| Tony Anthony | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Darrell W. Anthony |
| Born | (1960-04-12)April 12, 1960 (age 64) Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | Bernice Anthony |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | American Eagle II Dirty White Boy Grappler #2 The Invader Mighty Yankee T. L. Hopper Tony Anthony Uncle Cletus |
| Billed height | 5 ft 10 in (178 cm)[1] |
| Billed weight | 235 lb (107 kg)[1] |
| Billed from | Bucksnort, Tennessee[2] |
| Trained by | Steve Keirn Ron Wright |
| Debut | October 1980[3] |
| Retired | 2006 |
Darrell W. Anthony (born April 12, 1960[3][4]) is a retiredAmericanprofessional wrestler, also known by his ring nameDirty White Boy. He wrestled in NWA territories in the Southeastern United States.[5][6] He was most active throughout the 1980s and 1990s in theTennessee-basedUnited States Wrestling Association (USWA) andSmoky Mountain Wrestling (SMW), and had two short stints with theWorld Wrestling Federation (WWF) under the ring names ofT. L. Hopper andUncle Cletus.
Trained bySteve Keirn and Ron Wright, Anthony worked as a jobber inMid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling in 1981 and 1982. He won his first major title teaming withLen Denton as "The Grapplers" in theAWA. They defeatedThe Fabulous Ones (Keirn andStan Lane) to win theAWA Southern Tag Team Championship on August 8, 1983.[5] After losing the title, The Grapplers continued to team elsewhere, winning theNWA Central States Tag Team Championship twice in 1984.[5]
After The Grapplers disbanded, Anthony continued to wrestle on the independent circuit, splitting his time between singles competition and tag team action. He teamed withJerry Stubbs inContinental Championship Wrestling to win theNWA Continental Tag Team Championship four times before the promotion closed.[5] After it became theContinental Wrestling Federation, Anthony and Stubbs won the tag team title twice more.[5] As a singles wrestler, Anthony won theNWA Alabama Heavyweight Championship on four occasions. He beatWendell Cooley to begin both of his first two reigns,Bob Armstrong to begin his third andTom Prichard for his fourth. His last reign ended when the title was retired in 1988.[7]
In 1989, Anthony defeatedDustin Rhodes in aUnited States Wrestling Association (USWA) tournament final to become the firstUSWA Southern Heavyweight champion.[8] The following year, he won theUSWA Tag Team Championship on three occasions, once with Tom Burton and twice withDoug Gilbert.[9]
Anthony competed primarily as a singles wrestler inSmoky Mountain Wrestling (SMW). He was quicklypushed as a main event wrestler, and won theSMW Heavyweight Championship fromBrian Lee on August 8, 1992.[10] Afterdropping the title toTracy Smothers the following April, Anthony (under his masked Mighty Yankeegimmick) won theSMW Beat the Champ Television Championship in June 1993.[5] While holding this title, he defeated Brian Lee to regain the Heavyweight Championship. He was involved in anangle in which he waskayfabe forced to vacate the Television Championship on August 16, after a series of defenses. The rules stipulated that any wrestler who successfully defended the title five times would be awarded $5000, but be forced to vacate it. Anthony regained the title by beatingRobert Gibson on September 13. He won his final SMW Heavyweight Championship on July 5, 1994, by defeatingJake Roberts.[5] He held the title for over six months before losing it toJerry Lawler on January 28, 1995. Anthony's performance in 1994 earned him his highest ever ranking (No. 25) in the annualPWI 500.[11] Anthony won his final title in SMW on July 6, 1995, teaming withTracy Smothers (as The Thugs) to defeat The Dynamic Duo (Al Snow andUnabom) for theSMW Tag Team Championship.[5]
In 1996, Anthony joined theWorld Wrestling Federation (WWF). He was one of a series of "jobbers with gimmicks" brought into the WWF in 1996 to help elevate the company's stars, alongsideAlex "The Pug" Pourteau,Freddie Joe Floyd,the Goon, andSalvatore Sincere. He was given thegimmick of "T. L. Hopper", a wrestlingplumber. After a series ofvignettes showing Hopper at work, he debuted wearinglow hanging jeans and a stained undershirt. He would carry hisplunger (named "Betsy") to the ring with him, and celebrate his victories by sticking it in his opponent's face. His biggest win was a "home improvement" match, where he defeatedDuke "The Dumpster" Droese.[12]
Although he did not wrestle on any WWFpay-per-views, he made an appearance during the "Bikini Beach Blast-Off" segment, on theFree For All show immediately precedingSummerSlam 1996. Based on his experience as a plumber, Hopper was chosen to investigate a brown object resembling feces on the bottom of the swimming pool which turned out to be a sausage.[13] The segment parodied a scene in the movieCaddyshack. He continued wrestling in lower cards matches mainly in house shows until June 1997.
After taking a brief hiatus, he returned to the WWF in September 1997 as Uncle Cletus, coming from the audience to help theheel tag team ofThe Godwinns (Henry andPhineas Godwinn) in a match againstThe Headbangers. He hitMosh in the head with a horseshoe, allowing Phineas to make the pin.[14] He was then billed as the uncle of the Godwinns, and became the team'smanager. AtBadd Blood 1997, The Godwinns won theWWF Tag Team Championship, with Cletus in their corner.[15] On October 13, Cletus interfered in another match, but his interference backfired and allowed theLegion of Doom to win the title. Following this, the Godwinns attacked Cletus, who was never seen in the WWF again.[16]
After leaving the WWF, Anthony returned to his home state of Tennessee (where he had maintained considerable fame and popularity) and wrestled for variousindependents aroundEast Tennessee until retiring from active competition in 2006. In recent years, he played a prominent role inKnoxville's Tennessee Xtreme Wrestling, as itsfacecommissioner.
,Internet Wrestling Database