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BLACKJACK REMEMBERS...
In a recent conversation,
Blackjack and I got to chatting about the Hat & Robe angle, and some of
things going on behind the scenes during that time. Here are
excerpts from that conversation:
Dick
Bourne: Who came up with the actual angle to tear up a hat and tear
up a robe? Was that George or did you guys come up with that?
Blackjack Mulligan: Well we all came up with it really. Let me
think about that for a minute. I had this hat maker down in Austin, they
were called Texas Hatters, they made my hats and my hat bands.
They made
Willie Nelson’s hats, too, and Willie had given me this hat, and Ric had
heard about it. And so it was just sort of this spontaneous thing where
we figured, what really do people get the most mad about when two lovers
split? Your stuff, right? And Ric and I were a lot closer than a lot of
couples were, believe me, we shared a lot of things, well, I won’t go
into all that. (Laughs)
Bourne: So the hat was a shoot? The one that Ric tore up on TV,
was that one that Willie had actually given you?
Mulligan: Oh, yes, and it broke my
heart to see that hat torn up.
Bourne: I can imagine! And Ric having that $7,500 robe that
Olivia Walker made completely destroyed.
Mulligan: He hated it, he nearly cried! But it was going to be so
big.
Bourne: It sure made the whole thing work.
Mulligan: Problem was, I had heat when I went back to get another
hat made, people had not only heard about this in Mid-Atlantic, they had
heard about it all over the world, man! (laughs). I still had a home
down in Austin, and my wife would go into that hat store, Texas
Hatters, and the guy said “Hey, that hat I made for Willie, I
understand it got tore up down there.” They had actually heard about it
at Texas Hatters.
But all of that was so real. We had this van that we and our wives
shared it, too. And my wife was getting ready to take the kids to church
in this van. And I panicked! And I ran out there, because, my God, from
the night before, there were panty hose and crap laying all over the
place and paraphernalia lying everywhere, and I started throwing all
this stuff in a bag.
Bourne: This was part of the angle!
Mulligan: Yes! It was a shoot! And so I’m cleaning out this
closet, we each had a closet in the van, and I look in Flair’s closet,
and said “Wow, this is some weird stuff, Flair really is over the edge!”
Bourne: (laughs)
Mulligan: And of course, at the same time, I’m raking up all my
crap, too (laughs)
Bourne: But I guess that went into another bag.
Mulligan: Well, it’s my story, so I’m not telling you about my
stuff. (laughing) So it was so natural, here was his closet and all this
stuff in there, it just worked. I mean, this was real. We were breaking
up for real. We lived two houses down from each other, well, there was
one house in between us. There should have been twenty of them in
between us, but that’s another story.
So this is all coming down. George Scott has all of this pre-planned,
pre-programmed, he is going with this guy. Flair is it. It had all been
planned for so long, I was the main guy, and now it was Flair’s time to
move to the top spot, and I was kind of wearing down a little bit, and
George says, I’m going to turn you babyface. And I said “That’s
impossible!” And he said “I’m going to do it like it’s never been done,
I’m going to cool you for awhile, I’m going to put you with Tim Woods”,
and believe me, that would cool anybody off. (laughs) Timmy and I were
working every night.
Bourne: And Tim got the US belt off you and Flair worked that
into his promos when he got the belt from Woods, that you were getting
soft.
Mulligan: Right, the whole thing with Timmy Woods was starting to
turn me. And George got ready, and said “You guys are going to have to
move now” And we were like, oh no! But Flair goes and buys a new
mansion, you know, across town. And I went and bought a place in
Matthews, about 5 acres there, now it’s probably worth a fortune. But we
actually had to sell our houses and buy new houses…
Bourne: So they didn’t want you living near each other?
Mulligan: That’s right, it had become so real. "You guys can’t
live on the same street in Charlotte!"
© Mid-Atlantic Gateway | Dick Bourne
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RETURN HOME | FLAIR INTERVIEW EXCERPT
David Chappell also talked about this
famous angle with Blackjack during the Mid-Atlantic Gateway interview.
Here are some excepts from that interview. (The entire interview can be
found
here.)
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Chappell:
But then the unthinkable
happened. They turned you babyface in 1978!
Tell us about that.
Mulligan:
Well…Flair, the kid---the kid
was starting to evolve. By then, the kid was
starting to carry the load. We sprung the
monster out of the bag then…
Chappell:
Yep.
Mulligan:
We were ready to do the
switch…Jack’s fixin’ to take the step down.
That’s where we were then.
To show there was a new ballgame in town,
okay? The baton was being passed…that’s what
was happening.
Chappell:
Had you done any work as a
babyface before that?
Mulligan:
Never, ever…that was
ridiculous. I mean, I had been a heel forever.
But I was getting older…and let me tell you, a
heel does a lot of hard work---a lot of hard
work.
But Ric was ready to bust out…
Chappell:
And Ric comes out on TV and
says you were past your prime…
Mulligan:
Well that’s exactly right…I
was! I was wore out then,
David . They had really burned me out…I really
made it longer than I thought I would.
Chappell:
Was your babyface turn
George’s idea?
Mulligan:
Yes. George says to me,
‘We’re gonna do this unbelievable thing. We’re
gonna change you babyface!’ I said, ‘No, no,
no, no…I don’t like that.’ He said, ‘You don’t
know how hot it’s gonna be…you and Flair
splitting up.’
And it was the real deal…we REALLY were
splitting up!
Chappell:
You mean, you all were
splitting up in real life?
Mulligan:
He was moving into this big
time home, and I was moving to another place.
And we had a van together…these are REAL
things that were happening to us…
Chappell:
So these things were actually
happening?
Mulligan:
We actually owned that van
together…
Chappell:
This is the van that you
pulled the items out of…and brought on TV?
Mulligan:
Yeah. Ric’s wife had left
him, and he’d gone with Beth. And my wife was
a friend of the first wife. This thing was
REAL! (laughs) And for that reason, it came
off real. It was natural to do it. Let me tell
you a true story about this stuff in the van.
This stuff, not all of that stuff on TV, but
Flair used to keep a bunch of stuff in his
closet in the van. And one day, my wife was
getting ready to go to church and she asked me
if she could use the van. I went, ‘Oh my
God…Ric had the van last night.’
Chappell:
(laughing)
Mulligan:
So I run out there real
quick, and I look in the van...and pantyhose
are laying all over the place…
Chappell:
(laughing)
Mulligan:
I look in his closet, and oh
my God, there’s all kinds of unmentionable
stuff! I’m pulling stuff out of there as fast
as I can, and throwing it in this bag…so the
kids and everybody can take the van to church!
I come inside and my wife looks at the bag and
asks, ‘What’s that.’ And I said, ‘Oh, it’s
just some of Ric’s stuff…don’t worry about
it.’ That’s where that idea sprung from!
Chappell:
(still laughing) That’s just
too hilarious!
Mulligan:
I said to myself, ‘Wait a
minute. This is gonna work. Two best friends
splitting up. He’s gonna take his stuff from
the van, and I’m gonna take mine.’ So I bring
out the pantyhose and the make up from his
closet on TV…plus some other stuff that I
added in there, you know?
Chappell:
That was a classic moment in
the history of Mid-Atlantic television! When
Ric saw you pull out those pantyhose…I NEVER
saw him go that ballistic---before or after!
Mulligan:
You know…I was from West
Texas, and Flair was the little hotshot
snotty-nosed punk. It was his stage now…he
wanted to be the top heel. That’s where we
were then.
He was changing, he was evolving…I mean REALLY
was evolving. Nobody knew what was fixing to
happen to this guy. I mean, he became one of
the biggest show biz characters the business
would ever have…forever. We didn’t think he
could be that big…but he was.
Chappell:
George Scott at it again…
Mulligan:
I tell you, George Scott
turned out to be a major genius in this
business. We didn’t really know until time
went on, how smart this man was.
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Ric Flair mentioned the Hat & Robe Angle
as one of his most memorable angles at WRAL television. Here is a brief
excerpt from the
interview with Flair on the
Mid-Atlantic Gateway.
Flair: We did a lot of great stuff
at WRAL. The angle with Blackjack Mulligan was huge…where I took his
Cowboy hat that Waylon Jennings had given him, and tore it up and
stomped on it. And a little later on, I was wresting somebody and
Mulligan comes out wearing my robe, and he tore up my robe in front of
me…
Chappell: That was an unforgettable Mid-Atlantic moment, Ric!
Flair: And then I put a bounty out on Mulligan. I left for Japan,
and when I came back, we were selling out everywhere! (laughing)
And of course back then, everything played off the weekly TV show in
your market. And that got the fans out to their local arena. So those TV
angles like the Hat and Robe were really, really important then. There
was hardly any cable TV and certainly no satellite dishes in those days.
And Pay Per View events were years off.
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Also See:
FORE-SHADOW: IT HAD ALMOST HAPPENED A YEAR EARLIER
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