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Exposing the Business....
Part 1 | Part 2

A look at another side of wrestling ......

extracts from an interview with Z-Man

Question - A lot of wrestlers, asked about their "most embarassing moment in the ring" nominate a "em-bare-ass" incident ......not a big deal among Japanese sumo fans I'd guess, but still getting a big reaction in the US.....

Z-Man - It's just part of the business. I mean, sometimes it just so happens that when one guy grabs another guy's trunks they go up his butt like a T- back outfit. Generally they grab their trunks and pull them back down, but my best guess is that, if the fans respond, some guys leave them up. Some may think it looks cool or that the "office" might like it or that it might help them get a ring-rat later that night.

"Brian couldn't have cared less
about it.... any attention was
good attention."

I know Brian [Pillman] couldn't have cared less about it. He liked the shock value - he always operated on the premise that "any attention is good attention!" And if the office complained, he was always fast with an answer to the effect that "the heels pulled them up" and he "didn't want to be obvious about pulling his trunks back down while SELLING during the match". There's always a BS answer for the office if they're mad about it. It just depends who sees it (like a road agent) or if they want to use it against you - like "you should know better - there are kids in the audience." But most of the time it gets a big laugh from the boys......

Question - If the office was concerned about it , particularly on television, what sort of precautions were wrestlers expected to take?

Z-Man - Well I generally had real tight elastic around the legs and waist etc. So did Pillman. Some guys wear T-back style undertights or something to that effect, like male strippers wear. Other guys would have 2 pair of the same color tights on, with one cut smaller than the outside pair.

Question - In one match, the Motor City Madman used a trunk pull to throw you back into the ring and, in the process, exposed your liners. It got a huge pop from Missy Hyatt (on commentary) and most of the audience......

Z- Man - I think "The Motor City Madman" was a.k.a "Man Mountain" Moore. He was featured in Quebec in the summer of 1986 when Martel was booker. In those days he was another big, tall-man gimmick who had just started in the business. I think his name was Mike Moore, If you're a good worker you barely touch an opponent or feel an opponent touch you. In fact with a really good worker you almost have to watch his every move to time selling a punch or to run when grabbed by the tights. Mike was not a good worker - a very nice fellow but another non-athlete who grabbed my hair and trunks much harder than was needed to get the match over.



	Z-Man vs Motor City Madman (from The Tom Zenk Collection Vol 13) " If you're a good worker you barely touch an opponent, or feel an opponent touch you. [Motor City Madman] was a very nice fellow but another non-athlete who grabbed my hair and trunks much harder than was needed to get the match over."

I never liked being exposed to the point of my white liners showing-like a jock strap. And I always made it clear after matches when the white liners were shown or my ass was exposed, that it certainly wasn't needed to get the match over. I always felt I was selling family entertainment for the most part and real wrestling a la Verne Gagne or Portland style. The way I learned the business it was think SHOOT but WORK the match.... make it LOOK like you took the other guys head off ... just making contact but RESPECT the other man's body - a lost art by some standards.

Question - It's interesting that matches are so closely worked and timed that it DOES seem incongruous to stop, even momentarily, to adjust your trunks. On a related matter, you sometimes see a match where an established worker 'monsters' a well built younger wrestler, including deliberate trunks pulls, and it looks more like gratuitous humiliation ......

Z-Man - I'm not sure of the psychology of it. You'd have to ask Dr. Freud .... but in wrestling, all the people with stroke in, or with the office, get good workers or well built job guys to make up for their age or lack of training in the gym. It makes a guy like Page, Sullivan, Flair look great beating up on someone with a body or with youth on their side - things that they themselves clearly lack. So mainly it's just to make a guy with stroke look good. But with some guys there may be an element of deliberate humiliation involved ...that's certainly something Kevin Sullivan would have thought about to get over with. Sometimes, the heel who was "so clever," like Sullivan, brag about their cute move and how aggressive their style is. And I know when the red light is on some guys - more than others - take advantage of the job guys.

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