Summary:
In this special edition of Rising Core, Marty is joined by his brother Dave Burman, local renowned sports announcer, and special guest, former pro-wrestler, Bob Backlund. Best known for his tenures in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), Bob’s incredible in-ring career spans over 30 years. He joins us as Burman’s Health Shop to talk about his new book Backlund: From All-American Boy to Professional Wrestling’s World Champion.Â
Podcast (Audio Version)
Transcription
Marty Burman:
Welcome to Rising Core, powered by Burman’s Health Shop
Marty Burman:
On our show. We have my younger brother Marty and his child hood hero growing up, Mr Bob Backlund, pro wrestling Hall of Famer, unbelievable. 70 years, young and looking fantastic. Bob, thank you very much for making the the long trip.
Bob Backlund:
It’s great to be here. It’s great to be a here for sure. Marty, thank you for that email. You set it on fire and now we’re going to go further and further and further and get better and better and better.
Marty Burman:
I’ll tell you what, Bob’s been here for about five hours. He showed up at about two o’clock and my energy levels have actually went up because because of his his energy is just tremendous and it really, it, it really just absorbs into your body. It’s, it’s so great to be here.
Bob Backlund:
That’s why they call it back wind energy. That’s right. I kind of like that.
Bob Backlund:
Absolutely. You’re fired up.
Marty Burman:
Absolutely. I mean, off the air. Such a nice guy, but I mean, you talk about it, it’s a vicious sport, professional world wrestling Federation grappling, I’ll call it that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. When I was growing up, and this is the reason that Bob’s here today.
Bob Backlund:
That’s Mr Backlund to you young man.
Marty Burman:
Yes, that’s correct. Mr Backlund, 1994, when he made his come back after winning the world championship in 1978 in February, Madison square garden, I was the kid that stayed home on Saturdays and I watched Bob Backlund wrestle and, and he was a great guy on the, on the television and in the matt at the Philadelphia spectrum. I used to watch him and it’s nice to know that he’s the same person in real life as he was in the squared circle. And I’m so happy for, for, for this day.
Marty Burman:
And we’re just having a blast today. So Mr Backlund, can I call you Bob or Mr Backlund? You can call me anything you want except for late late for dinner late for dinner. Right? There you go. Yeah. Okay. So this is great. Be it on the, and we’re podcasting here at Burman’s Health Shop in Brookhaven, Bob Backlund wrestling legend. You live a you, so a three hour trip, a round trip out, six hours close to Hartford, Connecticut. There he goes. 200 and the 24 miles get here. And I had fun all the way down here in the car. What high school did you go to? Princeton high school. And it’s still there to this day. Still there? Yes. And you got into high school wrestling. You got it. Yeah, I started wrestling, but I was the worst wrestler ever and I was the worst football player and I couldn’t do track very well either. Back then I was, I was a the worst that everything I ever did. How did you get, you went to
Marty Burman:
Carson Wentz, his Alma mater, RSA Carson Wentz, went to your Alma mater college, North Dakota state, and you were an unbelievable wrestler and tremendous football player. How did you get so good?
Bob Backlund:
And when I was 15 years old I saw a guy win the state tournament and he was my age and I said, if he can do it, why can I? And I went home and got two five gallon pails and I filled them up with cement, put a pipe in the middle. That’s my new barbell and high school wrestling, high school wrestling. So that’s my new bar bell. And I started lifting that and the next year I wrestled my, the guy that I thought I should be and I, I beat him. And that was like hard work pays off. I learned a lesson that 15 years old, you work hard, you are going to get someplace and you are gonna like that. And I still think about those days and me coming home and working out with that little duck that the cement pipes in it, it changed my whole life and it got better and better and better. And everything I do was the, everything I did was to get stronger. I went down and asked the football coach, coach, I need a football helmet. He said, Y I’m gonna, I’m gonna drill a hole in it and I’m going to put a screw in there and I’m gonna put a 25 pound weight on there and I’m going to put a nut on there and I’m gonna wear that while I run so I can stretch my ER, make my neck stronger while I’m running. I didn’t want to waste any time. Wow.
Marty Burman:
And he won a national championship. You won a national championship at North Dakota state in wrestling. It’s unbelievable
Bob Backlund:
In wrestling. And it was at North Dakota state university. And I beat the guy that was seated. At first. I didn’t get seated because I played football up until January 9th and half the wrestling season when it was over when I got on the team. But I, and I beat him with a bear hug. Wow. And I picked him up off the ground and held him up off the ground for about a minute. And the whole place went crazy. Bucky mind who was a wrestler in Pennsylvania said that was the loudest noise that he ever heard in his life. In a wrestling room.
Marty Burman:
Yeah. Talking about Pennsylvania, we are Iowa and you say out in the Midwest or out West too. They’re pretty good. But Pennsylvania, top two or three States in high school wrestling talent. You know how good Penn state’s done with CAEL Sanderson and then your coach was some Pennsylvania. There you go.
Bob Backlund:
Yeah. Well no, I’m, Pennsylvania has great, great, great amateur wrestling and you know what? That’s a good thing to get your children into cause you learn a lot of lessons you learned. The first thing you learn is that you have a problem. You got to fix it. You can’t blame it on the quarterback. Correct that problem. Fix it and never make that mistake again.
Marty Burman:
Marty year, what are your sons, Leo? Going into his senior year, he finally
Marty Burman:
Got into wrestling at friends central high school. Right outside of Philly. Did a great job this year.
Marty Burman:
Yeah, he really did. The wrestling coach contacted him. We actually had him for social studies and he asked Leo to think about coming on board any, he had some success. He technically, he really didn’t know what he was doing. It was the first time he had ever wrestled. But he pinned a few kids just from brute strength and it, it builds character. He’s a baseball player. He just committed to your college in York, Pennsylvania. But I’m hoping he comes back as senior year wrestles and it was a lot of fun. I’ll tell you what, you’re on that mat for 20 I never really was introduced to, to amateur wrestling, but you’re on that mat for 40 seconds and it’s the most exciting 40 seconds that you’ve ever seen. It’s the truth. And you bet
Bob Backlund:
Be ready because that’s a, it burns up a lot of your calories. Then you got [inaudible].
Bob Backlund:
Are you ready to handle that? Yes, absolutely. It can be set field like forever, that 40 seconds. What’s the longest match that you had while there’s sin? Amateur wrestler in high school, it was six minute matches, two minute periods and I think it went up to nine and college. Gotcha. Gotcha. That’s awesome. I hope he does it again. He had a blast. It was exciting when he pinned these couple of kids. I feel bad for them. Yeah, see, so you graduate North Dakota state?
Bob Backlund:
Well, I graduated, I got finished with a college college wrestling and and then football finished and then I left. I had three credits left to take to get my degree and I didn’t take it until 1983 at central Connecticut state university. And then I, I sent the three credits back to North Dakota and I finally got my degree. Wonderful.
Marty Burman:
That’s awesome. How did you, how did you end up at North Dakota state? First grow, grew up in outside of Minneapolis, Saint Paul. Then, so how’d you end up in Canada?
Bob Backlund:
Bucky? Man was the wrestling coach there and he was married to a lady from Princeton, Minnesota and he came to Princeton, Minnesota at Christmas time and he came to practice with his sister’s brother. And the first time he was there, he he said the coach said, we’re going to what? You grass loaded with him a little bit, meaning me, Bucky man come over and recently and beating wrestling and he, he beat me up that year. And that was the year that I, I found a weight machine and I got stronger the next year he came to to help his son wrestle. And he said that he asked the coach, who’s that guy over there in the corner there? And the guy said, that’s Bob Backlund. He said, I’m not wrestling with him this year because what changed on my body? I had some muscle. Yeah. And it was getting better and he didn’t want to, he didn’t think he would want to take that on. So where am I going? I got
Marty Burman:
With Bob Backlund legend professional wrestler and 70 years young and I want to talk about it. You
Marty Burman:
Look unbelievable. How are you doing it?
Bob Backlund:
You live, you live every day and you’re live everyday to the fullest and you do what you gotta do to keep your energy level high. And you know what you out there, you’re the person that has to do that. You can’t put that responsibility on anybody else. And I learned that a long time ago and I made, I made every mistake there is that to make in your life. Back when I was 15 years old, I already did it. I already did it now. And then I finally tune changed it. And I live my life one day at a time and I do what I gotta do to keep it good.
Marty Burman:
And you’re traveling all over the place, which is I’d you say off the air, you said you enjoy driving. You don’t mind driving three hours here, three hours here. Driving. Driving is fun for me. I have a party while I’m driving.
Bob Backlund:
I, I on April, on August 14th of that last, this last year at six o’clock on that day, I drove down to Charlotte, North Carolina. And on my way down there I sang happy birthday to myself. I turned 70 that day.
Marty Burman:
Awesome. In the car all day. And your, your family doesn’t come with you when you 750 miles to get down there. And then I drove back. Unbelievable. It’s incredible. And your what year you’re married for a long time. Like 52 years. Yeah. 40, 42 40, 45, 45 years. And her name again is core Corky color cork and Corky. And she’s a gymnastics coach for ladies or there you go. And you have a daughter. Yup. Yup. She’s Carrie or as we say in dealt Delaware County, Southeastern PA daughter. Yeah. So anyway, but I, I’ve learned I was, I was out in central PA for a long time, so yeah. So your family doesn’t come with you, you say on your, your trips, you, you like come on by yourself. Emily’s family
Bob Backlund:
And the business is the business and that’s my business.
Marty Burman:
How does that sound? Marty?
Marty Burman:
It sounds good. It sounds independent. It sounds healthy. I like it. I like it. So how’d you get into professional wrestling?
Bob Backlund:
You went right from college to professional wrestling? No, not right from college. I I played one year of semi-pro football or not semi-pro football in a, I went to Shaw Koto OBR as I worked out at their camp for new people, new people. And I went there for one year and bears, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I went there one year and I came home on the way home. I thought I’d kind of get out of this. There was guys that been there 10 years and never got any place. So I I said, you know what, I’m going to go and try the wrestling business. So Eddie Sharky at the seventh street gym in Minneapolis trained me and and I I loved the business. I loved every day. I had fun every day and the people were fantastic. I can’t believe when you get into a building, a building full of people and the amount of energy and the amount of strength they give you a nice cheer. Your name, it’s off the records.
Marty Burman:
Yeah. Marta, you lived it. You went to events. I went to one in a Hershey and her old [inaudible]. It’s still there. Hershey park arena. You went to the, the legendary spectrum here in Philadelphia. Yeah, I was so excited. Today, knowing that I was going to meet my childhood hero and I went upstairs to the attic and I collected wrestling magazines. And I think that’s actually a pretty decent vocabulary. I think that’s actually how I got such a good vocabulary is there were some pretty good writers in these magazines, you know wrestling review in inside wrestling. And my dad what really started was my dad had a pharmacy in Chester and he carried magazines. So when I was working the store and he would tell me to clean shelves and stuff like that. When I’m 78 years old, I’m picking up wrestling magazines and reading them.
Marty Burman:
And then eventually it led to, you know, watching all the matches on Saturday mornings and Saturday afternoons and the promos. And then I would go to the the Philadelphia spectrum. My brothers, Steve me and you, David, we never got a chance to go, but Steve would, would take me. And one of the events, it was a Bob against Bobby Duncan on a February in February two 19 80. And in, in those days, the results of the matches were in the newspaper the next day. I mean, that, that doesn’t happen anymore. And it said it was the largest crowd that has ever been at the Philadelphia spectrum to that, to that point, there was over 21,000 people. People were being turned away. David, it was unbelievable that people wanted to see Bob Backlund go against these monstrous creatures. And he, and he, the all American boy took care of business most of the time.
Marty Burman:
He took care of business. And your book. Yeah, I talk about his book here. Yeah. You have here at Burman’s Health Shop and Brookhaven, Delaware County. Yeah. I’m glad you asked Dave because I’m a friend of mine, Tony that went to school with me high school at Strath, even high school. He lives in Vegas. At any rate on Facebook, he said, you got to get Bob’s book. I want, I want to see what you think about it. Went to Amazon, bought Bob’s book, 450 pages. Unbelievable. Inside track or would actually, this business is all about. And it was just so exciting for me to read it. I write it in for four days. His is his life, about his life, about the angles in the pro game. And I was so inspired that I emailed Bob and he’s here. He, he, he said, I said, I would like you to come down and, and work with you to, to spread the word about your six principles, about what you can do to be a healthier, happier human being.
Marty Burman:
And all these things over the phone just led me to believe that this guy really, he really is the guy that was in the ring, the all American boy. He really, and I said, Bob, why don’t you come to, and he said, yeah, I’ll come down. But I didn’t expect them to come down and do the podcast. He came down today to do the podcast and then November 1st and second, we’re going to have him down for two full days. And it’s a dream come true for me and I’ve had such a blast with you, Bob, to steal. My wife was here earlier and he put me in a couple of moves and I gave him an arm bar. And then, you know, [inaudible] watching old wrestling reels and talking about wrestling. Yeah. I loved, I loved it. I loved every second watching you perform and I just, I can’t, I couldn’t get enough of it.
Bob Backlund:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I can’t thank you enough for that, but and the rest of my life I want to do some things that I wanted to do some things to encourage people and to fire them up. And [inaudible] when I was wrestling the people cheered, I’d, they energized me. They energize me stronger and stronger and stronger. And at this point I want to energize them
Marty Burman:
Some way. I think it comes down to my brother Dave as a kid. He, we knew at 11 or 12 years old that he was going to be a sports broadcaster and he knew it too. And he lives, lives and it has been living his dream for the last 50 years. There’s nobody more passionate about sports in amateur sports, high school sports than my brother Dave. So I think you can’t meet a much happier person than you because you’ve made you, David, you’ve made a choice to do what you love and, and so, so did you Bob. And you know, I own a business and it’s tough and I, but I am enjoying a lot of the things that we’re doing here, like this podcast and th this just gives me a lot of joy just, just having your book here and having, having you cited for people on November 1st and second. But I think it’s, I think it’s great that you’re inspiring people. You’ve inspired me.
Bob Backlund:
Yup. Yup. We have, we’re going to come back and spend some time here and I wanna I want to get to talk to as many people as I can, especially some of the people that are up there in age a little bit. There’s some things that you should be doing to keep yourself in [inaudible] in good shape. And, you know, falling is our worst enemy and we gotta eliminate that falling in some way or another. People that are down and out
Marty Burman:
You know, and have you know, issues with depression and things of that nature, like an anxiety because there’s so much bad stuff going on in the world. What’s your advice for them? I mean, I know there’s a lot of things that they can do to get them to feel better, but how do you maintain that energy? How do you
Bob Backlund:
All the, all the all the things around you, you don’t need to hear, it’s just a negative
Bob Backlund:
And you don’t want negative thoughts in your mind.
Bob Backlund:
So you don’t need to hear it. We don’t have a TV
Bob Backlund:
So I don’t hear it. I know what my day is going to be like. I know how I’m gonna feel in that day and I’m going to sleep
Bob Backlund:
And I’m not going to have any dreams. I’m gonna sleep all night and get up and do the same thing the next day. But I’m not gonna let anybody pull me down.
Marty Burman:
Sounds like you right, Dave. Sort of not really too much a internet follow. I do a lot at circumstances following behind. You know what you’re going to do during sports. Yeah. I know what I’m praying. Yeah. But I do listen radio occasionally. Yeah. Yeah. But I don’t if it’s goofy. Yeah. What kind of music do you like? What, what’s your country in Western country? Eh, Myra standing ovation for my country. The, yeah, the stamp please. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some countries stay country Western stations down here in Southeastern PA. Why did you want to write the book? Backlund all American boy.
Bob Backlund:
I wanted to, I want it to have the story out before I before something happened to me. And I had actually had a book written in the 85 and no, but nobody would publish it. And and then I’m thinking, I remember attorney return and getting into the 60s and I said, Jesus, I don’t, I don’t have a book out yet. And then in 2009, Rob Miller he’s up in Massachusetts. He sent me an email and he said, you were my childhood hero and I wanna write a book about you. Same thing as the same. Yeah, sounds familiar. But anyway, and then he, he, he wanted to find out. I thought it was really the, that he idolized too. So we met in the glass and very library the next couple of days. And I told him my life story and he put it in that book and he it took us five years to do that cause he had, he has two boys at the time.
Bob Backlund:
He had two boys and a wife and he had a lot of other things going on in his life. We met and we would go meet in places at libraries and different places. Like it would be take us five hours, six hours, 10 hours. And it would seem like it was only 30 minutes. We were having so much fun and every meeting we have was like a wrestling match. Every meeting had got more intense and more intense. We were going to blow up just one of these times. It was just a really, really I can’t explain it but yet almost makes me shake.
Marty Burman:
Yeah. There you go. Or no? Yeah, go. Here we go. Let’s have fun too. Yes. Crossfit chicken wing. I’m done for the day, ladies and gentlemen to stand up and be proud and smile. There you go. Yes sir. Famer Bob Backlund where you go and Bob doesn’t like job fair. You go, I’m going to go outside and smile. Okay. It’s awesome. Okay. Unbelievable. Bob Backlund but he will be back. He will be back MrD. Any, I mean, you know, I mean I, you and I are fumbling, bumbling, mumbling, stumbling, which is hard to believe. Well, I thought we listen Bob. Bob took off. I mean he, but, but as he was walking out there
Marty Burman:
Door, he said, you gotta come back November 1st and November 2nd and meet him. He’s going to be here to autograph the book. It’s about his life story. It’s about how he’s going to energize everybody. And this guy is 70 years old and he’s got more energy than anybody I know. So we’re going to finish this story when he gets back on November 1st and second. All right, well, thank you for letting me be part of this here. Yeah, absolutely. David, I want to thank you very much for doing this, for coming in to seeing my hero tonight and to spend some time with us because I want to get you back on here with maybe to do some more sports related stuff, but I appreciate it and look forward to November 1st and second with Bob. Comes back here to Brookhaven. This is Rising Core. This is the Burman’s Health Shop podcast that we do here. And we appreciate everybody for listening. And remember Backlund, B-A-C-K-L-U-N-D is the professional wrestling’s world champion his autobiography. It will energize you. I’m energized. I’m pumped up. I’m ready to go. We can
Marty Burman:
Do this November 1st and second. Come out and see Bob. Thanks everybody.