Columnist John Katsilometes: Recalling a giant figure

Monday, Oct. 30, 2000 | 9:27 a.m.

John Katsilometes is the Sun features editor. His column appears Mondays. Reach him at kats@lasvegassun.com or 259-2327.

Professional wrestlers who ascend to superstar status always have a "hook."

Back in the '70s Stan Hanson had the Lariat. It was a move where he'd fling his opponent into the ropes and clothesline him with his right arm. Hanson wore a black leather brace around his right elbow, and when he leveled an opponent with the Lariat it was (as he would intone) "Lights out, baby doll!"

Some claimed Hanson concealed a "foreign object" in his black band to make the Lariat even more debilitating. But the referees, natch, never caught him cheating.

These days the hooks take the form of ghastly masks (Mankind), coolers full of beer (Steve Austin), or a mere cock of the eyebrow (The Rock).

Yokozuna's hook was his mass. At 700 pounds, and apparently climbing, Yokozuna died Monday in a hotel room in England. The former World Wrestling Federation champ was barnstorming through Britain, where he was certainly wowing British kids with his enormous size and similarly massive personality.

I met Yokozuna a couple of years ago, the same time I first encountered Buffalo Jim Barrier. Buffalo Jim was launching his Buffalo Wrestling Federation on Industrial Road and I went down to catch his first fight card. I walked into Buffalo's office, which is about as tidy as the set of "Sanford and Son," and asked about his organization.

Now, Buffalo is a stunning figure -- bearded, long-haired, loud and unkempt. His hook is his gruff. And he kept saying, "Man, you gotta meet Yokozuna." He might as well have been saying Godzilla; I had no idea who this man was.

I soon found out.

Buffalo's inaugural event was held a few paces down from his office, next to the Crazy Horse Too dance club. It wasn't an arena, or even a gym. It was a garage. And it was stuffed with bloodthirsty wrestling fans.

Buffalo walked in, to a big cheer, and he was followed by Yokozuna. The place seemed to inflate when he entered the room. Yokozuna was huge and he knew it. He was the type of man who could toss Hulk Hogan around like a hay bale -- which he did in 1993 when he won the WWF championship from the Hulkster.

By 1998 Yokozuna's role was to lend the BWF some invaluable star power. He spoke of teaching "proper techniques" to Buffalo's odd collection of aspiring wrestlers. But whatever fundamentals Yokozuna was able to convey had to be limited -- he weighed 580 pounds at the time, was not fit and was glowing with sweat just sitting in his chair. Buffalo Jim bragged of his "agility," but mostly I felt Yokozuna -- sweet as he was -- was more a sympathetic figure. The kids in attendance reacted to him as a nonhuman, like a Muppet or H.R. Pufinstuff.

Inevitably, as it happens in pro wrestling, Yokozuna and Buffalo Jim had a falling out. Yokozuna gravitated to a short-lived splinter organization, Sin City Wrestling, then vanished from our air space. Then word came that he had died, overseas, probably of a heart attack or some other weight-related malady. He was only 34.

Pro wrestlers hate the word "fake" affixed to their sport. They prefer "predetermined." And the demise of Yokozuna, whose real name was Rodney Anoai, was sadly that.