Paul Ellering

And, uh,

They parted like the Red Sea, and it was just a tremendous time in the sport of wrestling when Japan was so hot.

And in the 80s, that was always our ace in the hole as far as bargaining went.

We always had Japan.

Well, that's a really long story.

I was wrestling Robert Gibson.

in, uh, Columbus, Georgia.

And I ruptured my patella tendon.

So I go back to, uh, uh, uh, Jerry Oates takes me to the hotel.

We're going to go to the hospital the next morning.

And, uh, who's there, but Dr. Jimmy Andrews, who's head of the Birmingham clinic now, or was, and, uh,

So he operated on me the first time and I was rehabbing for about seven months.

And Ole calls me up and he says, you ready to get back to work, kid?

And I go, yeah, I guess I'm ready.

I, you know, really trained hard to get it back.

I hadn't done anything in the ring though.

And Ole says, after I wrestled on TV and he says, you know, maybe we should give the leg a,

just another month or two.

It seems like you're favoring it.

I said, okay, that's fine.