FRED OTTMAN The Official Website!
BIOGRAPHY PART 1
THE EARLY YEARS
Hi, my name's Fred Wayne Ottman. Unlike some of the things you may have read out there, I was born and raised in Miami, Florida - that's my hometown! I've lived in many, many, many places, but that’s my home. I was born at the Mercy Hospital in Miami right on Biscayne Bay. I’m the proud son of two wonderful parents: Charles Alfred Ottman and Oga Onieta Ottman.
I've been a fan of wrestling since I was seven years old. I used to wake up on Saturday mornings for Florida Championship Wrestling, which was hosted back in the day by Gordon Solie. I was intrigued. I would wake up, watch Popeye, the Looney Toons cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd and the whole array of characters. But then, at around 11 o'clock, every Saturday morning, came wrestling and it was an hour-long show, which I loved to watch. And after that, I went outside. If I wasn't cutting grass or doing chores with my parents, I was playing, riding bikes and having great “kid times.”
In wrestling, Dusty Rhodes was one of my favorites. The Great Boris Malenko (who is the man that was responsible for training me when I got older and joined the ranks of a professional wrestling), The Funks - Terry Funk and Dory Funk, the Briscoe Brothers - Jack and Jerry Brisco, Louie Tillet, who is another wrestler from down there, Don Muraco who was one of my favorite heels - other than Malenko – he was my favorite! Malenko was a great talker. He could take two fingers and just boink the guy in the eyes and the fans would go wild!!!
I need to clear up false information as I’m often asked: “Are you married to Dusty Rhodes’ sister?” No. Dusty Rhodes was married to one of my first wife's sisters, (they were 6 or 7 kids in total) which makes him my brother-in-law from my first marriage. Cody Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes (Goldust) are my nephews from my first marriage. I’ll throw a monkey wrench in there: Jerry Sags of the Nasty Boys, was also married to another half-sister, making him also my brother-in-law. So back in the days, the holidays were definitely goofy! Dusty and his wife Michelle are godparents to my oldest boy, Berkley Wayne Ottman. They are his godparents, and he now works for WWE as a bell ringer, television production and he’s an incredible referee!
I've always worked since I was about 11 years old. I was powerlifting a lot and I trained constantly. Out of high school is when I really began training a lot more; in my last years, I played football and did amateur wrestling. I also did track and field. That's what got me a college scholarship.
I was training and was also going to college at the same time, to become a commercial artist. I was a powerlifter. I did shotput and discus and at one point, I was training for the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, the ones that saw the American participation cancelled by President Jimmy Carter. I trained with a guy from Sweden who was a bronze medalist in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. His name was Ricky Bruch; he was incredible and had the world record. Track was what was paying for my college.
While I was doing that, I was working full-time for Eastern Airlines, in a mechanical position. I was still training very hard and competing. As a matter of fact, the first contest I ever entered was as a novice in a bench press contest at a YMCA, in downtown Miami. Do you know who shows up? Eddie Graham with his son, Mike Graham and two other professional wrestlers. Mike Graham was bench pressing in the open category. I was like: “Oh my God!” I couldn't believe my heroes were there! Eddie Graham was the owner and promoter o Championship Wrestling from Florida. It was my first opportunity to meet wrestlers live in person. Until that point, I had never been to a wrestling match, only watched it on tv, and I still watch it to this day! Whenever they were in town, they either worked at the mighty Beach Convention Center, (which is where they filmed the original Jackie Gleason Show for television) and the Coconut Grove Coral Gables in Miami, which was the other venue that they used for regular shows. A bunch of wrestlers used to train at the same gym as me when they'd come to town, including the Royal Kangaroos.
And every time they would come, they would see me there and they would stop me and ask: “Have you ever thought about becoming a wrestler? You'd be perfect!” I was weighing about 275-280 lbs at that time. They would say: “Man, you should, you should really give this a thought!” And here I am with a job with benefits. I was still living with my parents. I was thinking that it sounded great… Finally, after months and months and months, the wrestlers said: “You can go to Fort Lauderdale on the weekends.”
The Great Boris Malenko had a wrestling school there during the week. He lived in Tampa. The wrestlers said: “You can go there and audit what it’s all about and have a chance to talk to some of the guys that are training and to Graham’s sons and to Malenko himself.” And I'm like, “oh, you got me talked into this!”
I talked to my parents about that. They were very positive: “Check it out, see if you like it. You know, the whole nine yards! We know you love wrestling because you've been that way since you were a kid.” So, I'm like, okay brother! I went up there and sure enough they had an old big warehouse that was setup with a wrestling ring. All these guys were training, and they were all so nice. And Malenko, he was incredible! I started training there on the weekends. Malenko was like a second dad. That's the best I can say! And so were all the guys... As I grew up, were like my second family. Some of them were worked indies.
I loved it so much and my parents eventually moved up to an hour’s drive North of Tampa Bay. They had bought some property, and I helped them with that, getting everything put together on a farm they had bought. And I go: “I'm moving up to where I could train five, six days a week.” I moved up there because I could always get work.
Malenko had a guy named Karl von Stroheim, another old-school wrestler that I watched when I was a kid. He was part of a tag team, a big German-looking guy! He took me over to Tampa Stadium, The Big Sombrero, which was the original football stadium there. One street over from where the Brisco Brothers had a body shop, was this old mattress factory… a nasty looking wooden factory where they made mattresses and boxsprings. Inside was a giant room in the back.
There was no heat. There's no air conditioning. The whole outside of the building was covered with tar paper. I mean, it looked like it belonged out on the farm, in the woods... But we would train there. I'm sitting there and Karl von Stroheim would be there most of the time, and he'd have a case of beer on the floor and drink beers while the boys were training.
Malenko was there doing the initial stuff. So many great people had come through there! Like I said, Malenko was like a second dad to all of us. He was amazing! And there was Joe Malenko (Boris’ son and Dean’s older brother) who trained with Karl Gotch back in the day, who was a great amateur wrestler and Olympian for Belgium back in the day. Gotch was an expert in submission wrestling, and he helped popularize pro wrestling in Japan.
The Mighty Siegfried was my in-ring persona while I was training in, Tampa. They were running shows and got TV time on channel 3. Karl Gotch game me my first wrestling name, Siegfried. Before I even, started, when I first came up there, Malenko took me out to meet him at his house. He put me through a few moves; he made me puke on his lawn! Old school training methods! And that when I went to do wrestling shows, which we did local, they were like indies in flea markets, malls, different areas, the YMCA, all that they would do wrestling events. That's the best way is to learn is to work in front of people. And anyway, uh. I used to joke all the time: “I'm sick Fred instead of Siegfried! Oh my God. But, uh, yeah, he, uh, he, he used the one, you know, and.
Right before I went to Texas, Malenko sent me to Ted Turner Broadcasting. Turner only had one studio before cable. And they wanted to take a look at me! So, he sent me in a car with two other wrestlers. And these were old school guys. One was Cyclone Negro and Tony Marino (an ex-bodybuilder who wrestled in the Carolinas as Batman.) A guy drove us up in an El Dorado Cadillac. And I was in the middle on the hump because that's the way the car was configured.
I’ve got one on both sides me, and we're going to Atlanta to, uh, turn to Turner's first TV station to do matches. Well, I'm in the car. Within 10 minutes of being on the road, the guy looks up in the rear-view mirror. I've got one guy’s head on my shoulder snoring… he'd suck birds out of the air and the other guy’s asleep on my other shoulder. And here I am in the middle. I'm looking at the driver looking at me in the mirror and he goes: “Well kid, that's how you can tell a real wrestler. They can sleep anywhere!”
The things Malenko taught me and how he treated everyone... he was just great! I'm glad that I had the opportunity to be trained by my childhood hero. Boris Malenko was one of the best heels when I was a kid! And here I am. He's completely different, his mannerisms and everything, but he was just so good at training you… little things, including interviews and stuff like that. There were no cameras back then to train for interviews! Malenko would say: “You never need to worry. Go into the bathroom, in front of the mirror and practice, practice, practice, okay? Listen to all the guys that you saw on to on TV. You can grow from there and kind of choose and pick and try different styles for cutting promos.” And things like that, your expressions, how to sell pain, how to sell different things and be animated… be able to grow and learn things. So it was, it was an amazing era for me, learning the business.
But the thing is - and like I say when I meet a lot of young guys - when you get in front of people, the more you're able to wrestle and be in front of people, the more you learn and the more you grow as a character. You have to be open-minded, and you have to love what you do.
I definitely loved it.
I was lucky enough, in all the territories that I went to, to have met a lot of great veteran wrestlers. If they saw that you had that love for the business, that you were willing to learn and listen, they would work with you.
When I started in Texas, I've had guys, on their off time, come down to where we used to do tv tapings. They'd get in the ring with, get several of the guys together and get in there and help us be better at our craft and become better wrestlers. They didn't fear you getting better than them… it's about people and giving opportunities to people that love this business. It means a lot.