“Dangerous” Danny Davis sat down with James Walsh on the Wrestling Epicenter podcast to discuss his career in pro wrestling and beyond, covering his accidental creation of the heel referee character, three Owen Hart rib stories, what Vince McMahon Sr. wanted Hulk Hogan to become, and why he says Vince McMahon Jr. saved his life.
New England Music Hall of Fame
Davis was recently inducted into the New England Music Hall of Fame for his work performing Native American music, a part of his life that began through his grandfather.
“There is life after wrestling. And this means as much to me as any wrestling honor could. I owe it to my Grandfather. He taught me about my indigenous heritage. He taught me about the history of it. And because of him, I know about my Native American heritage.”
He said his group, the Eastern Medicine Singers, has taken the music around the world with a strong reception everywhere they go. “People really want to know more about the Native American culture and they flock to these powwows.”
Getting Into Wrestling
Davis credited Chief Jay Strongbow with getting him started. “Chief Jay Strongbow took me under his wing. He was kind of training me and my friend Rick McGraw. He always told me to always be ready. And one night in New York, it was the winter and there was bad weather. He said, ‘Get your gear and put on the mask. You’re working tonight.’ I said, ‘With who?’ He said, ‘With me! I want you to go out there and I want you to listen to me. Listen to everything I have to say. And most importantly, don’t touch me!'”
Accidentally Becoming a Heel Referee
Davis said his evolution into wrestling’s most notorious heel referee was completely unplanned. “That sort of happened by accident. I was out there calling them as I saw them and the people started to notice and react. I would catch heat for it when I’d go back through the curtain but they said, ‘That is a heck of an idea,’ and let me keep doing it when I didn’t even know they were watching me.”
An endorsement from Killer Kowalski gave him the confidence to continue. “I refereed a Killer Kowalski match. He was getting older, was under a mask. After it, he said, ‘Would you come to my training school and teach my referees how to do it?’ Well, I figured if someone like him liked what I was doing, I was going to keep doing it. Well, either Vince McMahon or Pat Patterson noticed it and they started having me make controversial calls on purpose. I had no idea what the plan was. And the people really hated me when I would make a bad call.”
On his place in history: “It is always good to be the first at something. I was the first to do it on a grand scale like the WWF. Everyone remembers the first.”
On the iconic ring gear: “That was a Vince McMahon thing. But I understood why he did it. If Jake Roberts had the snake, Koko B. Ware had the bird, I needed something that made me stand out. I had the ring gear. It wasn’t my choice. But it made me stand out.”
The Physical Danger
Davis described how working as a heel before wide entrance ramps existed meant literally walking through the crowd. “Back in the earlier days, there was no entrance way. You basically walked through the people. Yeah, there were nights that we were told to stay in the ring because of the crowd. There were times we would leave the arena and there would be people waiting. And if they saw your car and what car you got out of when you arrived, you knew you’d need a pickup truck that night.”
WrestleMania III
Davis appeared at WrestleMania III in front of 93,000 fans in Pontiac, Michigan, competing alongside Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart against the British Bulldogs and scoring the fall on Davey Boy Smith.
“Imagine a 135-pound street kid that nobody believed in or thought could make something of himself performing on one of the biggest cards in the history of professional wrestling and scoring the fall over the British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith for his team. If you’ve never lived something like that, it is indescribable. It is hard to express in words. But you eventually settle in and it becomes just another night at work. And then it ends. And you wish it could have lasted forever. In a way, it did. People still talk about this all the time. But to walk out there with Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart and Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart — it was incredible.”
Three Owen Hart Rib Stories
Davis shared three stories involving Owen Hart’s well-documented sense of humor. The first involved the locker room’s coffee supply.
“There’s a rumor going around that Owen Hart put a handful of valium in the coffee pot. We had a 50-gallon coffee pot and he put valium in it. Everyone was walking around not really sure what was going on.”
The second was an airport gag. “When we’d be traveling in the airport, we’d be on the escalator. He’d get on first and when he got to the end, he’d push the button to turn it off so everyone else would have to walk.”
The third played out in Italy at the expense of Rene Goulet. “We were in one of the squares and they had people there selling gimmicks and we were on the bus. So Rene Goulet says, ‘All right, this is a sacred place. So everyone watch your language. No swearing.’ Well, he got off the bus to buy some of the gimmicks and Owen snuck up behind him and snatched the money from his hand. Rene didn’t know who did it and he started screaming because he thought one of the sellers snatched it. He was screaming F-bombs and we were roaring laughing.”
Vince McMahon
Davis was direct about what McMahon meant to his life. “Without Vince McMahon, I would either be dead or in jail. Now, I’m not saying Vince McMahon is an angel. I’m just saying that to me, in my life, without Vince McMahon, I would be dead or in jail. I owe a lot of my success to Vince McMahon and I won’t say anything bad about him for that reason.”
On times McMahon was hard on him: “Vince McMahon was a businessman. He told me once, ‘I’m telling you this not to be cruel but because I have a business that I have to protect.’ That makes sense. To be successful, sometimes you have to be vicious.”
Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon Sr.
Davis revealed that Vince McMahon Sr. had an entirely different plan for Hulk Hogan before his son took over the company. “Hulk Hogan was larger than life. He came around and Vince McMahon Sr. wanted him to be an Irishman. He wanted him to dye his hair red and speak with an Irish accent. Well, he didn’t do that. And Vince McMahon Jr. took over. And Hulk Hogan was everything Vince McMahon envisioned a wrestler should be. Hulk Hogan was the right guy at the right time. And he did the most with it.”
On how the locker room experienced the WWF’s growth: “In the old days, a guy could wrestle as Joe Schmo in Dallas or somewhere like that and then wrestle in New York the next week and nobody knew who he was. With the TV exposure and the closed circuit TV, before it became pay-per-view, everyone saw the guys on WWF TV. We knew things were changing. I don’t know if we knew just how big what we were doing was. But we knew it was growing fast.”
Book and Action Figures
Davis said his book, available at DangerousDannyDavis.com, was written as an inspirational story as much as a wrestling memoir. “If you have a dream, that is your dream. No one can take that from you. Nobody believed in a 135-pound street kid ever being able to make something of himself. A big compliment I’ve gotten is people said to me, ‘Without this book, our son might have gone a different direction.’ That means the world to me.”
He also has two action figures currently available: a Hasbro-style figure from Title Run Toys and a classic Big Rubber Guys style from Collect Major.
If you use quotes from this article, please credit the Wrestling Epicenter podcast with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
