Dark Side of the Ring Paul Orndorff Review

#DarkSideoftheRing this week featured the legendary Paul Orndorff with the episode labeled “Saving Mr. Wonderful“. As a fan of Mr. Wonderful growing up, this was another must watch episode as I was familiar with parts of the material going in but eager to hear further details on certain aspects. I did feel a few spots were missed or glossed over but there was a fair amount of material to cover to give more casual fans or people interested in the material but not familiar with the person a chance to know.

The episode dives into his early background where they talk about him growing up in a trailer (more or less white trash style) with an abusive father-in-law and basically learning to fight early on. They paint Orndorff as someone really motivated, relying on his athleticism to get himself out of his impoverished home life. Also, not only was he athletic but they portrayed Orndorff as a legitimate tough guy type. They talked about his football background that would eventually lead him to his career in pro-wrestling and touched on his pre-WWF career where he improved quickly in a short span.

During his pre-WWF run, Orndorff would encounter Hulk Hogan, who would become instrumental in bringing Orndorff into the WWF as the WWF was about to enter its boom period with the inaugural Wrestlemania event. Besides Hogan, Mr. T and Rowdy Piper, Orndorff would be the other featured star in their main event. But he would have a clear purpose in that group: he was the designated job guy for that night.

Of course, Orndorff’s loss would lead into him turning babyface with a feud against Piper where Hogan would befriend Orndorff. Then in ’86, Orndorff would turn his back on Hogan (which is something I distinctly remember happening on one of the weekend shows). This tactic was a standard Hogan story where his friends would eventually turn on him that would lead to big money matches. Orndorff would see some big bucks facing Hogan, leading to them having one of the biggest pre-Wrestlemania 3 gates and with Orndorff making bank.

Let me pause here to comment on the ’86 turn. So they didn’t do a deep dive into the lead up. But basically the idea was Orndorff was feeling dissed by Hogan’s growing ego and success, believing he wasn’t given enough credit. So there was tension brewing between these two and you could see something combustible was about to happen. Obviously, both men had huge egos but for me even as a little kid, I felt more sympathetic towards Orndorff. What Orndorff had been saying leading to that moment wasn’t incorrect and I think part of the situation was that Hogan started to wear thin on me. The act was quickly becoming stale and Orndorff, being smaller in stature than Hogan, made me more inclined to like his story. I think this situation was where the first chink in Hogan’s babyface run appeared.

During that period though, Orndorff would suffer an injury but was unable to take time off to heal and/or have an operation for the nerve damage. Apparently, he took a hit on the chin that caused the damage that would eventually affect his right arm. I don’t think I really noticed until much later about the arm atrophy and it was only blatant to me once the online sources pointed it out. Also, while I was able to see the turn, I missed the pay off for Hogan as sometime during ’86 I lost interest in pro-wrestling and wouldn’t return until sometime in 1990.

But because I missed that 4 year period, I also missed Orndorff leaving the WWF. Maybe around the time I resumed my interest in pro-wrestling I started reading the Apter magazines again but the landscape had changed drastically. All the pieces on the board had been moved around with new names, new companies, some dead companies that I had to re-learn everything.

In that sense, I didn’t know about Orndorff’s involvement in the UWF. I may have read about the UWF (both versions) but I had never seen any of it. However, I did start watching the NWA (or WCW as it was about to become) as my returning spot into pro-wrestling. One of the main things that was going on was the new Four Horsemen with Sid Vicious, Barry Windham, Arn Anderson, Ole (as manager) and Ric Flair on top vs Sting and Lex Luger. Eventually, Sting formed a group called the Dudes with Attitude (which is why I hated Sting for so long; just bad marketing whenever he was involved and that was after the shitty Robocop embarrassment). Part of that group involved Orndorff and JYD along with the Steiners and El Gigante as a friend to the group. I don’t believe they mentioned this group but it sort of reinforced how Orndorff had made a comeback but his impact compared to his WWF years, at least in front of the camera.

Before that would occur, Orndorff had blown McMahon off. They mentioned how the toil finally caught up, Orndorff wanted to go back home, heal and tried starting a business with a crooked accountant in owning a bowling alley. The thing about this accountant was his involvement with a pyramid scheme, which is how Orndorff would lose his investment and go bankrupt. All that hard earned money from being on the road basically was vaporized with this white collar criminal. I guess the accountant ended up going to jail but this is where I’m going to rant for a bit.

It really doesn’t surprise me that Orndorff lost his fortune from an accountant. It surprises me less that the accountant was involved in an MLM/pyramid scheme deal. I don’t know if there’s any kind of penalty towards these businesses and the people involved but I feel that if we had actual good leadership (not just politicians), we’d go after all these jackoffs and serve them a combo gas chamber + electric chair paid for via PPV. I think it was mentioned how Orndorff’s wife knew of the guy from the barber or something not all that reputable. But it reminds me of something a friend of mine told me back when I worked for Quest Nutrition about MLMs and how that was probably the way in which Quest Nutrition became so successful quickly (and it did)

Regardless, that incident was the reason Orndorff ended up going back on the road. They showed the arm slowly atrophying away where eventually Orndorff started working more of a backstage role at WCW. In the last Dark Side episode, I did mention seeing Orndorff and the Renegade at Bash at the Beach ’95 and how I couldn’t remember anything from that. Surprisingly, they didn’t talk about that nor the infamous Vader incident, which would’ve further cemented Orndorff’s legacy as a legit badass.

However, they did talk about his troubling home life and how one of his sons from his first marriage was in and out of jail. To the son in this show though, Orndorff came across as a genuinely good father figure when he was at home and most people both in the show and those that met him always would say good things about him.

Naturally, he would get inducted in the WWE’s Hall of Fame (how can he not be?). Thereafter, they discussed his decline especially with his mental state where he would have dementia. His wife, who was not present as a talking head, would put him into a hospital. Then came the incident where the son (the one shown here) was forced to take an Instagram video of Orndorff’s state. Now, that’s something I do remember, probably seeing it appear on reddit where many people were concerned. It was a sad affair with Orndorff directly eating pepper from one of those packets. But that lead to the son being able to remove Orndorff from hospice care to take him home and stay with him for a short period until Orndorff’s final day.

I suppose for me this episode wasn’t emotional compared to the Benoit one where it reminded me of that farewell tribute Benoit did for Eddie Guerrero and how that broke me and made me start to really distance myself from pro-wrestling even more. Or seeing Sensational Sherri, who is my all time favorite in the business. But the striking thing for me with this Dark Side was watching this guy who had this incredible physique, an intensity, arrogance and talent to back it up become this withered shell of a man.