"THE ASSASSIN - INTERVIEW
By Bill Kociaba

Over the past fifty years a virtual army of masked men have climbed through the ropes of the squared circle. Some were fan favorites and others evil villains. Some kept their true identities well hidden, while others left little doubt as to whom they were. Many were successful, but few if any can claim the successes of this man. His in ring career spanned over 32 years, 27 of which were as a main event performer. He was the youngest man to ever main event at Madison Square Garden. He was one half of the most dominant masked duo in the sport for over a decade with partner Tom Renesto. He was involved in legendary feuds with “Bullet” Bob Armstrong and Mr. Wrestling II and one of the longest running feuds in the history of wrestling with “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes.

Ladies and gentlemen, from parts unknown… THE ASSASSIN!

Joseph Hamilton was born on August 28, 1938 in St. Joseph, Missouri. He was the younger of two boys by 6 and half years. He was an average student and a good athlete playing football, basketball and running track.

K-W: Okay, so you graduated high school in 1955 or 1956?

JH: No, I didn't graduate. I quit school in my senior year right after track season.

K-W: May I ask why?

JH: I had a dispute with my sophomore English teacher. She gave me a passing grade on my end of year report card, but turned in a failing grade on my permanent record. So in my senior year they told me I was gonna have to come back to get the needed credit and I wouldn't graduate with my class. I got ticked off and quit. I was a dummy. Well you know at that age you think you know everything anyway. I got my GED later though.

K-W: When did you first get interested in wrestling, and who were your first heroes?

JH: (I got interested when) I was about 6 or 7. I never had any heroes but the guys I watched back then were guys like Lou Thesz, Killer Kowalski, Lucky Samanovitch, Ronnie Etchison and Sonny Myers. If anyone was gonna be my hero in the wrestling business other than my brother, it would have to be Sonny Myers.

K-W: That’s interesting. Why Sonny Myers?

JH: He was the best all-around wrestler I have ever seen. Never got nowhere near the credit he deserved for his capabilities in the ring.

K-W: There have been a lot of great talents that never got recognition for one reason or another -- politics, etc.

JH: Yeah probably… and a lot of it has to do with a guy's willingness to travel, you know? I mean, Sonny never wanted to be that far from home. He and his father were big farmers around St. Joe. They had a lot of property and land, and he never wanted to be gone for any length of time, or to far away from home.

K-W: So when did you know you wanted to be more than a fan?

JH: About 6 or 7.

K-W: Really? You knew right from the beginning and all through school that you wanted to be a wrestler?

JH: Yeah, I was gonna either be a wrestler or a boxer.

K-W: When did you start boxing?

JH: I was 14. I boxed as a middleweight and made it to the nationals in the Golden Gloves.

K-W: When did you start training to wrestle? And who helped you?

JH: I really started in around 1955 and the only one who ever helped me was Sonny Myers. I mean, I started going to the old YMCA when I was 12 or 13. There were a bunch of old hammerheads there and they beat the shit out of me for about a year trying to get me to quit. I kept coming back and after a year or so a couple of them started teaching me a little. After a while, instead of them putting a hold on me I said, “Why don't you grab the hold and then I will try to fight my way out?” And being young and in incredible shape… I outlasted ‘em. They were older guys and not in very good shape any more.

K-W: How did you meet up with Sonny Myers?

JH: Actually it was through my brother that I met Sonny. Sonny used to help Gust Karras promote a few towns and stuff, and when I wasn't doing something else, I would take trips with him, like down to Topeka and so on and we would take care of all the advanced publicity. He used to talk to me about the business and began to familiarize me with it. Then he went to that same old YMCA and worked out with me. We didn't have a ring or anything. We just had a bunch of those old tumbling mats on the floor. There was no way to fasten them together so when you moved around on them they separated and there was nothing but bare floor. Many's the time my knees or elbows or ankles hit that bare floor.

K-W: Tell me about your first pro match.

JH: It was in the spring of '56 in the Field House at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. It was against Rip Hawk.

K-W: It was your first match. I am gonna assume you did not go over.

JH: No.

K-W: Was it a draw or did you do a job?

JH: DID I DO A WHAT?!?!

K-W: Excuse me ... Were you defeated?

JH: Yep.

K-W: In how many falls?

JH: It was a two out of three. Everything back then was two out of three.

K-W: How far ahead of you was your brother in his wrestling career?

JH: Larry started at least five years before me.

K-W: Lets talk about your run for Vince, Sr. in New York. What was it like being in the Garden at such a young age? Nineteen, right?

JH: Yes, I still hold the record for being the youngest guy to ever work a main event in the Garden. I was 19. What was it like…? Well, to coin a phrase of one of my favorite guys, Hawk, of the infamous Road Warriors, “Ahhhh… what a rush!”

K-W: I would think the first time would be kind of like holy shit! What am I doing here?!

JH: That’s about it…. that’s just about it. You know, you don’t realize where you’re at or what’s going on until… See, back then, they had a holding area right behind the curtains and they blacked out the whole arena when you came out. They shined those spotlights on you and with the lights in your eyes you can’t see anything. You can’t see the people at ringside or anything at all. Then after you get in the ring they take the spotlights off and introduce your opponent... and you still can’t see shit. They are going through the same thing. The spot lights are in their face and in their eyes and they can’t see anything. But, brother, after they got in the ring and they turned the spotlights off and turned the house lights up and there was twenty one thousand and some odd people there…..I said "My GOD, what in the world am I doing here?" I had never seen that many people in my life. Before I went to New York, biggest town I had ever been was Kansas City. And back in the fifties Kansas City was not a very metropolitan area.

K-W: How long were you in New York?

JH: I started in the business full-time September 3, 1957 in New York. That lasted until just before Christmas, and we went back in March of ’58 and stayed until November.

K-W: So in addition to your program with (Antonino) Rocca and (Miguel) Perez, who else did you work with up there? Did anyone take you under their wing and try to teach you?

JH: There were guys up there like Eugene O’Merrin and Gregory Arkey, neither of which are household names today, but were pretty big in New York at that time. And Danny McShane and Angelo Poffo, both helped me a lot.

K-W: After New York?

JH: Well, after the first run, Larry went to Houston. That was back before Von Erich stole the office from Morris Siegel. Anyway, Larry went in as Casey McShane, Danny McShane’s brother. He didn’t like it there much and came home after a few weeks. I just worked around home then.

K-W: And after the second New York run?

JH: San Francisco. Buddy Rogers was the booker.

K-W: A lot of people have had a lot of bad to say about Rogers. What was your experience with him like?

JH: We got along fine. My brother always told me, especially before I got in the business, "When you get in this business, you are gonna hear a lot of stories about a lot of guys, and some are gonna be good and some are gonna be bad." He said, "When you hear a guy is a no good rotten son-of-a-bitch, wait until you have a personal association with him before you judge him, because a lot of that may be nothing more than petty jealousy." And even though I knew from watching his dealings with others over the years that he could be a ruthless guy, I still could never say anything bad about the way he treated me.

K-W: After San Francisco?

JH: I went back to St. Joe. It was hard there. Bobby Bruns was the booker and he hated local guys. It was crazy ‘cause you could draw money with the local guys but he hated them. I, being the youngest and greenest, got the brunt of his wrath, so to speak. Inadvertently, he ended up doing me one of the biggest favors anyone has ever done me in the business. He got me booked into Amarillo… just to get rid of me.

K-W: Was that for Dory Funk, Sr.?

JH: Shit no! (Joe chuckles) The Funks had nothing to do with it then. It was for Doc Sarpolis. I was there for a long time, maybe 7 or 8 months. I had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest guys ever in the business, in my opinion. Every night was like going into a classroom getting to work with guys like Sonny Myers or Mike DiBiase. And I got to watch Dory Funk, Sr. I never really got along that good with him -- we never had words or anything, but I never really got along that good with him. But I learned a lot from him especially about timing. For a guy that was ugly as a mud fence, he had no hair, his body looked like a sack of broken door knobs, and he was the most popular son-of-a-gun in West Texas. Hell, he was more popular in west Texas than the governor. I have absolutely no use for Dory, Jr.

K-W: So you’re not a fan of Dory, Jr.?

JH: I have known him and Terry both since they were teenagers. They were both lifeguards at Gem Lake, which was a commercial swimming pool that Funk, Sr. owned. That’s how long I have known these guys. Terry, Terry’s okay. I get along fine with Terry. But I had a business dealing with Dory, and I trusted him, and he screwed me out of some money.

K-W: What was the first title you ever held?

JH: That would be the Rocky Mountain State Heavyweight championship. That was while I was working in Amarillo.

K-W: So, they were calling you “Silent” Joe Hamilton in Amarillo? What was that about?

JH: Well, in New York you never did interviews, and we didn’t even do TV in Frisco, and back in St. Joe only the top guys got interviewed. So I am in Amarillo and they are being pretty good to me, using me wel,l and the situation came up where they needed me to do interviews…and I wasn’t very good at it. I had no practice. I got better, but I really didn’t get proficient at doing interviews until Tom and I teamed up in ’61.

K-W: After Amarillo?

JH: After Amarillo I had a run in Tulsa, a brief run in Memphis, another run in Amarillo, and then another in Tulsa. After the second Tulsa run I headed to Florida to work for Cowboy Luttrall.

K-W: Lets talk about that brief run in Memphis.

JH: Well, they had everything pretty much programmed, and everyone in their spots so there was no real room for me and no money. I stayed there for about two weeks and gave Buddy Fuller my notice. They were about to buy Mobile out and they asked me to put a blond streak in my hair and go in as Rocket Monroe, as sort of an advanced man. Sputnik (Monroe) was over real big, so I went in as Rocket. They had a guy booking there named Rube Wright. He was a real piece of work. I lasted there for about ten days and then I just took off.

K-W: OK so it’s the spring of '61 and you are working in Florida for Cowboy Luttrall. Who are you working with down there? Are you a single or tagging?

JH: I had a real good run down there. I worked with Don Curtis, Mark Lewin, Tito Carreon and Joe Scarpa (who later became Chief Jay Strongbow). There was a host of great guys down there that I was working with. It was mostly in single matches. It was a real good run, but eventually I could tell it was getting near time to move on. I was getting a feel for the business by then and I knew if I stayed around too long, it wouldn’t be good for the future.

K-W: After Florida you went to Georgia right?

JH: Yeah. I was actually planning to head home and I got a call from the office that they wanted me to go work for Ray Gunkel in Georgia The plan was that I would come in under a mask as The Iron Russian. It all changed at the last minute when I arrived at the building and I was told that I was not The Iron Russian, I was gonna be The Assassin! (And the rest, as they say, is history!)

I worked for about a month as a single and then they brought Tom Renesto in, and we started tagging. Tom was working in Texas, and Jim Crockett, Sr. wanted to bring him back close to the Carolinas. Tom had left Charlotte because Crockett had brought in Buddy Rogers. Tom knew Rogers’ M.O. and wasn’t about to lose his mask for anyone, so he left. He left on very good terms with the office. So Crockett, Sr. had pretty much put all his eggs in one basket with Rogers, and when Rogers didn’t draw the kind of houses he promised, Crockett wanted to bring Tom back from Texas and have him close by in case of an emergency. See, Tom, as The Great Bolo, was the biggest draw Crockett ever had.

K-W: So how did you two end up as a team?

JH: Tom came in to Georgia and it was just the natural thing to put us together. He stayed under a mask, just changed the name. Tom had tagged with my brother Larry in the Carolinas as the Bolos. It just was a natural thing for us to get together. We never really sat down and talked before our first match, but within a few minutes we were just gelling real well. It was like we knew instinctively what the other was gonna do.

K-W: Who did you work with?

JH: Tito & Rito Carreon, the Torres brothers and Ray Gunkel & Buddy Fuller.

K-W: How long did you stay in Georgia?

JH: We started the end of '61 and in early '62 we went down to Florida for a while and were the United States Tag champs. (I think that was the title we held there.) Then we came back to Georgia for a few weeks, and then went into the Carolinas as the Great Bolo & Bolo and we held Crockett’s tag belts. We stayed pretty much in the south east until '65 when we went to California. We had a great run there working for Charlie Moto and Jules Strongbow. We were building to a big show at the L.A. Coliseum with the Kentuckians and that’s when the Watts race riots broke out. We were supposed to run on a Sunday night, and at the last minute -- a few days before -- they made us change it to an afternoon show. We still drew about two thirds of the house. If we could have ran at normal time we would have been turning 'em away.

K-W: Where did the Assassins go after Los Angeles?

JH: Japan.

K-W: That was your first overseas trip?

JH: Yeah.

K-W: How many tours of Japan have you done?

JH: Oh God!! (Joe laughs)

K-W: That many?

JH: Oh yeah.

K-W: How did you like the change in style from the US to Japan?

JH: I didn’t change my style.

K-W: You just got hit harder right?

JH: No.... That's all bullshit about how tough those guys are over there. They ain’t shit over there.

K-W: Where else outside the US have you worked?

JH: I worked Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, South America, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok. Then we had a tour that started in England, and went to France, Germany, Spain and South Africa.

K-W: Where is your favorite place to work?

JH: Probably Georgia.

K-W: How about outside the States? Where was your favorite place to be?

JH: Whatever airline was taking me back to the states.

K-W: Great answer! Let’s talk a little about the promotional war after Gunkel died. Was there actually any violence between the two groups?

JH: No, there were threats but they made damn sure about who they threatened. We had a guy named Ricky Hunter working for us and a couple of guys who were supposed to be his friends threatened to beat the shit out of him but nothing ever happened. There was just a lot of talk and nothing else.

K-W: Do you believe that, if the Gunkel promotion had survived, it would have become a separate entity like the AWA and been competitive with the NWA?

JH: We were a strong alternative to the NWA. We kicked the shit out of them in every town we ran. The only town we didn’t kick the shit out of them was Columbus, GA, and that’s because Fred Ward double-crossed Ann after he committed to go with her. He apparently had a secret confab with Eddie Graham, who came up from Florida and made him some kind of offer. Supposedly a better deal than Ann had agreed to. It was very last minute and, well, Ward always hated Ray, so he really didn’t have much allegiance to Ann. Fred Ward was never really what I would call a stand up guy anyway.

K-W: So what finally brought that two year long war to an end?

JH: Well, Jim Barnett was in constant negotiation with Ann. The “girls” would sit down and talk. You know? Jim had a great deal of influence on Ann, and Ann had lost a good bit of money. She certainly wasn’t making any by that time. We lost the Bell Auditorium in Augusta. The drunken fool she had running it, Steve Manderson, lost it for us. He lost it for us over $250.00.

K-W: $250.00?

JH: Yes that was the bid. Barnett outbid him by $250.00, and the building management told him the building was ours if he matched the bid. We had been there for a long time and they would give us an exclusive if he matched Barnett’s bid. He was probably drunk at the time -- like most of the time -- and called them a bunch of thieves and refused to do it. By the time Ann and the rest found what the dumb son-of-a-bitch had done it was too late. The building management had signed a lease with a no compete clause with Barnett.

K-W: And that was the beginning of the end?

JH: Yeah. We were doing big business in Atlanta, running every week head-to-head with them. We were on Tuesday and they were on Friday. They were doing pretty good business in Atlanta. We were selling out Augusta every week, and they couldn’t even get in a building. They were doing business in Columbus -- we weren’t doing great there. We weren’t losing money but we weren’t making any either. Dick Steinborn was running a little armory and the crowds we were drawing were almost as good as Fred Ward was getting at the City Auditorium. We didn’t run Macon. They were but they weren’t drawing much so we didn’t bother. Athens, we were doing well. We had the J&J Center there and we drew well. We ran little spot shows all over and did well. We were out drawing the NWA most everywhere we ran. Then we lost Augusta, and that was the beginning of a procession of things I suppose. Thunderbolt Patterson had a great deal to do with it Tom had made the mistake of putting too much weight on his shoulders and he wasn’t a stand up guy. He tried to hold Ann up. He tried to force her to give him a huge percentage of the business and they had words and Mr. Patterson found himself no longer employed by us. That hurt because Tom had really built him up.

K-W: So Patterson was the top babyface? Who else was there?

JH: You had me and my brother, and we brought in Ernie Ladd and Tarzan Tyler and guys like that to help out. That’s one of the things that kept us going. We were selling out Savannah every week, and they weren’t drawing shit in Savannah.

So between us losing Augusta and the mess with Patterson and constant pressure from Barnett, it finally got to the point that Ann just sold it.

K-W: I guess she just had enough?

JH: Well they offered her a great deal. She recouped all her money. I can’t fault Ann she always treated me right. Whatever she said she did. About 6 weeks before she sold out, Rock Hunter and I invested $15,000.00 each into the company for booking rights for South Carolina. We had secured TV in several towns in South Carolina. We started running stuff in South Carolina and we were doing pretty good. Then all of a sudden the deal was made and nobody knew about it. Tom was not in a position to call me. They had Tom tied up with Eddie Graham. The deal was that Tom would go with Eddie to the different TV stations as a representitive of Gunkel Enterprises, to switch out the tapes from ours to the Florida tapes. So Tom was flying from town to town in Eddie’s plane with him and he couldn’t get in touch with me. When I finally found out what happened, I contacted Ann and asked about our money. She promised that we would get every penny back. She kept her word. Both Rock and I saw every cent of our money back.

K-W: C.W. Hall asks about a tag match in July of '72 in Charlotte where the Bolo team came in and dropped the Brass Knux trophy to the team of Johnny Weaver and Art Nelson. Why was there only that one match and no rematch?

JH: Okay, that was going to be a program of matches. We had a rematch in Spartanburg and I think a few more but then Ray died and Ann left the NWA. We went with Ann so Crockett dropped the program.

K-W: Did you enjoy working with Dusty Rhodes?

JH: I enjoyed the money I made working with Dusty.

K-W: What were your feelings on the other guys using your gimmick?

JH: I really didn’t care. What’s the old saying, often imitated never duplicated?

K-W: You knew David Sierra from your Florida days. Did you have any issue with him using the gimmick? Since you knew each other, did he ever ask you about using it or tell you in advance or anything?

JH: Dave is a good friend. I had no problem with him doing it. No, he never said a word about it to me. He just did it and I used to rib him all the time about it. I’d call him chicken shit for not telling me about it, but he knew I really didn’t care.

K-W: How many other Assassin partners did you have after Tom retired?

JH: Three. Ray Fernandez, Roger Smith and Randy Culley. Culley & Smith continued to work as the Assassin team in the Memphis area. Also we put the mask on Saito, but that was just to have him at ringside to interfere in my matches, but we never tagged so he was never really an Assassin.

K-W: In what way do you feel The Assassins changed tag team wrestling?

JH: I think we were the first really fluid team. I think we were the first to introduce moves we worked together on. No one had seen a team like us before. Working together was so easy for us -- it was like we could read each other's minds.

K-W: Did you ever worked with Mil Mascaras, and if so, what you thought of him?

JH: Yes, he came in for Gunkel and he was the shits as a worker and the shits as a person.

K-W: You already told us your pick for most talented and underrated wrestler in Sonny Myers. Now let’s look at the other side of the coin. Who do you think was the most overrated and untalented performer to ever get a real push?

JH: THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR!

K-W: Let’s play a little word association. Just give me your thoughts on these guys. DUSTY RHODES

JH: A great mind for the business.

K-W: RIC FLAIR

JH: A phenomenon! To do the things he does in the ring at his age and for all he has been through in his life he is a phenomenon.

K-W: PAUL JONES, the wrestler

JH: He was a hustler. I never had any problems with Paul, we always got along, but he was a hustler.

K-W: MR. WRESTLING II

JH: Well he was a little something where ever channel 17 was seen, but other than that he never drew much. He worked for me in Deep South Championship Wrestling and when Joe Pedicino started his promotion, 2 screwed me and went to work for him. When he found out Pedicino wasn’t paying his talent he came back and like a dummy I took him back and he screwed me and left again.

K-W: BOB ARMSTRONG

JH: A good friend. A stand up guy.

K-W: VINCE McMAHON, SR.

JH: A gentlemen.

K-W: Not sure if you want to go there, since you work for him, but VINCE McMAHON, JR.

JH: Oh hell, I don’t give a shit. He is a genius. I don’t have to like everything he has done to the business. But to take a regional company and take it world wide and make it a billion dollar -- not multi million dollar -- but billion dollar industry, and to get it on the New York stock exchange… the man is a genius. The thing I think he has done that is the best is the boys pay is finally in line with other professional athletes. No matter what anyone thinks about his product, you have to give him credit for that.

K-W: EDDIE GRAHAM

JH: Brilliant, when he was sober. . When he was drunk he was not very pleasant to be around.

K-W: MIKE GRAHAM

JH: Mike is a great worker who never got much credit. He was a good little amateur and Mike worked his ass off. He paid his dues. He took a lot of heat from people who had problems with his father.

K-W: JIM BARNETT As a promoter? As a person?

JH: Jim was an excellent promoter, as a person we became friends at WCW, when he no longer owned a territory and was working for someone else he was a completely different person, during my active days in the ring Jim and I clashed many times over different issues but got to be friends at WCW and remained friends until his death.

K-W: Who were the best and worst promoters you ever worked for?

JH: Jim Crockett, Sr, & Vince, Sr. were the best, Ernie Mohammed was the worst.

K-W: Who was your favorite guy to work against?

JH: Dick Steinborn. We once did a 2 hour 45 minute match with no falls and we kept the crowd.

K-W: Your least favorite guy to work with?

JH: Mr. Clean, Ernie Bemis. He was the shits!

K-W: During WWF’s big expansion in the mid 80s it seems like everyone worked for them at least for a while. Why did we never see The Assassin working in the WWF?

JH: I was busy doing other things.

K-W: Did you have issues with Vince, Jr. or the way he was taking the product?

JH: No, not at all. I was just doing other things. Guys I knew who worked up there told me to give Vince a call but I just wasn’t that interested. I had my promotion and my training school and that was keeping me busy.

K-W: That was Deep South Championship Wrestling, right?

JH: Yep. I started it around the end of '85 and sold the promotion in '88 but kept the training school open. It eventually turned into WCW’s Power Plant.

K-W: Tell us about The Flame. Why did you do it and whose idea was it?

JH: Well Randy Culley and Roger Smith had assassinated the Assassin gimmick. They had totally killed it in the Southeastern area. So for me to come in as The Assassin and try to fix it would have been way too hard. So I came up with The Flame.

K-W: Michael Christopher wanted to know if there was ever any thought of your brother Larry donning the mask and becoming an Assassin after Tom retired?

JH: No never.

K-W: After reading your book, I get the impression that you don’t have much use for managers. Why is that?

JH: Most managers just do too much and detract from their wrestler. If they are constantly jumping up and down and pounding on the mat, and all it means nothing when they interfere. They have drawn too much attention to themselves and taken heat away from the wrestler. The best managers are guys who do very little at ringside -- only being noticed when they do something to distract the ref or help their man.

K-W: What was the best rib you have ever been a part of or witnessed?

JH: The Mabel Party. We pulled that one on a few guys in Amarillo.

K-W: That’s a popular one how about a story the fans probably have never heard before?

JH: OK, this is going back a bit. Lou Thesz used to own a film editing company in Hollywood. He used to be involved with an actress named Mona Freeman. They were sitting poolside one day at the Hollywood Health Club and Vic Christy was in the pool. He kept swimming by and splashing Thesz and his girlfriend. Lou finally got up and told Vic if he did it again he was gonna beat the shit out of him. Vic gets out of the pool and goes inside. He comes out fully dressed in a suit and a tie. Back then that’s just how you always dressed. So he walks by a table with a pitcher of ice water on it and takes the pitcher and dumps it on Lou and Mona. Lou jumps up and shoves Vic into the pool. Vic comes up hysterically laughing and Lou finally realizes that Vic is wearing his suit. Lou just ruined his own probably pretty expensive suit when he threw Vic in the pool

K-W: We have three questions from Terry Arnold. First, what was your foreign object of choice?

JH: No one ever proved I used anything, I have said all along that I had never used anything like that, and when asked why did you put your hand in your trunks? It was simply an equipment adjustment.

K-W: Second, Were you ever recognized by fans from either your voice or physical appearance?

JH: Once in a great while it would happen but not often. I made sure I didn't go the places that I knew fans went to.

K-W: And Terry’s last question is If you had the unlimited funds to start up a new wrestling company, and you were going to use current talent, who would be the four or five guys you would build the company around?

JH: Well I would say HHH and kids from my school.

K-W: current top name talent?

JH: Okay. HHH, Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit, Kane and The Undertaker.

K-W: What are your goals with Deep South Championship Wrestling?

JH: I am not worried about the promotion. It will take care of itself. My concern is the training school. I want to be sure the quality of the training the kids will receive always be the best it can, like it has since I opened it.

K-W: Who are your trainers?

JH: Dave Taylor and Bill DeMott.

K-W: What do you do in your spare time when you are away from wrestling?

JH: Think about wrestling. Its been my whole life for 50 years.

K-W: Anything you would like to say to your fans?

JH: READ THE BOOK! I think they will have a whole new perspective on me and the business to an extent. I didn’t pull any punches with it. I nailed a few guy’s asses to the barn door that I felt needed their asses nailed to the barn door and I’ll stand by it till the day I die. If they read it they probably ain’t gonna like it and I really don’t give a damn.

For information on how to order your own copy of ASSASSIN: THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK, or just to find out more about The Assassin, go to Crowbar Press

To find out more about Deep South Wrestling, visit their official web site: DSWrestling.com

** A big thank you to everybody who took part in this interview, especially Mr. Hamilton, himself **

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