WWE Hall of Famer “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase recently took to an episode of his “Everybody’s Got a Pod” podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including the benefits of working in Japan during the territory days.
DiBiase said, “If I go to Japan for like, three weeks, I mean it would be maybe a whole month before I went back or longer. But you know, I think the most went to Japan, I think I did like three or four tours in a year. But I mean, one would be a five-week tour, that’s the longest. A couple of four-week tours, a couple of three-week tours, you know?”
“Number two, I grew to love Japan. And you talk about, ‘Man, why couldn’t we have this way the United States?’ Okay, you go over there, you’re on a guarantee. You’re gonna get paid at the end of the tour in cash. And again, you know, it’s kind of like, no checks because wrestlers would fear that, ‘I’ll get home and then this checker bounce,’ or something. And the only thing you paid for the entire time you were in Japan was your food. I mean, everybody traveled on a bus, all the hotels were paid for. All you had to pay for was your food. And my gosh, you know, had that been true over here, wow.”
On Ron Bass:
“Ron was a good guy. Really liked him. Good guy. I can’t say — I don’t remember anything in terms of wrestling skills or whatever. He was, you know, he was pretty good. I don’t think that Ron was ever like the main event guy.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
