OX BAKER: THE TELEGRAPH OBITUARY

My obituary of the pro wrestler Ox Baker is in today's Daily Telegraph; you can link to it online here. I over-wrote for the paper, and they edited it down adroitly, especially for an audience that didn't know Ox Baker, and indeed is unlikely to be interested in the minutiae of professional wrestling.

They also wouldn't know Bob Barker and The Price Is Right (there was a British version on Sky very early in the satellite TV days, where the prizes were low-end things like pen and pencil sets, and everybody looked a bit uncomfortable with the naked consumerism America loves) but I thought Ox's breaking 'kayfabe'(the wrestler's carny code for never admitting what is fake is fake) was both charming and significant. You can watch him and Bob Barker on You Tube (link to it here) to see what I mean.

You'll find one error of fact in their edit: Ox never held the NWA title; he won the NWA American belt from Bruiser Brody. He held the NWA Detroit title (won from The Shiekh), the WWA title (won from Cowboy Bob Ellis) and the WWC title in Puerto Rico (won from Carlos Colon). He never held those, or his other belts, for very long, as he was usually there to set up a big pay day when the local hero got his revenge.  But rather than simply add the bits that were cut, you can read my original copy here. As I say, the published version is probably much closer to what I should have written, but I look at this excess wordage as a small tribute to the Ox.

DOUGLAS 'OX' BAKER: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER

 

Although he was one of the most feared villains on the professional wrestling circuit for almost two decades, billed as having killed two opponents in the ring with his fearsome 'heart punch', the match for which Douglas 'Ox' Baker, who has died aged 80, will be best-remembered came in the 1981 film Escape From New York. Baker played Slag, the giant gladiator Issac Hayes (playing the Duke of New York) forces Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken to fight to the death. After Ox gave stuntman Dick Warlock all he could handle in rehearsals, Warlock offered Russell just one piece of advice as filming started: 'good luck'.

Standing six foot five and weighing 24 stones, his head shaved and eyebrows curled up like Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon, and sporting a Fu Manchu moustache growing into massive free-form mutton chop sideburns, Baker certainly looked the part of a classic wrestling 'monster heel'. Eschewing robes, he came to the ring in a simple white tee-shirt bearing a slogan, usually 'I Like To Hurt People', seemingly added to its front in do-it-yourself iron-on lettering.

He was wearing such a shirt, reading 'Big, Mean and Ugly' when he appeared in 1981, fresh from his film role, on the daytime television game show The Price Is Right. Although he tried to maintain wrestling's carnival code of staying in character, his good-humoured quipping with host Bob Barker, and his obvious delight at the prizes he was winning, including a cooker, wall clock, and home stereo, revealed an almost cuddly gentle giant underneath the bluster.

It was as a gentle giant Ox broke into wrestling. Born Douglas Allen Baker 19 April 1934 in Sedalia, Missouri, he grew up in Waterloo, Iowa, a successful high school athlete before being kicked out of school. He joined the Army, where he played on gridiron teams which in that era were good enough to be scouted by the pros. But he was nearly 30, without a career, when he wandered into a wrestling promotion in Kansas City and asked for a tryout. Given a match which was supposed to punish him to test his mettle, he survived so well he was paid $300, and his career choice was made. His early matches saw him playing another traditional wrestling role, the hillbilly simpleton, in coveralls and with thick glasses.

In 1967 he debuted in New York's World Wide Wrestling Federation, the forerunner of today's WWE, billed as the Friendly Arkansas Ox. His first match was against Gorilla Monsoon, their top 'monster heel', and watching Bob Morella as Monsoon convinced Baker to turn heel. In those days wrestling was divided into many regional promotions, and rule-breaking monster heels were in demand to test local champions and generate ticket-buying 'heat' from the fans as their favourites got pumelled. Ox chose the heart punch as his finishing move, although for a time he called it the 'hurt punch' because another wrestler, Stan 'the Man' Stasiak already claimed to be the master of the move.

In June 1971, he and his partner Claw defended their AWA tag team title against Cowboy Bob Ellis and Alberto Torres. Three days after the match Torres died from what turned out to be a ruptured pancreas. With the customary ethics and good taste of the wrestling world, Baker claimed it was the result of his heart punch. A year later, Baker lost in Savannah, Georgia to Ray Gunkel, who died soon afterwards from a heart attack. Although Baker's punch may have caused a blood clot, Gunkel suffered from extreme arteriosclerosis and the coroner ruled it a freak accident. Nevertheless, Ox again took 'credit' for the death, though in reality he worked behind to scenes to aid Gunkel's widow Ann in a fight for control of his promotion.

Baker could literally start riots by refusing to stop heart-punching an opponent when he was down on the canvas. He wrestled all over the world, from Japan to Nigeria, and in 1982 he briefly held the British Commonwealth crown he'd won in Auckland. He won numerous titles in the US in the 1970s and early 80s, and helped a young wrestler billed as Terry Boulder win his first title in Alabama. A few years later, billed as Hulk Hogan, Terry Bollea would help the WWE achieve national dominance.

In 1980 Baker won the NWA American title from Bruiser Brody. Baker had played a small, uncredited part in Jackie Chan's film, Battle Creek Brawl,but he was hired for Escape To New York on Brody's recommendation after Bruiser turned the role down. Baker played a Russian wrestler in Blood Circus (1985), but his acting range was somewhat limited. He took a large part in a 1985 documentary I Like To Hurt People, which focused on Ed Farhat, who wrestled in Detroit as The Sheikh.

Baker opened a wrestling school, where he trained Mark Callaway, who became famous as The Undertaker in the WWE. He moved to Connecticut and in 1992 married Peggy Ann Kawa, a professional clown. In 2005 he was the subject of a documentary, I Love The People I Hurt, made by a local wrestler, Halfbreed Billy Gram, who also filmed My Smorgasboard With Ox. Neither has been released.

Peggy predeceased him in 2010. In 2011 Baker published Ox Baker's Cook Book: A Tribute To The Fallen Warriors, mixing recipes and wrestling stories. His film career was rejuvenated the following year by David Gere, a fan who cast him in an episode of a cable TV series, Chilling Visions and gave him a small part in Sensory Perception, with John Savage. He made his final appearance in the ring last year, winning a 13 man battle royal with a heart punch for a small promotion in Ohio.

With his health failing he still managed to shoot a cameo role for Gere's latest film Pinwheel. He died a week later, on 20 October 2014, in Hartford, Connecticut. The cause of death was a heart attack.