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Wrestling events bring famous personalities and cool events to area Date published: 3/8/2007
By MICHAEL ZITZ Jimmy "The Mouth of the South" Hart has seen a lot of things in his career. In the 1960s, he was part of the pop group The Gentrys, who had the hit "Keep on Dancin'" and performed on "American Bandstand." Later, as a professional wrestling manager, he shared locker rooms with the legendary Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan. And a wrestling fan once shot him. "Somebody had made a homemade blow dart and shot me in the butt," Hart recalled. "I thought: 'Oh, my God! I wonder if they dipped it in anything.'" But the most colorful moments of Hart's three-decade wrestling career revolved around "Taxi" sitcom-actor-turned-wrestler Andy Kaufman. Hart talked about Kaufman, who considered himself not a comedian but an absurdist performance artist, during a recent phone interview with The Free Lance-Star to promote a couple of upcoming World Wrestling Entertainment events in the area. Monday night at 8, John Cena, Edge, Randy Orton, Johnny Nitro, Melina and other wrestlers and divas will appear at a WWE Raw event at the Verizon Center in Washington. Saturday and Sunday, there will be free WWE Fan Axxess events at Dulles Town Center. Hart was managing Jerry "The King" Lawler when the wrestler famously dumped former "Taxi" star Kaufman on his head in 1982 during a taping of "Late Night With David Letterman." The staged moment was immortalized in the 1999 Jim Carrey film "Man on the Moon" about Kaufman's life. Hart said that when Lawler told him Kaufman was interested in getting involved, he said: "Oh, my God. This is great. The guy on 'Taxi.'" Kaufman had grown up as a pro-wrestling fan and declared himself "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World" as part of his stage act, offering $1,000 to any woman who could pin him. Hart said no one realized at the time that Kaufman really wanted to be a wrestler. "He loved it until he died" from kidney failure related to cancer in 1984, Hart said of Kaufman. He said he heard Kaufman never cashed his wrestling checks because he wanted to keep them as souvenirs. "He really took it seriously," Hart said. "He really loved it." He said when Kaufman was injured by a 1982 pile driver move, "We thought he'd be gone forever. But he was a lot tougher than people thought." Kaufman proceeded with a wrestling career, taking on women--more than one at a time--taunting them all the while to put on a good show. "These women were really, really tough," Hart recalled. "He was fighting for his life with the ladies back then." He said the former sitcom star earned the greatest possible honor when wrestling fans took him seriously. Michael Zitz: 540/374-5408
Date published: 3/8/2007
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