Remembering Bruiser Brody
On the 30th anniversary of his tragic death, Bruiser Brody is remembered through a rare shoot interview.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the biggest injustice in pro wrestling history.
Bruiser Brody, a global box office attraction and one of the last outlaws in the sport, was stabbed to death in a locker room shower in Puerto Rico. Jose Gonzales, a booker for World Wrestling Council who also competed as Invader 1, claimed self-defense and was acquitted of murder. American witnesses Tony Atlas and Dutch Mantell were supposed to testify, but their subpoenas arrived after the trial had already ended.
The tragedy has been thoroughly examined in Bruiser Brody – Wrestling’s Last Rebel, available at Highspots. While I highly recommend the documentary, which features insight from Brody’s friends, peers and widow, the film is lacking one significant element: a shoot interview, perhaps the first of its kind, with Brody himself.
In 1987, the wildman came to the TV studio of a small NBC affiliate in southern West Virginia for an interview promoting an upcoming event. For more than 20 minutes, he calmly spoke about the changing direction of the business, Vince McMahon’s national takeover, switching from face to heel and other topics openly discussed today, but certainly not back then. Before he realized the camera was rolling, he also revealed his real name (Frank Goodish) and that he had produced the World Class Championship Wrestling TV show for years.
The interview was posted on Youtube several years ago, and it remains a mystery as to how the footage got out. I know one man who didn’t release the tape, and that’s the interviewer. His name is Jim Connors, and he’s my uncle.
Before his sudden passing in 2015, I asked him about the interview as part of my weekly column in The Temple News. It was my uncle’s first job – he was a weekend sports anchor/weekday reporter and photographer. “I don’t remember how the studio interview got set up,” he said. “I was wrestling-minded at the time, so I probably noticed the card and may have initiated contact with the promoter.”
He honored Brody’s wishes by never showing those first few minutes on the air, but he was also grateful in a sense that the raw footage was leaked because it showed a different side to the caveman. “He blew me away with how articulate he was,” my uncle said. “I was impressed with his depth as a person, as well as his depth as a character.”
Because the industry wasn’t reported on by the mainstream media like it is today, my uncle feared having the wrestling stigma attached to his professional position as the Time Warner Cable News sports director in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was somewhat of a local celebrity in the area – his funeral was actually broadcast on TV. As a result of his fame and fear, he didn’t want people to know he was the interviewer. Even though we bonded over our mutual love of suplexes and steel cages, we differed in the sense that I was all-too-happy to express my fandom. Whereas he worried about the ramifications on his career, I’ve actually furthered mine because of my unabashed love of pro wrestling.
However, he wasn’t embarrassed by the interview with Bruiser Brody …quite the contrary.
“I have been privileged to cover a handful of Final Fours, two NCAA basketball championships, the Stanley Cup finals, the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, the Daytona 500 and two U.S. Open golf tournaments,” my uncle said.
“The interviews I conducted during those events have been long forgotten or soon will be, but the 22 minutes with Brody speaks louder today than it did back then. And that’s not because of the interviewer, but because as was the case with his matches, Brody carried it.”
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