Former WWE star “The Patriot” Del Wilkes was the guest on the “Primo Nutmeg #56” podcast, which you can listen to in full in the video player above. Below are some highlights:

On How He Went From Playing College Football to Professional Wrestling:

There were two things going on in South Carolina that were just big: South Carolina Football and Professional Wrestling. I grew up following and devouring both, and so I went to University of South Carolina to play College Football from 1980-1984, and I had a couple of brief stints in the NFL. In 1985 I tried out for the Tampa Bay Bucs and in 1986 with the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons released me prior to the start of the 1986 season, so I came back home after that. I grew up watching Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling and I just loved it. Columbia (South Carolina) is also the birth home of Lillian Ellison, the Fabulous Moolah, the greatest Lady Wrestler of all-time. After the Falcons released me in 1986, I came back and I looked Moolah up, sat and talked with her. Told her that I wanted to become a professional wrestler, so in early 1987 was when I started going to her camp at her school and embarked on my professional wrestler career then in January of 1987.

On How He Began in the AWA:

Moolah would run little shows all across the states, mostly in Middleton, South Carolina but sometimes go further than that from time to time. Wahoo McDaniel was working for Verne Gagne in the AWA office and also still getting in the ring and still working. Wahoo had a permanent home in Charlotte, North Carolina, and if he had come down for a few weeks to do things around his house there, and Moolah would book him on some of her shows, and after we had met, he took an immediate liking to me; there was an immediate respect factor, and I think it had to do with that football background, since he was a great football player, and we just hit it off. When he got back after that night, and got back to Minneapolis, he told Verne and Greg Gagne about me and it wasn’t long after that I was on the phone with Verne and Greg, and they wanted me to come up and work for them. That wasn’t my first time working for them; I had worked for them on a prior occasion, but this was the first time I went up and worked as Del Wilkes, and later went up and worked as The Trooper. It was an idea that Verne came up with him; I actually worked with Verne on two occasions, but the first one was all thanks to meeting Wahoo in Columbia.

On Meeting Vince McMahon and Signing with the WWF in 1997: