Brutus Beefcake On Working With Zeus In WWE: “We Pulled Off The Impossible”
During his recent appearance on The Wrestling Inc. Daily, WWE Hall of Famer Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake recalled the main event of SummerSlam 1989 where he teamed up with Hulk Hogan to face "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Zeus.
Beefcake said he felt a sense of validation to main event a pay-per-view after selling out arenas all across the country as the headliner alongside Hogan.
"It was actually well deserved," Beefcake said. "They put me up in a position where I deserved to be. I wrestled [with] Hogan all over the country in front of sold out crowds every night of the week – in front of 20 to 30,000 people. So, SummerSlam was well deserved."
Following their SummerSlam match, the four men had another Steel Cage match at the No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie PPV a few months later. Beefcake felt that he, Hogan and Savage "pulled off the impossible" by having two pay-per-view matches with Zeus, who came into WWE as a celebrity performer to further his feud with Hogan from the movie No Holds Barred.
"Taking this guy, who had never been in the ring before, and doing what we did, and pulling it off without a single mistake is a mitzvah," Beefcake admitted. "It's a miracle. I started patting myself on the back like Barry Horowitz because we pulled off the impossible."
Seven years later, Hogan, Savage and Zeus were once again in the ring together at WCW's Uncensored 1996 in the Doomsday Cage Match. Although Beefcake wasn't officially a part of the match, he appeared as The Booty Man and helped Hogan and Savage escape the three-story cage structure.
Recalling the Doomsday Cage Match, Beefcake said: "That was insane stuff. I didn't feel safe in there, I was just happy to get out of there in one piece."
Besides The Booty Man and The Barber, Beefcake portrayed several other characters in his career including The Zodiac [as a member of Dungeon of Doom], The Disciple, Dizzy Hogan, Brother Bruti, The Butcher and The Man with No Name.
When asked by Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman if fans at conventions have an affinity for his characters besides The Barber, Beefcake said: "It's mostly all about The Barber. I mean there are definitely some Zodiac fans, some occasional fans refer to be The Disciple, but 99.9% percent of the fans know me as The Barber."
Beefcake spoke on the challenges of portraying such a wide variety of gimmicks.
"It was a challenge to step into a completely different personality and make it work, and be successful at it. I've had to a bunch of them, and was successful at all of them. Not sure a lot of others have been able to accomplish that, so I feel really good about myself. It required me to either lose or add weight, grow a beard, or do particular things to get into a character."
Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake will be appearing at the River City Wrestling Con on June 12 – 13 at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds. For more information please visit www.rivercitywrestlingcon.com. You can find Brutus' full interview via the embedded players below: