Entering the ring: Brownsville grad Eadie was 2-sport star who made name as pro wrestler
Submitted photo
Brownsville graduate Bill Eadie as professional wrestler Ax.
Submitted photo
Brownsville graduate Bill Eadie displays a plaque honoring one of his many achievements in professional wrestlinig.
Submitted photo
Brownsville graduate Bill Eadie as the Masked Superstar.
Bill Eadie was born in Brownsville in 1947 and was an outstanding two-sport athlete at Brownsville High School in the 1960s.
Later on he became very well known as a professional wrestler.
The 6-foot-3, 190-pound Eadie was a varsity player on the Brownies football squad for three years under three different head coaches: John Popovich, Bert Sutton and Jack Henck.
In 1961, Brownsville posted a record of 5-5, then went 6-3-1 in 1962 and during Eadie’s senior campaign in 1963 they posted a record of 4-5-1.
“We were decent in football,” Eadie said. “I played three years of varsity football and I was an end.”
Brownsville track was a powerhouse under coach Henck. Eadie was a consistent scorer for the Brownies in the low and high hurdles and he ran a leg of the 880 relay.
“Coach Henck was a legend,” Eadie stated. “I think up until my senior year we hadn’t lost a track meet, it was like 70 to 80 in a row. Then we lost one and I think they went multiple years after that, another 40 or 50 in a row, before they lost again.
“We had great track athletes like Willibe Brooks and Ron Matteucci. Ron was at least two years ahead of me.”
When Eadie graduated from Brownsville in 1964, he wound up running track at West Virginia University.
“I went to WVU on a track scholarship,” Eadie explained. “I was team captain my junior and senior years. I did everything at WVU, but I started out in the hurdles and the relays. I ended up doing the decathlon.
“We had a longtime coach at WVU, another legend, Stan Romanoski.”
Eadie graduated from West Virginia in 1968 and was a high school teacher and coach at Cambridge High School in Cambridge, Ohio, and at East Liverpool, Ohio.
He got into professional wrestling by accident.
“My next door neighbor was one of the state athletic commissioners of Pennsylvania,” Eadie recalled. “At that time there was maybe three or four in the state. He invited Ron Matteucci and I to go down to the wrestling matches and the promoters name was Geeto Mongo who had just purchased the promotion rights from Bruno Sammartino.
“We went into the dressing room and a couple of guys said are you new wrestlers? We said no and he said would you want to be? I said I’ll give it a try, so it was just by accident really.”
Eadie and Matteucci trained and learned the ropes of professional wrestling.
“We did at least six weeks training in Geeto’s garage,” Eadie said. “Ron and I did that on the weekends on Saturday and Sunday.”
It became a career for Eadie, and Matteucci wrestled for a bit as well.
“In the beginning Ron and I paired up a bit, but I don’t think he was as enthusiastic as I was about it, Eadie said. “He did some local wrestling.”
Eadie’s first match was on Dec. 15, 1972, under the name “The Paramedic.” Throughout 1973, he wrestled under a mask as the tag team “Para-Medics” in the Sheik’s Detroit territory. He then wrestled in Pittsburgh, Detroit, the WWWF, and the IWA as “Bolo Mongol,” the new partner of his trainer, Geeto Mongol. He soon entered the Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling territory under the management of Boris Malenko and donned a mask as “the Masked Superstar.”
Primarily a villain, he also appeared as a hero, teaming with Paul Jones to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid Atlantic version) twice in 1980-1981. In 1984, he also teamed with King Kong Bundy (also a hero at the time) to defeat the Road Warriors for the NWA National Tag Team Championship (which he had previously held with Super Destroyer in 1982) but was forced to give up the title due to injuries suffered in a mysterious assault.
He was the first wrestler (along with Blackjack Mulligan) to have one-hour cage matches, then have a series of “12” 90-minute cage matches, against Mulligan. It is believed that neither feat of hour or hour-and-a-half cage matches has since been performed by any wrestlers.
Eadie was one of the first wrestlers to body slam André the Giant. Among other accomplishments, he won four Georgia Heavyweight titles and unified that title with the NWA National Heavyweight Championship. He also competed in the World Wrestling Federation against many top wrestlers in 1983-84.
In 1986, he returned to the World Wrestling Federation and became “Super Machine” with André the Giant as “Giant Machine” and Blackjack Mulligan as “Big Machine.”
Eadie was the primary mouthpiece of the team. The three Machines were introduced as rivals of Bobby Heenan and his massive tag team of Big John Studd and King Kong Bundy.
Eadie later dropped the Machine gimmick and left the WWF to head to Florida for a run as the Masked Superstar, upending Lex Luger to win the NWA Southern title. He held the title for two weeks before Luger regained it.
In January 1987, Eadie returned to the WWF and formed the tag team Demolition with Randy Colley, formerly Moondog Rex, who wrestled as Smash while Eadie wrestled as Ax. In the midst of this time period, Eadie also played opposite Hulk Hogan as “Jake Bullet” in the movie “No Holds Barred.” He and Smash appeared in several Pizza Hut commercials for the “Kids Night Out” promotion widely seen on national television.
Eadie retired from wrestling on July 3, 2017. He went on to have two more matches. His final singles match took place at KSWA’s “Brawl Under the Bridge” event in the Homestead neighborhood of Pittsburgh on July 22, 2017. On Aug. 12, 2017, Eadie had his final match, resulting in a victory in a six-man tag team match for Georgia Premier Wrestling in Canton, Georgia.
“One of the guys that ran the event in Pittsburgh was a friend of ours and he had us do it as a favor,” Eadie explained. “I started in Pittsburgh and I ended in Pittsburgh.”
Eadie’s wrestling career started on Dec. 15, 1972 and ended on Aug. 12, 2017.
“I enjoyed it,” Eadie said. “I got to see the world and took my family with me periodically. I met a lot of good people. I enjoyed it.”
Eadie, 75, resides in Roswell, Ga., with his wife of 40-plus years Sue. They have two daughters, Heather and Julie, and four grandchildren.
“I don’t get back to Brownsville because mom and dad passed away,” Eadie stated. “I still love Brownsville. It’s where I got my foundation.”