Abdullah the Butcher was one of the wrestlers that legitimately scared me as a kid. For years, my only exposure to him was through magazines and the George Napolitano/Bert Sugar wrestling books. In every picture he was covered in gore and his forehead was so scarred up it looked like a bunch of baby vaginas.
When World Class Wrestling from Texas started airing on ESPN, I was able to see a handful of his matches. They were bloodbaths. I was older and my fear turned to excitement. Abdullah the Butcher was billed as the madman from Sudan. He didn’t talk. He was bigger around than he was tall. In every single match he pulled out a fork or some sort of “foreign object” and just decimated the foreheads of his opponents. Oftentimes, his victims were bloodied and battered before the bell even rang.
Abdullah started his career in the late 50’s under the name Zeras Amala. After being ripped off by a promoter, he left the industry and started a janitorial service. With a $1,000 loan from his father, he went back to wrestling. He was given the name Abdullah the Butcher and his career took off. WWE aside, Abdullah has wrestled in every major promotion in the world. He secured a reputation as an outlaw wrestler, one who travels from promotion to promotion without settling down. One reason he could not stay in one promotion in the U.S. is that he made frequent trips to Japan, where he was also a major star. Abdullah’s reputation was so great that when any promotion was having financial trouble, they would bring him in for a handful of shows and business would pop.
I am very excited for Abdullah and know that he must be excited as well. The one time I spent a lot of time with him, he actually got a bit emotional when he talked about WWE. The one regret he had about his 50+ year career was that he had never wrestled in a WWWF/WWF/WWE ring. He had never even talked to Vince McMahon. I don’t have the video in front of me, but Abby said something like, ‘I was in the locker room with him in Japan, when I wrestled Hogan. McMahon was talking with Hogan but he never came over and talked with me.’ Abby was a little butt hurt.
My friend, Tim, and I conducted that interview with Abby in his restaurant, Abdullah’s House of Ribs and Chinese Food in Atlanta. My book, Bruiser Brody, started as a documentary and Abdullah was one of Bruiser Brody’s great, arch enemies in the ring.
Abdullah is not a warm, sweetheart of a man. He is intimidating and he knows it. He even commented to me, “You keep looking away from me. Are you scared of me?” I did not lie and said, “Yes, you are intimidating and you know it. You’re trying to scare me and its working.” After that he was affable and we had quite a few laughs.
For Abdullah, everything comes back to money. I asked if being ripped off when he was starting in the business made him paranoid, after all, he did come back to wrestling. Abduallah just said, “All promoters lie. They all lie.”
Abby actually gave Tim and I FREE iced tea. Abby talked a lot about his early life and his family. He asked if I was interested in producing a women’s self-defense video as he is a 9th degree black belt in judo. His idea was to market the video in Japan where he is a living icon.
He never called me. The next time I met Abby was at the WreslteReunion convention a couple of years later. He didn’t recognize me and was pissed about some money matters and blew me off. He didn’t remember the self-defense video idea. It was my turn to be butt hurt, but, hey, I didn’t call him either.
He wrestled at the legends event at WrestleReunion. It was a six-man tag match. He broke a bottle over the ring post and stabbed Dustin Runnels in the head with the jagged bottle neck. Dusty Rhodes took the bottle away and began stabbing Abdullah’s head. I was front row and heard Abdullah whispering, “Harder. Harder. Hit me.” His forehead is so scarred he doesn’t need to blade anymore, it just bleeds if you smack it hard enough. I got a piece of the bottle and still have it as a memento.
(youtube has a fistful of great Abdullah the Butcher matches. If you're old school, check out the Japanese matches. If you're a gorehound, the more recent American, independent company, matches should satisfy.
Top photo by Bob Murphy. Middle photo of Abdullah and Bruiser Brody by George Napolitano. Bottom photo of Abby and myself outside his restaurant is by Tim Roper.)
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