October 24, 2000

By Denny Burkholder

Significant events have happened around “Gentleman” Chris Adams his entire career. Through the 1980s Texas wrestling scene, his training of Stone Cold Steve Austin for a career in wrestling, and his stint in WCW in the late-1990s, it’s no wonder many hold Adams in high esteem. In fulfilling some reader requests, here is Chris Adams, chronicled in Circa… and adding his own two cents to his story.

Chris Adams entered the sport of judo at a young age, taking after his father. Chris was National Judo Champion of Great Britain three times in his age class before he was 21. His brother Neil was the coach of Britain's 1996 Summer Olympics Judo team and has held numerous world, Olympic and national judo titles. In 1978, Chris left the judo to Neil and followed a friend into the pro wrestling genre. He was convinced after a strong performance by a wrestling legend.

"I'd been doing judo for a long time and wasn't really keen on pro wrestling,” Adams recalls. “But I saw Dynamite Kid in the ring, and he was really, really impressive. I befriended him, pretty much. That's really what made me get into it. The promoter asked me right then and there if I wanted to do pro wrestling, and after I saw the Dynamite Kid in a match, I said 'Yeah, I'll give it a go.' From that day on, whenever I saw Dynamite Kid or Davey Boy Smith - who was really, really skinny at that time, I think he was about 15 - we just all became friends. We worked on the same shows throughout England."

Adams was never actually trained to be a pro wrestler. He was thrown into wrestling from judo. "I was more used to athletic contests than the showmanship of pro wrestling.”

Adams learned the ropes with guys like Tony Sinclair and “Big Daddy” Shirley Crabtree in England. In 1981, Adams was talked into trying the U.S. wrestling scene by a Japanese wrestler on tour in England. Soon, Adams arrived in Los Angeles, where promoter Mike LaBell set him up with a visa.

"It was unbelievable, a kid from a small town in England jumping off the plane into LA,” Adams said. “I thought the whole of the United States was like LA. That was my first impression.” Adams spent his initial time in the U.S. working in Los Angeles against the likes of John Tolos and Victor Rivera. His first experience as a champion in the States was with partner Tom Pritchard, when they won the American tag team titles.

After LA, Adams did some work in Mexico and Japan. While in those countries, he added international-style matches to his repertoire. Adams returned to America and competed in Portland in 1982. He still made appearances in Mexico, trading the WWF Light Heavyweight title with Perro Aguayo on one occasion. Adams' most pivotal move came in 1983, when he traveled to World Class Championship Wrestling in Texas.

Adams was brought in as a babyface ally of the red-hot Von Erich brothers - David, Kevin, Kerry and Mike (a younger brother, Chris, would join the scene later). The clan were the sons of wrestling legend Fritz Von Erich (Jack Adkisson), who ran WCCW successfully for several years based in Dallas.

A feud with Jimmy Garvin over the Texas North American title earned Adams lots of cheers from loyal Dallas wrestling fans. Adams traded the title with Garvin three times during the feud, which featured Garvin's valets Sunshine and Precious in prominent roles. Garvin eventually dumped Sunshine in favor of Precious, and Sunshine went to the side of Adams.

"Sunshine was his real cousin," Adams said. "He had a bit of trouble with her. They kind of made friction together." As with many famous angles in wrestling (Conquistadors anyone?), Adams once had to don a mask as the “Masked Avenger” to earn a match with Garvin. Adams' babyface push couldn't have come at a better time - WCCW was enjoying a large fan base in Texas.

Eventually, Adams tried his hand at turning heel. With Gary Hart as his manager, Adams wrestled Kevin Von Erich at the Cotton Bowl in October 1984. Already inching toward heel status, an unexpected turn of events pushed Adams further into heeldom than even he expected.

"We had a singles match, and he beat me. Because he beat me, he turned his back and I hit him on the head with a chair. But a weird thing happened - it really split his head open. It knocked him out for real. When he was laid by one of the corners, blood was trickling down from his head onto the mat, then from the mat to the floor. That was picked up by the news, and picked up by, you know... that really shocked everybody."

Taken aback by the mishap at first (and the angry reaction of fiercely loyal Von Erich fans), Adams soon eased into his new heel status.

"When that first happened, it was like 'Oh my God, what have I done?' you know? But after a few weeks, I really got into it. I really enjoyed it. I manipulated the crowd. It was a lot of fun. It really got me over, and got me a lot more notoriety than if I had stayed with them."

The Von Erichs have become one of the most tragic tales in wrestling lore, as David, Mike, Kerry and Chris all died tragically young for varying reasons. Adams remains friends with Kevin Von Erich to this day, but fondly recalls the rest of Jack’s boys.

"I was really good friends with Kerry, really good friends with Kevin - we've come through all that stuff together,” Adams said. “I respect him. And he's got his own family, you know, so he's kind of took on the place of Fritz in a way. I was friends with David, and I was good friends with the little kid, Chris. Chris was like a midget, but he always wanted to be like Kerry. And of course Mike. I really got along well with them."

Soon after assaulting Kevin, Adams would form a heel tag team with Gino Hernandez called the Dynamic Duo. "I first met him - I'm not sure exactly of the date - but he came into the office one day. He'd been a big name down in Houston, but then he came to World Class. We sort of met, got along, talked about joining up together."

Adams and Hernandez worked a gimmick for nine months where they clipped locks of hair from the heads of various opponents. The gimmick ended with a hair match against the Von Erichs in which the Duo lost the WCCW tag titles and had their heads shaved by the Von Erichs. Adams and Hernandez won their titles back a month later, but a big feud was on the horizon.

While defending the titles, the arrogant Hernandez refused to take a hot tag from the worn-out Adams. The Duo would split for good on a subsequent show when Hernandez was caught lying to the fans. Hernandez bragged about knocking Adams out in a backstage confrontation over the disagreement, not knowing Adams was on his way to the ring. Adams slapped Hernandez, who then attacked Adams with a chair and started one of the most memorable, if brief, feuds in WCCW history. While the cocky, shades-wearing Hernandez taunted the "Slimy Limey" Adams on television, Adams built up babyface heat. Adams recalls that the feud had the personal touch of himself and Gino all over it.

"Gino and I came up with all of our angles together," Adams said. "The hair and everything. Ken Mantell was booking. We would put ideas to them [Mantell and Fritz Von Erich] and they would take them to the office, talk them over and see what would be good and what wouldn't."

The big match of the Hernandez-Adams feud saw Hernandez take a container of "Freebird hair gel" from a ringside table and use the substance to “blind” Adams. Shortly thereafter, Adams did a promo for WCCW TV where - with his eyes completely patched and his wife at his side - Adams announced he may never wrestle again. The cameras followed as Adams was helped into a Corvette so he could go to the airport, en route back to his native England. Though the promo was intended to be a tearjerker, Adams remembers the first take being humorous.

"What happened is that I really couldn't see with those patches over my eyes,” he said. “I was getting into the Corvette when they were shooting, and I actually went to get in it the wrong way, facing back. They had to re-shoot it."

Adams left for a hiatus in England. His friend Gino would not greet him when he returned to the U.S. months later. On February 4, 1986, Hernandez would be found dead in his home of an acute cocaine overdose. Hernandez was just 29 when he died.

"I went back to England, and just a few days after that, I heard that he died," Adams remembers. To Adams’ surprise, the authorities considered him a suspect at first.

"I got the news from Scotland Yard, which is the equivalent of the FBI over there. The FBI got in touch with Scotland Yard and they traced my parents down real quick, and wanted to interview me because they thought that I killed him. I mean, they quickly found out that it had nothing to do with me, but that was the initial way I found out."

Adams was never questioned as a suspect.

"They actually talked to me on the phone. They said they would call me back. They did call me back, but they apologized and told me they knew that it was nothing to do with me," Adams said.

Adams was shocked to hear of Gino's death. "I was devastated. I remember I had a little bit of an argument with my mother because she didn't realize how close we were. She didn't realize how upset I was."

Adams was aware of Hernandez' drug problem, but was not aware of how serious it was. "I knew he'd had one, you know, I knew that he could go that way, but I'd never seen it. I had never seen it with my own eyes. I heard he'd had a problem in the past. But he was pretty wild. We lived in the same condominium on Lover's Lane in Dallas together. And we both had red Corvettes that we'd race up Lover's Lane. We were pretty wild back then. He didn't really keep it to himself, it was pretty common knowledge that he had a problem. But I wasn't aware that he had a problem at that time."

Adams returned to World Class in May 1986 and continued the angle he had begun with his departed friend Gino. Adams worked his return match against Kabuki on May 4, in an angle where Adams had only 20 percent vision in his left eye and 95 percent in his left. Adams' eyesight soon would be completely restored, as the story went, by a "Rude Awakening" neckbreaker from a young Rick Rude.

"I thought he was great, he had a hell of a body,” Adams recalls of Rude. “He was pretty stealthy, but I really liked him a lot. A real great guy." Adams won the WCCW world title from Rude on July 4, 1986. A few months later, Adams left for Bill Watts' Mid-South territory, which was about to merge into the NWA. There, Adams made what he feels was his biggest career mistake.

"I remember at the time, they had their own clique in the NWA and I had always been working on top. And I think it was silly - when I look back now, I should have just held my lips, and just hung on and played the game a little bit. But the NWA took so many people from Mid-South wrestling, and then they dropped a lot of people also. And I was one of them that they took. I traveled with them and everything, and I was in some big shows. But I remember I wasn't happy with one of the paychecks, so I just got up and left. And that was the time I remember clearly that Michael Hayes said 'You might want to think about it.' But I was a hothead, and left. I guess I regret that. That was a mistake."

The next big event in Adams’ career came in 1990 when he started training young hopefuls for careers in pro wrestling. At the time, Adams was working for the USWA promotion.

"I started the wrestling school in 1990,” Adams said. “At the time it was the USWA (wrestling school) because the USWA had bought out Jerry Jarrett. WCCW was bought out by Jerry Jarrett, because I remember Jerry Jarrett having a problem with Kevin (Von Erich). You know, they had World Class for so long, and it was theirs. They didn't take too greatly to being second - not that they were second, but they didn't own it anymore."

At the USWA wrestling school, Adams wound up training "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (Steve Williams) - a man who has become a bona fide wrestling icon since.

"We put an advertisement on the TV for the wrestling school,” Adams said. “I had to hold a seminar at the Sportatorium. I think there were 500 people that showed up. I had to get six salespeople from an agency to sit at desks and take down the names. We had all these tryouts, and he was one of the guys that came out - not the first time, I think he came a couple weeks later.”

Austin had all the tools for wrestling success from day one.

“I liked him because he had already got a body,” Adams said. “He had long blonde hair at the time, and he looked good. And then when I gave him a tryout in the ring... he had a good feel for the business. You could just tell. He had coordination, and he looked great anyway - he didn't have to get that part. He didn't have to work on that."

Austin began competing with Adams in the USWA as his babyface protege. Soon, Austin's feel for the bad-guy persona took over and he been feuding with his mentor. Adams' personal life seeped into the wrestling ring at this time, as his ex-wife Jeannie Clarke began managing Austin. Adams' wife Toni got involved, and a wild inter-gender tag team feud resulted. There were no real hard feelings during the feud, Adams recalls.

"This was all my idea,” Adams remembers. “My ex-wife - who is Jean - I came over from England with her. We had just actually separated and I remarried, so she wasn't my wife at the time. It was my suggestion that Steve team up with Jean - who I was still friends with - and he joined up with Jeannie. When she came on the scene it was so shocking to me - you know, in the eyes of the fans - that I'd make a mistake, and he'd win. We played for some time with Steve coming in with my ex-wife... he'd hold me, she'd whack me, that kind of stuff."

When Chris’ wife Toni joined the feud, fans went nuts.

‘When she came in, it went crazy," Adams said. Toni and Jeannie played it up for the crowd. “They had a lot of fun. Jeannie had a lot of fun whacking on me," Adams said with a chuckle.

Jeannie eventually married Steve Austin, but remained friends with Adams. They have a daughter together, who lived with Austin and Jeannie for a time before they split up years ago (and eventually divorced). Austin publicly credits Jeannie as being the one who inspired his "Stone Cold" persona while trying to persuade him to eat breakfast one morning. Austin is now remarried to the WWF's Debra (formerly McMichael).

There were no hard feelings between Adams and Austin in the beginning. Now, Adams says the atmosphere is different.

"Him and I don't really contact or speak to each other,” Adams said. “It's like he's too good for everybody, I feel. It started about two or three years after they got married. He started... he disliked the fact that I would call the house to speak to my daughter. I think he began to get jealous, which is stupid, because Jean and I are very good friends, even now. We're just good friends, so it wasn't really like that. But apparently, he got a little bit jealous. But she told me he's a pretty jealous guy, period."

Adams competed in various independents in the 1990s, including Global in Dallas. In 1993, he booked an overseas tour in Nigeria, which was financially backed by Pepsi. Adams toured Africa in search of fitting venues for wrestling matches. He eventually settled into soccer stadiums – many of which surprisingly had WWF posters decorating the locker rooms when he found them. Jimmy Snuka, the Iron Sheik, Kevin Von Erich, Tommy Rogers, and Iceman King Parsons were among the talent Adams took to Africa.

Adams rounded out the mid-1990s working for various independents, including the much-hyped AWF in 1995. Backed by a millionaire, the AWF fizzled out when it didn’t prove itself a huge moneymaker right away. Then in 1998, Adams secured a spot in the very successful World Championship Wrestling.

"I just talked to Terry Taylor, a real good friend of mine,” Adams said. “He was in a position in the office where he couldn't do much - his hands were tied, to a point by (then-WCW head Eric) Bischoff - but it was mainly a financial deal for me. I wasn't too happy about the way they were using me, but then again, they were paying me. So it's like weighing the situation in each hand."

"I was disappointed in them, to be honest,” Adams continued. “There seemed to be a lot of chiefs and no Indians. Back in the World Class days, we'd let angles run. Like in the WWF now, you can follow - it's like a soap opera. In WCW, they'll start an angle one week and finish it the next. And it's like, 'What's going on?' It was amazing to me - like a huge, corporate mess-up. With such potential and such great workers, but it seemed to lack the direction of a planned-out soap opera. And I never knew why. They had so many guys that they could have used. A lot of people say 'Well, this guy didn't get over, and that guy didn't get over.' Anybody can get over if the TV uses them right. And with a company like WCW, you have no say-so. It's very corporate, very big."

Adams says WCW was not receptive to ideas from the talent, and if they said they were, that would change at the booking meeting. Adams was released by WCW in December 1999. "JJ (Dillon) called me and asked me if I'd go on a nightly contract,” Adams remembers. Adams declined the offer and was released from WCW.

Today, Adams is focusing his energies on providing safe equipment for use by ‘backyard” wrestlers. Through www.wrestlingrings.com, Adams hopes to persuade teens to stop taking unnecessary risks.

"A lot of people are getting injured,” Adams said. “They're doing it on the bed, they're doing it on concrete, and mattresses outside, or they're doing it in makeshift rings, which are really dangerous. My friend and I came up with the idea of supplying them a ring, which is affordable - it's $3,250 for a 15' by 15' ring. It's a steel ring, just like the real thing. It's a safe, real place to do what they're doing.”

Adams incorporates the supplies with an instructional video he made in 1990.

“My training tape is really very basic,” he said. “I don't do any of the flying, and I don't advise that anybody does anything that they see on TV. Some of those guys in the WWF do some awesome things. This is more of a ground-up deal.”

Adams expects people to argue that he is encouraging the unsafe practice of wrestling at home. He disagrees.

"We've had some flak like 'Oh, you're encouraging people to wrestle.' But it's really not us that's encouraging them to wrestle. We're just giving them a safe place to wrestle. It's the TV programs that are encouraging them to wrestle,” Adams reasons.

“My daughter lives with me here, she's six. She watches the Powerpuff Girls. They do karate and stuff like that. When she's done watching that on TV, she'll come and start chopping me and kicking me, and I see the way that the TV persuades the kids to do different things. The ring, in my opinion, is the safest place they could do it. But it needs to be, you know, properly watched over by parents, and it just needs to be treated with respect.”

“A lot of people are getting injured by doing silly things - diving off the roof onto tables and silly stuff like that,” Adams continued. “We're trying to say 'Do this in a ring.' We're expecting flak from some people, but sometimes that can make for good publicity too."

Adams is still active in some Texas independents, and cannot put a time table on when he might finally call it a career.

"I feel great right now. I don't party like I used to. When I start to hurt or when I start to stiffen up and feel I can't do it, then I will quit. But right now, I feel good.”

Adams has plans for a weekend wrestling camp to begin after the New Year. If Adams’ record is to be trusted, he just might find the next big wrestling mega-star amongst his latest crop of hopefuls.