“I was, like, yoga? You’re kidding, right?” he says. His wrestling career, he was told, was done.
DDP YOGA MAT PRO
Though pro wrestling relies on soap opera-type scripting and pre-sketched results, DDP says there’s one thing you can’t fake – gravity.ĭoctors told the man who loves acronyms that his L4 and L5 discs were tapped out. In the other, DDP tagged with Jay Leno against Hogan and former WCW executive producer Eric Bischoff.īut, in early 1999, during a match with less famous partners, DDP threw his back out. In one, DDP teamed up with then pro basketball star Karl Malone against Hulk Hogan and another NBA player, Dennis Rodman. In the late 1990s, DDP was a big enough name in pro wrestling that’d recently been part of two huge pay-per-view tag team events. I was the oldest man ever living the dream of an eight year old child.”
“At 35 and half years old I made it to the show. But, with seven months left on his contract, he countered: His bosses suggested he become a color-commentator. But that changed, he says, when his personality began to overshadow the talent. In 1990, he moved to Atlanta to break into the World Championship Wrestling, a production that has evolved into World Wrestling Entertainment, which dominates the market today. He was universally loathed, which, in wrestling, is great. Before each match, he’d saunter into the ring and bark orders at his scantily clad female companions, (The Diamond Dolls) and generally talk trash. It was 1988, and, in those days, DDP was a full-time bad guy, or heel. His role? He was the manager, a key player in any wrestling show. Meyers Beach Florida and running Norma Jeans Dance Club (“The hottest place from Sarasota to Cuba”) when he had an opportunity to bring his particular skill set to the American Wrestling Association. “I had a polished rap from being in front of a crowd.” He was huge and dramatic and loud, and when he hosted ancient nightclub gimmicks like hot legs contests, partiers came in through the doors. Instead, he spent his 20s working in nightclubs, mostly as a bouncer and emcee. But it would be decades before he’d get to live out that dream. So he opted for a sport that people said would be lighter contact, basketball, while harboring a secret desire to be involved in something very high contact – pro wrestling.Īs he grew, he cultivated the look and attitude of a wrestling character. Doctors told him he’d never have a serious shot at pro sports, that he should take up chess or something similar. He played contact sports – football and hockey – until age 12, when he was hit by a car and his right leg was smashed.
Diamond Dallas Page returns to the (yoga) mat – Orange County Register Close Menuĭiamond Dallas Page was born Page Joseph Falkinburg, Jr, in 1956 in Point Pleasant New Jersey, an area he describes as Springsteen and Bon Jovi country.
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