A Valuable Babyface: An ex-Pro Wrestler Comes Clean in Charlottesville
by Eric Strzepek
It is 1978. On a Saturday morning telecast of the World Wrestling Federation's Superstars of Wrestling, a muscular young man with a mustache has just received a huge basket of flowers from the T.V. announcer. He tosses flowers to the fans, smiling and waving like a conquering hero. Rookie of the year. That day Steve Musulin was playing the role of Steve Travis, the heroic "babyface" who would act out great and terrible moral struggles with such dastardly "heels" as Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, Blackjack Mulligan, and the always dangerous Mr. Fuji. This was a high point in a wrestling career marred by brutality, deception, and drugs. Drug addiction killed his tag- team partner and best friend "Quick Draw" Rick Mc Graw and many other famous names in what he calls "the business." His own drug addiction lead to a car accident in 1986 which left him paralyzed, killed a man, and caused him to spend eight months in a maximum security Georgia penitentiary. Steve Musulin is about to do something few people have ever done. He is going to break the code of silence that permeates the world of professional wrestling. After a successful football career at Charlottesville High School (where he was coached to the legendary Tommy Theidose) and an athletic scholarship to Guilford College, he was scouted by a wrestling promoter who lived in his apartment complex. "This guy was a real sharp talker and he talked me into going with him to some local matches he was running," Musulin recalls. In the often strange world of pro wrestling the promoter is the person responsible for fixing the matches, orchestrating the feuds, and creating the personas of the wrestlers who work for him or her. Until you are an established star, you are almost totally at the mercy of the promoter. The promoter collects the ticket money and pays the wrestlers, usually in cash. Wrestlers supposedly receive a flat fee and a percentage of the gate, but promoters frequently cheat wrestlers out of their pay. "We knew what was going on. The first thing we'd do is judge the house [estimate attendance] because that had to do with how much we would get paid. Always our judgments would be several thousand dollars less than the promoter," Musulin explain Wrestlers and others inside the business speak in code. "Babyface" and "heel" describe the two basic characters in pro wrestling: the hero and the villain. Fans are called "marks" or "kay fabes" and driving them into a frenzy is called "raising heat". Taking a fall for someone is known as doing a "job". Making a hold or punch look real is called "selling". It is vitally important to learn to fall correctly and to accurately place punches and kicks. In a sport that many deride as fake, serious injuries do occur, especially when working with a wrestler who is inexperienced. "I got my four front teeth knocked out," Musulin remembers. "I had no insurance. Insurance for wrestlers was in the same category as skydivers, a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a month. I called [the promoter] the next day to ask about some workman's comp to pay for the bridge I was going to need. He just laughed and said, 'That's the way it goes in the business, kid.'" Many people assume that the blood they see flowing freely in wrestling matches is theatrical blood from wax capsules. Steve let me in on the truth: wrestlers cut their own foreheads before or during matches with small razor blades. Before the match (usually a main event) the promoter will tell one or both wrestlers to "give juice" or do a "blade job." "Whoever was going to get the juice would prepare a scalpel from a sharp razor blade," Musulin explains. "You would take surgical scissors and cut a eighth to quarter inch blade and wrap it with surgical tape. You would hide it somewhere on your person." The hiding places could be anywhere from inside the tights to taped around fingers to under the tongue. "They liked you to give juice when it was called for, like if someone hit you with brass knucks or slammed you into a post," Musulin notes. "Then you would ball up on the ground and give your forehead a little twist of the blade." Because of adrenaline and sweat, a small cut can create what appears to be a lot of blood. These small cuts can be deceptive. Over a period of years, train track-like scar tissue can develop, as a close look at a veteran wrestler's forehead will reveal. Bleeding too often can lead to serious problems. While working in Nova Scotia as the Canadian Heavyweight champion, under the name Stonewall Jackson, Steve had to do blade jobs seven nights in a row, on filthy wrestling mats, under hot lights, over freezing cold ice skating rinks because all the wrestling took place in arenas built for hockey. His body eventually gave out. "I started running a fever...I lost thirty pounds," Musulin recalls. "I had to take a week off. The promoter thought I was going to die. I began to whine about the situation. The promoter gave me a $500 bonus, which to me was like five grand, I thought I was a valuable babyface." Why do promoters demand that their star performers bleed? The fans pay to see it. "Blood to a wrestling crowd is like blood to sharks...you get the fans to a peak and then they see blood. I have seen crowds become uncontrollable," Musulin elaborates. After a couple of years spent bouncing from promotion to promotion, driving sometimes two thousand miles a week across the U.S. and Canada, sleeping in his car, and making between $500-$700 a week without compensation for gas, food or lodging while taking the fall for such stars as "Nature Boy" Ric Flair and Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat, Steve finally got his break. He was going to New York city to work in the big leagues: the World Wrestling Federation. Steve remembers, "I was a beating post for the champions. They kept me strong on T.V. and in the little arenas. I did jobs for the belt holders in the big towns in main events or semi-main events." While in the WWF he toured the world, traveling to the United Arab Emirates and playing to packed houses in Tokyo. The pay changed from paltry sums to guaranteed jobs that netted $2,000-$5,000 a week. Musulin toured Georgia as the T.V. champ and had a brief stint as half of the Florida tag-team champions, with Steve Keirn. One of the other wrestlers on his tours of both Florida and Japan was Hulk Hogan. Until recently "the Hulkster" (star of such film epics as Suburban Commando and Mr. Nanny , and a syndicated T.V. series,Thunder in Paradise ) was the WWF world champion and one of the most famous wrestlers in the world. A scandal involving widespread steroid abuse in the WWF knocked Hogan, the allegedly born again Christian who constantly told kids to "take your vitamins and say your prayers" off his lofty pedestal. Hogan, in an obvious attempt at damage control during the scandal, denied steroid abuse when asked about the topic on the Arsenio Hall show. Musulin knew Hogan's denial was a lie, "I discussed with him what his stacking preference was. Of course steroids were legal then ... The first time I ever did steroids I got a prescription from the team doctor in college," Musulin recounts. "Stacking" is the practice of taking doses of different steroids for bulk and definition. Such talk was common around the locker room. Hulk Hogan sometimes roomed with Steve's tag team partner the late Rick "Quick Draw" McGraw. "Rick told me about a ritual they engaged in every morning before they went to the gym. They would maybe pop a hit of speed or do a line [of cocaine] and the Hulkster would pop a syringe [of steroids] into each tricep," Musulin says. The WWF steroid scandal led to two trials, one involving the testimony of former UVA strength coach Bill Dunn and several WWF wrestlers. This trial ended in the conviction and jailing of a prominent New Jersey M.D., George Zahorian. The second trial ended with with federal indictments against WWF owner Vince McMahon for alleged steroid distribution. McMahon has since had the charges on several counts dismissed and was aquitted on the remaining counts of steroid distribution. During the trial Hulk Hogan admitted under oath to long term abuse of steroids.
The grueling schedule of a professional wrestler and the need to be larger than life are invitations to drug abuse. The long nights driving from town to town and state to state make amphetamines an all too tempting travel aid. And of course, if you got into town wired and desperately needed to sleep, barbiturates bring on the sandman like nobody's business. Where did the wrestlers get their drugs? Usually not from common street dealers. Their main suppliers were doctors. Often they were older semi-retired state athletic commision doctors who were still hanging around for the last bit of whatever faded glory the arenas still retained. According to Musulin, wrestlers had a veritable pharmacy available to them from sympathetic and greedy M.D.'s who prescribed practically anything an aspiring addict could want or need. Higher in quality and lower in price than their black market counterparts, the prescription drugs these doctors sold provided both the bulk necessary to look good and an escape from the pain and fatigue inherent to professional wrestling. After ten years out of "the business," Steve Musulin is left with bitterness towards his former profession. "The business left me crippled for the rest of my life," Musulin says. "If I had not gone into the business, I would never have been exposed to the pitfalls that led me to use drugs. I live every day with the thought that I am responsible for taking another man's life. It haunts me." When Steve speaks to groups of kids about the dangers of drug abuse, there is no "sinner to saint" preachiness. Instead he simply recounts the facts. One day in April of 1986, on his way to the Omni in Atlanta, where he and tag-team partner Ole Anderson were scheduled to wrestle The Road Warriors, he blacked out. His car crossed the median and collided with an oncoming car. The driver of the other car was killed. The crash sheared off half of Steve's scalp and fractured his eighth thoracic vertebra, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. The prognosis was that he would never walk again. He hadn't taken any downers that day. An analysis of his blood showed that the amount of barbiturates in his system far exceeded levels that would kill an average human. For a period of time his vital signs fluctuated wildly as he went through withdrawal. While Steve was in the hospital, his wife divorced him and dumped all the artifacts of his wrestling career into the trash bin. After a nine year wrestling career, only one of his former colleagues visited him in the hospital. In pro-wrestling , the weak are to be left for dead. The hunt must continue. The only person bringing him any good news during convalescence was his lawyer. The state would not jail a paraplegic for vehicular homicide. It would cost too much. He would certainly get a suspended sentence and probation. Nothing to worry about. The laywer, was of course lying, . He would later find out that the DA was out for blood. He was offered a plea agreement of 5 years or the DA would go for 10. After over a year of arduous rehabilitation at Woodrow Wilson Hospital, Steve was walking on canes. He met and fell in love with his future wife. He got a job working at a local health Club as a personal trainer. Then, a call from Georgia. Time to come down and take care of the legal business.