Original subtitles

In my opinion is, Jump Yard Dog was the most prominent black wrestler to ever

lace a pair of boots.

Overcoming incredible odds, a young black wrestler rose from humble

to become a generational superstar, achieving unimaginable heights in a

dominated by white performers.

Yes, he did. He paid the way for all of us. You feel you're going to be wearing

the crown?

Just as sure as I'm black in a day's sun, I mean, Jane.

His charisma and, you know, his personality is what got him to where he

because he was a fan favorite no matter how you looked at it.

JYD was on top, selling it out. I mean, it was incredible.

If you guys could just hear the crowd, they'd just love it. And it couldn't

nobody stop it. He's invincible.

It ain't nothing else I like to do or know better. And that's fire.

I've seen the stars for it because at that time there were no black

Bill Watts.

He saw dollars.

I saw his charisma. I named him, gave him his music, and did everything, and

was so dynamite.

The unlikely friendship between promoter Cowboy Bill Watts and the Junkyard Dog

was tested when the Dog defects to the WWF.

I think Dog went because there was a better opportunity. You know, there's

money, and then he was going to be a big star there.

But JYD's dreams of achieving superstar status in the big leagues fell short.

Vince McMahon didn't use him like Bill did. I wish he had because he could have

been one of the biggest stars in the WWE.

Yeah, it broke his spirit because he went there to be that big hero again,

he didn't get it.

How can Vince McMahon put everything on JYD?

Because you don't know if he's going to show up or not. You're not dependable.

Untrustworthy. Dog forgot one thing. You can't do what the white man do and keep

your job.

When you're trying to become a star and on your way to stardom, you can fail at

a lot of things, but to be successful as a wrestler, you have to put the time

in. You have to become known by the fans.

You have to be able to sell your product.

You have to be able to have some dialogue.

When Junkyard Dog came to Mid -South, he had dialogue, he had style, he had

physical attributes.

And these things turn into box office. These things turn into money.

Sylvester Ritter was probably the greatest star to come through the state

Louisiana that they ever had in terms of wrestling.

He represents the people. They all love him.

Dog had a great following. He was universally loved.

The gleam in his eyes, the little smile that he had.

was infectious.

Man, he just got over it. The people in Louisiana loved him.

He'd get to the ring, you know, and he'd grab that top rope and lean back and

shake his legs and his butt, and the people would just go, wow. I'm lacing up

the boots, and the whole building's going, who that?

Who that? Who that going to beat the dog? Who that? Boom, boom, boom. Who

I'm lacing up my boots going, holy smokes.

More than just a wrestler, Junkyard Dog is a hero to the working class, a

beloved figure in the city of New Orleans who became a superstar to fans

the Southeast, transcending the sport to become an icon.

A Junkyard Dog, bro. Nobody messes with a damn Junkyard Dog.

I'm James Snake Roberts, Hall of Famer, and I can still kick your butt.

Mid -South!

I am tired of you ripping me off and playing your stinking games with me.

New Orleans was his town, man.

And my God, if you were wrestling him, brother, you were scared to death.

Because you didn't know if you were going to make it out of that ring and

to the dressing room.

Police usually had to carry the guys out, the wrestle dog.

Because if you parked your car in that parking lot, they would destroy it.

Who the heck going to beat that dog?

Nobody. That's who.

Before becoming one of the most popular wrestlers the South had ever seen, the

Junkyard Dog was a rookie named Big Daddy Ritter, searching for his big

Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Well, Dog tried to get into wrestling several times, but they're all short

deals. He wasn't on everybody's much -wanted list because then, A, he was

and a lot of the white promoters, and they're all white, had a quota,

unwritten, unstated, but it was there. And so if he didn't fit their quota...

They already had a black baby face.

I ain't going to hire another one.

That's sad to say. It's coarse. It's hurtful.

I am Jim Ross.

Been in wrestling since 1974.

And along the way, I got to meet the Junkyard Dog and become friends.

It's great to have you back, Junkyard Dog.

J .Y .D., when I first met him, it seemed like he was always smiling.

And his skill set was limited.

My God, the charisma and the love that he created for the fan base.

But you can't coach charisma.

You either got it or you don't.

Despite Ritter's charisma and size, only Bill Watt, the owner and promoter of

Mid -South Wrestling, decides to take a chance on the young brawler.

Cowboy was bigger than life.

He was a disciplinarian. He was kind of like the head coach.

You know, I never met Vince Lombardi, the famed football coach, the Packers,

that won multiple Super Bowls. But some of my older peers said that Watt was

Vince Lombardi -like.

My way or the highway.

Here are the rules.

There are not many of them. I expect you...

to adhere to them, and there's no negotiation.

Bill Watts gave him the biggest break for a black man.

Oh, let me turn this off.

Hey, this is the Birdman Coco Beware.

Man, you know me flying all over the place in the wrestling business.

The Birdman Coco Beware!

I mean, wrestling is a white man's sport.

He wasn't a wrestler at all. He couldn't put you in a leg lock or a chicken

wing. He don't know nothing about all that. He was a street fighter.

Bill Watts gave him a chance to draw some money. And you know what? He busts

Louisiana wide open.

Mid -South sports was based on realism. So athleticism, realism, making it more

easy to suspend your disbelief of the art form that is pro wrestling.

Watts had a rule. You should go to a bar.

Or you get in any kind of scuffle and you get your ass whipped, you're fired.

The booker for Cowboy Bill Watts is Ernie Ladd.

Ernie Ladd was a philosopher.

He was 6 '9 and 300 pounds.

So Ernie was always looking for talent.

Somebody along the way told Ernie, hey, there's this black guy, big muscular

powerhouse, kind of guy you'd like, Ernie, that you ought to take a look at.

So Ernie brought Dog in and he had a rough start because Cowboy didn't know

Dog was not a great technical.

He brought that big, fine, black specimen of a body down that aisle.

A young gal started screaming and hollering, and we would excite the

He was so statuesque, and he looked great. Turn your head, you wouldn't

him. Dahl just clicked with the rest of the fans, so he knew how to connect with

the audience.

This is Mr. USA, WWE Hall of Famer, Tony Atlas.

So all you boys in the Mid -South, get ready for yourself because I got trouble

here and I got trouble there and I got trouble coming your way to the Mid

-South. We gonna boogie, baby.

So I have to give credit for this to cowboy Bill Watts.

Bill Watts came up with ideas.

Dog was a hell of a football player.

He was a hell of a street fighter. He was a brawler. So what Bill Watts did

create matches that fit Dog's style.

Bill wanted Dog to do a few things really well.

Clotheslines, thumps, body slams, tackles. And so those things, based on

football background, those things can be translated very easily into pro

wrestling. Ooh, power slam!

To boost Junkyard Dog's star power, Bill Watts and Ernie Ladd know they need to

find the perfect villain for JYD to face in the ring.

Wait a minute!

What's he doing?

There's nothing that he couldn't do in the ring, you know, if he was in the

with the right guy.

I am Ted DiBiase.

Towards the end of my career, I was known in the WWE as the Million Dollar

And

the

thing that I did was I always highlighted in the ring what he did

I mean, Bill Watts coached me. The Funks coached me.

They would say, Teddy, you've got to basically put him in the middle of the

and work around him and emphasize or highlight the things that you know he

very well and stay away from the things that he doesn't do so well. He had

enough trust in me to know that I wasn't going to make him look bad out there. I

was always going to make him look good. The dog did something, and there's the

count.

Well, you talk about an action -packed duo. They are.

We became friends. We traveled together a lot, and so much so that when we got

married, J .Y .D. was my best man.

That's how close we were.

Put that change around his neck, put that music on, another one bite the

and he came back in there with a thump. The rest of it is history.

There he goes with that big thump. He just put him about six feet under.

Bill Watts is the first wrestling owner, promoter, whoever featured as

one of his very top stars, a black guy.

This last year has kind of been the year of the dog. I don't know if it's the

Chinese year of the dog or not, but in Mid -South wrestling, it was the year of

the dog. Bill Watts took JYB and made him the star.

like this is because you're doing so many good things.

They had a very, very close relationship.

Anything that Dog needed or wanted or disliked, he would never talk to the

wrestlers about it. He would only talk to Bill Watts.

I don't think anyone in the business did more for an individual than Bill Watts

as he looked at mentoring and helping Dog.

Bill looked at him like he was family.

You always go out and give 100 % for the people and for yourself.

A lot of people were astounded that Cowboy was so friendly with a black

And Cowboy said, I want you to know one thing. He said, my favorite color is

green. And at that time, JYD was selling tickets, lots of them.

Junkyard Dog's captivating presence draws capacity crowds night after night,

inspiring his fans that thought that nothing to defend their hero. The fans

only looked up to him, they worshipped him.

I'm Jim Cornette. I've been involved in a variety of ways in professional

wrestling over the last 40 -something years.

Because that's all you are is a yellow dog -faced liar.

You know what he just did? He just wrote a check that his rear end won't be able

to... The downtown municipal auditorium

was the dog's house every Monday night.

And the Freebirds come in, and they want to take over.

The Freebirds had hair cream.

that could remove your hair. And they said they were going to use it to take

hair away from one of their opponents. But when Junkyard Dog came in and tried

to do something about it, accidentally, according to the Freebirds, the cream

wound up in his eyes.

Hey, this is supposed to be a solution to remove hair.

The agony he's in.

My God, that moment right there.

Freebirds were dead men.

When the word got out that J .Y .D. had been blinded by the free birds, and then

when J .Y .D. went on television and said, my daughter, my baby daughter is

about to be born, and I'll be able to hold her, but I'll never be able to see

her. The people wanted to kill the free birds, literally.

As the highly anticipated dog collar match with J .Y .D. against free bird

Michael Hayes approaches.

Dog plays his part at ringside until one fateful night when the line between

fiction and reality really blurs.

J .Y .D. himself told me this story.

Others have disputed it.

But it sounds very typical of New Orleans and the wrestling scene at that

They're in the downtown municipal auditorium.

And Dog is sitting at ringside. He's blind, but he's in the corner. The free

birds look around and they see Dog sitting in the corner. And all of a

some guy comes over the railing and is right there at Dog's shoulder. And the

guy pulls out the biggest gun he's ever seen and said, don't worry, Dog, I got

him.

And for two seconds, Dog is conflicted. Do I grab this guy's gun and save their

lives, but expose that I can see?

Or do I sit here and let him shoot him?

And while he was conflicted, the cops came over the rail and grabbed the guy

took him down.

In our little world down there in the Mid -South, he became bigger than life.

Sometimes you wonder when success comes somebody's way, is it truly a blessing

or a curse?

Race, color, and creed. He's everybody's champion.

Under the guidance of legendary promoter Bill Watts, the Junkyard Dog has

emerged as a main event superstar in Mid -South, drawing record -breaking crowds

for the company.

He was the black Hulk Hogan down there.

Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas.

I mean, he had all those towns just sold up.

Let me tell you something, Buzzard, it ain't but one dog.

Well, there wasn't many black wrestling stars when I broke into business.

I'm WWE Hall of Famer Teddy Long.

You will go one -on -one with The Undertaker!

God was a big draw. He had that charisma, so he brought the blacks out,

he brought the whites out. There were whites that loved JYD, too. So Bill

knew that was money, okay? So that's why he pushed off.

Oh, the crowd said, who that? Who that?

Who that? Who that? Who that?

Who's that going to be, that junkyard dog? Who's that?

You know, in Mid -South, we stop at a restaurant, we stop at a gas station,

people recognize us where we went.

We get a lot of letters at Mid -South asking that the dog and the different

stars can drop by and visit them. I know we got a nice letter from a

kindergarten teacher in LeCompte.

Well, the junkyard dog found time, and when word got out in that town, they had

Junkyard Dog Day, and I'll tell you, it was great.

After he got his, he wanted to reach back.

help others. He got more pleasure out of helping you. Talk to the kids, give

them money.

Very generous, not just with his money, but with his time.

You know, you get fame and stuff, I get very well known, and I forget about the

way that I grew up, and lots of them I like to go back to school and visit.

Long before the bright lights and roaring crowds, Sylvester Ritter, the

behind the junkyard dog, grew up in a small North Carolina town.

What a lot of people don't understand or don't know about it is, it's a true

rags to riches story for him.

My name is Jarvis Woodburn. I'm the nephew of the Junkyard Dog.

I called him Uncle Dog. That's what he was to me.

This was the, God, this is the old, old one, I believe.

Yeah. He grew up without a dad. My great -grandmother, which is his grandmother,

is the one that raised him and my mom.

True Southern upbringing, family first, treat all people equally, and that's

just the kind of person that he was.

This is the home where Sylvester grew up, him a mom, my grandmother.

great -grandmother, great -great -grandmother.

It was old school. Wake up in the middle of the night, got to go to the

bathroom, got to do number one, you're going in the bucket.

Got to do number two, you hold it, you're coming outside and using that

There you go.

There's the source of heat right there.

And this was kind of like the living room area.

This was the bedroom here, so it's very cramped.

I mean, I remember when I was growing up, there was actually two beds in here.

There's that wall with all of the, like, photos and stuff.

There's actually a real, real young picture of him over there.

If these walls could talk.

But I grew up just like everybody else with nothing.

I grew up hard back down in South North Carolina.

But I fought, and I'm still fighting, trying to bail on myself.

I saw him one time to give a fan.

He took the dog chain off his neck and gave it to a kid with a family there.

And they just loved it.

He still stayed humble. You know, he wasn't a guy that you couldn't talk to.

never changed.

He never changed. He was the same guy each and every day.

Though fame didn't change the junkyard dog, life on the road and the days and

weeks away from home begin to take their toll.

He would always try to come home around, especially the holidays when my mom

cooks. But then after that, it's just kind of like just hanging out with the

family for as long as they can before they got to get back on the road.

He had a daughter, Latoya. His daughter was with us since she was two going on

three years old. He loved her to death. She loved him. She was definitely a

daddy's girl. He was a great father. He's just on the road all the time.

Being on the road all the time is, well, I mean, it can take a toll.

It taxes on your body. It taxes on your mind. It taxes mostly on your

relationships with your children, with your wife, with your family.

You know, an average week was 1 ,500, 2 ,000 miles a week. So you're in a car a

lot, and you're with your family a lot, and sometimes a big old fat joint was

your solace.

Of course, for a dog, it just created more of an appetite.

We both were experimenting with drugs at the time.

I remember J .Y. showing me a jar that he had over 1 ,000 hits of speed in it,

you know. And, of course, when he came south, it came with him.

Yeah, he was already into the speed and into the downers and sleeping pills.

I hadn't gotten into that yet, but I was soon to start.

There was a couple times on the road with him, he would always keep his pinky

nailed a little bit longer.

I'll look over and see him, and he was just about to do it, and he looked over

at me and he goes, if I ever see you doing this, I'll kill you.

All right.

Ain't going to tell me twice.

Kind of like rock and roll. I mean, I didn't know wrestlers had groupies.

Found that out.

It's kind of like you see on TV with these rock stars.

It was just like anywhere they went.

restaurants, bars.

When you got fame like this, you said, you can actually make money. I said,

are you talking about? He said, I'm not going to sleep with them for free.

I mean, some of these tickets would pay.

So I started hanging out with Dahl because I got free beer, free food, and

laid.

And they paid for it.

We was... In Little Rock, Arkansas.

And I was low on money because at that time, unfortunately, I was involved with

drugs. And Dog said, I'll get you some money.

I said, okay.

He said, I got some girls coming. I said, oh, thank you.

The door opened and these three girls came in. And each one of them gave Dog

$100 a piece to get laid by the wrestlers.

So anyway, Dog said, he don't do no screwing. He like your feet. So he going

play with your feet. You like to play with your feet. That's all.

I'm playing with the girl's feet.

Dog getting ready to do the girl, and then we hear another knock at the door.

He thought it was one of the wrestlers.

It was the girl's husband.

You know, he wanted to fight Dog, so he did. It didn't last long.

Dog beat the hell out of him. The girl stayed.

The dog was one of the highest paid guys in pro wrestling at that time. He never

made under a grand a week. I think he probably averaged more than like $2 ,000

or $3 ,000 a week. And in a territory that size, that was pretty

Bill, he did nice things for him, including a car.

And when he pulled up to an arena, he got noted in a positive way.

As one of the biggest draws in the territory, the Junkyard Dog catches the

of WWF promoter Vince McMahon.

In the summer of 1984,

McMahon makes JYD an offer that's more than double what he's paid under Bill

Watts. Vince McMahon was starting the national expansion that he started in

1984, and Vince was trying to suck up all the talent.

Unfortunately, the thing happened that I never believed would happen, and that

was Dog walked out.

He walked out on his professional savior, and he went to WWF for the cash.

How does Bill Watts feel when JYD leaves?

I'd love to have seen him when he got that phone call.

A lucrative offer from the WWF proves too strong for the junkyard dog to

as he suddenly departs Mid -South, sending shockwaves through the territory

leaving promoter Bill Watts stunned.

The big topic of conversation is the junkyard dog and what's happened to him.

And we don't really know. We do know that he's left the Mid -South area. When

Dog left Mid -South, it broke Watts' heart.

Because he had never been as kind and as giving to anybody in his career.

Bill went on television.

Had a little verbal tirade directed at Dog.

I wanted to comment one minute on the Junkyard Dog because I watched him come

Mid -South as a youngster, and a lot of people watched him grow to become truly

a superstar.

But then J .Y .D. walked out, not only on Mid -South, which really hurt me

personally because I considered him a great friend, he walked out on all the

fans. I mean, to see a white man cry over a black man back in the day.

I saw tears come out of Bill Watts' eyes. That just hurt him bad because

Watts did everything he could to keep him there. And it just looked like

overnight he was gone.

But in the aftermath of his departure, rumors circulate that his sudden exit

from the company is motivated by factors beyond money.

Dog told me this story, the way he went to the WWF.

Dog was in the bathroom, and he was in the stall.

Bill Watts and Grizzly Smith, they came in the bathroom, and they didn't know

Dog was in the stall.

Grizzly Smith went to tell Bill Watts, he says, well, I think we're going to

lose Sylvester.

I hear he's going to the WWF. He's going to New York. The next thing Bill Watts

said to Grizzly Smith, he said, ah, don't worry about it. That nigger ain't

going nowhere.

Dog heard that.

And so that's when he made up his mind to leave and go to Benson.

After the Junkyard Dog leaves Mid -South in the summer of 1984, Bill Watts

begins a search for his replacement.

Brother, it scared him to death that his territory was going to just collapse.

So desperate that immediately he tried to slide in another black superstar.

Bill made, I think, a mistake in a sense that we started trying out every

African -American wrestler that we could bring in.

George Wells.

You can't run this dog out. I'm here to stay, and I'm here to whoop a whole lot

of behind.

Brickhouse Brown.

Brickhouse Brown!

And Brickhouse is silent, Joe.

They brought another guy in, called him the snowman.

I had the pleasure of wrestling him.

Jake the Snake, he tried to take me out. These thundercookers, he can't do

nothing with it.

Did not work.

I want the sucker right down here in the middle of this rain right now.

Butch Reed was a very good wrestler, but he wasn't the dog.

He was a bodybuilder.

He was too pretty, not that big, bad son of a bitch that people could identify

with.

And on and on.

So no replacing J .Y .D.? No, none. Forget about it.

They were good guys.

They tried, but replacing a legend?

That's like hiring the next cowboy to replace John Wayne.

How the hell are you going to do that?

The fans of the WWF welcomed J .Y .D. with open arms and thunderous applause.

This place is gone!

And he certainly has his legions of fans here by the thousands.

And these fans are with him all the way. He is perfect.

McMahon did a phenomenal job of marketing JYD when he hired him. I will

that. You have become one of the most popular athletes in the World Wrestling

Federation, perhaps in the most shortest length of time as anyone ever to enter

the ring.

You know, I've been very fortunate to have a lot of help come from him.

Just understand that people, they get along with people, and they don't make

difference what race or color it is.

financially was the best move Dog ever made.

He told me one time he was making six figures a quarter on his action figure.

That's the third time my junkyard's been burgled this month.

There's only one way to protect this place, amigo.

You've got to get yourself a junkyard dog.

I thought that was cool, seeing the cartoons on Saturday mornings, his

figure, the music video, all that stuff. That was pretty cool as a kid to see.

What was his tune on the album?

Grab Them Cakes. They couldn't sing for shit, though.

In his dreams were all being fulfilled.

He was making money.

He was doing it, man. He was doing it.

Longevity wise, you know.

It's hard to stick around. Extremely competitive business.

Everybody wants Hogan's spot, the spot below that. A lot of hungry guys.

And hard to stick around.

As the Junkyard Dog joins a WWF roster packed with some of the biggest names in

wrestling, his magnetic presence can only carry him so far.

Despite his best efforts, he fails to recapture the towering heights of his

glory days in Mid -South.

I don't think the industry was ready to go.

That route, how can I say it, with the black

wrestler, that's just my opinion.

I really believe that JYD thought that Vince McMahon was going to push him the

same way as Bill Watts.

And it didn't happen. He figured, well, I don't let Louisiana down.

I don't let my family down.

I don't let Bill Watts down.

He was just heartbreaking.

Having left the Mid -South territory behind for the promise of even greater

fame, the Junkyard Dog fails to reach the same level of prominence in the WWF.

Me and Dog want to be climbing the mountaintop. We want to go to the

land. We want to be with Hulk Hogan, brother. They pushed some black

there, but Ford's putting a black man in the money spot?

No.

Not at all.

They didn't go there.

So I got to put this black and white thing together all the time.

Because that's the only way I see it.

From 1980 to, I would say, 86, 80 % of the top wrestlers were minorities

in the Vince Senior era. Vince McMahon, senior figure, that you have to have a

person that represents every nationality of people. And that was his idea.

Pedro Morales, Bruno San Martino, Rocky Johnson, the Wild Samoan, Mr. Fuji.

Bob Backler.

And that whole list, I mean, how many white people?

One. But right now, let's begin the festivities. Without further ado, let's

up the ringside.

When Vince Jr.

took over, where there wasn't many minorities on top, he came with the Hulk

Hogan, Ronnie Piper, Bret Hart.

He had a pecking order for Dawn.

He needed a black wrestler, but he had to push the Caucasian wrestler. It's not

racism. It was a business decision.

He wanted to get... the white fans to come more.

Vince McMahon didn't use him like Bill did. I wish he had because if he'd have

opened that door, I think he could have been one of the biggest stars in the

WWE.

Do I think it affected him? Absolutely.

And I think that was when the drugs got really bad.

Dawg started off with pot and that led to cocaine.

He's just smoking.

Yeah, y 'all call it crack now.

Once he got into the coke, the coke took him.

He had to have it every day.

J. White, he didn't care where he was at. He'd just pull it out and do it.

On the airplanes and everything, man.

He got me in trouble one time.

They were doing a TNT thing that Vince used to do.

He said, I want you to make sure he get there.

They got a Lear jet for him, the nice jet.

So when Dog landed, they got the guy with the limousine to pick us up at the

airport. Dog said the limousine driver had to go in the ghetto to get some

So they driving around.

Dog, we got to get to the building, Dog.

He found somebody selling his dope.

The limousine driver had no idea what was going on. So Dog asked, is it okay I

smoke? He thought it was a cigarette.

The dog said, yeah. He took out his crack pipe and started smoking crack.

I said, let me just talk like this.

He don't know what the hell to do.

We made a good dog there, but we late.

With me, I missed my match.

Dog forgot one thing that Thunderbolt Patterson tried to teach all of us black

wrestlers. Thunderbolt used to always say, you can't do what the white man do

and keep your job.

By the late 1980s, the Junkyard Dog is consumed by a devastating drug

and its consequences are felt far beyond the squared circle.

He didn't look good. He would talk, but he wasn't that cheerful dog that we

knew.

He just wasn't the same person. He didn't care what happened.

He didn't care at all.

I mean, he just... Oh, my God. Yeah, he was out of control.

I remember him.

Sitting there in Madison Square Garden and loading a pipe up and hitting it

right in front of everybody.

I said, what are you doing, man? He goes, they don't even know what it is.

He was just burnt.

Oh, yeah. The dog came out of this hiding place.

Started to begin to move up and down that ladder once again.

Like I said, time and time again.

Every dog needs a bone to chew on.

Of course, he had a drug problem. Everybody was taking drugs back then. I

throw no stones, A to Z. I just never had that addictive type personality.

But, dog, he struggled with that.

He sank into it. It was more and more, and, you know, there was no talking him

out of it.

Why has he let go from WWF?

No shows.

The way I understood it.

Fred didn't care what you did with drugs. Go, go, go.

But you miss shows, you scare me to do that.

I didn't have no idea that he was leaving or anything like that. And

way the wrestling business, it was like that.

They didn't give you two weeks notice to tell you, hey, leave.

A guy can't go buy groceries.

He don't have any money.

And you haven't seen your family.

It's disheartening.

He definitely had a great soul.

If J .Y .D.'s story isn't a cautionary tale, then people aren't paying

attention.

Fired from the WWF and struggling to make ends meet, JYD turns to the

independent circuit, performing in small high school gyms for diminishing

crowds.

After hitting rock bottom, JYD's fortunes change with an offer to join

Championship Wrestling, where his old friend and mentor Bill Watts is now in

charge. Bill Watts came in and he knew that he could make his mark if he

recaptured that black superstar.

He was a likable as hell. Everybody there was happy to try to resurrect him,

shall we say. I knew that his days of working on top were over. He didn't know

that. He didn't seem like he wanted to admit it, but you ain't the same guy.

And you look bloated.

You're not in JYD right now.

And at some point, you hold out hope for somebody that you love and respect.

Well, they'll see the light.

But let me tell you something.

As my daddy would say, they got to carry their share of the water.

I get mad when I pull up stories about the first thing people say, drugs this,

drugs that.

You got a guy that came from nothing.

They pulled him out of that environment, gave him all this money, not making

excuses, but yeah, he did drugs.

Whoopee.

I mean, everybody got demons.

I'm pretty sure the last time I seen him was like 1995, and I came in and he was

just mumbling.

That was about it, man.

They went back to where he was sitting. They said, he's in the ring.

I went out to watch. They were ringing the bell. It was over.

After about two minutes, that's all he gave them.

And he came back, grabbed his money, and walked out the door.

Didn't say bye, didn't say hi, didn't say nothing.

And I know exactly where he was at. He was wanting to get outside so he could

get high again.

Been there.

Been there.

He had his drug fixed.

He was perfectly happy to go into isolation until he needed the money.

They didn't work a show for some independent promoter for the cash.

You see, the pain that you get from the cocaine is because you look in the

mirror every now and then, a moment of clarity, and you'll look at yourself and

you'll see just how far down you've gone.

That's painful.

And it's also shameful.

And those two things, man, will kill you.

In just over a decade, J .Y .D. goes from headlining the Superdome to working

part -time job at a local Walmart.

Dog is used to being treated a certain way for a long period of time, from his

football career to his wrestling career.

And then all of a sudden, all that is taken away from him. You have to get

to being treated like shit, pretty much.

When I hit that spot, I tried to commit suicide.

I was homeless for a year and a half. I slept in the park.

Didn't shower or bathe or brush my teeth or comb my hair for a year and a half.

That was right before the start of December. So Dahl was going through the

thing. He didn't save his money. Dahl was very careless with money. He would

make $8 ,000, $10 ,000 a week.

It just came so easy to him. And all of us felt the same way, not just Dahl,

that it would never end.

We figured this would never end.

That we always...

Going to be making money. We're always going to be big stars.

This would never end.

So the phone rings one day and I get a call from J .W .D. I hadn't talked to

in quite a while. And he knows by now that, you know, I've had this change in

life and that I'm out not only doing school assemblies, but I'm speaking in

churches. If you're a wrestling fan, you may have remembered the Million Dollar

Man. How many in this room would say you remember that guy?

Yeah!

And he says, I want you to encourage those kids you're talking to not to do

I did.

And I was just like, wow.

I did what he asked me to do. That's sin.

That one that goes away for a week or a month and then it rears its ugly head

and it's back.

Or maybe even worse, it's there every day.

Drugs, alcohol, addiction.

Here's a guy who was the biggest name and succumbed to drugs.

And, of course, that was probably one of the last conversations we had.

The last time he came home was for his daughter's graduation.

He was coming from Mississippi.

Dog was real proud of his daughter. He wanted to make sure that he was at his

daughter's graduation because, I mean, she would have wanted that too. I mean,

you've got to feel real proud if your dad is a junkyard dog and he walks into

your graduation.

It don't get no better than that. So he was certainly determined to get there.

From where he was living out in Mississippi to Charlotte, North

about a nine -hour drive one way. He misses the graduation.

We're all at my mom and dad's house. He shows up. Of course, he apologizes that

he was late. He holds my son for the first time. My son was six months old,

he looks like a little miniature baby doll in his hand.

And he held him for a while.

But that was the last family photo taken of him.

And then later on, he said, I'm going to get back on the road.

So I met him at this gas station, and there's something on the driver's side

door. I'm like, dude, what's that?

He goes, puke?

Once he had a long night last night.

So I didn't think nothing else about it, and I said, you going to drive all the

way back home? You're not going to pull over to sleep or anything?

He said, nah, just going to go ahead and drive on, you know, make it straight

home.

I didn't know that was going to be the last conversation I had with him,

On June 1, 1998, after leaving a celebration of his daughter's high

graduation, the junkyard dog sets out on the long and fateful journey home.

We talked 10, 15 minutes right before he was getting ready to go.

He's done gashing up and everything.

And he said,

well, man, when you come back down, I'll be back on the 4th. Be back on the 4th.

I said, all right, well, cool, man. I'll see you then.

Dapped each other up.

He gets in the car and he drives away. I go home.

The next day, I get the call at work, and it's my mom.

And she's, you know, very upset. And she said, this officer got killed last

night. I was like, wait, what?

And she rambled something, and I could barely make it out. I just heard car.

She got killed, and she hangs up the phone.

And according to the authorities, an accident happened that morning.

So he drove all through the night, all night long. He fell asleep.

There was no skid marks. You could see where the car did off the road, and it

flipped several times.

There's no way he could have been wearing his seatbelt because he was too

big for that seatbelt. He shouldn't have been in that car anyway.

And it was head trauma, according to the autopsy.

A lot of times when you're on the drugs, you know, you're up three or four days.

Sometimes you don't get no rest until sometime the body just says, hey, I

want no more, I'm shutting down.

So that's what the body has to do to you for you to really go get rest. So I

think Dog just hadn't had no rest and the body just shut down.

It broke my heart.

And I'm sure it broke the world's heart.

He loved Ted DiBiase.

They was like brothers.

And I know it broke Ted's heart.

I was very hopeful that he was...

It's going to get better. The next thing I know, he's had a car wreck.

How did you learn about his passing?

I got a phone call when he hit the car wreck.

To tell you the truth, I was happy for him.

Because I was still caught in the trenches.

And I knew that he had escaped.

I knew that the pain was over.

I started crying because I realized I never got to tell him how much I loved

him. The period of time I was around him, he was such a dynamite human being.

The fact of how we ended our relationship was not near as important

we spent together.

J .Y .D. was a neat, special person.

And then you also see the terrible battle that's fought when guys get

that gets a hold of them that they can't whip.

All right, so this is his grave site here. One of his last wrestling

Just below him, this is his daughter.

What actually, what it was, was a ruptured heart valve that actually

exploded. There was nothing they could have done anyway.

And then she passed away a few minutes after that. And she was 31 years old.

My mom comes to see with flowers and everything. Never misses a holiday,

birthday. My mom finds it very difficult to talk about Sylvester because she was

so close to him.

And she raised Latoya as her daughter.

It's just traumatic for her to go back down memory lane, so to speak. I think

just opens up too many wounds that probably hadn't fully healed.

He's a trailblazer, man.

I'm sure a lot of those young guys appreciate the path that you laid for

Yes, he did. He paved the way for all of us. I mean, any time he came out, you

always remember JYD, and you will remember him when you left that arena

night. So Dog's legacy is he's just one of the greatest black stars in pro

wrestling.

JYD did more to create awareness and acceptance within the

closed world, very prejudiced world of pro wrestling. He stepped to the front

the line, and he stayed in the front of the line for many, many years.

The charisma was natural and real, organic.

And that's what separated him from the pack.

Oh, the crowd said, who that?

Who that?

Who that going to beat that junkyard dog? Who that?

This guy is a true hero.

So I prefer to remember him in the happier days and not anything else.

He broke the barriers.

I mean, the fans are just all over you, dog. It gets pretty hectic at that time,

but I enjoy it, man. I love it. But see, in this business, I let them get close

to me.

He always had a moment for a kid.

Warren Grunin, he had that charisma that made him a god to those that loved him,

and there were so many people that loved him.

Black and white.

Yeah, it's hard to find anybody to say something bad about J .Y .D. He was a

stand -up guy in a business where there's not a whole lot of stand -up

I'm honored to introduce Sylvester Ritter, the junkyard dog, the wrestling

of fame.

I'm hoping that he's remembered for good stuff that he did in the industry.

Latoya Riddle will be the recipient of the award for her dance.

While I'm standing here, it's important to me, and I know it will be important

to him, to introduce his sister, Christine Woodburn. He called her Big

I didn't get to speak to J .Y .D. very much at the end, but again, that last

conversation, when he said, tell my story, when you're talking to those

that told me, I said, the guy that I knew is back.