WWE Hall of Famer talk has followed Rick Martel for years. In a new interview, “The Model” said WWE has already contacted him about it once, and he turned it down.
Martel, 70, addressed his Hall of Fame status during a sit-down with Sean Mooney on the Prime Time with Sean Mooney YouTube channel. When Mooney noted that fans have long argued Martel belongs in the Hall of Fame and asked whether he would answer that call, Martel said:
“I did a while back, you know. I got a call, but I wasn’t ready. I’m not sure if I would go, or right now I’m enjoying myself. I’m enjoying with all of this, and we’ll see, you know, every offer needs to. It’s just like…”
Mooney finished the thought, adding, “real estate, you gotta see how the deal is.”
Martel is a former AWA World Heavyweight Champion and a multiple-time WWF Tag Team Champion who became one of the WWF’s signature heels in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the arrogant, cologne-spraying “Model.” He has been largely absent from wrestling for decades and has recently returned to the public eye through convention appearances.
Asked about the era that made him a star, Martel called it the peak of the business. “It was like, you know, 93,000 people at that stadium, you know, and it was unreal, unbelievable,” he said, referencing the announced crowd for WrestleMania III, a show he worked as part of the Can-Am Connection. “We were like rock stars. It was fantastic.”
He said it was the point when the industry expanded. “To me, it was where wrestling changed, you know, from being on television every week to [going] worldwide,” Martel said.
Martel was candid about the toll the schedule took. “Your knees, your back, and you were hurt all over, and we didn’t have insurance,” he said. “We’re just in there because we love that. We love the reaction, the crowd.” He added, “We paid dearly physically, but we did what we had to do, and back then we enjoyed it. Those moments in the ring can’t be matched.”
On the origin of his heel run, Martel said he was initially turned down when he pitched the idea and was willing to leave over it. “I walked away, I went back home for a few days, and I came back,” he said, before telling the office he would take the idea elsewhere if they would not try it. The company agreed.
The turn came at WrestleMania V in 1989, when Martel abandoned his Strike Force partner Tito Santana during a match against The Brain Busters, walking out and leaving Santana to lose. It launched “The Model” character. Martel said his former roommate, Hulk Hogan, recognized it immediately. “Hulk came in, says, ‘Rick, you did it,'” Martel recalled, adding that Hogan called the heat he drew “a natural.”
Martel also discussed his feud with Jake “The Snake” Roberts, which featured the “Arrogance” angle in which Martel blinded Roberts by spraying cologne in his eyes, leading to a blindfold match at WrestleMania VII. Martel praised Roberts, including his decision to wear white contact lenses to sell the storyline. “Jake was a great, great creator, great opponent,” he said. “We did that thing, and the arrogance was the perfect thing.”
Martel said he stepped away from wrestling on purpose, planning his finances so he would not have to return out of need. He said that approach was shaped in part by the early death of his brother, who he said died in a wrestling accident, and by the reality that wrestlers were not guaranteed wealth. “It’s not like professional football [where] you make a fortune,” he said. “Nobody’s making millions.” He said he invested carefully and moved into real estate. “I went into real estate, and thank God that things went well, and I came out okay.”
He said the demands of the business kept him from returning casually. “Professional wrestling, you can’t just [do] a little bit,” Martel said. “It’s very demanding. You cannot go there at 20%.”
Martel said his return to public appearances began when a fan came to his Florida home for an autograph, then kept coming back and invited him to an event. “I did one convention, and it was a lot of fun, and now here I am,” he said. “You can see the reception is pretty awesome.”
He made clear a full-time comeback is not in the plans. Martel, who said he has had hip surgery and a knee replacement, and who said he and his wife Joanne have been together more than 40 years, said the road is no longer realistic. “We’re not kids anymore,” he said.
Martel thanked the organizers who run the convention circuit for giving him the chance to reconnect with peers and fans. “I’m very, very thankful to the people,” he said. “That gives me opportunities to see everybody and meet people that I haven’t seen for years.”
You can watch the full interview on the Prime Time with Sean Mooney YouTube channel:
