Ed "The Sheik" Farhat was hard-core long before Extreme Championship Wrestling unleashed its own brand of brutality in the early 1990s.
A reminder of the late Farhat's influence on pro wrestling comes in the form of a recently released DVD documentary. "The Sheik -- Wrestling's Greatest Villain" delves into what made Farhat the ultimate heel during his 49-year grappling career.
"At one point when you thought of pro wrestling in terms of villainy, you thought of The Sheik," said Mark Nowotarski, who produced the two-disc package.
The 48-year-old Nowotarski had the good fortune of watching The Sheik perform in his heyday for Big Time Wrestling, the Detroit-based promotion that Farhat secretly owned from 1964 to 1980.
During that time, The Sheik booked himself in a manner that lured fans into arenas -- most notably Detroit's Cobo Hall -- to see if he would receive comeuppance from a slew of legendary baby faces that included Andre the Giant, Bobo Brazil and Dick the Bruiser. While his matches featured scant technical wrestling, Farhat kept crowds heated through use of gore, foreign objects and the flash-paper fire that was reputed to burn his opponent's skin.
The formula eventually became stale. Big Time Wrestling faded away without a younger star to replace The Sheik, which was predictable because of how heavily Farhat pushed himself. Farhat, though, continued performing into his early 70s even after undergoing hip-replacement surgery and suffering life-threatening burns during a 1992 ring-of-fire bout in Japan that got out of hand. One of my favorite teenage wrestling memories was watching a 61-year-old Sheik and the late Bruiser Brody brawl through the stands and into the concession area at the Miami Beach Convention Center in 1987. Six years later, Farhat died of heart failure at the age of 78.
Farhat's prominence in Detroit and the industry overall was such that World Wrestling Entertainment inducted him posthumously into its own Hall of Fame when holding "Wrestlemania 23" there in 2007. Farhat was introduced by his nephew, Terry "Sabu" Brunk, and former trainee Rob Van Dam, both of whom became ECW stars during the 1990s. The Sheik had worked for WWE in the late 1960s. Farhat also frequently toured Japan, where he would sometimes team with fellow blood-lusting baddie Abdullah the Butcher.
"The Sheik stopped at nothing to win," Nowotarski said. "Just when it seemed the (U.S.) title was about to change hands, lo and behold, his manager would interfere or The Sheik's 'supernatural power' would abound and he'd throw fire. He seemed almost unstoppable."
Farhat also refused to break character in public and took extreme measures to protect The Sheik persona. He was billed as being from Syria and spoke in gibberish even though Farhat was really a World War II veteran born in Lansing, Mich. This shtick led to The Sheik's being paired with slick-talking managers like Abdullah Farouk (Ernie "Grand Wizard" Roth), Eddie "The Brain" Creachman and "Supermouth" Dave Drason who could handle his interviews.
Drason was interviewed for the documentary. Nowotarski, though, touches little upon Farhat's private life. Nowotarski said he designed the DVD as an homage, not a biography.
"I'm not '60 Minutes'," said Nowotarski, who has produced other Detroit-themed documentaries through his Independent News Service company. "I don't want to know what the man had to eat, the car he drove or anything else that was going on. If he or his family wanted to do something like that, he would have let it be known."
The two-disc set also features three full Sheik matches from the 1980s as well as the hourlong documentary that includes other rare wrestling footage. The cost is $30 plus shipping and handling. For more information, visit www.insent.net.
(Alex Marvez writes a syndicated pro-wrestling column for Scripps Howard News Service. Contact him at alex1marv(at)aol.com or follow him via Twitter at http://twitter.com/alexmarvez.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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