WWE Hall of Fame to induct 'Cowboy Bill'

http://www.tulsaworld.com/sports/article.aspx?subjectid=29&articleid=20090403_92_B1_Cowboy877159

by: JIMMIE TRAMEL World Sports Writer
Friday, April 03, 2009
4/3/2009 3:33:13 AM

BIXBY — Do enough good things and you might wind up in a hall of fame someday. Or you can mix in a few bad deeds and wind up in a professional wrestling hall of fame.

Longtime Bixby resident "Cowboy" Bill Watts, a former University of Oklahoma football player and wrestler, will be inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame during a Saturday ceremony in Houston. The ceremony will be broadcast at 9 p.m. Saturday on the USA Network and new hall of famers will be introduced Sunday at Wrestlemania 25, a pay-per-view event.

"I'm looking forward to it," Watts said. "They do it with a lot of class. I know I am going to have a lot of fun."

Watts learned early in his post-college life that he could land bigger paydays in pro wrestling than pro football. He also learned there was good money in being bad. He initially was cast as a good guy during east coast wrestling shows and was a tag-team partner of WWWF champion Bruno Sammartino.

"I was in a wonderful position," Watts said. "But the biggest money to be made was always going against the top guy. I was in the business to make money. It wasn't of value to me to be a good guy. It was of value to me to make the most money."

Watts said he concocted a plan to double-cross Sammartino. Watts immediately graduated to "villain" and fans packed arenas, including an overflowing Madison Square Garden, to watch their grudge matches.

It was an unbelievable experience, said Watts.

"Here's a kid from Oklahoma, a kid that hadn't been anywhere," he said.

"You've got to realize the furthest I had ever traveled anywhere was when I was playing at OU and we had to go play other teams.

"To go back east was, first of all, a huge experience. And it's a cultural shock, too.

"And then to get to where you can be not only in Madison Square Garden, which was huge, but to be in a headlining event, and the next thing you know you are also the guy who is setting box-office records.

"It was big-time stuff."

Watts is going in the WWE Hall of Fame because he — wrestling terminology — "got over" in every territory and because he became one of the top promoters in the business. His old company, Mid South Wrestling, is still revered by wrestling fans because it leaned more toward the realistic than the cartoonish.

Even though being bad paid the bills, Watts always played the role of good guy when he wrestled in this part of the country.

"This was home," he said. "Everybody loved me anyway, so it never was to my advantage to take that a different direction, so I never did."

Watts once swore he would never put on a tuxedo again, but said he will wear a tux — and his trademark cowboy hat — during the hall of fame ceremony.
Longtime Bixby resident "