Harley Race

 

This is the face of a man who was as dedicated to the art of violence as one could be in his day; you would be foolish to doubt his physical toughness. Harley Race had a legendary in-ring career spanning over thirty years, in which he held the NWA world heavyweight championship NINE times! That was rather impressive back when I first read about Harley in The Pictorial History of Wrestling as a little kid in the mid '80s. Although only seven of his nine reigns were reported on back then—the other two took place on overseas tours of Japan and Australia—nobody else in the True Sport of Kings had tasted world championship gold on as many occasions as Handsome Harley Race.

George Napolitano's above photo gave me my first impression of Harley Race—he looked like the meanest, nastiest man alive. I wouldn't have wanted to meet him alone in broad daylight, let alone a dark alley! Harley came off like a low-level hit man for the local mob; not the kind of guy you wanted looking for you to settle up your gambling debts. I wasn't sure how a guy like Ric Flair could have survived a cage match with Harley to become the NWA world champion and the promotion's standard-bearer. I had to see that for myself one day. 

Harley came aboard the WWF in 1986 about a month after WrestleMania II. This was one of my first lessons in how an individual wrestler's accomplishments didn't seem to matter prior to their World Wrestling Federation debut. Harley Race was a multi-time titleholder and a clear threat to Hulk Hogan's WWF championship reign, but you wouldn't know that to hear the commentators passively refer to him as one of the great ring veterans. Only an educated wrestling fan would know why Race was one of the greats; viewers unfamiliar with wrestling outside of the WWF had no idea. Harley also came off as a senior citizen compared to much of the WWF's younger roster. I came to the conclusion that he was in the twilight of his career and picking up a good paycheck headbutting inexperienced jobbers on the WWF's Saturday morning TV. There was no fault in that. Everyone deserves a chance to make some money in their field.

Race defeated another former world champion in Pedro Morales in the finals of the July 1986 King of the Ring tournament, earning the crown as the WWF's way of acknowledging his past accomplishments. He would force his opponents to bow and kiss his boot after dispatching them on TV, demanding that they respect the King's wrestling royalty. This went on until Harley ran afoul of the Junkyard Dog, a man of the people who refused to kowtow to the King. Race and the Dog embarked on a rivalry that culminated in a match at WrestleMania III, in which the loser was to bow to the winner. Although the JYD came out on the losing end, he remained true to his word and still refused to bow down by beating up the King and stealing his royal crown and robe. This wasn't one of Harley's better moments, but I imagine that it proved to the WWF braintrust that he could play their games if needed.

One match seemed to briefly restore Harley Race to his former glory, although it ultimately ended his in-ring career—the infamous bout against Hulk Hogan on an early 1988 broadcast of Saturday Night's Main Event. Harley hung in there against the WWF champion, holding up his end of the match nicely and taking it to the Hulkster. Race was starting to look like the world champion of old when he had Hogan draped across a ringside table, readying him for one of Harley's falling headbutts from the ring apron. However, Hogan was able to move out of the way in time and Race crashed directly into the table. You could hear the table splinter as the metal edge forced its way into Harley's abdomen, causing a hernia that kept him out of action for much of the year. He would return to the ring at the 1988 Survivor Series, but would leave the WWF in 1989 after losing to King Haku at the Royal Rumble.

Harley Race hung up his boots in the spring of 1991 after working in Puerto Rico's World Wrestling Council (WWC), Stampede Wrestling in Calgary, All Japan Pro Wrestling, the AWA, and WCW. He sustained a shoulder injury during a WCW house show in December of 1990, compelling him into retirement from in-ring action. Harley returned as a manager at the 1991 Great American Bash, leading Lex Luger to the WCW world heavyweight championship. He would also manage Big Van Vader to world title status in 1992, adding an extra edge of credibility to the Mastodon's presence.

I would learn a lot more about Harley Race's pre-WWF wrestling career and legitimate tough guy reputation as I got online and began reading stories taken from various books and shoot interviews. All of the tales I heard about Harley confirmed what I had imagined about him when I first saw that photo of him in The Pictorial History of Wrestling as an eight-year-old. Maybe he wasn't a bona fide Mafia hit man, but he certainly was something of one for the wrestling industry in his days as the NWA world heavyweight champion. Harley Race remains one of my prototypes for what wrestlers used to look like and represent before the WWF's national expansion made professional wrestling more image-conscious and family-friendly.