Army veteran Bill Pierce stepped through the curtain as Chris Michaels, expecting only boos. Yet, what happened when he stared across the ring at The Undertaker changed everything. The crowd never knew the migraine-level slaps, the real belt lashes, or the moment Ric Flair silently offered him the match of a lifetime… only to watch him freeze.
In wrestling’s carefully constructed hierarchy, jobbers and enhancement talent like Pierce are the forgotten architects of greatness. These preliminary wrestlers, the ones who made superstars look like gods, carry wrestling’s most guarded secrets about what it truly costs to create heroes. Three decades later, this soldier-turned-journeyman wrestler who later found gold in ECW has kept going, breaking his silence about an unsung tale that goes far beyond the term “jobber.”
Army veteran Bill Pierce, known as Chris Michaels, breaks his silence about his WWF jobber days, revealing untold encounters with The Undertaker, the Ric Flair moment, and more. Photo Credit: Bill Pierce, WWE. Artwork by Pro Wrestling Stories.
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Jim Phillips, author of this article and one of the great wrestling historians here at Pro Wrestling Stories, is in the challenge of his life after being paralyzed on January 21st, 2023. Learn his story and how you can help him reach his goal of taking his first steps again!
Chris Michaels’ Wrestling Journey: From Army Veteran to WWF Jobber (and Well Beyond)
Chris Michaels (Bill Pierce) proudly displays the NWA New York Junior Heavyweight Championship belt in 2000, with his hometown of New York City skyline behind him. Photo Credit: Bill Pierce.
It’s unclear at what point the label "jobber" took on the level of insult it carries today. For many workers, if you told them they had jobbed off or worked under to a rising star, most would opt to tell you some excuse-filled, term-twisted line about how they would never be a jobber. Others turn their noses up as if you were handing them a dish of acrid self-loathing. It’s puzzling why they would rather be tarred and feathered than be called a jobber.
This examination takes a deeper look into the men who have held that title, and then a deeper look into the business from the perspective of a man who worked those ranks in the early 1990s WWF.
The list of performers who have held this moniker includes some standout wrestlers, to name a few: The Mulkeys, Brooklyn Brawler, "Iron" Mike Sharpe, Barry Horowitz, Jake "Milkman" Milliman, and George South. These are just a drop in the bucket of the wrestlers who were considered by most to be "forgettable" – because some fans had no clue as to what they really brought to the match or the business.
These gentlemen went out there and helped give the rub to up-and-coming wrestlers, or high-profile workers who just wanted to come in and work an easy match or "squash." More often than not, they were the unsung heroes of the business. They may not have had that intangible "it factor" needed to get over in main event-level matches, but they were still able hands in the ring who could be counted on to "get the job done." They also worked with most of the top-level guys during the ascension of their careers.
Chris Michaels never grew up with aspirations of being a professional wrestler, but when the opportunity presented itself, he gave it his all. A New York native born Bill Pierce in 1961 in Bayshore, Long Island, Michaels was familiar with wrestling, having grown up in one of the major hotbeds of the sport during one of its heydays in the seventies.
He grew up not far away in Oakdale, where he attended high school and dabbled in wrestling, gymnastics, and drama club – all of which would serve him later in his wrestling career.
From Army Tank Crewman to Wrestling Ring: Bill Pierce’s Military Origins
Bill Pierce, during his U.S. Army service as a tank crewman at Fort Knox, Kentucky, before becoming wrestling’s Chris Michaels, where military discipline met wrestling determination. Photo Credit: Bill Pierce.
After graduating from high school, joining the military seemed a more feasible choice than college. Bill headed off to basic training in November of 1983 and found himself situated firmly in middle America at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He got his advanced training there in Echo Company as a tank crewman.
After completion of that program, he went to Fort Polk in Louisiana, where he spent the next three and a half years and first became aware of what professional wrestling really had to offer, with not much else to do around the base.
"Down there, on weekends, there wasn’t much on the television. We only had two cable channels, and I got to see Mid-South Wrestling on the Shreveport channel. That became my program of choice. You could either watch high school or college football, or fishing. So wrestling, it was. The fans down there believed it was real. It was like a religion to them, and I appreciated that."
Pierce became a fan of the matches and would go to see them live when he was able. Over the next year, his life was taken up with his military career and growing love for his weekend wrestling fix. It was during this time, as it usually does, that life chose to come calling and deliver some heartbreaking news to the young soldier.
His mother had suffered a stroke and was on life support in the hospital. After several days, brain functions ceased, and the family took her off life support. Bill tried to pick up the pieces and move on.
He was close enough to his discharge date that the Army gave him a family needs discharge, and just like that, he was a civilian again.
He spoke briefly about his time and the heritage of military service in his family.
"My grandfather, who immigrated here from Italy, enlisted and fought in World War I and World War II. My father was in during WWII, and his brother was in the Korean War. Also, my younger son, Michael, served for twelve years in Afghanistan, the Philippines, among other places, as a paratrooper.
"I never served overseas, but I wrote a blank check with my life to go if my country needed me. There are those that do, and those that don’t. Or as we say in the wrestling business, there are those that make things happen, those that watch things happen, and those that stand there wondering what the **** just happened.
"All said and done, I’m proud of my family’s service. I enjoyed my time in, and had it not been for that, I probably wouldn’t have had the strength to make it through the passing of my mother."
From Garage Training to Savoldi Rings: Paying Dues and Earning a WWF Break
Chris Michaels (Bill Pierce) with his father early in his career. Photo Credit: Bill Pierce.
The pull of the business was like magnetism for Bill Pierce, and he had made up his mind he was going to make it in one way or the other.
It was, like for so many others, being in the right place at the right time. He was working at Channel Home Centers in Hauppauge, New York, when he started horsing around about body-slamming a fellow employee. She turned out to be the daughter of a local wrestler, and that helped him get his foot in the door to begin his training at the school her father ran.
He talked about the realities that hit him when he arrived:
“I went to his wrestling school and it wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned. Everybody thinks wrestling is so glamorous, because all they see is the stage show. They don’t see the behind-the-scenes… the sacrifice that it takes to become a professional wrestler. So I go to this guy’s house and asked where the wrestling school is, and he tells me it’s in his garage? IN HIS GARAGE?!?!”
Upon entering the school, he saw that they had no ring, but he also saw that he wasn’t alone. Other students were there to give it a go as well.
The “ring” was just a representation by having ropes strung up against the ceiling supports, with plywood and a thin mat to cover the concrete floor that they would be taking bumps on. His mind was eased a bit as he saw a young Cactus Jack (Mick Foley) there giving advice and working out alongside the rest of them. Foley was doing spots for WCCW at the time and would work out there in between trips to Texas. Now that is old school and paying your dues.
This would serve Bill well as he learned that in Japan and Puerto Rico, the rings were much stiffer than the American ones. He also found out fast that acceptance wasn’t going to be forthcoming either, as they began to give him and the rest of the students what he called “the boot.”
“For people who don’t know what the boot was… basically, you get your *** kicked. What they are trying to do is separate the guys who are serious about being there from the jock-sniffing fan boys. They want to make sure that you want to be part of the brotherhood, and not just some fan that wants to hang around to rub elbows with the boys. There were a lot of guys that didn’t make it past the boot.”
His time in basic training helped him when it came to the grueling hours spent doing drills and working out that he would endure in his future. It was in that garage that he learned the guts and core of wrestling. He learned how to bump and sell.
Pierce talked about the differences in the business and what he thought about today’s product in comparison to when he broke in:
“I got into wrestling because I knew it was tough, but I also knew that there was a way to do it without really getting hurt, otherwise you wouldn’t have these eight-month-long feuds in the business. If you beat the hell out of your guys like they do in UFC, then that means you’re only going to be working once a month.
“I tell the new kids that you have a bump clock. Guys doing the flippity-flop, the thigh-slapping super kicks, and the guys that slap their arms to sell their punches… please stop, you’re killing the business. You’re not convincing anyone that you’re hurting anybody. You’re looking like a fool. It’s not preserving the business and it makes the rest of us look like a joke. I don’t appreciate it. I digress…” (Pierce chuckles).
While everything may evolve in the business, without sticking to the core basics, not only is the legitimacy lost, but also the safety of its workers. Look at all the ECW guys who have left us too early. They may have gotten over and received the “Holy ****” chants, or heard “This is awesome,” but how great was the price that was paid? The guys who worked in the old days of the wrestling territories had their bloodbaths with the blade, but how many of them died young from consistent head traumas?
Back to late 1988 and Bill’s first match at a rock and roll bar in Bayshore, New York. It was less than a desirable spot to work, but the show must go on. Bill remembers that night fondly:
“The place was so dirty, you could hear the soles of your shoes stick to the floor when you walked around. I was like, ‘What the **** do they do in this place?’ It was so bad that when we were doing something in the match and you had to get thrown out of the ring over the top, guys were landing on the apron and refused to hit the floor… and for good reason.”
“Incidentally, Rocco Rock was working as the Cheetah Kid at that time, and he was there setting up the ring. I was still green as ****, but everything went well, and I started to get more matches under my belt.”
Bill moved on from there and worked for the Savoldis at their ICW territory, which eventually morphed into IWCCW (International World Class Championship Wrestling) when Angelo bought into the Texas organization. Tony Atlas was their champion at that time when Pierce arrived in Parsippany, New Jersey. He quickly became the guy who drove the truck that contained the ring, setting it up before the shows and tearing it down after.
This was and is a vital part of paying your dues for any aspiring young talent coming up in the business. Not only does it give you a greater appreciation for what goes into the show and how to work safely, but it inevitably allows the ring crew the chance to learn other aspects of the business from there, as well as earn the respect of the promoter and their peers.
Pierce shared a story about his time setting up the ring:
“Angelo Savoldi, who was the man who designed and built this particular ring, gave me a crash course in how to put it together. It was all color-coded, because he realized wrestlers would be putting it together and he wanted to keep it as simple as possible.” (Pierce chuckled at the memory.)
“The design was the most ingenious ring set-up that I’ve seen to this day. It was made out of round interlocking steel tubes. Once the ring posts were set up and locked in place, one person could put the entire ring together. I’d set up, then wrestle five or six times and put everybody over for the television spots, and tear the ring down when we’d work tapings. Normally I’d just set up, wrestle, then tear down, pack the truck to travel to the next town, get to the hotel to try and get some sleep, and then do the whole thing all over again. I paid those dues for the next year or so.”
It was during this time that he not only learned the infrastructure of the ring and the business, but he also polished his craft. He had also established a name for himself as being straightforward and honest – someone who would bust his tail off for you, given the chance. That chance came for him in 1990, when he was called up by the WWF to help out as an extra in one of their spots at that year’s SummerSlam.
Inside the WWF: Chris Michaels’ “Jobber” Era with Wrestling’s Biggest Stars
Chris Michaels (working under his real name, Bill Pierce) during his early WWF enhancement appearances in 1991, where he perfected the art of making superstars look like gold. Photo Credit: WWE.
Often, WWE brings in local wrestlers to assess the talents’ qualities and get a closer look to “see for themselves” if they want to use them in their programming. Bill Pierce got that chance and ran with it.
“I did my first thing with WWF in 1990 when we carried out the Macho King on his throne to the ring at SummerSlam. I got to meet Shane Douglas, Sherri Martel, and a few other folks that I got to talk to and see that, wow, these people are really cool.
“I brought my father with me, and during that time, Vince McMahon had put out a big buffet. He would always do that before the events. I’m sitting there with my father and I’m enjoying myself, when all of a sudden Bobby Heenan walked into the room.
“My dad was in his early eighties; he was an old man. He looked up and he yelled out, ‘Hey, look, it’s the Weasel!’
“The whole room went silent, and when they looked and saw it was an old man, they all turned around and went back to eating. I figured I’d never work for Vince again. It was my once and done shot,” Pierce said with a chuckle, looking back at the memory. “Everything was cool, and my work there continued.”
SummerSlam 1990, with Bill’s dad making friends with Bobby Heenan at the pre-event buffet. Now, usually, saying something like that would’ve drawn instant heat from Heenan, but the elder Pierce got the pass.
Bill collected himself and sent his father to his seat so he could get ready to go to the ring. The other throne bearers were there, as well as Queen Sherri, waiting for the arrival of the Macho King. Once assembled, they hoisted Randy onto their shoulders and headed to the ring.
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From WWF Enhancement Talent to ECW Spotlight: Chris Michaels’ Dual Wrestling Success
Chris Michaels (Bill Pierce) moments before striking Typhoon (Fred Ottman) with a bamboo stick during a Tommy Dee show, showcasing the hard-hitting style that earned respect from wrestling’s giants. Photo Credit: Tommy Dee.
It was the can-do attitude and willingness to get the job done that grabbed the attention of agents. The revolving door of opportunities always has a surprise or two in store, though, and it was about to fling open for Bill Pierce and so many others at the original Eastern Championship Wrestling.
ECW was working shows out of a sports bar in Philadelphia during early 1991, when Todd Gordon received Bill’s demo tape and invited him to come down for a tryout.
For the youngsters reading this, back before there was the WWE Performance Center, and even back before Tough Enough, independent/territorial wrestlers would make up media packets including photos, a bio, and some video tape for the promoter to watch. This was the early days of hustling yourself like a door-to-door salesman to make it, and going where your bread was being buttered.
Pierce went and had his tryout, and worked a few spots for them, but it wasn’t long before he got the call to come back to the WWF.
The Sgt. Slaughter Encounter
When he arrived, one of the first matches he worked was against Sgt. Slaughter, during the Sarge’s heel rise as an Iraqi sympathizer. Bill took the bumps and sold strong for Slaughter throughout the match. He remembered the atmosphere in the back of the arena when he and Sarge came back to the locker room:
“The agents, Tony Garea and Rene Goulet, were angry, giving Sarge a hard time for working me over the way they did. They beat the **** out of me. I got whipped with a belt, and this and that. I put this guy over so good he looked like Superman, and he went straight to Vince to tell him so. I thought this was pretty cool; we got the heat from the fans. It was a nice feeling for me that one of these big guys appreciated me making them look good.”
The ECW Opportunity and Chris Michaels Persona
Bill Pierce continued to work mid and under-card spots for McMahon, but was keeping in touch with Todd Gordon as well. The small company was undergoing a booking change with the arrival of “Hot Stuff” Eddie Gilbert and Terry Funk to the territory. Pierce was called down to work an audition match to be a part of the growing company.
It was during this time that he dropped his real name and began to work under the Christ Michaels persona. Prior to this point, Bill had chosen to keep his real name to build his reputation in the business, and if you’re just getting squashed anyway, may as well get credit for it.
He arrived and was booked to be in a tag match with partner Lloyd A’noai, who was working as the Wild Samoan at that time. The match went well, and it was only a couple of weeks before he received a call from Gilbert with an offer to come and work for ECW.
Gilbert wanted to make him a part of a new tag team he was putting together with Chris Candido and Johnny “Hot Body” to be called the Suicide Blondes. Gilbert had an eye for talent, and Pierce shared the reason that he got that call:
“Eddie wanted to do a thing with the Blondes, where we worked the ‘Freebird Rule’ and any two of us could defend the titles at any given time. I was going to get a big push, and the one thing I will never forget that Eddie told me was that I reminded him of himself when he was breaking into the business. That was like, WOW, blew me away! For him to say something like that, a guy of his stature, it made all the hard work and sacrifice worth it to me. It made me feel like I was finally getting a foothold in this thing.”
Working the WWF’s Greatest Generation
Those who were around remember the stage of character development that the WWF was going through during the early nineties. The workers there were still being fed gimmicks that were geared towards the kids and, more often than not, came off looking a little cheesy. There were, however, gimmicks being born in this moment in wrestling history that would change the course of the business forever.
This was still the days of hard-hitting, stiff work, and when someone can take the bumps and put the other guys over, it doesn’t go unnoticed. Case in point:
“My first time with the Nasty Boys, I caught the beating of a lifetime. When I went to the back, I approached them and asked them if everything was good. Brian Knobbs looked at me and said, ‘Brothheerrr, the next one is gonna be [great].’
“They were still new guys and didn’t wanna get embarrassed in front of sixty thousand people. Like I said before, it didn’t bother me, so I sold them hard. I was in wrestling and I knew it was a tough sport. If you couldn’t take it, then buy a ticket… plain and simple. Everybody is not made to be a wrestler, I’m sorry. That may be your cosplay thing, at Halloween or Comic Con or whatever. Just because you put on wrestling gear, it does not a wrestler make. You have to be believable, and make people walk away with, ‘Say what you want, but those two guys were really going at it.’ The people who appreciate wrestling should get their money’s worth.”
The business is going through another evolution today, and Pierce isn’t sure that the direction it’s headed in is going to preserve its history in the way that some believe it should be. Where some may say it’s evolving, he sees it as devolving, from the sport he grew up loving into a spot-driven mess that has lost its ability to tell stories. He’s not the only one who feels this way:
“When I see the flippity-flop, I’m wondering if these guys care about pinning their opponents. Is that even in their minds? Trying to put your opponent on their back and get the pin as quick as you can lends to the legitimate sport of wrestling. Shouldn’t that carry through to the professional level? You’re looking to get a three count, not show who can do the best aerial display with a triple somersault in the pike position. Where does that have a place in wrestling? Great chain wrestling is art, and it’s the way it’s meant to be. If you’re gonna be in the ring, then you need to be able to wrestle.”
It was the old school ethics that had been instilled in Pierce that kept him centered and earned him the respect of his peers. His matches with Ric Flair and the Undertaker stand out as some of his best work in the WWF. When asked what it was like to work with guys of that caliber, even though Taker was still younger and sporting the original gear when he worked with Bill, Pierce recalled:
“I went in the back and asked him (Taker) what he wanted to do and how he wanted the match to go. He said he was going to walk the ropes, and asked me if I could do a few different things, to which I replied yes, with no problem to them all. The match went really good and I sold strong for him. It came time for that big Undertaker chokeslam, and BOOM!! Then, I got put in the body bag when it was all over.”
He spoke in different terms about his match with the Nature Boy, however.
The Ric Flair Moment That Haunted Chris Michaels: A Career-Defining Freeze
Ric Flair during his 1991 WWF debut year, when he offered Chris Michaels (Bill Pierce) a career-defining moment that later became his biggest regret. Photo Credit: WWE.
“I think my one moment that I truly could have shined, that I didn’t, was when I worked with Ric Flair,” Bill Pierce recalled.
“Flair called for me to headlock him and I froze, and it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. He took over the match and did what he usually does, which is look great and made me look like a million bucks. That’s the biggest what-if in my career though. We could have done something really special if I had just taken the reins when he offered them to me.”
Ric Flair was one of the best at giving a guy the shine, then taking it away with a dirty move to put both himself and his opponent over. A great heel gives, only to take away a little more and further the story. Pierce talked about ego and how it affects some guys differently.
“If Flair didn’t give the other guys shine, then it didn’t do anything for him. I think that’s the part where not having ego in the ring comes into play. Even if you are a top guy like that and all you do is maul your opponent, then what did you get? Not much of a story, for one thing, that’s for sure.”
Breaking the Jobber Stigma: Chris Michaels Defends Wrestling’s Unsung Heroes
Chris Michaels as ECW Tag Team Champion with the Suicide Blondes, proving that former WWF enhancement talent could achieve championship gold in Paul Heyman’s revolutionary promotion. Photo Credit: WWE.
Our conversation came back around to where it started, and Bill Pierce spoke about his feelings about being called a “jobber” and what that really means to him. His response sums it up perfectly:
“I wear it as a badge of honor. Okay, I was a jobber. And you were… what? A fan? Someone who never took a chance? Fill me in? These guys just like to throw the word jobber around, and any one of these guys would have traded places with me in a second. So who are they kidding?”
Bill worked with the WWF doing preliminary matches for a while but continued on with ECW on the side as well.
Several of the guys who worked those prelim matches went out on their own and broke away from the WWF to work other territories and found success, such as Mick Foley. Pierce sought to pattern himself after that model and left the WWF to work more in ECW and the UWF in California.
The Universal Wrestling Federation was started up in Marina Del Rey by promoter Herb Abrams. He signed several legit wrestlers, as well as a handful of workers who had the heart and guts to implement the “back to basics” model he wanted to launch with the UWF.
Chris Michaels’ Modern Wrestling Renaissance: Team Splendid and Independent Success
"Simply Splendid" Bobby C and Sir Christopher Michaels (Bill Pierce) as tag team champions in the New York/New Jersey independent circuit, where the veteran mentored talent while reclaiming his competitive edge. Photo Credit: LTW/Locked Target Wrestling.
In recent years, Bill Pierce has returned to the gym and started working out more regularly again. He has also been wrestling on the independent circuit in his New York home vicinity and plans to branch out again in the near future.
He began working with “Simply Splendid” Bobby C and became a full-fledged member of Team Splendid. The two worked a great heel gimmick together that took the art of storytelling and selling back to its core.
The two could entertain throughout a match without the need for “high spots” or the ever-present over-the-top chicanery. They wrestled and worked their matches old school, and for those who had seen Team Splendid in action, it was indeed refreshing to see things slowed down and a thinking heel react with the crowd.
“Chris Michaels is one of many top-notch wrestlers who unfairly got the ‘jobber’ tag as a result of his role in WWE,” shares fellow Pro Wrestling Stories historian/author Evan Ginzburg, who served as Associate Producer of the films The Wrestler and 350 Days. “A former ECW tag champ in their early days, he was also a New York area indy main-eventer. Even today, he remains in top shape, he ‘still got it’ and is a mentor to many. I have nothing but respect for Chris Michaels, the athlete, wrestler, and man.”
“I watched Bill years ago when I would see him on the indies, and on TV. So all these years later, and now I’m in the wrestling business with the chance of working with him. During our time as Simply Splendid, he was my mentor, my right-hand man, and a great influence and worker.
“Many of the guys in the locker room who don’t recognize him don’t realize the wealth of knowledge he has to offer,” adds former tag team partner, ‘Simply Splendid’ Bobby C. “He likes to help young talent and always offers good advice, yet remains humble. Bill became a part of Team Splendid, and things really developed from there. We worked well as a unit but also independently, so we were able to represent the team in different places at the same time. Bill remains one of my best friends in this business, and in my personal life.”
I (author Jim Phillips) personally became close friends with Bill when we met in December 2019, during my visit to New York City. While I usually form friendships through my articles, I met Bill before that, at an indie show in Brooklyn.
I knew I was going to meet Chris Michaels that night, but I wasn’t sure when. The show started, and this wild, loud guy in a lucha libre mask sat next to me, talking **** to the wrestlers and just being an overall rowdy guy. I looked at him and thought to myself, as he toasted his beer in the air, “THIS is a guy I can relate to!”
We sat and exchanged hellos, and near the end of the show, I had the chance to step aside for a personal conversation that soon blossomed into a close friendship with Bill Pierce – and years later, now, this article.
Uncle Billy: Chris Michaels’ Latest Reinvention
NYWC Trios Champions Dirty Deedz featuring Uncle Billy (Bill Pierce) with partners Dirk Moore and Johnny Malloy in 2024 – the latest transformation of the enduring wrestler who refused to fade away. Photo Credit: NYWC.
As happens many times in the wrestling business, Bill Pierce parted ways with Team Splendid and did what he does best: he reinvented himself.
Putting down the feather boa and gazing mirror, and donning a hillbilly hat, flannel shirt, and carrying a cowbell, he transformed from royalty to an Appalachian mountain man named Uncle Billy.
Flanked by Dirk Moore and Johnny Malloy, he joined the team of Dirty Deedz.
Bill is an all-in person and does nothing halfway. He cut his hair and grew a bushy beard, diving into the role of manager and mentor to the hell-raising duo. They were good before, but as every great team knows, you always need more cowbell.
A Personal Battle and Community Support
Army veteran Bill Pierce (Chris Michaels) with his cherished companion Pudgy, whose life-threatening illness brought the wrestling community together in support. Photo courtesy of Bill Pierce.
In recent weeks, Bill has been helping and nursing his dog Pudgy through some serious health issues. Bill is a working man and not rich in wealth, but rich in friends. When Pudgy’s veterinary bills reached $7,000 for emergency surgery to remove a tumor from his spleen, longtime friend and wrestling industry veteran Evan Ginzburg stepped up to help organize a GoFundMe campaign. Ginzburg has a history of helping wrestling community members in their time of need.
The GoFundMe, co-organized by Ginzburg and Pierce, tells the heartbreaking story of how Pudgy fell ill over Memorial Day weekend:
“This dog is like our baby, and I humbly ask for any help you can offer in this emergency,” Pierce wrote in the fundraiser description. “He’s a good dog with a great disposition who loves everybody, and we want him here with us as long as possible. I wouldn’t ask for myself but for him, our Pudgy. I am humbling myself. Pet parents will understand.”
Ginzburg’s involvement in organizing the fundraiser demonstrates the deep bonds formed within the wrestling community. His willingness to help a fellow wrestling veteran reflects the brotherhood that exists among those who understand the sacrifices made in the business. The campaign has drawn support from wrestling fans and industry figures who recognize Pierce’s contributions to the sport and respect his character as both a performer and a person.
I have met many wrestlers, but my encounters with Bill are ones that I’ll never forget. He is a good brother and a straight shooter. His journey from Army tank crewman to WWF enhancement talent to ECW champion to independent wrestling mentor represents the very best of what professional wrestling can offer: resilience, authenticity, and an unwavering commitment to helping others.
Whether selling for The Undertaker, holding ECW gold, or mentoring young talent as Uncle Billy, Pierce has consistently demonstrated that success in wrestling isn’t measured solely by championships or main event status, but by the respect earned from peers, the lives touched, and the legacy built through dedication and genuine care for others.
While Bill Pierce may have begun as an enhancement talent, he’s proven himself to be the heart and backbone of wrestling’s family – an enduring champion both in and out of the ring.
If you’d like to book Uncle Billy (Bill Pierce, formerly known as Chris Michaels) for an appearance or get information about his wrestling merchandise (including cowbells, t-shirts, and more), you can email him directly at wilykayote@gmail.com.
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Jim Phillips is a senior author for Pro Wrestling Stories and a lifetime member of the Cauliflower Alley Club. He has been a passionate pro wrestling fan since the late '70s and has spent the past decade as a journeyman writer, sharing his insights and stories with the wrestling community. He can also be heard in the BBC Radio production Sports Strangest Crimes: The Ballad of Bruiser Brody. Tragically, Jim is currently facing the greatest challenge of his life after being paralyzed on January 21st, 2023. You can learn more about his journey and how you can support him in reaching his goal of taking his first steps again at the link above.