Preface
Now, if you have a keen eye, you might be thinking to yourself: James, aren’t you just reusing a prior article? Well, the answer to this question is yes and no. Yes, as I have covered this book just a few weeks ago as part of an edition of This Week in Death. But also no, as I’ve decide to take the original article and expand upon it. In the making of this expansion, I even had to pleasure of speaking to the Mad Man himself: Mad Man Pondo. We sat down to discuss this book and this is the final product of both my original article and our conversation. I truly thank Mad Man Pondo for his time answering the few lingering questions I had at the end of the book. And I hope you all enjoy this extended article and check out the featured book while you’re at it.
Growing up, I was never a fan of reading; I would honestly even go as far to say that I hated reading. I had always associated reading with school; specifically having to understand a book the same way as my teachers in order to pass their tests. And why would I wanna read when I could go watch cartoons? Or play with my wrestling figures? Or go play some video games? Though as the years have passed, I’ve slowly but surely become someone who actively seeks out reading and literature. I’m now more accustomed to reading and have been trying as I might to catch up on all the reading I’ve missed in my formative years. With this newfound enjoyment of reading, I’ve decided to mix this activity I’ve grown to love with something else I enjoy: Deathmatch Wrestling. And at this cross-section of interests is where I’ve decided to start this new segment: the Deathmatch Book Club.
For my first entry in this series, I decided to dive into the story of one of the essential figures of American Deathmatch Wrestling: Mad Man Pondo. His book, Memoirs of a Mad Man, follows the life and times of the titular Mad Man Pondo. You follow Pondo all along his life; from his younger years, growing up and watching wrestling. Through starting his career and making his name in IWA Mid-South. And even some of Pondo’s exploits closer to the modern day. I can only imagine how hard it can be to encapsulate your life in a book; even with the help of an author like John Cosper. Surprisingly, according to Mad Man Pondo, the final product that came to be, released exactly as it should’ve.
All those stories came from things that happened so no regrets. The only regret was the Jos LeDuc story when John Cosper wrote the line “my stupid friends.” Really that was the only thing. I didn’t even ask him to take that out of there…My friends weren’t really stupid. We were just all shocked…Other than that, everything else [was] great.
Memoirs of a Mad Man takes a different approach to telling Pondo’s story. Rather than being a full recounting of Pondo’s own life in his own voice, he has a little help from others who got to share their stories of Mad Man Pondo. These names include wrestlers like Terry Funk, Chris Hero, and Pondo’s long time tag team partner, 2 Tuff Tony. You’ll also get to hear from others from outside the world of pro wrestling. These include names like former Survivor contestant, Jonny Fairplay; who invited Pondo to his wedding where Pondo stapled money to himself for Jonny’s gift. The book even opens with a foreword from rapper, Vanilla Ice; recounting how he went from calling him Stop Sign Guy, to his proper ring name. While there are a number of individuals that offered their perspectives of Pondo for his book, there were three notable names that Pondo wanted to get for the book but couldn’t.
New Jack. He didn’t wanna put anything in my book. Which really floored me because we always got along. We got along great…When it came to this book he kept saying “I don’t remember anything.”…and I was like “Ok, no problem.” I had a few New Jack stories but I couldn’t put them in there because he wouldn’t collaborate on them but now I think I’m ok to put them in the second book. And then Abdullah [The Butcher] wanted money… And then Sandman said the same thing [as New Jack]: he didn’t remember much.
With Mad Man Pondo’s years of wrestling, there are several of different stories of the ring in this book. You hear of Pondo’s early years of wrestling where he got to wrestle in Herb Abrams’ UWF, and got to tryout for Extreme Championship Wrestling during the company’s heyday. You’ll also hear of his travels to countries like Japan, Australia and England. And on the more comical side, you’ll read about how he used a stale breadstick as a weapon during a match with a promoter. Of course you still get the more serious moments of Pondo’s life and career. One in particular being the fracturing and gluing of his own skull.
…whenever anyone asks if wrestling is real, I always ask to see their hand and run it across that super glued bump just to show them. And when I tell them the story it always get a pretty good reaction out of people.…And I didn’t get it all filled in which really messed me up for a good long month and a half.
You’ll find that there’s of course a lot to tell about Pondo’s life and endeavors outside of the ring. As a member of the Juggalo Championship Wrestling roster, he found his way on stage and got to dance with MC Hammer. While traveling, he made a stop to try and meet Jesco White of Dancing Outlaw fame. Pondo also shares a bit about one of his creative endeavors outside the ring: Skull Talk. Skull Talk was a crude public access television show created by the Mad Man himself.
In between [girlfriends, divorces and moving houses] I’ve lost so much stuff that I used to have. And videotapes are one of them that are just gone. I have no clue where they are now…A wrestler gave me Volumes 1 & 2 but I just don’t have a VCR to watch them. But I have two episodes here. It’s something that would never be able to be put on YouTube because every episode had topless chicks in it.
While a crude and distasteful show like Skull Talk would seemingly run any person in television out of business, this was not the case for Pondo. Skull Talk only managed to push him up the ladder and onto one of the most popular day-time television shows of all time: The Jerry Springer Show. Pondo recounts his first time on Springer in the book, where he managed to get himself banned, unbanned and hired as a Casting Agent. With the recent and unfortunate passing of Jerry Springer, I was curious to find out just how much Pondo got to work with the late Springer.
[I didn’t work] so much [with] Jerry. But there was two producers: Toby & Kitchy…I kept getting them guests…One time I booked a whole show for them. At least one of my guests was in each segment…I would talk to Jerry. Steve wasn’t too big a fan of mine because I tricked him on the show and he wasn’t too happy with me…Jerry was always a really nice guy…if you pass him in the hallway and he’ll say at least hi. He was that kind of guy.
On the lighter side, you also get to hear about Mad Man Pondo as part of the Backyard Wrestling series of Video Games. What started with getting drinks with Kevin Gill would turn into two different licensed Video Game appearances. During that period of time, Mad Man Pondo would recount the tragic fate of his beloved Xbox console and how it went up in smoke while on tour in England.
I was in the room next to M-Dogg [Matt Cross] and Josh Prohibition and they heard [my Xbox] explode and they [came] running. And they said when I opened my door I just had a raccoon black mark all the way across both of my eyes. [I was] so crushed because I had it modded to play…burned discs. It would play those and I had…all the older video games…After the people in England gave me another one I just went and had it redone and it was all back to normal. And I learned my lesson not to take my Xbox to other countries.
Referring back to the different approach to storytelling, some may be put off by the narrative style the book presents as it is not told in a start-to-finish order. Instead of that traditional telling, Mad Man Pondo opts to tell his life in a series of stories that bounce around the different years of his life and career. Personally, I prefer this memoir style of as it feels almost as if Pondo was sitting down with you and sharing assorted life stories. It feels much realer than if he were to recount the happenings in his life from birth to the time of writing and it is a style I would love to see more in the genre.
As we were wrapping up our discussion, I couldn’t help but ask about what someone could take away from this book after finishing it. Most people that write and release a book, tend to always have some kind of intentions behind the words written on the page. While I wasn’t expecting an answer in any certain direction, the answer I did get was a quite an insightful one.
When John Cosper kept asking me to write a book…I was really against it because I didn’t want it to just sit on somebody’s shelf or some wrestling fan [buys] it and [doesn’t] read it…But I made it to where it was entertaining enough that if somebody started reading it they wouldn’t want to put it down. That’s why some of the stories that should’ve been in the middle [were] in the beginning because [they were] some of the most entertaining stories…A lot of books you read there’s no comedy to it or no action to it. But I wanted people to read that book and then [visualize] whether it be funny, terrible or sad…and then make your own choice how you felt about it. And I think John Cosper did an awesome job on that.
When I pass away, I’m the guy who doesn’t want to have a funeral. I’m not going to have a funeral. I’ve already told my parents, my kids, a little bit of everybody…do not have a funeral for me. [Because] I’m a guy who doesn’t want people sitting around a room crying about me. I want people to remember the wrestling stuff I did or remember the funny stuff that I did. I want to be remembered like that. Not that I looked dead laying in a box. So this book after I pass away, I bet a whole bunch more people will get a hold of it and read it and realize “Oh, we didn’t know this guy was like that after all.” Because to this day, I get people thinking that I’m really the Mad Man Pondo character. That I really smack my head and that I’m psycho…I also want people to realize that there was another guy behind that character.
As for my take away from reading: I believe that Mad Man Pondo may possibly be the Deathmatch Forrest Gump in that he has lived a full life multiple times over and he’s still kicking. Mad Man Pondo has brushed shoulders with wrestling legends, musical artists, and actors. He’s been in video games, movies, television, and even has a song written about him. He’s wrestled everywhere from his hometown to all around the globe. And I know when the reaper comes to take me away, I’ll hope that I’ve lived even a fraction as much as Mad Man Pondo. Memoirs of a Mad Man can be found both physically and digitally through Amazon, so feel free to give it a read and let me know what you think. And with his recent return to Japan for Big Japan Pro-Wrestling, Pondo confirmed to me that he is working with artist Sei Ozawa to translate the book into Japanese. I highly recommend this book for any fans of Deathmatch Wrestling, or anybody who enjoys hearing from a guy with stories to tell.
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