Why Ted DiBiase Thinks Vince McMahon Tried To Rib The Tough-As-Nails Harley Race

The late Harley Race was not only a legendary wrestler, but a noted tough guy. However, the gimmick he portrayed in WWE was unlike his real-life persona, which surprised Ted DiBiase.

After spending several years in the NWA, Race made his way to the WWF in 1986 and won the King of the Ring tournament that same year, and began referring to himself as "King" Harley Race. He came to the ring with a crown and cape, making his opponents kneel before him. Having Race portray the character was something that confused Ted DiBiase, and he spoke about it on a recent episode of his "Everybody's Got A Pod" podcast. DiBiase said Race was not just a tough guy in the "make-believe world of professional wrestling" but in real life as well.

"I would say it this way. If you walked down a dark alley at night and you knew there were a bunch of thugs in the alley, if you had your choice of having one person to go with you, it would be Harley Race," DiBiase said. "But sometimes I wonder if that was Vince, like a rib. Like, 'Okay, this big, tough Harley Race and I'm going to make him king.' Here's the thing that's hard for me, it's like, I think Jake [Roberts] would probably agree with me in this case.

"We grew up in the old-school way. Our fathers were old-school wrestlers. And so this new thing with the WWF and trying to market toward children and toys and stuff like that, you're bigger than life, [a] hero, you know, Hulk Hogan ... it was kind of cartoonish and so I have to keep that in mind in terms of what Vince had in mind for Harley."

Race, who had a brief run in WWE, was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004 thanks to his legendary run in other promotions.