A buddy of mine was related to Verne and saw him at a family reunion. My friend was 250 lbs when he was 16 and liked to drink and approached Verne and stated “That wrestling is a bunch of crap” whereupon Verne stood up and put one of his famous moves on my friend leaving him staring up at the sky wondering what just happened. My buddy was sore for several days after and hated Vernes guts for that. The rest of us loved AWA and went to every match and told out friend that he should get into wrestling since he was really big and knew Verne but he hated him too much.
Funny! Mouthing off to a Marine, All Big Ten football player and NCAA wrestling champion? Lucky he lived!