A roguish heel in the ring, DiBiase Jr. follows dad’s ‘positive’ footsteps outside it.
As the son of The Million Dollar Man, it was nothing for Ted DiBiase Jr. to come home and see the likes of Arn Anderson or Virgil hanging around. It didn’t seem like such a big deal to visit Hulk Hogan’s condo. But it was certainly more than a bit intimidating to meet a true giant.
“I’d been wanting to meet Andre the Giant and I went to see my dad … it may have been in Mobile (Ala.) … I could see Andre sitting down,” says DiBiase. He was huge, the size of a refrigerator. I’m saying to my dad that I’m scared and he’s telling me, ‘That’s OK.’ So I get the courage to walk over and say hi to Andre. He palmed my hand like it was a basketball and picked me up off the ground and sat me on his leg. He was a gentle giant.”
Junior has plenty on his plate these days. A third-generation wrestler, following grandfather Iron Mike DiBiase, grandmother Helen Hild and his father, the 26-year-old DiBiase has made an impact in a hurry — in a business his father tried to steer him away from.
“I wanted to (be a wrestler) ever since I can remember,” he says. “But it’s something my father was adamant that I not do — with the travel and the strain on your family life. It was kind of like a miracle to me. I was in college and my father was hired back as a road agent. The way the business was being conducted had changed so much. The opportunity to make a very good living was much higher. He told me if I still wanted to do this, I had to finish college and then it was up to me. And he said he wanted me to train with Harley Race.”
Soon enough, DiBiase wound up in WWE’s Legacy faction with Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes. Rumblings suggest WWE will turn DiBiase from a roguish heel into a good guy, just in time for the direct-to-DVD release of The Marine 2, starring DiBiase, late this year.
“(The movie) was an incredible experience,” he says. “It was nice to be a hero for once. Instead of getting body-slammed or Batista-bombed, I got really blown up.”
KEEPS THE FAITH
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