Crazy morning ’round here, as we once again find ourselves butting up against a brutal WIRED deadline. But seeing as how this is an especially dreary Monday, at least here in this rainy metropolis where incompetent bombers run amok, we couldn’t just start your week with pure laziness. So let us spend a few moments teasing out the vintage wrestler thread we started on last week. This time, the object of our interest is not the first man to call himself “The Mormon Mauler,” but rather the fleshy behemoth known as Man Mountain Dean.
It would be easy enough to adore Dean simply for his impressive beard and ersatz hillbilly style. (He was actually a native New Yorker.) But what we like best about Dean is the fact he briefly dabbled in politics, running for the state legislature in Georgia, where he bought a farm with his sizeable wrestling winnings (accumulated in an astounding 6,783 matches). Perhaps he could have joined the ranks of such notable athletes-turned-elected-officials as Bill Bradley and Jesse “The Body”“The Mind” Ventura. But Dean just couldn’t stomach the political game, and he dropped out the race well before Election Day. These were his parting words:
“The things they say about in politics no honest man can take. If I stay in politics, I’ll slug somebody for sure. When a wrestler gets personal in the ring I let him have one right on the jaw, or maybe I pick him up and slam him to the mat. But if I tried that on one of these politicians, I’d land in jail and be sued for all I own. Wrestling is on the level, but politics…”
Too bad, because we have every reason to believe that Dean would have triumphed in the race. He certainly knew how to pull off a heartwarming photo op.
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