Podcast: The TMPToW Interviews Kamala

He portrayed one of the most infamous characters in the history of professional wrestling and today James “Kamala” Harris joins The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast. On the heels of the recent Hulk Hogan controversy, Kamala comes out in defense of the beleaguered Hogan and offers a different perspective on the racial insensitivity portrayed in the wrestling business. As an African-American wrestler Kamala has endured racism while competing in some of the biggest territories across The United States but it never stopped James Harris from entertaining and doing what he loves most, wrestling. We also analyze some of Kamala’s greatest matches and moments as covered in his book: Kamala Speaaks with Co-Author, Kenny Cassanova.

Full Episode Download Link:

http://tmptow.podoma…T21_00_00-07_00

WWE Legend Kamala SAYS Hulk Hogan is Not Racist. Look AT Vince McMahon:

Is the response to the Hulk Hogan Controversy accurate:

The way I see it is, I didn’t see it like that when I was growing up. But over the years, I guess I’m more mature and the way I see it now is we have our little things that we say about white people. Not that we mean harm by doing it, we do it in privacy. We have little jokes and have fun about it. This is me personally now, I do not think Hogan meant harm by saying that and Hogan is my brother until he decides not to be.

His relationship with The Hulkster and if he ever felt unfairly treated by him:

We had a good relationship. Hogan, he was the World Champion and to me and I’m not knocking any other champions but he was the most re-memorable champion from my point of view that I’ve ever been around. He was not snobby, he would always come to me and I guess that is why we had such good matches. He would always come to me and say “Hey brother what are we gonna do tonight?” Now thats a champion asking me what I want to do and my input and we would put together our match just like that. Hogan would get in that ring and he would sell for me and make it look like I was killing him. I was happy for him to make his comeback. He was just a sweetheart, that’s all I can say. Mostly all the matches I had with Hogan stand out to me. Not because he was the champion, that’s part of it too but he was such a colorful guy. They could hit that music and the people would go wild.

Hogan helping Kamala get into WCW:

He called me up and said “brother, I need you to come down here and work with me and talk to Eric Bischoff about your contract”. I could never get Eric on the phone so I went on anyway without a contract and when I did see Eric and asked him about the contract Eric told me “wait for a while and let me get a good look at you”. Now I’ve been all over the world and if he hadn’t looked at me in all of that time, he wasn’t going to look. But I worked without a contract and I went to Hogan and I said “look brother, I’m going to have to leave here and just go on and be a little old truck driver like I did in 1970 before I got into the business”. He said let me go talk to him, he talked to him and it was just a hair better. The last straw was when they booked me against Randy Savage and they told me they wanted me to put Randy Savage over and I had just got a bad bad paycheck so I told Hogan, brother I’m leaving right now, the money is just not right. I walked out and I haven’t seen Hogan since and that was in 95.

Finding out his pay was drastically smaller compared to his opponents:

Summer Slam 92 that’s when I worked with The Undertaker and we got paid two or three weeks later. Steve Lombardi who was my Kim-Chee, he was a part of the office and could get away with anything, so he went into Pat Patterson’s dressing room and he came back out and he told that he knew how much I made for Summer Slam. He said you made $13,000. I didn’t think that Pat would carry something like that in his book because he was just a booker. He showed it to me that Undertaker made a half million dollars. Steve told me himself that Vince (McMahon) didn’t really like black people and even after Steve told me that Vince always treated me nice, I got along very good with Vince but that was before all the “kayfabing” and Steve told me that he (Vince) wasn’t going to pay you the way he pays a white man. I kind of knew that or believed that anyway but after I found out what The Undertaker made if that was true then I should have definitely made more than that.

An explicit example of comments made by Vince McMahon that could be considered controversial:

There was one time where Chief Jay Strongbow was an agent when I was there and Chief came in and Vince was at one of the shows and he (Chief) was talking to Vince and I was sitting there and he told Vince that he was so full because he stopped at one of those soul-food restaurants and the food was so good. I heard Vince say “well did they shine yours shoes?” So that made me think he was and that was kind of racial.

Did he pull a gun on Andre The Giant after he was called a racial slur in the ring:

I had never wrestled him before and Andre and I were in the ring and there was a spot that the finishes were being told by the referee. I may have gotten a spot mixed up and Andre pulled me up off him and called me a dumb S.O.B and he jumped up and that’s when I beat the hell out of him. Right there in the ring and that was for real. After that, the next night we were wrestling each other in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and I had a .357 magnum and I put it in my pocket and I went over to Andre The Giant in his dressing room, stuck my finger on his nose and he threw up both hands, he didn’t see a gun and said I’m sorry boss, I didn’t mean to say that or do that. After that Andre and I had good matches everywhere we went and we went all over. I never had another problem with Andre.

Kamala also discusses the origins of his gimmick, Jerry Lalwer, loving the Mid-South territory, Skandar Ackbar, working with Daniel Bryan in ROH, his legacy in the business and his autobiography Kamala Speaks.