Brutus Beefcake On Losing WWE Tag Titles At WrestleMania 2 Being A Mistake, Bret Hart WWE HOF Attack
A former WWE Tag Team Champion, and the best friend of Hulk Hogan, Brutus The Barber Beefcake was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame earlier this year. He was part of a class that also featured The Hart Foundation and Beefcake talked about his Hall induction when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.
"It was a great night. Great crowd response and a big honor to go into the Hall of Fame. It was a great weekend and one that I will always remember. It's an honor to be accepted into the family and I'm excited about the future," Beefcake said before adding that he also watched Bret Hart get jumped while standing off-stage.
"I was standing in Gorilla position and when I saw it happened, I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought it was a publicity stunt and maybe one of the young Harts that I didn't know about it. They're gonna do a rumble or something and then pop up and be like, 'Here I am! I'm the new Hart!'
"But that didn't happen and they started beating the guy and dragged him off stage. Everybody was surprised. We've had a lot of things happen, but nothing ever quite like that."
He then talked about one time he and Greg Valentine left MSG and there were 3000 people waiting outside. The cops had to make a hole for them to get through and they had to take off down sidewalks to escape the fans that wanted to destroy them and their car.
"I'd see more riots and fights in the crowd," Beefcake said of his time teaming with Valentine. "People would cheer for the Dream Team and the other people who liked the good guys didn't like it. The next thing you know, they'd be battling it out in the stands [laughs]. I've seen a lot of fights and sometimes we'd have to jump out of the ring and wait for security to diffuse it before we got the match going again."
Beefcake's only WWE title came in a team alongside Valentine in the 1980s. He talked about his favorite memories of being a part of The Dream Team.
"Going to Philadelphia and winning the belts and then touring the country for a year. There were huge crowds and the responses were great. We had so much fun and if we stepped into a diner somewhere, people bought us dinner even though we were bad guys," revealed Beefcake. "We were well liked and accepted by the people.
"Those times in '85, times were changing. People were realizing that it was okay to cheer for the bad guys and it started a whole revolution."
The Dream Team lost their tag titles at WrestleMania II to The British Bulldogs. That match was featured on the Chicago part of the card as the event took place in three cities along with New York and Los Angeles. Beefcake talked about that concept and the match itself.
"It was brilliant and a very good plan. I loved the Bulldogs but I don't think they were ready to run with the belts and that was a mistake. They should have kept them on us but it is what it is," said Beefcake. "But it was very successful and led into WrestleMania III which was insane with 100,000 people. ?I've never experienced anything like it before or since."
The Bulldogs had musician Ozzy Osbourne in their corner as the WWE was attempting to expand more into pop culture. Beefcake shared his memories of Osbourne.
"Ozzy's a trip to be around. There were quite a few people that came around as Hollywood opened up and the music and wrestling businesses have also been close-knit. We worked the same buildings night after night. They'd tear down the wrestling stage and the next day they're putting up Ozzy's stage so he can play in the same city in which we just played," stated Beefcake.
"Ozzy was fun and was just running around being Ozzy. Jake [Roberts] had Alice Cooper and I've met him several times. I'd never run into Ozzy that much but a lot of the other bands we'd seen all the time."
The Dream Team will be reuniting again this Friday for an event in Canada and Beefcake spoke about his close friendship with Valentine.
"He was in Florida and moved to Las Vegas about a year ago and he loves it out there. So we haven't seen each other as often in the past so we're still working together on shows around the country. So it's a lot of fun," Beefcake said before being asked about the viral photo of the two of them drinking beers in their Lay-z-Boy recliners.
"It's just the Dream Team 34 years later, chilling out, having some cold ones and just enjoying life. It's just reality TV. ?My wife took that picture at Greg's party down on the beach. We had great cookouts and lots of fun down there."
Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine will be re-uniting at Grand Central Bar & Grill in Niagara Falls on August 9th for Beers With The Dream Team. Tickets on sale now at www.tiny.cc/beerswiththedreamteam. His full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of today's episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. In it, Brutus discusses reuniting with Greg Valentine in Canada this coming weekend, his memories of the Dream Team, how he's doing health wise, his generation vs the current one, his Hall of Fame induction, Bret Hart being attacked at the ceremony, Eric Bischoff's new WWE role, the launch of AEW and more.
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