On a recent edition of his “Everybody’s Got a Pod” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase Sr. spoke about his father, Iron Mike Dibiase, his wrestling career, and other relevant topics.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On when he knew what his parents did for a living: “I knew from the beginning… I can remember her telling me about it at a wrestling show where I was there. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t at wrestling shows all the time. There’s always somebody to take care of me and look after me. Anyway, I remember her telling me, ‘No matter what you see, you stay in your seat. Don’t you dare come to this ring.’ Well, I started watching this match, and that’s my mom that somebody’s beating her up. [laughs] And I go running down to the ring, and somebody snatched me and got me back. But I was there long enough for her to see me. Oh my gosh. Oh man, did she light into me when — she said, ‘What did I tell you? I told you, don’t get out of your seat; you stay right where you are. And you come running up there.’ And I said, ‘Mom, you were getting beat up!’ [laughs] Anyway, I finally figured it out.”
On whether his father talked about the business at home: “No, because it was like — we’re talking about the days of serious kayfabe. And all we were ever told was, ‘No matter who you see here, you didn’t see anybody.’ We would have people over to the house. But they would — it was kind of like, if they had a party at our house, they waited till it got dark. So it was just the way it was then, which is just to try to always protect the business. And that’s just the way it was.”
On how people reacted when they found out his father was a wrestler: “It was kind of like, ‘I don’t care who you are, but he’s my dad.’ Yeah, I never let that bother me. And what was funny is like, you never asked them any questions. And so, I think that my dad looked at it as like, ‘The longer he’s around and the more he sees, he’ll figure it out on his own. And I won’t even have to tell him.’ And that’s exactly what happened. I figured it out on my own, that it was indeed prearranged.”
