The pit and the passion

Professional wrestler the ‘face’ of Cherokee Casino

Phil’s got a smile ear to ear, shaking hands and saying hello to everyone,” Chris Province, assistant general manager of the Cherokee Casino & Hotel in West Siloam Springs, Okla., describes pit boss Phil Panos. “His job is to make sure everything goes right.”

In professional wrestling terms, that would make Panos a “babyface” - a good guy. But that wasn’t often his persona when he was known by stage names such as “Phil Apollo” and “The Playboy.” When Panos worked with International World Class Championship Wrestling, World Class Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation - now known as World Wrestling Entertainment - he was generally a heel.

“That persona, the one that gave me a little bit of a springboard, was a cocky, loudmouth, arrogant kind of guy,” Panos admits. “I was a pretty good talker, so business was good.”

Now, says Panos, who lives in Rogers, “I’m a dad. I’m a husband. I’ve got a pool table in my house.

I watch football. I like to cook.

That’s it. I’m kind of boring, really.”

Province says Panos was already working at Cherokee Casino when he joined the staff.

“He was just this nice pit boss guy. Big personality. Good dude,” Province says. “When I found out he was a wrestler, of course, being a huge fan, I had to be inquisitive and find out who and when and where. It’s not something he talks about a whole lot. He pours all of his effort into being a good leader in our table games pit.

“But he’s been to Wrestle-Mania! It’s a thrill to be that close to a guy who’s been on the big stage.”

CHILDHOOD DREAM

Panos - like Province and lots of fans - grew up watching professional wrestling with his grandfather. He says during those years in Boston he had no idea it was scripted, and he can’t really say what attracted him beyond the “bigger-than-life personalities, obviously.”

“My childhood was reasonably normal,” he remembers. “I wasn’t the best student in the world. My mind wandered during the day! I played a lot of sports. My folks divorced when I was reasonably young, but they made it as stress free as possible. In general, I wouldn’t say it was very much different than most people’s.”

Panos says he never put a lot of thought into a career, although he admits he “had a flair” for drawing baseball stadiums, so he considered architecture or drafting.

But “as I got older, I moved to California and would go watch the wrestling matches in San Bernardino every night.”

It was there in 1984 that Panos ran into the late Chris Adams, a professional wrestler, at the concession stand after a match.

“We chatted for a bit as we waited for our drinks and quickly became friends,” Panos says. “Before he left Los Angeles to move on to the next circuit, Chris broke me in to the business.

“I have so many great memories from those years,” he says. “In 1994, I was asked to be a part of WrestleMania X. It’s the biggest wrestling event of the year and was held in Madison Square Garden, the largest of all sports arenas. I worked the fan fest during the event.

To be a part of that in a supporting role was very memorable.”

Panos worked with some of the biggest names in the business, including Shawn Michaels,Undertaker, the late Gary Hart, the late Randy Savage and the late Yokozuna. He also gave other wrestlers the same leg up he’d been given.

“If it wasn’t for him, nobody ever would have heard of me,” says Scott Garland, better known as “Scotty 2 Hotty.” He was a huge part of my career.”

“Wrestling was all I wanted to do since I was 10 years old,” he says, and he first met Panos as a fan.

“I told him my friends and I were going to go to Bret Hart’s family (wrestling) school up in Calgary, and he said, ‘Well, good luck,’” Garland recalls. “There was something about the way he said it.”

To break into the business required connections, Garland learned, and Panos turned out to be his.

“When I met him as a wrestler - I was 16 or 17 years old - we went out to dinner after the show the first night. I can’t remember how long after that, I was working as a cook at KFC, and the phone rings, and it’s Phil saying, ‘Hey, WWE called me, and they want me to bring another guy. Want to go?’ He had tracked me down because he remembered I worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken!

“Any time you’re in the ring with anybody you get along with, it’s great,” Garland says. “But to get to work with somebody you liked as a fan and learn from him, that’s the best.

“The wrestling business really missed out on Phil,” he adds. “He can talk - better than 95 percent of the guys today.That’s something missing in the business today. He could talk for 30 minutes without even thinking before he went out there.

And his mind for storylines was just awesome. It’s too bad they missed out.”

And yet, Garland says, Panos is lucky.

“He found something else he loves doing.”

AFTER WRESTLING

“It’s like being in the mob,” Garland says with a laugh. “It’s very difficult to get out of wrestling.

It’s not even a financial thing; it’s trying to find that thing you love doing.

Money will come if you love it. I just can’t figure out what that thing is for me.”

Panos says after he retired in 1995 - at the age of 34 - he never really looked back. But the casino business, he says, happened by accident. He just wanted to live closer to his daughter, Briana, who is a student at the University of Arkansas.

For a long time, wife Ashley didn’t even know about the part of his life he spent in wrestling, he admits.

Wrestling manager “Paul Bearer was a very good friend of mine,” Panos says, “and we drove to Mobile, Ala., in March for his funeral. She got to meet Undertaker and Michael Hayes and some other people I had worked with in the past, and it kind of hit her: ‘I guess he didn’t embellish it after all.’

“I got to do something most people would love to get the chance to do and found moderate success,” he says. “While I am grateful and enjoyed the art aspect of what I did, I didn’t like a lot of the things that went along with the lifestyle.”

One of those things, he admits, was being recognized when he wasn’t in the ring. But now, “I kind of get a kick out of somebody getting a kick out of talking to me. It doesn’t matter what you’re a fan of, people like to look back at the history and talk about things that have happened and what’s changed.

“I don’t watch the matches anymore,” he admits. “It was a part of my life. I did it, and I am very glad I did, but that time has passed. I love my current job and where I am in my life. I have no regrets.”

FAST FACTS WrestleMania XXX

When: April 6

Where: Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans

Cost: Tickets start at $50 and are priced up to $2,000

Information: ticketmaster.com

Style, Pages 21 on 01/09/2014

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