"On the Road With…" is a series of DVDs from a company called RF Video. The idea is that Rob Feinstein and his crew pick a wrestler up (either from the airport or from a show) and drive with them to wherever they are going (generally either the airport or a show depending on where they started from). While in the car they have an impromptu interview and generally show the lifestyle of an independent professional wrestler making a living on the small time circuit. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Abdullah the Butcher is a legend in the wrestling business. He’s been wrestling for 44 years, generally doing the same thing every night, and he’s been all around the world plying his trade. An icon in Japan, a superstar in the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico and a legend in Korea, Australia and the Middle East. Basically, if it has people in it he’s wrestled there. About the only thing he’s never done is work for Vince McMahon. His wrestling style (if you can call it that) is to let his opponent stab him in the forehead for five minutes, then he pulls out a fork and stabs his opponent in the forehead for five minutes. Then he knocks the man down, drops a very fat elbow on him and it’s over. It’s an act he’s done for decades and which the original Sheik did for decades before that. And it’s probably the reason he’s never worked for Vince McMahon.

The DVD gets off to a hugely awkward start as they pick Abby up from the airport and either he didn’t know what was planned or he was feigning ignorance. An interview? What interview? He hasn’t been paid for an interview. So they agree to give him $500 extra if he’ll do the interview. He agrees but wants the cash right now. We then watch a solid five minutes of Feinstein assuring Abby that he’ll pay him later in the evening as he hasn’t got the cash on him. All Abby seemed to care about was money. He even said at one point "I’ll do anything for money". Which I doubt extends to actually losing a match. These old timers live for the cash but (despite protests to the contrary) they have become so immersed in the business that they could not face losing in front of a hundred fans at a flea market show. So we had to watch a lot of unprofessional, uncomfortable and frankly boring negotiation before the interview even started.

About five minutes into the actual interview I longed for the days of awkward negotiations about money. Abby had a few stock answers which he gave to damn near every question. They were –

No comment

I can’t talk about that

Yes

No

All of them

I don’t know

I have no interest in that

Worse still was that every question had to be asked twice as Abby was either hard of hearing or the sound of car drowned everything out. As the interview went on the questions got longer and longer and the answers got shorter and shorter. The only thing we learned is that he is in his own world where every one of his matches was great (he said this), where it didn’t matter who he wrestled because he’d have a good match with anyone and no one but Abdullah was responsible for any of the success he had in the business. He was so weary and uninterested that you couldn’t help but not like him. He didn’t have a good word to say about anyone, he refused to talk about anything interesting or offer any opinions except about himself and he wouldn’t answer any questions he answered in his last shoot interview (recorded six or seven years ago and long since out of official stock). Indeed, there was only one moment of genuine interest and that is when he burst out laughing at the question "Was there any suggestion of you having a run with the NWA title?" It was nice to know that, even after 44 years in the business, he could still be surprised.

We got to the building and saw him prepare for his match. Preparation involved sitting by the fire exit and staring into space. All of which was better than the match – exactly as described above – five minutes of his opponent stabbing him in the head with an object, five minutes of Abby hitting him with an object, elbow slump (he seemed to fall down naturally as soon as he let go of the ropes) and pin. After the match he sat back on his chair and dabbed his wounds with paper napkins.

The sad part about it is that Abby is nearly 70, he can’t walk and is on a load of medication (we saw him hand over numerous pill bottles to the doctor who was giving him his regulation pre-match check up). He has four successful restaurants (three in Atlanta and on in Korea) and a long career in the business so he surely can’t need the few hundred dollars he makes doing these little shows. He doesn’t seem enjoy it, he can’t enjoy the arduous travel and he seems very bitter and paranoid after 44 years of dealing with crooks and shysters masquerading as promoters. So why does he do it? We didn’t find out. We didn’t find anything out. We watched an old man give one word answers to potentially interesting questions, we saw him hobble to a ring and we saw him bleed.

RF Video’s out put is very hit and miss – they seem to release everything they record without any editing (certainly no professional editing) regardless of whether it is any good or not. There was nothing of value on this DVD and it should never have been released. Maybe – and it is a big maybe – they could’ve edited it down to a reasonable half hour (with intro, padding stills etc) but as a hundred minutes of boring rubbish it can only hurt future sales. Rob and his crew tried to make the thing work but Abby was having none of it. I hope he enjoyed his five hundred dollars more than I enjoyed this dismal video.