“The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase Sr. recently reflected on visiting the house of the longtime WWE Chairman.
On the latest installment of his official podcast, “Everybody’s Got A Pod,” the WWE Hall of Fame legend recalled visiting Vince McMahon’s house, getting advice from Terry Funk and his favorite match during his time in Japan.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the episode where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On visiting Vince McMahon’s house, Pat Patterson’s influence and getting advice from Terry Funk: “I did go to his house a couple of times, but it wasn’t necessarily at that time. When we first met, the other guy in that meeting was Pat Patterson, who was Vince’s right-hand man at the time. I’m sure that it’s Pat that probably put me over Vince a lot because he had seen, I guess, my potential, when he first presented it to me. It was in the office with the idea, the concept and everything. And I didn’t wanna be too quick, you know, jump in and I wanted to go run it all by Terry Funk, who was my, kinda like my mentor. I run everything by him. I left that first meeting and said, ‘I gotta think about this’, and I’ll get back to you. And so he said, ‘Good.’ And then that’s when I talked to Terry.”
On his favorite match in Japan: “I eventually became Stan Hansen’s tag team partner, and just for the fans, Japan had their wrestling entity in the…it’s not part of WWE ever has been. They had two organizations, all Japan pro wrestling, which was the original wrestling. I think, and this was like way back when I was 12, my dad went to Japan one time on a six-week tour. That was when pro wrestling was starting in Japan. Anyway, I went over there for all Japan pro wrestling, then eventually another company with the guy’s name was Enoki. He broke away from all of Japan and created New Japan pro wrestling. I always stuck with all Japan, you know, loyalty’s a big thing over there. And one of their top guys, and I met him while I was still in college playing football. Because, again, the Funks were the Funk family who were the guys booking talent for Japan to bring over. Yes. And so they had a really close relationship. So one of the guys they sent to Amarillo, the Amarillo territory was this guy who actually had his name was Teda Jumbo Teda. Okay. You know he had an amateur background, he wrestled, he wrestled for Japan in the Olympics, and he was a legit real, you know, real wrestler. But, it ended up turning into a great worker. I met him over here when he was wrestling for the Funks. When I went to Japan it was a memorable match for me because we had become friends and I didn’t know, you know, I was gonna go Japan on a tour, whatever it was. This was a five-week, week-long tour. And what he did for me in a match, he didn’t have to do. I mean, he really made me over there. And so here’s one of their biggest stars, and he has a match with me that, you know, he’s got me over in one match. He made the wrestling fans in Japan respect my ability. And it was something he didn’t really have to do. And, uh, it’s just something I’ll always remember. I guess another memorable match for me would be tagging with Stan Hanssen and us winning the titles. Those two are at the top of my list.”
Check out the complete episode of the show via the YouTube player embedded below. H/T to WrestlingHeadlines.com for transcribing the above quotes.
