George ‘The Animal’ Steele: The Genius Behind Wrestling’s Wildest Beast
Story by Mitchell Smith
After Hulk Hogan passed away social media was flooded with wrestling videos. Some of the seventies, eighties, and nineties and some of 2000’s and tributes from this past week. I caught a 2008 interview with one of my favorite wrestlers growing up George “The Animal” Steele. Growing up I loved the simplicity of the character, but I never realized how smart the man behind the character was. William James Myers was born in Detroit, MI in 1937 and passed away in 2017 from Kidney failure. In high school Myers played Football, basketball, and baseball. He perused a career in football, but was cut short due to bad knees. That didn’t stop Myers he earned a Bachelor of Science degree with Michigan State University and a Masters degree from Central Michigan University.
He became a teacher, football coach and a wrestling coach at Madison High School. Myers needed to earn some extra cash to make ends meet and joined the Detroit area professional wrestling as “The Student”, he also wore a mask to protect his identity. Myers was recruited by the great Bruno Sammartino in which he went to Pittsburgh to work. There the legend blossomed. Sammartino liked Myers character of a wild man with brute strength. They came up with Steele being in the Steel City. George was added and George Steele was born. He lost the mask and ditched the cap and gown something his wife suggested he do and just came out of the locker room like a mad man. Fans started calling him The Animal and George “The Animal” Steele became a household name. His character was coming together and during a commercial shoot Vince McMahon wanted him to dumb himself down as he sounded way too intelligent to be an animal.
Jokingly Steele acted completely stupid and the gig stuck. Soon after some lady in the crowd had brought a pillow to a match and tossed it into the ring. Steele with a sharp mind to improvise tore the pillow open and nearly suffocated his opponent by accident, not realizing he was cutting off his air. The crowd went wild and he thought about how much they loved it the next time he wrestled and the turnbuckle eating and tearing apart was born. The last piece of the puzzle came as a mistake. Steele had a few beers one night before a match. He ate green Clorets breath mints to cover up the smell but inadvertently got a green tongue from them and the crowd thought it was part of his gimmick and the next match a bunch of fans came out with green tongues and the final piece was in place. George knew how to play the game with promoters and made big money never being the world champion. Steele fought all the big names including some of his top performances against Andrea The Giant, Randy The Macho Man Savage, Bruno Sammartino, and Hulk Hogan.
Steele is in the WWF Hall of Fame and is one of the most unique characters invented. As for Myers he is a complete joy to listen too if you have a chance to check out his 2008 interview that I found on YouTube. He had such a grasp on showmanship and audiences. He was a real mastermind of performance and how to get maximum results from the crowd. I think Vincent D’Onofrio would be a great actor to do a movie about Myers becoming Steele. Have a great week everyone.
