, everybody has a price for the Million Dollar Man.”
The vignettes were being aired and I hadn’t yet been seen wrestling. When I finally made it to the live shows, the immediate response from t
he fans was that I was a pompous ass who thought he was God because he had lots of money. And that was the whole idea of the character. The vignettes laid down the foundation for people to hate me.
BOBBY “THE BRAIN” HEENAN:
Ted’s Million Dollar Man gimmick was excellent. No one could have done it better than him, except Vince McMahon. He carried himself as a true professional. The funny thing is that most true professionals in wrestling aren’t nice guys. Ted is a really nice guy. When I was producing interviews for WWE, I had to watch over the guys, monitor what they were saying, and keep up with them. But I never had to worry about Ted. He did everything on time, spoke proper English, and got right to the point with his interviews. He is a true professional.
After the airing of the introductory vignettes, I started wrestling. I wrestled jobbers on TV and easily squashed them. During the 1980s, unless you were shooting an angle, very rarely did you see competitive matches on free TV. Most of the televised matches were what we called enhancement matches, which were designed to highlight the stars. Today, you see top guys wrestling each other every week.
I continued my pompous antics by casually throwing money at people as I made my way back to the dressing room. While they scrambled to pick it up, I said, “That’s it. Go down there like a bunch of pigs. Pick it up and wallow in it. Everybody has a price for the Million Dollar Man.” I left, laughing in my arrogant and evil way. We realized we had made a mistake, because we used real hundred-dollar bills. We quickly found out that it was very difficult for people to hate me if I was throwing money at them.
We decided to no longer just throw money at the crowd; now I picked plants from the crowd and made them do humiliating things for money. For almost the entire first year that I wrestled, we did the insulting skits everywhere I wrestled. They took three or four hundred dollars right off the top of the house and they brought me the money. At the end of every one of my matches, I told the audience, “Okay, once again I am here to prove a point. And that point is that everybody has a price for the Million Dollar Man. Each and every one of you I can buy. It is only a question of how much.” I would also make sure they would never win the money (off camera they would get paid).
When you combined the arrogance with me easily destroying my opponents on TV, I became the most hated heel in the company. I was a blowhard and had the muscle to back up my word. It was all part of the character.
For instance, I went on live TV and told the crowd that once again I was going to prove my point, and that was that anybody had a price. More specifically, everybody had a price for the Million Dollar Man. And to prove my point, I had Virgil give me five hundred dollars. “I have five hundred dollars here for somebody who’s willing to bark like a dog.” Virgil and I scrolled through the crowd and then I told Virgil to bring me the young lady I indicated. We brought her up and I said, “Look, I have five hundred dollars here if you can bark like a dog. But you have to do it right. Can you bark like a dog?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let me hear you bark!”
She went, “Woof, woof, woof.”
“Wait, wait. Dogs don’t stand up. They get down on all fours. Get down on your hands and knees and let me hear you bark like a dog.” I was just humiliating her, but she barked. Once again, I interrupted, “Come on. You can do better than that. Let me hear the high-pitched bark of a Chihuahua.” I continued to humiliate her until I finally looked at Virgil and said, “What do you think?” Virgil simply shook his head no and I added, “I don’t think so either. Unfortunately, when you don’t get the job done right, you don’t get the money. Virgil, get her out of here.” She left humiliated as the fans were booing. They literally wanted to hang me.
I did my thing and told the crowd that I could buy them. Virgil handed me the money and I said, “I have some money here for someone who is willing to kiss my stinky feet. I just wrestled some twenty minutes and I have been sweating in my socks and boots. I have three hundred dollars for anybody who will come up in the ring and kiss my dirty, smelly, rotten feet.” And you would not believe how many people raised their hands. I spotted the plant and Virgil motioned him to the ring. I berated the kid for a while until he finally kissed my feet.
To my surprise, the same kid became a Superstar in WWE: Rob Van Dam. I never knew it until one day somebody told me. While I was working as a producer for WWE, I met Rob for the first time. I jokingly asked, “Hey, kid, do you want to kiss my feet for the second time?” He laughed and we had a good time visiting. His aerial moves are awesome and he is very over with the crowd.
The most talked about skit that I had ever done was with a little kid where I asked him to dribble a basketball fifteen times in a row. I get asked about that one skit more than all the others. I can’t tell you how many people want to know about it. I guess it was because it was pretty amazing that this small, maybe six-year-old African-American kid could even dribble a ball. But we had rehearsed everything. It was all a setup but no one knew it. I kicked that ball away after the fourteenth dribble and berated him. The camera showed a close-up of the kid’s big crocodile tears filling his eyes, and then he ran to his mother, who was at the edge of the platform, and jumped in her arms. Unreal. It was a perfect television moment.
The crowd went nuts. They believed the whole act. As I left for the dressing room, people were throwing things and saying some nasty stuff to me. They wanted to strangle me.
No matter where I went, Virgil was always by my side. It was Vince’s idea to bring Virgil in as my valet. I didn’t meet him until we put the final touches on the character. His name is Mike Jones and he’s from Pittsburgh. Mike had some wrestling experience, but Vince hired him for his look. He had huge arms, a bald head, and a great physique. Vince laid out to Virgil exactly what he was going to do. He was going to carry my bags and chauffeur me. He would open the car door and my hotel door. Virgil was my muscle and manager at ringside. He was my personal servant everywhere we went in public. That was his job and he got paid well to do it. Virgil never took the role personally.
The name Virgil evolved from a meeting over dinner. After I signed with World Wrestling Federation, Pat Patterson, Bobby Heenan, and I went out to eat. Over steaks, Pat said, “Guys, we have to think of a name for Ted’s servant.” After throwing out stupid names and laughing about things, Bobby said, “Let’s call him Virgil. Like Virgil Runnels.” And so Virgil it was. Dusty Rhodes’s real name is Virgil Runnels. It was an inside wrestling rib on Dusty. It wasn’t my idea, but when Virgil left World Wrestling Federation and joined me in WCW, they decided to call him Vincent, ribbing Vincent K. McMahon.
BOBBY “THE BRAIN” HEENAN:
At that time, Dusty Rhodes was the booker in Atlanta. He was burying everybody who was working in New York. So they needed a name for DiBiase’s servant. I said, “How about Virgil?” Ted’s finisher, the Million Dollar Dream, where he put his opponents to sleep, was named after Dusty. He called himself the American Dream. We got to kick Dusty in the balls twice. It was a good rib on Dusty (not that he wouldn’t do it to us if he could). It was good fun.
Virgil and I became good friends. He was a heck of a nice guy and we spent a lot of time together. We initially thought that it would be a good idea to room together on the road. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out because we needed our own space as well as control of the thermostat. One night, I woke up sweating bullets. I checked the thermostat and Virgil had turned it up to about eighty degrees. I turned the thing down all the way to zero degrees. I am a big guy and enjoy sleeping in cool temperatures. I got up in the morning and couldn’t even see Virgil in his bed. He was buried under blanket on top of blanket. He said, “Man, I don’t know if I can room with you. I can’t handle sleeping in the cold.”
“Ditto, brother, I love sleeping in the cold.”
VIRGIL:
Ted is a great person. Even though we were on the road together every day, Ted and I never had an argument, nor did we get into one single fight. I didn’t get alon
g with my own family that well. He was like a brother to me. I even had the privilege to meet and get to know his family.
I signed a contract to be Ted’s bodyguard. He treated me as a true professional. I did everything that was asked of me and never complained. I never viewed anything as demeaning and by no means ever took anything personal. I never cracked a smile, always staying in character. I did the job to the best of my ability.
One night we were staying at the Marriott Hotel Newark Airport. At that point, if it wasn’t a major show or Pay-Per-View, Vince didn’t want Virgil to drive me around in limousines but rather a Lincoln Town Car. After wrestling that evening, Virgil dropped me off at the front door. I said to him, “Don’t worry about picking me up in the morning. I’m going to take the hotel shuttle to the airport and I will catch up with you at the gate.” It was a break for him because he could then take the rental car directly to the airport and check it back in without worrying about dropping me off. When Virgil got to the gate the next day, I saw that his eye was swollen like someone had punched him. “Man, what happened to you?”
“Oh, man, I got up and had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and accidentally ran into the door.”
I didn’t think anything about it until about a month or so later when I returned to the hotel. Virgil and I were on different flights. I ended up checking into the hotel by myself. As I was checking in, one of the bell guys came up to me (we were regulars there so I got to know most of the staff). He said, “So Ted, did Virgil ever get over that black eye after that air bag hit him in the head?”
“Air bag? What are you talking about?”