Book by Tony Atlas (and his ghost writer of course)
This was actually a decent book. Legit 22" arms. Legit 550lbs for 3 reps bench, and a much higher (I think 650) for a single. Won strength contests and bodybuilding contests.
Said when he first was starting out, Ole Anderson (who along with Gene Anderson and George Scott mentored him), had a gimmick playing off his strength. Said that every time they ran a show in their territories they would send him out to do a 500lb bench press in front of the crowd. Real weights. He said that he was out there benching 500lbs five times a week for months. Eventually, he explained to Ole that he couldn't continue to do that without risking joint aggravation. So Ole instead had him going out to bench 550lbs for a single, five nights a week.
Other stories :
Tommy Rich slept with more black women than all the black wrestlers he ever met combined did.
Dick Murdock who was a proud racist and confirmed high level KKK member would often ask Tony to secure him a little "brown sugar" when they were traveling together. He liked black women too despite railing on about mixing colors.
Jimmy Snuka met a ring rat (arena groupie) one night and had sex with her. The next night he called Tony into his room and they both had sex with her. Tony later married this girl.
Tony, now divorced.... was introduced to a girl named Lisa by none other than Jimmy Snuka, who had just met her the night before and slept with her. They both had sex with her that same night and Tony later married this girl too. Deja Vu. This Lisa was also the girl who was in Snuka's room the night he went berzerk and attacked his girlfriend Nancy. He shoved Nancy and she flew back, striking her head on the corner of the dresser which led to her death.
Tony was VKM first choice to be the All American Hero. Unfortunately, Tony's shoe fetish made him very unreliable and instead Hogan was chosen to get the mega push that had been crafted for Atlas. VKM made Tony come to the show the night Hogan won belt, even though Tony was not scheduled to wrestle. He made Tony sit by the curtain with him in a chair while Hogan won the belt. When Hogan won and the crowd went crazy, VKM stood up, looked at Tony and said "That was supposed to be you. That could have been you. From this day on, just remember that what you see now and in the future that all this was supposed to be yours".
Tony's foot fetish that controlled his life really wasn't about feet at all. It was instead about shoes. A certain kind of shoe that he wanted to walk on him. He didn't care for feet and didn't want anyone's feet touching him, but he wanted girls wearing a certain kind of shoe to walk on him.
Before going to WWF, he used dbol and winstrol. Tablets only. Once he got to WWF, and all the juice was given out by Zoharian (sp? the doctor that went down and drug VKM and Hogan along with him in the Steroid Trials) everyone there used injectables and gave each other their shots because they didn't want their spouses and girlfriends to see them with a needle.
Junkyard Dog was the biggest drug addict around at the time.
Tony was also skilled in judo, amateur wrestling, and boxing. Gene Anderson developed a decent set of shoot fighting skills that served Tony well when he ran into people that thought they could take advantage of him. He was not a known hooker in the circles, but he had skills to cripple anyone he wanted to.
When Tony was still wearing a mask, a wrestler thought it would be funny to twist the mask around backwards so he couldn't see. Tony got so pissed off that instead of straightening his mask, he instead wrestled by touch and beat the guy so bad he was scared to kick out when the referee counted to 3. Tony completely killed that guy's push. Abdullah the Butcher later got rid of the mask by "accidentally" pulling it off when Atlas threw him over the top rope once.
There was a chapter devoted to Bruiser Brody's murder. Very interesting.
Decent book. I know there are some wrestling fans on here. But most probably won't read it. It's better than some of the other ones that are out there.
