FRED OTTMAN The Official Website!
BIOGRAPHY PART 4
TOOT! TOOT!
I had stopped by the office to see everybody and they said; “While you were gone, both WCW and WWF called. They’re interested in having you come up and take a look at you. Kevin Sullivan had called them from WCW and Pat Patterson from the WWF.
I was excited, but you know… I'm like: “Man, am I… am I… good enough?” Both of them already have talent rosters that were unbelievable. When Vince McMahon bought the WWF from his father and started airing on cable, he took every main event guy from every territory. At that time there were many territories, but he took them all and brought them up to the WWF, to put this thing together. They were able to run two or three towns a night and promote shows internationally. They were everywhere!
I was thinking: “I've always wanted to go to the WWF, from the get go.” But I always had that self doubt in my head, a lack of confidence, I guess… No disrespect to WCW, but I told the WWF that I would like to meet with them. They were booked, they were gonna do TV in Niagara Falls, on the US side. They booked me, they sent me tickets, all this stuff… and brought me up. I'm like: oh God! I was nervous.
When I got there, I almost had a Shockmaster moment; I got there, I pulled my big piece of luggage in. And the dressing room, because of the building configuration, was a big curtain with aluminum poles supporting where the guys were dressing - big area! But you had to come through the curtain. As I go through the curtain my suitcase catches onto the curtain and here goes the whole curtain! As I'm pulling through and I catch it and straighten it up, in the side of my eye, I see benches all the way down. And there I see all these champions that are there looking at me like: “Holy moly, what is this? Is the circus in town?” Oh my God!
But the curtain didn't fall, thank God!
There are a lot of things to be done on tv taping days. They oriented me through the process. They did a photo shoot.
There were three easels set up - matches were listed on each easel for each of the 1 hour shows. Dark matches were first, although they did tape those. I did a few dark matches over the next few days with a few guys including Steve Lombardi, (The Brooklyn Brawler) and Barry Horowitz.
After the 3rd day of tv tapings, they said: “We want to put you on the schedule. You'd be working first or second matches until we come up with a gimmick for you. You know? So the first six months to eight months, I was wrestling as Big Steel Man.
Now in the wrestling encyclopaedias, you’ll see me as Big Man Steel. It was written wrong instead of Big Steel Man! All the books have it wrong. I laugh all the time when I see it. Most fans don't have any idea of that gimmick unless they come to me to have the book signed under Tugboat or Typhoon / Natural Disaster… and I say: “Do you want me to sign the other one too?” “What other one?” And I go: “Big Steel Man! I'm gonna let you know something: it's a typo in the books!”
So yes, I was Big Steel Man at the beginning of my WWF career, until Pat Patterson and Vince McMahon told me they had this idea for a character.
They do that because everything's about trademarking and merchandising and stuff like that. Your whole internal bit has to be into making it work. They can give you a gimmick, but it's up to you to get the gimmick over. A lot of people get gimmicks, but they don't last…
They gave me that deal and they say: “We have this character… what do you think…? Tugboat Thomas?” (It was later shortened to Tugboat.) I said: “Let me get this right...” Me being the infant in the brain that I am (I still watch cartoons to this day) I'm like: “You want me to be a cross between Popeye and Brutus in one character?” Sign me up! It sounds like fun to me!
Not only was I doing what I loved, I got to do a character that's like me… infantile, goofy, you know? And true to form, I did it and I loved it! It was awesome!
One day they presented on a whole scenario on tv. That’s when John Tenta (Earthquake) came out of the audience to showcase Dino Bravo’s strength. Quake was portrayed as a stranger, chosen randomly… And they asked him to sit on Dino's back while he did push ups with Quake on his back who was supposedly 460 lbs. Quake looked like a good old farm boy. Bravo was presented as the world's strongest man. I loved Dino. He was cool. He was a good guy. You can see this segment by CLICKING HERE. The Ultimate Warrior later found out that Quake wasn’t a random pick!
And then Jimmy Hart got the idea: “ We’ve got put it these guys (Quake and I) together!”
The next thing you know, they’re a team. They beat up Hulk Hogan a couple of times. Quake almost put Hogan out the business because he gave him repeated quakes after repeated quakes! Out of nowhere, they put me in a program with Hulk Hogan! THE BIGGEST NAME IN PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING!
I almost felt like throwing up because I was so nervous! At first, I was basically like a very strong cheerleader for the Hulkster.
Before a match, I felt like I had to pee multiple times because I was so nervous! But once I went through the curtains and that music was playing for Hogan… the next thing you know… I was going down to the ring and the rest is history! It was the greatest! I'm here with the greatest professional wrestler in the business that I've watched tv! He was in the Rocky III movie as Thunderlips… just amazing!
Hogan was such a good guy. I know, a lot of people have opinions about him. I say opinions are like rear ends, and some them stink! But I could never have predicted that I would have the opportunity like that! My parents were so excited to see me on tv! It was really great!