Ted DiBiase Reveals Why His Parents Opposed His Wrestling Career

On the latest episode of "Everybody’s Got a Pod," WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase opened up about his father's initial opposition to his wrestling career and shared stories about his influences in the wrestling world. Here are some highlights from the episode:

On His Dad Not Wanting Him to Get Into Wrestling

"Well, I mean, my dad and my mom, you know, neither one of them wanted me to be a wrestler. And it wasn’t because of the wrestling itself. It was because of the very uncertain — just everything," DiBiase revealed. He explained the transient nature of the wrestling world at the time, comparing it to a circus where wrestlers had to constantly move from one territory to another.

"It’s kind of like, back then it was, you wrestled in territories. And pro wrestlers were constantly moving around. It’s kind of like a circus, right? You know, the circus comes down for a week or two, and then it goes someplace in someplace else. But that was like — as for territorial wrestling, let’s say for example they bring me in as a brand new babyface. Well, it takes a little time for that guy to present himself and get over with all the fans in all the towns in the territory," he explained.

DiBiase elaborated on the process of building a wrestling program, from initial matches to the climactic "blow-off" match. "And the same thing applies to the heel: it takes time. And then the thing is, so you do a program with somebody. And that program might — you know, first match the heel beats you. Second match he finds another way. Even though beat him up physically, he cops another win. And then eventually, you get to that blow-off match. And the blow-off match, back then, sometimes a Lumberjack match. So you know, you can’t run. If you get thrown out of the ring, you get thrown right back in. A cage match… a chain match where you’ve got to link the chain, you’re tied to one another, but your opponent’s tied to the other end of it, so you can’t get away."

He highlighted the challenges wrestlers faced after these decisive matches. "So those were the blow-off batches back then. And that’s what the people had to look forward to. But you know, once you’ve done that blow-off match, now if you’re the good guy — and it’s a lot easier to stay in a territory, because everybody loves you. But if you’re the heel, and you build up to this blow-off and get beat, then you’ve got to move on for a while. Now you could always come back, but you have to go somewhere else for a specific time period before you can come back there and start again. And that’s back in the days of territorial wrestling. And I think that’s the biggest thing that my mom and dad had was, it was kind of like, you always want something to do better for your children… it’s a hard-lived life."

On Who He Looked Up to in Wrestling

Reflecting on his influences, DiBiase named several iconic wrestlers. "Oh gosh. Well, the Funks. Terry Funk could do it all, too. I mean, he could be the baddest badass or the greatest babyface. And I just thought that was great."

He also mentioned another wrestling legend, Dick Murdoch. "And again, another guy, Dick Murdoch. Murdoch was a guy that they were basically considering to possibly be the next NWA World Champion. But you never knew which Murdoch was going to show up. Whether the sensible Murdoch was going to show up, or whether or not the wild orangutan was going to show up."