PEOPLE said he wrestled six nights a week for nearly nine years, with only Sundays off. “Wrestling was much different then,” Seigler said. “Most people used their real name. I wrestled using my own name all over the world. Back then most wrestlers didn’t use a name that sounded like a cartoon character.” And as for the question everyone always asks: Was wrestling scripted in your day? “You’d have to talk to someone else, because none of mine was,” Seigler said. “When I went into the ring, I didn’t know what was going to happen. Most of us back in those days did wrestle.” He made a name for himself, first winning titles in Florida and Georgia, then taking the British Commonwealth Heavyweight Championship and finally the 1977 International Wrestler of the Year honor in his final year, the year of his injury. Seigler’s wrestling career ended two weeks before Christmas in December of 1977, while wrestling in Singapore. “It was a tag match, and I looked around and my partner had left the ring,” Seigler said. “I don’t know where he went.”
The other team, neither of which spoke any English, double-teamed Seigler in an exhibit so brutal the crowd attempted to stop them before riot police showed up to break up the melee. When it was over, Seigler was left with multiple injuries to disks in his back. He spent the international flight home lying in the aisle of the jet. Once back in the states, surgeons for the Atlanta Falcons examined Seigler. “They did surgery to get pressure off the nerves, but Anderson Five ~ District Accredited it couldn’t be fixed and my wrestling career was over,” Seigler said. He returned to a desk job in construction, before taking a job in security in Atlanta. After two years, family matters brought him back to the Upstate, where he worked security in Greenville. 400 Pearman Road Dairy When that company closed, he took over security for Anderson,the SC Anderson 29625 County Civic Center. From there, Seigler moved to his position in security at the historic courtwww.anderson5.net house downtown. “I am here five days a week, late at night when there are meetings,” Seigler said. The big man, who is up at 5:30 a.m. every day lifting weights among the 4,000 pounds of plates in his basement gym, Siegler said he has yet to need his wrestling skills in his security work downtown. “I’ve been prepared to a few times, and if that was what it was going to take, I was going to put a hold on them,” Seigler said smiling, “But it hasn’t gone that far yet.” n
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September/October 2016