Ahh, Buddy Rose, from Las Vegas, Nevada, weighing in at 217 pounds, arguably the greatest heel this territory had ever seen.

Funny thing about the Playboy, we, me and my young mark friends, used to refer to him as Buddy the bleeder, if 'red turned to green' Buddy must have kept the promoters in fancy cars, champagne and filet mignon.

Hard to think of a place to start with Buddy.  I first remember seeing Buddy as an associate of Apache Bull Ramos.  The big Indian had Rose and a certain future Minnesota Governor as part of an evil stable which was running roughshod over the territory.  Even to a young, snotty punk such as myself it became obvious that there was something special about Rose.  Ventura had the great look, Bull had the experience but in the ring it was always Buddy who flat out drew the attention.  While Ventura looked like an Adonis, Rose looked kind of like the grocer down the street, if said grocer bleached his hair, and snacked continually while restocking shelves. Buddy, was the perfect example of not judging a book by its cover.  Behind that imperfect physique, there was a true athlete, with great stamina.  So to be perfectly honest, when I first saw Buddy I was unimpressed. Yet, within a couple of weeks, I completely despised the man, and to a true heel one can give no higher compliment.

What made me hate him?  Buddy had great psychology, here was a guy who looked so beatable and he would get the living hell kicked out of him, and it seemed that way too, because NOBODY went higher then he did for a backdrop so everything looked like it was killing him.  Then out of nowhere this pudgy, sneaky SOB would pull something underhanded to pull out a victory.  Many a night my friends and I would call each other at a little after midnight, after we had written the results in our spiral notebooks of course, and we would be furious on how Rose had pulled out another victory.