We lost a legend today.

[Judge Fudge]

One of the toughest wrestling history.

 

[Judge Fudge]

 

[Judge Fudge]

 

[Judge Fudge]

 

[Judge Fudge]

This was amazing.

Even with the brain fart

 

[RobToxin]

 

[Judge Fudge]

I figured that I should change my avatar for respect perpasas (sp)

 

[Duffman]

Great written piece by Mike Johnson who knew Race well over the years;

When Harley Race took his final breath today at 12:50 PM at the age of 76, he did so as he lived, as a fighter.


Race had been fighting off lung cancer over the last year, downplaying its severity publicly and still appearing at conventions and his own independent promotion, World League Wrestling. Although he was now mostly confined to a wheelchair after a number of falls that had shattered his legs, you wouldn’t have noticed anything different about Harley Race and the way he carried himself.


The trademark cigarette was always there by his side, the tool that helped refine his gravely, gritty promos. Ever fearless, Race didn’t change who he was, even in the face of an illness that was originally reported as terminal. He didn’t fear cancer. After all, he was the one to be feared, the man who would put “the fear of Harley” into others, as Mick Foley famously recounted in his first autobiography.


Harley was long done with taking bumps, but if you spoke to him, the mind was still there, the same squared circle intellect that led Race to becoming, as he so often attested, the best damn wrestler on God’s Green Earth. The tattoos may have faded with age and may have been obscurbed by surgical scars, but Race still carried the vibrancy of someone who knew he was the toughest man in the room...and he was right. He was an older man, but the aura was remained.


When Race was wheeled into a room, everyone who knew anything remotely worthwhile about professional wrestling knew who Harley Race was. The accolades are endless. The first man to win the NWA World title eight times when that was the belt that meant stardom and global exposure. The first definitive King of the Ring in the WWF. The man that controlled the unstoppable Vader. The man who put Ric Flair, truly, on the map. The man who bodyslammed Andre the Giant long before Hulk Hogan did it for the “first” time.


It didn’t matter how much the years weathered his face, how many bumps had broken down his body, or how many miles he had traveled across the world, he was Harley Race and that carried collateral like a gold card never could.


After all Harley Race was the living embodiment of the toughness of men in professional wrestling. He was a gritty, chess player who wore down his opponents inside the ring. He was someone who demanded respect when he spoke. He was someone who could embody danger with his work and his words in front of the camera and behind the scenes, his thumbs up meant you were not only accepted into the upper tier of professional wrestling, but that you were going to likely make bank.


If you don’t believe me, ask Ric Flair. Flair himself has said that his first NWA World title run didn’t exactly click, leading to him losing the belt back to Harley Race. When Flair chased Race for the belt, the NWA Champion, touring all over the world, put a bounty out on Flair. As Flair fought for his life and career en route to the first Starrcade, just Race’s promo setting the stage for that storyline helped raise Flair’s credibility and stardom. By the time the first Starrcade had ended on Thanksgiving night in Greensboro, North Carolina, Race had made Ric Flair. The match, for its time, was perfect for what it needed to be to make Ric Flair the man. That was a gift from Harley Race, something Flair never failed to acknowledge over the years.


It was a gift Race himself was paying forward. Sick with polio as a child, Race discovered professional wrestling on the Dumont Network as a child and found himself recruited into assisting St. Joseph, Missouri promoter Gust Karras as a teenager, helping out on farms and driving the legendary 800 lb. Happy Humphrey to bookings.


Race began to train as a teenager under Stanislaus and Wladek Zbyszko. As if his path hadn’t already been laid out for Race, it certainly became the prime option after a fight in High School. Race had handily beaten the other student, leading to the principal getting involved. When the principal kneed Race to try and stop the fight, the future World Champion turned his attention to the principal, beating him down as well. Expelled, Race left the pursuit of higher education for professional wrestling.


Breaking into the business under the name Jack Long, working the Nashville territory. A car accident led to Race being put out of action and Race was hurt so bad, doctors intended to amputate his leg. Learning of the diagnosis, Gust Karras rushed to the hospital and refused to allow the operation to happen, threatening bodily harm on anyone who attempted to try to move forward with the procedure. Race eventually recovered and returned to the ring months later.


Race first wrestled under his own name while working for Dory Funk Sr.’s territory in Amarillo, Texas. He did so, he claimed in his autobiography, based on the advance of his father that he never work to make anyone else’s name famous. Going forward, he would never compete under any name but his own. While in Amarillo, he linked up with Larry Hennig, leading Handsome Harley Race and Pretty Boy Larry Hennig to head to Verne Gagne’s AWA, where they held the AWA World Tag Team Championships during a strong heel run against perennial brawling heroes The Crusher and The Bruiser. During the AWA run, Race also teamed with Chris Markoff and Hard Boiled Haggerty before leaving for the NWA, where stardom as a singles star awaited.


Like many others during that era, Race circled the NWA member territories, making bank in different areas before moving onto the next. From Mid-Atlantic to Florida to Amarillo to Kansas City to St. Louis, Race built his name, his aura and his renowned reputation. After runs with the NWA Missouri title and the Carolinas’ version of the United States title, Race was finally elevated to NWA World Champion in May 1973, defeating Dory Funk Jr.


Like many first World title wins, it was partially a test to see if Race could handle the stress while also simply filling the role of a transitional champion. Dory Funk Jr. was scheduled to lose the title to longtime rival Jack Brisco but an accident in Texas led to Funk not being able to compete and lose when it came time for him to do the scheduled honors. The Funks have always claimed that was a legitimate set of circumstances, but the belief among others was that Dory Sr. did not want his son losing the belt to Brisco. No matter who claims what, there will always be someone who believes otherwise and it will be one of those stories that always circulates. When Funk returned to the ring, he was placed against Race, who had been instructed that if anything went awry, he was to do whatever he needed but under no circumstances, was he to leave the ring without becoming the new champion. In the end, everyone worked together and Race emerged as NWA Champion for the first time.

 

[Duffman]

Race would lose the NWA title to Brisco after a short time, but was a made man. He went on a tear in every territory as a heel. He won countless titles and was obviously on deck in case the NWA needed someone with legitimate toughness and skill to carry the title. In 1977, Race was given his second chance at the Kingpin, this time defeating Terry Funk via submission with an Indian Deathlock.


This time, the NWA and Race were intertwined for the next half decade, as Race traveled the world defending the title. He toured Japan against Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta. He battled Tommy Rich in Atlanta. He warred with Dusty Rhodes in Florida. He brawled with the Sheik in Michigan. From Pat Patterson to Dick the Bruiser to Ric Flair, Race fought them all, maturing into the handlebar mustached badass everyone remembers today.


Although Race would drop the belt for short periods of time, he would always regain the title, sometimes even dropping it on international tours for extra cash, winning it back before NWA management could learn of the change. Race traveled to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Canada and all points in between. As the traveling NWA Champion, it was his job to bring the prestige of the title with him, raise the live gates and put on a classic match to the best of his ability (after all, not every opponent was going to be able to live up the quality of Harley Race in the ring), leave the challenger and the promotion stronger than he found it, and move onto the next one night stand. It was a hard life, one that would leave his body as beaten as any car accident he was ever involved in.


Race would even carry the NWA World title into other promotions, wrestling then-WWWF Champions Bob Backlund and Harley Race and AWA World Champion Bockwinkel. Indeed, until Nick Aldis appeared at Ring of Honor’s G1 Supercard, Harley Race was the last NWA Champion to carry that belt into the hallowed halls of Madison Square Garden.


Race lost the belt to Dusty Rhodes in 1981. When Rhodes lost it to Flair, as noted, Race regained it for the historic 8th time, immortalized seemingly forever after breaking Lou Thesz’ record, setting the stage for the bounty storyline and Starrcade ’83 – A Flare for the Gold. When Thanksgiving night led to Black Friday morning, Ric Flair was enshrined as the next Harley Race, in terms of positioning, and was off to the races, having been given the ultimate endorsement by Race.


Race returned to the AWA for short run in the 1984 after a falling out with NWA President Sam Mushnick, but was soon gone for another world entirely, the world of the World Wrestling Federation. The WWF’s national expansion was wiping out territories left and right, running events in cities and markets that had previously been taboo. Empowered by the insane popularity of Hulk Hogan, the WWF was modern civilization tearing down the old Wild Wild West. For someone like Race, who had grown up in that era and given everything in his being to protecting pro wrestling, this was sacrilege.


Like others, Race was furious when the WWF began running in his home area, where Race owned a piece of the local company, Heart of America Sports Attractions, which covered Kansas City and St. Louis. In a well-known story, Race showed up backstage at a WWF event in Kansas City, where, depending on who is telling the story, he pulled a gun on Hulk Hogan and threatened him. Other versions of the story simply have Race sneaking behind Hogan and sticking a finger in his back as a rib, while others simply have Race at the show because he was about to do the unthinkable.


Race, who started in the business, driving around Happy Humphry, an over the top spectacle of an attraction if there ever was one, was going to join the circus. Exit Handsome Harley. Say hello to the King.


Race debuted for the WWF in May 1986, managed by Bobby Heenan. The mustache was gone. His brown hair had been painted blonde and as was policy at that point, WWF completely ignored his past. Race received his first major push by virtue of winning the annual King of the Ring, an annual tournament held in Boston, only this win was acknowledged on WWF programming, with Race crowned The King, wearing a garish purple robe and crown.


The look was as far removed from what fans would expect of the man who defined the NWA for years, but to his credit, Race dove into the character with gusto, doing a gimmick where Race would force his beaten opponents to bow before him. When Junkyard Dog, who at the time was in the upper echelon of WWF heroes, refused, Race and Heenan beat and whipped JYD. This all led to Wrestlemania III, where the loser would have to bow to the winner. Race scored the win cleanly with a belly to belly, shocking at the time since most WWF villains needed to use underhanded tactics to win. JYD bowed as if he was an actor at the end of a play, then attacked Race with a chair. While the two would wrestle again, Race easily captured the feud.


Race would go on to feud with Hacksaw Duggan, including a series of vignettes that looking back, would never be produced today, as the two brawled all over backstage at a syndicated Slammy Awards special, including a live chicken being used as a weapon.


Race’s run would continue unencumbered until 1988 when Race went for a flying headbutt off an apron through a table on Hulk Hogan. The WWF Champion moved and when Race hit the table, the metal edge drilled into his abdomen, causing a hernia and requiring extensive surgery to repair. With Race out of action for a long period of time, Haku was named the new King, leading to Race coming back to challenge him, unsuccessfully, the Crown.


Race’s WWF run ended, with Race bouncing around every available territory, from Stampede to Puerto Rico and even another AWA return, where he wrestled then-AWA World Champion Larry Zbyszko in one of that promotion’s final title bouts.


Race would soon arrive in World Championship Wrestling, which for all intents and purposes, carried the ghosts of the NWA. Race would wrestle former foe Tommy Rich at the 1990 Great American Bash and challenge Lex Luger for the U.S. title, but never had a strongly pushed, defined role. He was used as a utility heel, someone who could have good, solid matches and get talents over. He would wrestle his final, official match in the summer of 1990 following a shoulder injury.


By July 1991, Race was shifted into another role, manager. Race would manage Lex Luger following Luger’s WCW World title win at the Great American Bash in 1991. With Ric Flair long gone for the WWF, Race was placed with Luger to give him additional credibility as the promotion flailed wildly, trying to find something to right the ship that had been lost to the rapids in the wake of Flair bolting.


Race would manage several others including Kevin Nash (as Vinnie Vegas), Yoshi Kwan (Chris Champion) and the masked Super Invader (Hercules Hernandez) before being put with Big Van Vader. The international star, cast as the unstoppable beast who feels no pain, meshed with the grit and aura of Harley Race, was a winning duo, holding WCW together with a great feud against Sting that was among Sting’s best programs. Vader’s fearsome feud with Mick Foley also remains memorable, despite some silly WCW creative in the middle of it, with a trilogy of incredible brawls that culminated with the 1993 Halloween Havoc PPV.


Race himself returned to the ring for a trilogy of live event matches against Flair, who had returned to WCW, in the fall of 1993. He continued to manage Vader until another car accident led to a hip replacement and force Race out of active professional wrestling. While he would make sporadic appearances and cameos, sometimes doing angles to get over WWE heels, but Race was all but done with wrestling on a national basis. He had fought to the end, never doing it the easy way, taking bumps almost every night while managing Vader, when a lesser talent would have done the least with the most.


Race was rightfully inducted into just about every professional wrestling Hall of Fame one could come up with, including the WWE Hall of Fame, the now defunct WCW Hall of Fame, the Thesz/Tragos Hall of Fame in Iowa, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in Texas (formerly located in Upstate New York), and many more.


Race formed World League Wrestling and began training the next generation of students, including former WWE star Trevor Murdoch, Ace Steel, Matt Murphy, Superstar Steve, Tommaso Ciampa and Leland Race. Race began a series of training seminars with Les Thatcher and settled down in Eldon, Missouri where the WLW promotion ran regularly and Race hosted training seminars. He forged a relationship with Pro Wrestling NOAH, allowing his students a place to go and learn while touring overseas.


Race had dealt with a number of physical issues in recent years, including a number of vertebrae in his back fused together, numerous neck surgeries, knee replacements and more. Race noted to several that he felt a good part of his problems were based on the flying headbutts and all the heavy bumps. Race would break both legs in May 2017 during a fall in home.


Despite the initial announcement (by Flair) that Race was fighting terminal lung cancer, Race and others would quickly claim that it was not terminal. He was still regularly appearing at wrestling conventions and earlier this year, was in Philadelphia and New York City for signings. He was on his way to Knoxville for a signing when he took ill and went to a hospital. It was decreed he needed to be admitted and he never made the convention. Money was raised to bring him back home to Missouri, where he returned home before needing to be admitted yet again. In recent days, it was known the end was near with every move possibly made to keep Race comfortable for his final fight.


Race published an autobiography King of the Ring in 2013. He was survived by a number of children and grandchildren, and leaves behind not just a legacy that will live on forever, but a blueprint in toughness and excellence in performing. That work ethic was channeled by many in the business, with a number of stars, including Triple H, CM Punk and Nick Aldis all having been inspired by Race's style and prowess in the ring.


On behalf of everyone associated with PWInsider.com, we send our deepest condolences to the family, friends and fans of the great Harley Race. The king is dead. Long live the king.

 

[Rod Freakin' Dangerfield]

Sad day, for sure.

 

[Judge Fudge]

I think that I'll get a Harley Race shirt.

debating between:

Someone take the damn money

Or

What would Harley Race Do?

 

[Judge Fudge]

 

[wildturkey]

Remembering Harley Race, the Toughest Man in the History of Fake Violence

This is a good piece. I especially got a big laugh from this part when a young Harley Race toured around with a 700 pound wrestler named Happy Humphrey

Because Humphrey didn’t fit in most showers and could develop a strong odor if he wasn’t bathing regularly, Race would have the huge grappler lie naked on the floor, coat him with soap, scrub him with a mop, and then rinse him off with a garden hose.

 

[jeffro151]

Vince McMahon Paid For Harley Race's Medical Flight