Wrestler Bob Armstrong battles on

The mornings can be particularly painful for legendary pro wrestler Bob Armstrong, who at 69 continues to climb into the ring to perform several times a week.

“Sometimes, I have to crawl out of the bed,” he said. “I got my foot broke in Birmingham and had to cut the toe out of my boot to get it off. I wrestled the next week.

“I wrestled Jerry Lawler with broken ribs. You worked hurt. It wasn’t like these days where wrestlers get contracts.
“Back then, if you didn’t wrestle, you didn’t get paid.”

He’ll climb in the squared circle again Friday night at the Dothan Civic Center in what’s being billed as the Farewell 2 Legends Tour.

While Armstrong isn’t planning to pack away his trunks and boots following the show, he hints the opportunities left to see him perform are likely growing short.

“There may never be another show like this,” Armstrong said. “This is my Hall of Fame.”

Years of body slams and broken bones have taken a toll, but Armstrong always finds a way to bounce back.

“Any time I’ve been hurt, Dr. (James) Andrews has put me back together,” Armstrong said.

Andrews, the world-renowned orthopedic surgeon, first became acquainted with Armstrong when he would attend wrestling matches in Columbus, Ga.

“I had a knee done two years ago, and he did a shoulder last year,” Armstrong said. “I thought I was finished, but now I have no pain. It’s amazing.”

His most traumatic injury came when he dropped weights on his face while working out in 1982 in Wheeling, W.V.

A surgeon “wired all my face together” and the rehab process began.

“It was hard to look in the mirror,” Armstrong said. “I looked in the mirror and it wasn’t me. I looked out the window in the back of the house and just cried.

“In Atlanta, they put out a press report that Bob Armstrong would never wrestle again.”

But Armstrong went back to work and returned to the ring.

This time, however, he donned a mask to cover up the disfigured face and went by the name of The Bullet, and now dances out to theme mucic of George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone

Though his face is well-healed and few scars are visible now, Armstrong has continued to wear the trademark mask in the ring for more than 20 years.
“It feels safe,” he said. “I’d feel naked without the mask when I go out to wrestle.”

Breaking in

Raised on a farm in Georgia, Joseph James realized he wanted to be a professional wrestler when he stood on his father’s shoulders as a 6-year-old and watched the legendary Gorgeous George perform.

“He was throwing those gold pins out of his hair,” Armstrong said. “I still remember that like it was yesterday.”

He was making a living as a fireman in Marietta, Ga., when he got his break in wrestling.

“I was a powerlifter and I had always wanted to wrestle,” he said.

A local promoter gave him a chance, and it didn’t take long for the fireman with rippling muscles who served in the Marine Corps to become a hit in the ring throughout Georgia.

A veteran wrestler/promoter by the name of Charlie Harbin suggested the name of Bob Armstrong for him to use in the ring.

“They (promoters) said, ‘You’ve got big arms, we’ll call you Jack Armstrong,” he said in reference to the subject of a radio adventure series which aired first in the 1930s. “Charlie Harbin said, ‘Don’t call him that. Call him Bob — Bob Armstrong.’’’

There wasn’t much money to be made in the beginning.

“I used to go to Savannah, Ga., for $15 or $20,” Armstrong said. “I got $25 in Macon, Ga., and I thought I was the richest man in the world.”

Moving up

After a couple of years on the Georgia circuit, Armstrong was lured up North.

“Vince McMahon’s father and Verne Gagne (promoters) offered me the world,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong went, but “hated up North.”

It didn’t take long for Armstrong to put down stakes permanently in the South, though he did wrestle in other countries from time to time.

“I wrestled in front of 110,000 in Korea,” Armstrong said. “I told Crazy Luke Graham, ‘I’ve never seen that many people in my life.’
“They came to see the two Americans — me and Luke.”

Armstrong has also wrestled in front of near-empty arenas.

“I’ve wrestled in front of 13 people before,” he said.

No matter the size of the crowd, Armstrong says he gives his best.

“I don’t give less than 100 percent,” Armstrong said. “It’s because I love it.”

On the road

“That’s the hardest part,” he said of the travel. “I put 70,000 miles on my car one year — so much that the IRS called me in.”

Armstrong rarely spends the night in a town following a match — often traveling throughout the night to return home.
“When you finish a match, you can never go to sleep,” he said.

So Armstrong hits the road, and pushes the pedal to the metal.

Though he’s been pulled over by police on many occasions for speeding down the highways, he doesn’t always get a ticket.
“I always keep pictures in the back of my car,” he smiles.

Armstrong has spent time as a booker — putting the matches together. He'd much rather be in the ring.

“I booked for 20 years and hated every minute of it, but it was a job and I made good money,” he said.

During his prime, Armstrong was one of the biggest names in professional wrestling.

Even now, one would be hard-pressed to find a more popular performer in the South.

“I wouldn’t take nothing for what I went through,” Armstrong said. “You had to earn your way in this business.”

A family affair

His four sons — Scott, Brad, Steve and Brian — all followed him into the business and continue to work.

Yet perhaps the MVP of the family is his wife of 49 years, Gail.

With Armstrong spending so much time on the road, Gail was left at home to oversee the youngsters.

“I’ve always said she has the best wristlock in the business,” Armstrong says with a laugh. “With four sons coming up, she’d catch them jumping off the table and put them in a wristlock.

“We were married long before I started wrestling. She was very supportive of it. Most wrestler’s marriages don’t last long.
“It takes a special lady.”

Dothan connection

Armstrong was wrestling in Columbus, Ga., in the late 1960s when he was first noticed by then Dothan promoter Rocky McGuire.
“They could see Columbus wrestling on TV in Dothan and Rocky McGuire called Fred Ward (Columbus promoter) to see if I could come down and do a card in Dothan,” Armstrong said.

“I came over here and wrestled and was accepted well by the people. I felt at home here. They were my kind of people.”

While Armstrong wouldn’t become a regular in the area until much later in his career, he knew following his first appearance in the Gulf Coast territory that one day he would return.

“I came back in 1978 and said I’d never leave,” Armstrong said of putting down roots in Gulf Breeze, Fla.

Going strong

Still keeping a busy schedule, Armstrong now normally works small towns in Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

“Because I love it,” Armstrong says of continuing in the sport.

Always one to work out rigorously, Armstrong hits a local gym most days to keep in tip-top shape.

“Normally in the morning I have a little coffee and then hit the gym for about an hour,” Armstrong said. “I’m in as good a shape now as when I was 50.

“My best wrestling weight was 235. Now I’m around 200 to 205. I’m just about as fast as I ever was.”
And Armstrong is enjoying the twilight of his career.

“It’s more fun because when you’re young, you had to stay on top,” he said. “I think it’s better now for me because there’s no pressure.”

Just fun — for Armstrong and the many fans who have a chance to watch him wrestle.