by Dan Severn
Down the road, I picture myself attending all of the Cauliflower Alley Club events because they provide me with the opportunity to reunite with my peers. They’re also bittersweet since you can look around year after year and see which legends and members of your wrestling brotherhood are no longer with you.
And, even if your fellow wrestlers are still with you, many of them have increasingly greater difficulty getting around year after year, and canes and walkers become more prevalent as time passes.
The first time I attended a Cauliflower Alley Club banquet, I would see how the speaker at the podium would send someone into the crowd to assist the next award recipient in getting to the front of the room by the stage. From the time an award recipient’s name is announced to the time that person makes it all the way to the stage and up the steps, a lot of time might pass. For many legends, even the two steps in front of the stage can pose a formidable obstacle.
Fortunately, I think they now provide a ramp for some of the more debilitated wrestling legends. Using the handrails, they’ll guide themselves to the podium, and grasp the podium as if they’ve finally made it home.
As the legends begin to speak, you can figuratively see the years melt away from their faces. Many of these past stars have been mothballed for years as far as the general wrestling fan base is concerned. During their speeches, you can tell by their passion that they’re reliving the great moments from their careers. In that moment, they feel what it’s like to be young and strong once again, living at the height of their powers.
It’s quite the transformation that takes place up at the podium. Sometimes, in the cases of guys like Terry Funk and Terry Taylor, their speeches may end up needing to be cut short.
I received a phone call from Howard Brody who told me I really needed to go to the Cauliflower Alley Club banquet in 1998.
“I can’t tell you why you need to go, Dan,” Howard prodded, “You just need to get there.”
I’d already been a couple times prior to this, and there was no guarantee that I’d be able to attend. However, Lou Thesz was the president of the club, and I had all the respect in the world for him, so I did all I could to make it to the banquet.
During the presentation, Lou was acting as the master of ceremonies. Just before the banquet concluded, he announced one more special presentation. As Lou began to read his first few lines, I wasn’t paying too much attention, but then it dawned on me that he might have been talking about me.
The more Lou spoke, the more it became clear that Lou was definitely talking about me, and this was why I was asked to be present at the banquet.
As the speech concluded, Lou called me to the stage and awarded me a special, customized NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt, with a design based on one of the belt designs he wore during his career.
Sadly, Lou Thesz passed away on April 28th, 2002, at the age of eighty-six. One thing I never learned about Lou until recently was that he was actually born in Banat, which is a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I think it’s extremely cool to have also shared a home state with the greatest professional wrestler of all time.
In 2010, the Cauliflower Alley Club honored me by presenting me with seventh annual Lou Thesz Award. In receiving the award, I joined legends like Antonio Inoki, Jack Brisco, Verne Gagne, and Danny Hodge, who were among the prior recipients of the award.
Here is the speech I read while accepting the award:
The Lou Thesz Award is very special to me, not just because the recipient must meet the criteria that Lou established himself, but because I got a chance to meet The Man, break bread with The Man, and get to know him on a much more personal basis since 1992, when I started my professional wrestling career.
Coming from a legitimate amateur wrestling background, a lot of the boys did not care to work with me. Descriptive words and or phrases included phrases like, “Dan likes to work stiff,” “He’s rather snug,” or “He’s like a crowbar or a pipe wrench!”
Back in 2002, I was asked an interesting question. During the interview, the question posed was, if I could choose who I would like to defend the NWA belt against, whether living or deceased, who would that be?
My answer, was Lou Thesz.
This question was asked of me via email before I flew to England for a weekend show. I sent my answer to the interviewer on a Monday, and received a message back asking me if I’d heard that Lou Thesz had passed away. I had not.
My only regret is that Lou did not get to hear my answer.
I am honored, humbled and proud to accept this award. I want to thank
Lou Thesz for establishing the criteria for presenting it to me.
Thank you all.
Seriously, when I was first asked the question about my dream NWA championship defense, some of the names that came to my mind immediately were the Rock, Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, and Triple H, primarily because the WWE was the only nationally televised wrestling program at the time.
Then when I thought about who I’d really like to get in the ring with when the title was up for grabs, I did some research while looking through the Ultimate Professional Wrestling Book of Lists when considering some options.
I considered categories like the total number of days guys had been the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, and the total number of days guys held other world championships.
As NWA champion, I wrestled people like Bam Bam Bigelow, the Iron Sheik, Terry Gordy, Dory Funk Jr., Chris Candido, Shinya Hashimoto, and Nobuhiko Takada. I’ve been in a battle royal with Curt Hennig, and even had Antonio Inoki as a tag-team partner.
I have always been referred to as a throwback to days gone by, and as a wrestler who was born in the wrong time period. With that being said, it would only be fitting for me to step into the squared circle with the likes of Verne Gagne, Bruno Sammartino, Frank Gotch, Ed ‘The Strangler’ Lewis, and the top-ranked guy in any meaningful category, Lou Thesz.
AS I watch some of these enfeebled old wrestlers at the Cauliflower Alley Club each year, seeing their fraternity rapidly dwindling, you start to think about life being mostly over.
Age sixty is coming up for me, and the average American lives to be somewhere in the seventy-year-old age range. When I start to think about potentially having fewer than twenty years left to live, that’s just not acceptable to me.
Death just isn’t in my plans. I still have a lot of things to accomplish before I go, and I hope to defy the odds.
At the same time, I still keep wrestling events on my schedule these days, and somehow, I’m still in better shape than three quarters of the guys in the locker room when I appear at shows, and my workrate is better than at least two thirds of them.
Now that I’m on the downside of my career, I recognize the need to start losing to some of these young guys and passing the torch to the next generation of talent.
Admittedly, I don’t put people over all that often, but if there’s a likeable guy that has a legitimate background, I’ll happily put the kid over whether the promoter wants me to or not. You don’t want to lay down for everybody, but you need to select some individuals to pass the torch to that will carry the sport and the performance art on in a manner that you would like to see it presented in.
I didn’t realize I was truly the last of a certain type of wrestler until some of the legends started to chime in. Guys like Dory Funk Jr. and Danny Hodge were part of the classic territory system. They would tell me stories about wrestlers who would leave an arena, pile four or five deep into a car, grab whatever eats and drinks they could, and then drive hundreds and miles to the next location to entertain the next crowd.
They would know that, for four to six months of their lives, they would be in one territory, and then the promoter might arrange for them to go on to another territory by putting in a good word for them with another promoter.
I wish I had come along during those days and lived through the heyday of the territories.
Of course, when you play
the what-if game, you need to be very careful and make sure that you’re playing it logically, or you wind up painting an image of your potential life that is both too idyllic, and not at all rooted in reality.
If I’d entered professional wrestling right after I’d graduated from Arizona State, I probably would’ve first returned home to the Midwest. During that era, the WWF wasn’t exactly known for stocking its roster with stellar, amateur-style wrestlers.
In fact, the most likely scenario would have had me getting snatched up by Verne Gagne in the American Wrestling Association, which was based out of Minnesota and Chicago. Verne was a former amateur wrestling legend and a true shooter, and he almost certainly would’ve wanted me in the AWA during its dying days.
Once the AWA was dead, I would have been soiled with the stink of having worked as an amateur-style worker in Verne’s AWA, and there would have been no other territories to work in at that time for wrestlers with legitimate backgrounds… except for overseas companies like the UWFi, which is where I wound up anyway.
So, when we’re evaluating the landscape of the business and looking at real points during which I actually could have entered the professional wrestling business during my actual lifetime, I probably did the best I could have hoped to do, and had the career I was intended to have.
WHEN I watched Ken Shamrock’s fight with the recently deceased Bahamian street fighter Kimbo Slice at Bellator 149, I honestly thought the fight was fixed.
I watched the fight several times more once it was over, and there were so many things about the fight that just didn’t sit well with me. Again, I think the fight was fixed, but I tend to doubt Bellator was in on it. It could easily have just been fixed by the athletes.
Ken took Kimbo down so easily, and had a rear-naked choke on him. The fight should’ve been over! Even if Ken couldn’t finish Kimbo with the choke, a knowledgeable fighter would’ve at least been striking his opponent in the head to move him into a better position for a finish.
The least Ken could have done was to create some form of discomfort to get Kimbo to move into a better position, rather than simply letting Kimbo go, which is what he did.
I’ll at least say this: If the fight wasn’t fixed, Ken either isn’t that creative a fighter, or he isn’t nearly as good as he has claimed to be.
If I’d fought Kimbo Slice, point blank, Kimbo would never have seen the light of day again unless I decided to cut him loose. Even approaching sixty years of age, I’m just too good a wrestler to have allowed Kimbo back to his feet if the fight ever went to the mat.
Ken’s Bellator fight against Royce Gracie was equally as sad, but for different reasons. I would not only have welcomed the opportunity to fight either Ken or Royce in a Bellator cage, but I actively pursued it. I reached out to Bellator President Scott Coker, but he summarized his position by saying he didn’t think there was much of a future for the “master’s division” of Bellator.
Scott can take that position if he wants to, but Bellator 149 was easily one of the most lucrative events in Bellator’s history, and I think fans would honestly like to see me get one more opportunity to settle some scores with my old adversaries.
Again, when I announced my retirement from MMA in January of 2013, I left the door open for a return to fight Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock or Mark Coleman. I thought I had my fight with Ken locked up through the UR Fight internet pay-per-view company, but Ken predictably backed out, claiming an injury.
I even paid Ken the courtesy of going through a full one-month training camp to prepare for our final fight, because I wanted to leave no doubt, even at this stage, as to who the better man really is.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I TRY TO STAY IN Coldwater as much as I can to be around my son as much as I possibly can. When I’m in town, I take him to school, and if I’m not too busy teaching a wrestling class, I’ll check out his sports practices.
My son Joseph wrestled for only one season, and he did phenomenally well. David also wrestled, and he was a multi-time state champion. Michael never wrestled, and he never opened up to me about it. He did open up to Terry, though. He explained to his mother that he could never achieve in wrestling what his father had achieved. It broke my heart that he would use me as a benchmark.
I love my kids for who they are, and whatever they’re able to do, in whatever they choose to do. I’m going to be proud of their achievements, because they’re my kids.
Michael ran cross country, and he played basketball, which is funny, because the worlds of amateur wrestling and basketball just don’t mix. But, when amateur wrestlers and wrestling coaches saw Dan Severn walking into a basketball game… hey… I was there to support my child.
Supporting my children is why I’ve done everything. They’re the reason I sacrificed so much for so long.
I BELIEVE everything happens for a reason, although sometimes we don’t know what those reasons are.
I know I would have retired back in 1984 had everything gone the way I envisioned, and most of this book’s readers wouldn’t be reading about my story, because I would have been just another Olympic wrestler. That would be true even if I’d somehow managed to win a gold medal.
No one outside of the amateur wrestling world would have any clue about who Dan Severn is, and many of the people who talk to me now would have no idea who I am.
Well, here’s the easiest way to size me up from a professional standpoint. As I sit here today, there are only four people in the world that have competed in more than one-hundred cage fights, and I’m one of the four.
There are only three people in the world with more than one-hundred cagefighting victories, and I’m one of the three.
I’ve faced the other three fighters who have competed in more than one-hundred cage fights, and I’ve beaten them all.
Of the other three fighters who competed in more than one-hundred cage fights, the closest to me in age is fifteen years my junior.
I’m in a category all by myself.
By being denied a shot at the top prize in amateur wrestling, I was put in a position to help the next generation of amateur wrestlers use their athletic gifts to earn more money than had ever been accessible to them before.
By entering the UFC octagon and winning, I simultaneously helped to change the criteria for what could make someone a believable professional wrestler.
By bringing attention to the NWA championship at a point when it had all but disappeared, I served as a bridge between the territory system of the past and the independent wrestling circuit that operates today.
In short, by being denied the opportunity to reach the pinnacle of achievement in one field of athletics, I became a far more significant figure in three.
Everything happens for a reason.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Dan Severn: First of all, I’d like to thank WhatCulture.com and Ian Douglass for helping me bring my truly unique story to life. Thank you to Tom Casteel, Bobby Douglas, and all of the other coaches who invested so much time and effort into developing my athletic abilities, along with a mindset that continues to serve me well in both my personal life and my business life. Thank you to Denny Kass for lighting the initial spark that got me into a professional wrestling ring for the very first time (I’ll get even with you!); Al Snow for training me for a career in the professional wrestling business, and also for helping me with my very first no-holds-barred “training camp” (don’t let these compliments go to your “Head”). Thank you to all of the wrestlers who worked with me, and I’m sorry if I ever “accidentally” tatered any of you. Thanks to Art Davie, Howard Brody, Jim Cornette, Vince McMahon, Dana White, and all of the other MMA promoters and wrestling promoters who booked me for events. Also, thank you to Lou Thesz for setting the bar so high and giving me a mark to reach for. My deepest love and thanks go to all the members of the Severn family, especially my parents, Marvin and Barbara. I’ve always been a perfect combination of the two of you (the yin and the yang; the good and the bad),
and thank you for blessing me with so many wonderful brothers and sisters: David, Mark, Michael, Eva, Rod, Cathy and Barbara. Also, all love to my children, Michael, Danielle, Dominique, David and Joseph. You were the driving force behind all of my success. I may not have always been around, but my thoughts were always with you.
Ian Douglass: Tremendous thanks is reserved for Dan for sharing his story with me, WhatCulture.com for publishing this book, and to Randy Savage for instantly turning me into a lifelong wrestling fan with a single flying elbow drop. Also, thank you to Adea Biederwolf for loaning me her phone charger inside of Tim Horton’s which helped Dan and I get through our final edits without interruption. Thank you to all of my instructors at Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, the Specs Howard School of Media Arts, and Southfield Public Schools. Thank you to the Medill student broadcasting dream team of Kate, Jazmin, Gillian, Hana, Smita, Adrienne, Tawney, Tony, Dave, Jamin and Jinna. Additional acknowledgements go to classmates who influenced me outside of my broadcasting circle and made me better one way or another, including Nicole Pegues Riepl, Maya Smart, Meg Shreve, Monica Kurlemann, Eric Crouch, Leah Mensching, Brandon Honig, Liz Hester and Randi Belisomo Hernandez. Special acknowledgement goes to Erik Love for fielding my ceaseless questions about crafting and finalizing a book, to Kurt Angle for providing me with some very useful information at the eleventh hour, and to Teisha Lightbourne for putting up with me during the entire writing process. My deepest love and appreciation goes to all members of the Douglass family, Capron family, Dennis family, Love family, Lightbourne family, Johnson family and Lawrenson family. Thank you, finally, to Jesus Christ for eternal life and salvation through Him.