Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Ted DiBiase Sr. - Page 2

I really spent the better part of the first 12 years of my career wrestling for Mid South. Fond memories, but a grueling territory.

I understand the psychology of the business. I understand who I am and I know how I interact with other people, but that's a gift, the storytelling. Not everybody has that gift and it's kind of like the way I work.

Vulgarity, in my mind, is not cool.

Yeah, the first television match that I'm going to have, I got put out there with Danny Hodge and I was scared to death.

So I went to WCW for three years and quite frankly, it was the most miserable three years of my life in terms of business.

Well, I think everyone would agree that Vince McMahon, although he doesn't get it right every time, he gets it right most of the time, and he is a marketing genius.

My father died when I was 15, and my dad was a professional wrestler but as well as a national amateur champion at the University of Nebraska.

There's a lot of guys that made big money in wrestling because they just projected such a realistic character. And they weren't necessarily great athletes. Junkyard Dog played football, Junkyard Dog the wrestler, mechanically in the ring he was just not that good. His gift was, unbelievable work on the mic. He had charisma coming out of his ears.

I remember when I was in Mid-South and they used to tape interviews every Wednesday morning, and I wasn't required to go to the interviews because I was a rookie and I wasn't cutting any interviews - I was a curtain jerker. But I went every Wednesday anyway because I was going to watch those guys and I was going to glean from them.

The reason that I discouraged my boys as I was discouraged was not because of wrestling itself. The reason I discouraged them as a father was from having lived the lifestyle - like my father did - and understanding the hardships that come along with it. It's not the wrestling itself. It's the 90 percent divorce rate.

Reality is, I could have made Japan a career. I could have just gone to Japan and I'd have been great.

I tell everybody all the time: I had a 25-year wrestling career, and I'm most known for laughing.

Dusty Rhodes was a great athlete. Actually, he was a baseball player as well. He played football but he played baseball. That was his number one sport. He wasn't always heavyset like he is. But Dusty Rhodes, The American Dream he just gets charisma.

I was fortunate. I probably could have saved more money, too. But, it's like, even though I'm not really the Million Dollar Man, I have a retirement account, I saved some money, and I did some right things.

My strength was my ability to talk and my work in the ring.

I've been asked many times, do you regret never having been the world champion, you know? I kind of laugh. I say well, you know, this business is a work. It's like, none of those guys are ever really the world wrestling champion. The titles are props in this business.

Being a good worker in WWE is the worst curse that you can have. Instead of being given the title for being a great worker, they give it to someone who isn't and have that person work with the good worker, so they look good in the ring.

I have the love and respect of my wife and my kids. I could look in the mirror and I'm happy with that guy now. He's okay. He's not a schmuck.

Mid-South is what started my whole career.

You look at all the athletes who come out of high school and college into professional sports. And they hit it big, they make money, and instead of saving their money, instead of doing the right thing, they go out and buy the biggest house, and the finest car, and then they get hurt, and it's gone.

The road can become a very lonely place. It's not what it's cracked up to be. Of course, it's what you make it.

Wrestling is an art form.

As a young man, I had a strong faith in God. It dwindled and I pretty much abandoned it when I went to college. Basically, what I tell everybody is what took over my life was my pride.

I always looked like an athlete but I didn't look like Charles Atlas.

I was supposed to be the mouthpiece and financial backer of the NWO but what really happened as this thing got hotter, Eric Bischoff saw where he could slip himself into the role that he hired me for. And that's what he did.

Wrestling is sports entertainment for sure. But to be really good at what we do you have to be both an athlete and an entertainer. And actually, if you're going to be lacking in one, then be more of an entertainer and less of an athlete.

I was smarter when I was 15, 16 than when I was 18 to 26, because instead of caving in to being cool, I stuck close to my convictions and I was rewarded.

I tell young guys, you need to build accountability into your life to avoid the pitfalls.

Wrestling is a business, it is show business and wrestling championships are props.

Well, you know, I was a top heel in the company for a long time and whether I was moved over to a tag team with Mike Rotunda, you know, we were a top heel team.

It's just one of those things. When you're a wrestler you're thinking about one guy, yourself, your character and whatever guy it is you're working with. When you're a writer and you're kind of in a booking type role, you're thinking about the entire roster so you're thinking about wrestling 24 hours a day.

Well, the mission statement of Heart of David is that we're a ministry of evangelism and encouragement. Evangelism meaning that I evangelize I travel on a weekly basis to churches not only churches but I find myself doing a lot more men's events, I talk to a lot more men and I go to a lot of prisons.

I think with a lot of comics, their gift is improv. They don't have a script. They'll have a couple of good ideas they start with, and go from there. And it's the same in wrestling.

Usually a manager is put with someone who has got good rings skills, but is not necessarily good on the mic. So I have no idea why they put me with Steve Austin, he didn't need any help!

There's people that have labored and labored and it takes them a long time before they get that break and then they get it. Then sometimes, I've seen guys with a lot of talent never get it. It's the nature of the beast.

By the time Vince McMahon called upon me to become this character, the Million Dollar Man, I had already been wrestling for 12 years.

I tell people all day who say 'When you going to retire?' I said I never found the word retirement in the Bible, so I'm going to keep going till I'm not here.

I travel all over the United States basically in evangelism, speaking in churches, speaking in prisons, speaking in rehab centers wherever I can basically sharing my story of redemption and the turnaround in my life.

We have all said things in anger in a moment that we don't mean.