PWTorch Newsletter Torch Talk Flashback
"Dirty" Dutch Mantell a/k/a Zeb Colter in current WWE

Originally Published: PWTorch Newsletter #216
Cover-dated March 1, 1993
Interview by Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

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Dutch Mantell, who is currently wrestling and commentating for Smoky Mountain Wrestling part-time, has traveled many roads in this business. In the first part of this two-part “Torch Talk" interview with Mantell, he discusses his career, his dreams, his color commentary, and his philosophy on the business of wrestling. The interview was conducted via phone on Jan. 15, 1993.

Keller: When you were on national TV with WCW World Wide and now with Smoky Mountain Wrestling, you have been complimented as a strong color commentator. Did you realize you had that talent to not only add color and credibility to a match, but be witty for an entire hour?

Mantell: That is a trait that can be directly attributed to those long, long boring trips that wrestlers are subjected to. Nothing is worse than going on a trip with a bunch of boring sonofabitches. You have to do something to shorten the time, so that’s where all the bull comes from. When Richard Prior made it big, he was doing stuff he did in the pool room. The stuff I do is the same stuff I did in the car, I just take the cussing out. I take anything that is off-color out. People enjoy it because it‘s loose. People always enjoy good bullshit, I don’t care who they are. It’s because it lightens the mood. Wrestling doesn’t have to be, “I’m gonna kill you and rip your eyeballs out.” Shoot, that would tum me off if I heard it. I don’t want to hear that. I just make it light and breezy.

When I would go to the production meeting, I didn’t half way listen to it because there is no need for me to listen to it. Unless there is something that actually has to be put in there - and they’ll tell me -then I just sit there and do it. I just wing it. I don’t write nothing down, I don’t have any cue cards. I just do it. It’s just conversations I've had on the road, and talking with my wife, of course. She is very witty. I do get a lot of stuff from her.

Keller: Are your long-term plans to stay in the wrestling business?

Mantell: You can’t get out of it. Well, you can get out of it, but you’re always attracted back to it because somebody will call you. Twenty years of my life has been wrapped up in wrestling, so you know a lot of people in it. I may not be employed in it, but I will always be a part of it.

Keller: Is your goal to always be employed in wrestling?

Mantell: That really can’t be my goal because I'm not really currently employed in it. I do some independent shows in the Nashville area, fundraisers, and stuff. That can be a quick way to the poor house, too. Just like wrestling, promoting is an art to get right. You need a sponsor and you need to get the word out.

Keller: What is one key change you have seen in your years in the wrestling business that you wish could be taken back?

Mantell: Well, just for the sake of the wrestlers, to have some place for more of them to make a living. There's no place for them to go anymore with the national expansion of the WWF. I think Vince (McMahon) is a genius. He saw a spot for (expansion) and moved at just the right time. But I think that probably helped the wrestling business hit a boom, but for every action there is a reaction. So for every high there is an equal low. I think it will come back, but I don’t think it will come back like it did. The only thing I would take back is the overexpansion of it. Vince saw the opening and went for it, but put a lot of guys out of work. But they were going to have to get out of it some day anyway, so maybe it just sped up the process a little bit.

Keller: Who were some of the people you looked up to in the wrestling business?

Mantell: This is before I became so jaded? One of the greatest workers I ever saw was Dicky Steinborn in Georgia. He was the smoothest, greatest wrestler I've ever seen. I remember some of the greatest matches I ever saw were between Jody Hamilton, the Assassin, and Dick Steinborn that went 40 or 15. This is when they used all the psychology, when they had the fans standing and crying. I mean, if you watched it, you actually believed it. It was that good.

Jody Hamilton weighed 300 pounds and he could dropkick. I wish I had some of it on tape. He was the best big man I saw, really. I’ve always said you can’t learn to work unless you become a serious student of the business. You have to watch it. I've been in a lot of territories. Guys would break into the business, but they’d never go out and watch the matches. They'd wrestle their match and then come sit in the dressing room and bullshit. I've always hated sitting around the locker room anyways. I always watched all of the matches. I had to compete against them anyway. I would say, “If I'm going to stay here, I’m going to have to do something a little bit different.” I wasn’t overly big, I didn’t have a great body. But there was one thing I had, so I became Mr. Hustle. I did everything 110 percent.

When I was told to do something, there was no big argument. Hell, I was glad to have a job. I could have been out digging a ditch. Instead, I'm riding around town in a Cadillac. People are asking for my autograph or calling me a sonofabitch, depending on whether I was a babyface or a heel. I thought it was a great deal. I appreciated it. Heck, from a mental attitude, I was just happy to be alive. I worked a deal where I was in the business just one year and they asked me to go an hour. It was a boost of confidence that the booker thought I had the ability and talent to do that. I don’t know if I could do it today. I could, but I'd have to utilize every trick in the book to do it now. Then I didn’t have to use every trick in the book. It was just one whole hour of just digging, one highspot, one routine, one bump-this, that, and the other after another. We held the people for a whole hour. The guy who booked it, Tom Renesto, never said a word to me, so by his silence, that was an endorsement for it. When something was bad, he'd say something. A lot of guys would say, “Hey, he must not have liked it.” But I understood him. A lot of guys hated him. They said he lied to them. He never lied to me. I learned a lot from him, too.

You see, you learn a lot when you go up and down the road, when you make yourself a serious student of the business. Whether you agree with something or you don’t agree with something, you still listen to it and draw your own conclusions. You develop your own style. A lot of guys now want to get in there and emulate somebody else. A lot of guys sound like Willie Nelson and so they want to imitate Willie Nelson. But how many Willie Nelsons can the market bear? One. And he's already got it. The guys need an entirely different deal.

My name, “Dirty” Dutch, I picked that up in Puerto Rico. Then I came back. I had the hat. I picked up the bullwhip, I concocted the story, and I became the character. That's how I did it. Now I see guys going around with a bullwhip. Hell, I saw Nick Bockwinkel with a bullwhip one time. I said, "What the hell is he doing?" Bill Irwin got the bullwhip. Then, Black Bart got the bullwhip. Then, I thought of changing my deal, going to the ring with a chainsaw. Then, see if others followed going to the ring with a chainsaw themselves.

Even my commentary, I never try to copy anyone else. I don’t copy Bobby Heenan. He has his own deal. Paul E. Dangerously has his own deal. Jesse Ventura has his own deal. Larrv Zbyszko has his.
And I've got mine. If I was trying to copy them and they were trying to copy me, then somebody’s going to overlap, right? Somebody's going to be a carbon copy of somebody else. And the people are going to see that. So that's why my style is more laid back. l’m not really good on the one-liners where Cornette is good on the one-liners. I may take a one-liner and turn it into a little story with a little jump at the end. That’s the way I do it.

Part 2 of the text version of this Torch Talk Installment will be published this weekend...

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