Freddie Blassie

### Burial

Cremated and buried at the Resurrection Cemetery in Affton, Missouri in the same plot with his mother Anna Miletich.

## Professional wrestling stats

### Known as

Freddie Blassie
Blassie
The Vampire
The Hollywood Fashion Plate
The Fashion Plate of Professional Wrestling

### Trained by

Billy Hanson

**Frederick Kenneth Blassman** (February 8, 1918 – June 2, 2003), better known as "**Classy**" **Freddie Blassie**, was an American professional wrestling villain and manager. Renowned as "The Hollywood Fashion Plate", he was a one-time NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion, and was inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame in 1994.

## Professional wrestling career

Born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in nearby Normandy, Missouri, he excelled at baseball, football, and boxing while in high school. After school he chose professional wrestling over boxing as a career, while working as a butcher for his day job; Blassie claimed to have made his pro wrestling debut in 1935 after training with Billy Hanson.

He joined the United States Navy at the onset of World War II, and earned titles in boxing and sport wrestling while in service in the Pacific Theater. He also continued professional wrestling under the name Sailor Fred Blassie when in port.

His first match was against Don McIntyre in Birmingham, Alabama for the NWA Southern Heavyweight Title on his 36th birthday. As he became one of NWA's top wrestlers, Blassie bleached his hair and adopted his trademark rulebreaking style. In Japan, his penchant for drawing blood earned him the nickname "The Vampire" because he had filed down his teeth to sharp points so he could cause bloody massacres.

He was also stabbed 23 different times, had his car set on fire, had acid poured on him, and became blind in the right eye when a fan threw a hard-boiled egg at his face. Every time the fans saw him, they would run away in terror. Based on his success, Blassie was brought back to Los Angeles by promoter Jules Strongbow.

Blassie had been wrestling many competitors like The Destroyer (Dick Beyer), Bearcat Wright, Mr. Moto, Mil Mascaras, Bobo Brazil, to name but a scant few. The "Blassie Cage" matches then flourished. The best remembered moment in his life is his legendary feud with John "The Golden Greek" Tolos, which dates back four decades, and set new levels for violence in the wrestling ring.

Blassie retired as a wrestler at the end of 1973 and focused on being a manager. Here he was equally successful at drawing heat, especially during his run as part of the World Wrestling Federation's Evil Trinity of managers with "The Captain" Lou Albano and The Grand Wizard of Wrestling.

Among the men he managed were Nikolai Volkoff, The Iron Sheik, Blackjack Mulligan, High Chief Peter Maivia, "The Crippler" Ray Stevens, Adrian Adonis, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Dick Murdoch, Swede Hanson, Killer Khan, George 'The Animal' Steele, Professor Toru Tanaka, Mr. Fuji, Ivan Koloff, Tor Kamata, Masa Saito, "Captain" Lou Albano, Victor Rivera, "The Ugandan Giant" Kamala, Hercules Hernandez, and "The Immortal" Hulk Hogan.

Blassie also managed Muhammad Ali in his boxer vs. wrestler match in 1976 against Antonio Inoki. Blassie also publicly represented Ali for media events and interviews for a period in the mid-1970s.

One of Blassie's most famous proteges was The Iron Sheik. Blassie led Shiek to the WWF World Heavyweight Championship over Bob Backlund on December 26, 1983, in Madison Square Garden. After Sheik lost the belt to Blassie's former managed wrestler Hulk Hogan, Blassie managed Sheik in various rematches around the country throughout the first half of 1984, culminating into another major televised rematch on December 28, 1984, once again in Madison Square Garden. In this match Hogan was once again victorious.

After managing Sheik through a brief feud with Andre the Giant, he also became the manager of Nikolai Volkoff, with Sheik and Volkoff later becoming a tag team. Blassie would gain even more gold when Volkoff and Sheik defeated The US Express for the WWF Tag Team Championship at the first ever Wrestlemania. Blassie got involved when he threw his cane into the ring, with Sheik and Volkoff using it to their advantage to gain the victory. When Gene Okerlund confronted Blassie in an interview after the match, Blassie said, "what cane, I didn't have no cane!"

Blassie would continue to manage Sheik and Volkoff even after they lost the tag team titles. Blassie unsuccessfully campaigned along with the other managers to manage "Macho Man" Randy Savage when Savage first entered the WWF in June 1985. Blassie would continue to interfere from ringside in matches, especially during Volkoff's feud with Corporal Kirchner. Blassie's interference at Wrestlemania 2 cost Volkoff his match with Kirchner, when the cane was grabbed by Kirchner instead of Volkoff. In the summer of 1986, Blassie started to slowly phase himself out of the WWF and into retirement.

With his recording of the song "Pencil Neck Geek" and the bizarre movie *My Breakfast with Blassie* (co-starring comedian Andy Kaufman), he maintained a devoted cult following, which was only heightened by his continued wrestling appearances throughout the 1980s in the WWF. Even after he retired as an active performer in 1986, Blassie was still one of the most popular wrestling personalities in the world.

He appears as a lyric in the R.E.M. song "Man on The Moon": *Mister Fred Blassie in a breakfast mess*, with "breakfast" referring to the title of his movie.

Before his death, he released his autobiography, *Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks*. Even as his life was ending, he was still involved in wrestling. His last appearance on WWE television was exactly three weeks before his death, when he came out to ringside in his wheelchair and participated in a storyline with The Dudley Boyz, climaxing his appearance by telling the Dudleys to "get the tables!"

## Death

On June 2, 2003, Blassie died of heart and kidney failure. He was 85 years old. His death was announced by Jim Ross, 20 minutes into that same day's episode of Raw.