Review Fix Exclusive: Harley Race Interview: A Champion In And Out Of The Ring

harley,beltIn life, success can be determined in two ways: A long list of accolades that cement your reputation in history for everyone in the world to see, or a candid and modest understanding of what you’ve done that makes everything you’ve accomplished feel even more genuine and real.

Harley Race has both.

For over 40 years, Race has been a fixture in wrestling history, winning an unprecedented eight NWA world heavyweight titles during his 29-year wrestling career. After Race retired as an active wrestler, he went on to manage both Lex Luger and Big Van Vader to WCW world heavyweight titles, and has been involved in the promoting aspect of the business since as early as 1972.

Simply put, Race is a legend in his own time. His smash mouth, tough-as-nails style has paved the way for hundreds of other wrestlers all over the world.

“If I could do it all over again, I’d love to do it,” said Race, via telephone in Kansas City.

While many wrestling fans know of the tough travel conditions that many wrestlers face, none know of the conditions in which Race defended the NWA world heavyweight title under.

Often wrestling five days a week, Race defended his title against anyone, anywhere, anytime.

“It was a nightmare sometimes,” said Race. “Probably the most grueling trip I ever made in defending the title was when I defended it twice on a Friday night. The first time in Tokyo, Japan, and the second in St .Louis on that same Friday night because we gained a day coming back from Tokyo. I flew right out of St. Louis the following morning and wrestled Carlos Colon in Puerto Rico on that Saturday.”

Aside from being nationally known throughout his wrestling career, Race is also known throughout Japan as well, making a mark in the industry as a hard-nosed competitor that could compete in the ring with any wrestler in the world.

“I went to Japan for the first time in 1969, and I’ve been there 71 times since. I just happened to come there at the perfect point in time. Before that, there was mostly mat wrestling done there, and I was the person to take the action off the ground in Japan and started doing a lot of the things you see on TV today. It was electrifying to those people, because they had never seen anything like that before.”

Race, who compares his in-ring style to the likes of modern-day wrestlers Kurt Angle and Triple H, gets a kick out of seeing younger wrestlers perform the moves he made famous. “He [Triple H] uses a lot of my stuff,” said Race. “Anytime you’re copied or mimicked in any way, shape or form, by a guy with credentials like his, how could you not like that?”

While staking his name in the wrestling business throughout the late ’60s and early ’70s, Race began getting involved in the promoting aspect of the industry, something that he still does today as the founder of World League Wrestling, where he books live events in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Illinois. WLW even has a working contract with the popular Japanese wrestling promotion, NOAH.

In addition to promoting, Race has also been training wrestlers to a degree of success. Former WWE tag-team champion Trevor Murdock started wrestling for Race’s WLW promotion in 1999. Race believes that Murdock’s involvement with the WWE will also open the door for some of his other talented wrestlers as well.

“I think the chances of somebody going to the WWE are pretty good now that Trevor has broken the seal,” said Race.

However, despite all of Race’s success in the wrestling industry, the reason behind the founding of WLW was more of a personal one, revealing just how true a man Race really is.

“We started World League Wrestling when my wife retired from banking. We decided that we needed something to do, so this is the only thing I’ve ever done,” said Race. “She means everything in the world to me. The best thing that’s happened to me in my lifetime was meeting her.”

This article was originally published in Feb. 2006.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

1 Comment

  1. Patrick, being a fan of wrestling I learned alot from your interview of Harley Race. Sounds like he is a “cool”
    guy.

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