Several professional wrestlers can boast of having fought the Ferré Giant. Others had the chance to become a local hero, while others became WWE Champions. But in the history of wrestling, only one wrestler went to school with Saddam Hussein!
Adnan Alkaissy, who died on Wednesday at the age of 84, met all of these criteria.
Alkaissy was born in Baghdad, Iraq, on March 1, 1939, exactly six months before the start of World War II. In his country of origin he played football and practiced freestyle wrestling.
In 1957, he received a scholarship to play football at the University of Houston, but instead ended up at Oklahoma State University and excelled in freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. However, he cannot be part of the American team because he is not an American citizen. In addition, newspapers of the time incorrectly reported that he represented Iraq in wrestling at the 1952 Olympics. Not only was Alkaissy only 13 years old, but Iraq simply did not take part in the Helsinki Games and the following ones in Melbourne.
Yvon Robert, an important meeting
Two years later, in 1959, Alkaissy recalled meeting Quebec wrestler Yvon Robert, the “Lion of French Canada,” considered the best Quebec wrestler of all time.
When Alkaissy left Iraq, he crossed the Atlantic from France to New York. Yvon Robert also returned from the Old Continent on the same ship of the line.
After getting to know Alkaissy and since he was a wrestler, Robert gave him his first professional wrestling lessons on the ship and suggested that he make the jump to the professionals after completing his studies.
“I was on a boat from France to America when I met him,” Alkaissy told me on the phone when I interviewed him for the book about the Giant Ferré. He came up to me and asked me what my name was, but I didn’t speak English well. I had people from Iraq to translate. He told me he was a world champion and wanted to train with me, at half speed, not full speed. When I went to the University of Houston, he gave me a letter for sponsors Paul Boesh and Morris Siegel. He also gave me $100. I cried like a baby. He told me to call him whenever I was in Montreal.
Alkaissy continues.
“Years later, I came to Montreal for just two days. At this point he was retired. I called him and he said, “Who is that?” I said, “Do you remember meeting a young wrestler from Baghdad on a ship from France?” He said, “Oh my God, yes!” And so we met again. He is the best man I have ever met in my life.
Alkaissy therefore remembered Robert’s advice and in July 1959 he made his professional debut in Texas under the name Adnan Kaisy (sometimes spelled Kaissy or Kaissie). At the time, several wrestlers from Quebec were fighting in Texas, including Maurice Vachon, Frank Valois and Ovila Asselin, and Alkaissy competed against all of them.
He fights in Texas, but also in New Mexico and Oklahoma. In 1960 he left the southern United States and moved to Portland, Oregon. He changed his character for promoter Don Owen and became a First Nations wrestler named Billy White Wolf. It was the name he kept throughout the 1960s, no matter where he fought. This decade will also see him meet the love of his life, Kathy, and become an American citizen.
While he works most often in Oregon, he also wrestles in Texas, Hawaii, Australia and Japan. In addition to Japan, he won the major titles in each of these territories and fought against the crème de la crème of the era, such as Killer Kowalski, Dory Funk Jr., Peter Maivia (the grandfather of rock) and Nick Bockwinkel.
Saddam Hussein, from childhood friend to future dictator
Plagued by deep homesickness, he eventually left Portland in late 1969, ten years after his debut as a professional wrestler, to return home to Iraq. On the way to Baghdad he stopped in England, where he wrestled for a few months starting in December 1969. There he met André the Giant for the first time.
“I told him I was going back to Baghdad and I asked him if he would like to go there one day,” Alkaissy recalls. He said yes straight away!”
Back in Baghdad, Alkaissy meets an old friend with whom he attended high school, a certain Saddam Hussein.
“Hussein loved volleyball and basketball, but I couldn’t convince him to wrestle,” Alkaissy said in an interview. Even at that age he had demon eyes. He could look at you for a minute or two without blinking. It was scary!”
In 1970, Hussein was no longer a teenager. Two years earlier, he was one of the leaders of the July 17 Revolution that brought the Iraqi regional branch of the Arab socialist Baath Party to power. When Alkaissy returns home, Hussein is vice president of the Revolutionary Command Council, a position he holds until 1979, when he becomes President of Iraq.
Alkaissy’s wrestling achievements were well known in his homeland, so Hussein asked to meet him and told him he was a national hero.
“We will take care of you,” Saddam promised Alkaissy. We don’t ask you to stay. We expect you to stay here. It’s our home. You will stay there.”
Therefore, even if Alkaissy intended to spend the holidays there, he has no choice but to stay in Iraq.
The time when the Ferré giant had the fear of his life!
So he starts promoting fights, usually epic clashes between a foreign wrestler and himself, in which the national hero always wins. The first guest is the Canadian George Gordienko, followed shortly afterwards by the Scottish wrestler Ian Campbell and the American Bob Roop.
But on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Iraqi army, a national holiday there, the government is emphasizing Army Day more than ever. Dignitaries from all over the world are invited. For this occasion, Alkaissy always wants a taller man than his opponent and therefore chooses André. The game is scheduled for January 6, 1971, the very day of the celebrations.
André arrives in Iraq a week early to fulfill promotional obligations.
“I put him up in the Sahara Hotel,” Alkaissy says in his book, and they had to build a custom-made bed for him. We also had a very large Mercedes with four armed guards. André couldn’t believe it. I remember he went shopping one day and came back with a pair of custom-made shoes from a luxury store in downtown Baghdad. They were so impressed with the size of her feet that they made an extra pair in her size to display in their window. The shoes sat there for years!”
The fight is scheduled for two out of three. Alkaissy planned to win the first fall by disqualification, lose the second and win the deciding fall. Shortly before the game, Saddam meets Alkaissy. On the other hand, although he has become a fan of wrestling for some time, he does not know that the matches are scripted.
“Win, Adnan, win! Hussein orders. We are all counting on you! This guy is big, but he’s just a wimp. I know you can beat him. If he hurts you in any way, this is what he will get!”
Saddam half opens his coat and shows Alkaissy a solid gold revolver.
“I will put all the bullets from my barrel into his big head and send him back to France in a coffin!”
After this pep talk, Alkaissy decides to change the battle plan and win the second fall as well, unsure if Saddam understands the concept of a two-out-of-three fight. In the second fall he even manages to get onto the giant.
The game at Al-Shaab Stadium is sold out, thousands are turned away at the gates. All prominent members of the government and all ambassadors present in the country will take part in the event of national importance. As is their custom, a thousand Iraqi commandos fire their rifles into the air to celebrate their hero when Alkaissy’s victory is confirmed. André, he doesn’t understand what’s happening and wonders if he’s not being shot at.
“He sat down and rolled out of the arena before hiding underneath,” Alkaissy recalls. The poor thing was almost in tears.”
The show is the most successful of all that Alkaissy has ever produced. He then asks André to stay another week so they can wage a revenge battle in the town of Kut, 175 km south of Baghdad. For this second fight, André receives $10,000, but most importantly, he is promised that he won’t get shot this time!
André finally meets Saddam and Saddam even takes the liberty of giving him some advice: lose weight if he wants to be successful in battle!
Nevertheless, the memory of the enormous terror that André felt during this journey remained anchored in him forever. During an interview with presenter Pierre Nadeau on Radio-Québec (now Télé-Québec), André spoke about these stressful moments:
“The hotel was about two kilometers from the stadium. To enter the hotel I sat in a Mercedes with a police car in front of me and a police car behind me. Police officers sat in police cars and fired submachine guns and blank cartridges over people’s heads. This is the last time I traveled to Iraq!”
When Alkaissy sees the giant again in America five years later, he remembers their struggles well:
“André told me that he enjoyed the games in Iraq. I found him more experienced and his timing was better than during our confrontation. At this point he only had a few years of professional experience.
Alkaissy made his fortune organizing these clashes, but when the political situation in Iraq changed, he was advised to return to the United States, to a place that would be safer for him. Saddam no longer needs him and his life could be in danger. He therefore leaves behind a fortune estimated at two million dollars and leaves the country.
“I was afraid that if I left with my money, Saddam would have sent someone to kill me. If I had stayed four or five months longer, they would have taken care of me.”
WWE Tag Team Champions
Before returning to America, he traveled through Japan, where he fought, among others, the legend Antonio Inoki. In Florida, he returned to North America under the name Adnan Kassie before making his debut for Vince McMahon Sr.’s WWWF (now WWE) under his character Billy White Wolf.
Teaming with Chief Jay Strongbow, Alkaissy won the vacant WWWF tag team titles in December 1976, defeating the team of Nikolai Volkoff and Tor Kamata. But in August 1977, a neck injury forced Alkaissy to undergo surgery. In the storyline, Ken Patera is accused of injuring his neck with his double nelson grip and the tag team titles are declared vacant.
Instead of returning to the WWWF, he traveled to Hawaii before landing in Minneapolis for Verne Gagne’s AWA in 1981, where he worked under the name Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie. He remained there until 1989, and because injuries began to slow him down, in addition to wrestling, he became manager of sheikhs Jerry Blackwell and Ken Patera, two Americans who were awarded a keffiyeh, that traditional medium-sized headdress. Patera calls himself Sheikh Lawrence of Arabia while Blackwell becomes Sheikh Ayatollah! They would win the company tag team titles against the High Flyers, Jim Brunzell and Greg Gagne.
In the arena, Alkaissy still faces many stars like Verne Gagne, Mad Dog Vachon and Shawn Michaels. And in November 1988, in a match that would reflect his future, he found himself in the Iron Sheik’s corner as he faced Sgt. Butcher. In fact, the three would later belong to the same clan, this time in WWE.
The Gulf War, in a WWF ring
In the summer of 1990, Alkaissy returned to the WWF, now managed by Vince McMahon Jr.
The latter is looking for a villain and when Sgt. Slaughter offers him his services, McMahon offers him to become an anti-American.
The reason?
Because Russian Nikolai Volkoff is now a babyface and Slaughter wouldn’t have liked the Americans to accept Volkoff. A contrast for the experienced wrestler, who until then played the role of an American soldier, a real version of GI Joe.
But on August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait, which would lead to the Gulf War. This war between the United States and its allies (including Canada) and Iraq will last only six months but will still result in tens of thousands of deaths.
As always in the history of wrestling, McMahon decides to take inspiration from real life to give a new twist to a character. In fact, Slaughter becomes an Iraqi sympathizer.
At this point he was paired with Alkaissy, who would later become General Adnan, a general in the Iraqi Army, a role he could easily play. What’s more, he looks a lot like Hussein in his new outfit, so much so that McMahon’s right-hand man, Quebec native Pat Patterson, is stunned!
After a rivalry against Volkoff and another against American “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, Slaughter and Adnan were sent against the WWF Champion, the Ultimate Warrior. At the 1991 Royal Rumble, Slaughter won the title.
With WrestleMania 7 just a few months away, the goal is to fill the gigantic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which can hold around 100,000 people. What better fight than that between Slaughter and the man looking to regain the title he lost in Toronto at WrestleMania 6, the “Real American” Hulk Hogan!
We even go so far as to create a photo montage in which we see Adnan, Hussein and Slaughter. But when Vince asks Slaughter to burn the American flag, he refuses. Instead, we’ll burn a Hulkamania flag!
Despite some exaggeration, all the elements for success should be there, right?
All but one. Crowd support.
In fact, the amateurs either bought Slaughter not as champion, Hogan not as a contender, or the Iraqi sympathizer story, but only 14,000 tickets had found takers when it was decided in February 1991 to move WrestleMania to the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, an amphitheater with Seating less than 20,000, it was then home to the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers.
If the reason given by the WWF side is that the safety of the people there would be at risk because of the character Slaughter played, the reality is that we did not want to present WrestleMania in a stadium that was filled to 15% capacity. And the fact that no one asked for a refund when the change was made proves that the number of tickets sold was low. Overall, fan interest in the show is weak, while the number of purchases on PPV will be down 27% compared to last year.
On March 24, 1991, Slaughter lost the title to Hogan in Los Angeles with Adnan at his side. Immediately after WrestleMania, we persisted and signed, adding a third member to Slaughter and Adnan’s team, none other than the Iron Sheik, who was renamed Colonel Mustafa.
So much so that at SummerSlam 1991, presented to a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Triangle of Terror, as they were known, faced Hogan and the Warrior in a handicap match. The evening is titled “Match in Heaven, Match in Hell” as the other attraction of the evening is the wedding of “Macho Man” Randy Savage and the beautiful Elizabeth. Few people knew they had actually been married since 1984!
During this time, Alkaissy wrestled in a series of untelevised matches against Duggan as well as a singles match against Hogan en route to WrestleMania. After SummerSlam, Slaughter will face Adnan and Mustafa in what will be two-on-one matches. Adnan continued to manage Mustafa until his departure shortly after the 1992 Royal Rumble.
Although he officially retired from the ring in 1998, his career was all but over after his retirement from the WWF.
It’s hard to get rid of Saddam
In 2005, he published his autobiography, a book that, according to Alkaissy himself, would never have seen the light of day when Saddam Hussein was in power. His family would have been killed. He never returned to his homeland during the dictator’s rule.
All in all, a fulfilling life and career.
He was sitting on that famous plane when Maurice Vachon opened the door mid-flight. While fighting in Texas, he was in downtown Dallas when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In the famous U.S. government deck of cards featuring photos of desperately wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s government, most of the faces were acquaintances or teenage neighbors of Alkaissy.
Furthermore, despite his successes in combat, his time in Iraq and his ties to Saddam will forever haunt him.
“I am happy that he is being tried and I hope that God can see him when he is executed,” he said in a 2005 interview. “When I go home, I know I can take care of him.” I want to be there, see it and take photos of it. If the bullet passes through his body, hits the wall and becomes a 50 cent coin, I will pick it up and bring it back.
His wish will not come true as Hussein will be hanged in a military camp.
Still, Alkaissy, who has become a proud American, leaves wrestling fans a legacy of four children and plenty of memories.