Show: Wrestling Epicenter
Guest: "The World's Strongest Man" Ted Arcidi
Date: 08/03/2026
Your Host: "Arizona" James Walsh

He set the Bench Press World Record benching over 700 pounds. He became a major player in the WWE in short order sharing the ring with the likes of Andre the Giant, Big John Studd, and the stars of the NFL. He held the World Class Texas Heavyweight Title. And, for the past several decades, he's owned and operated successful fitness supplement companies and has now begun to build an impressive filmograpy. He's the original "World's Strongest Man" in the WWE, Ted Arcidi! And, he's our guest this week!

Hear the story behind the massive man who made big things happen in the 1980's WWF scene in this exclusive interview!

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TED ARCIDI:

On his current health:
"Right now, I'm doing great. A few years ago, I don't know if the news was out, but I had both my knees replaced, both shoulders replaced, my right hip... And, I'll tell you, it has been that long... I had 5 operations. 5 joints replaced. And, I had it all done at once. But, I trained like a fiend! And, I'm back now! Stronger than I was 20 years ago. I'm benching, squatting, running. It is unbelievable! It truly is a miracle from the Virgin Mary. I'm so blessed. And, the key is, I did my therapy the right way. That is so key. I tell people all the time. If you have a joint replaced, you have to use it. You have to get it working within like 3 weeks or you could end up with frozen joint. Right now, the replacements you get, they are the best. They truly are. But, the doctor, he gave me the numbers of people who get their joints replaced and it was astonishing. It was something like 75 to 80% of them never recover full motion. That's because they didn't follow the therapy. They didn't have the discipline."

On if it was wise to do all 5 surgeries at once:
"I looked at this like a World Record. I did. I looked at myself and I was like, "I'm never going back to being half assed ever again." f*** that! So, I followed the therapy, with my discipline, and it worked. It really worked. I'm about 235 right now. I'm running on the astroturf, I'm squatting in the 300's with no belt. And, I'm benching in the 200's for reps which is great. I still look like I could do some damage!"

On those worried about getting surgery:
"A lot of guys from my generation, like Ken Patera and Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake. I see them and they clearly need it. And, I tell them, "Get the f***ing surgeries! You're going to feel that much better!" Especially Kenny. He knows the discipline. He was in the Olympics. And, I heard he recently suffered a fall. So, my best to him. And Brutus, Brutus was tight with Hulk Hogan. And, Hogan told him "don't ever get the back surgery" after what Hogan went through. And then, who's that kid? John Cena! Look at him walk. He's walking with a tilt. He's walking a little hunched, with a tilt because he doesn't want to get the back surgery. I'm telling you. Get the surgery or else it is going to be a short life after wrestling."

On Ken Patera getting him into wrestling:
"I love Kenny. Kenny got me into wrestling. He started following my career when I started to train to gear up to go for 7 (700 pounds bench press) and he told Vince McMahon about me. Vince started paying attention to what I was doing. And, the rest is history. But, I owe Kenny. He got me in the business."

On Vince McMahon's interest in muscle guys:
"Vince McMahon cornered the market on wrestling. He got the buzz going with the first WrestleMania. And, he wanted guys that looked like wrestlers. That is why he had guys like me and Big John Studd. And, we had a great match, a TV main event match at the Boston Gardens. That was my best match ever. But, Vince, he knew how to market. Today, it is diluted. It is almost all high flyers and skinny chickens you wouldn't recognize at the airport."

On how he got into power lifting:
"Great question! If you check out my Wikipedia, it will tell you taht I was big into hockey. But, i was a defenseman. I wasn't that big. I was like 165. I would do push ups, sit ups, squats, and such. And, that was good. But, they told me I had to get into weight training to get bigger. They said I needed to be 20, 30 pounds heavier to really kill people as a defenseman. Well, they were right. And, I did. And, I saw a sign at the gym about a bench press competition in Southbridge, MA. So, I said, "Let me give this a try." It was all new to me. I had started bencing during the blizzard of 1978. And, by thsi time, 1980, I was benching in the 400's and I was still playing hockey. There were weight classes, just like in wrestling. Anyway, I came in 2nd place. I benched 440 pounds. And, after that, I started getting phone calls to do magazines and newspapers and things like that. And, I thought, "Maybe I should do this instead of hockey?" And, I ind of let hockey go by the boards. And, I put my focus on weight training."

On the road to breaking the record, 700 pound bench press:
I started in the 220 pound weight class. And, every year, I'd gain and change weight classes. Then I was 240, 375, and final 308. I didn't want to starve myself. I wanted to build tendon and ligament strength but I wanted to keep myself looking good. That's what I did."

On his father's reaction to him entertaining the thought of pro wrestling:
"You've got to understand, I love my mom and my dad, God rest their souls. But, I grew up in a very academic family. And, my father was the son of an immigrant from Sicily. So, he struggled with the idea, "How the heck is my son going to make money as a professional weight lifter and now he wants to become a pro wrestler?" At the time, Jimmy, you have to understand that wrestling was considered very low brow. He didn't see that it was catching on. It was on all the cable news. It was on network television. It was really catching on with what Vince McMahon was doing with WrestleMania and Hulk Hogan. Well, my dad caught wind of the idea that I was going into wrestling from a Boston Globe article that they ran after I just got back from Hawaii from breaking the record for benching 700 pounds. And, it said something like, "It looks like Ted Arcidi is going to sign with the WWF." And, for years, up until about 10 years ago, I had this message from my dad on an old fashioned answering machine. I'll tell you exactly how it went. It went, "Beep. Ted, this is your dad. I saw the article in the Boston Globe about you joining wrestling." Then there was a pause. And, he continued, "If you even harbor a thought of that... I'm changing the locks." Then, he hung up. We didn't talk to each other for like a year, a year and a half after. The rest of the family, they saw that it was changing. Wrestling was becoming more mainstream. And, my dad came around to it once he saw that I was on TV. That's the beauty of that generation. He was the son of an immigrant. All he wanted to do was better himself and better his family. He wanted me to follow him into dentistry. And, that would have been great. But, I just didn't want to do that just then."

On becoming part of the WWF in 1985:
"It was amazing! This was just when it was going mainstream. Vince was a genius. I remember Vince met with me, he sent me to his camp in Orange, CT. And, I was on TV sooner than I thought. Even before I was on TV, they were showing the footage of me breaking the (700 pound bench press) world record in Hawaii. So, people were getting primed to see me before I ever made my debut. Timing is everything. It is true, you know?'

On being in the WrestleMania II battle royal with the NFL stars:
"That was great. There were some great legendary football stars in there. The Frige, God rest his soul, someone told me he just passed a few months ago (NOTE: Fridge is still alive and kicking), Too Tall Jones... Then, you had the wrestlers. The Sheik, Andre the Giant, the Hart Foundation, Dan Spivey... There was a lot of muscle on that card and in that ring, that's for damn sure. With all that was in the ring that night, I bet they really did reinforce the ring!"

On if it was difficult to wrestle with the NFL stars:
"Not really because in a battle royal, you can get away with a lot of shit. It is a lot of punching, kicking, grabbing, and trying to lift a guy over the ropes. Sometimes you get together with some guys to try and get someone out. In fact, that is how they got me out. They had 3 or 4 guys game up on me and put me out. But, the NFL guys were just as glad to be there as we were to have them. In fact, a lot of them asked about getting into wrestling after their football careers because they knew we were gaining so much notoriety. It used to be that the Steelers and the Cowboys, everybody was watching. But, it was shifting. Saturday mornings, everybody was watching us (WWE) and we were becoming just as big as the NFL."

On the expansion of the WWF:
"Vince McMahon and Fritz Von Erich, maybe more Vince, were incredible. They were ahead of the curve when it came to cable and getting exposure all over the world. They were making it global. And, of course, Cyndi Lauper helped out. She deserves a lot of credit. She took a gamble associating herself with pro wrestling because she was really high on the charts and it could have hurt her. But, it didn't and with the MTV tie in, it really helped wrestling."

On if other wrestling companies were interested in him before choosing the WWE:
"I had offers from the NWA. But, I decided to go with Vince. Vince was ahead of the curve when it came to cable. He was quicker on the trigger. And, marketing. Vince really understood marketing."

On what would have happened had he slammed Big John Studd:
"I would have been fired! Really, i would have been fired. That was his gimmick. He was doing the thing where if you slammed him, you got $10,000. But, I loved that match. I remember, Vince was working with us. Vince was like a father to me. He really was. He wanted to make sure this read well and came off properly. So, they said, "Don't slam him!" Well, he weighed about 340. And, I guess I was having a rush of adrenaline and I was in great shape. And, well, I picked him up like a feather. I wanted to do that to show the people, "Yeah, I can lift him and if I wanted to, I could throw him into the f***ing second tier of seats... But, Vince told me to show my athleticism. He wanted me to show I could do more than just be a strong man. So, in that match, I jumped off the middle rope doing a duble axe handle and did some other jumping moves that strong men at the time weren't doing to sort of put me in a different realm to just the usual strong man wrestler."

On getting an LJN wrestling action figure made:
"I did an appearance and I was at the airport going home and these kids came up to me with action figures for me to sign.... And, I was like, "On my God, that's me!" And, I went home, and in the mail waiting for me was a check for $50,000 for the action figures. That was amazing. But, that was Vince. He was a marketing genius. And, that helped me a lot when I went up to Calgary for Stampede Wrestling and to Texas for Fritz. That thing was everywhere."

On the LJN figure:
"I was a part of the original run there. I look at the back of the box where it shows all of the other action figures you can buy. And, I'm one of only 3 guys still alive now."

On how the original LJN's compare to modern wrestling figures:
"We were the originals. And, the quality, nothing compares to that. Those were the best."

On Hulk Hogan during the time that the WWF was booming in the 1980's:
"He was truly the golden goose. He really was. I trained with him. But, Hulk is the one that really started the whole thing. I wouldn't be here talking to you if Hulk didn't come along. What he did with the movie (Rocky III) and going into the AWA and then Vince grabbed him and they made history together, Hogan was the golden goose. And, when I look at the X-Rays of his back, it is amazing he had the career that he did. He could have wrestled for 7, 8 years and had a great career but he ended up going for 20, 30 years. He was the man."

On Hulk's passing:
"Hulk died and the reason he died, he never sould have gone in for that neck surgery. When you go in for surgery, you get bloodwork done and the scores on his bloodwork didn't look that good. I mean, he was like 70, 71 years old and couldn't move too well. So, his blood wasn't what it should have been. But, they never should have done that surgery because they put him under and couldn't bring him back from the anesthesia."

On Hulk's final years:
"I respect him even more for how he lived his last few years. He preached God, he became born again. And, of course, he made mistakes. We all are sinners. But, I have no doubt he's in Heaven like the thief that sits next to Jesus. But, he preached God and the gospel before he left and did a lot of things good for people. That is why he'll always be immortal to me."

On getting emotional from the Hulk Hogan documentary:
"I watched that Real American documentary on Hulk Hogan. And, they show footage of him just a few weeks before he died. I talked to B. Brian Blair about it and Brian was real close with Hogan... He got emotional on the phone talking about it. Man, what a ride he had."

On working for World Class Championship Wrestling:
"When I went down there, I saw this little building, the Sportatorium. And, it must have held something like 2,500 people tops. It was mobbed! There were people everywhere. But, there was only a small parking lot. So, I was thinking, "Where did all of these people come from?" They must have all parked along the road. But, as I looked around, I saw that there must have been 7 or 8 satellite outside. And, I said, "Son of a bitch! Fritz Von Erich is a genius." He had pretty much made his own company national and global and it is all coming from this little shit hole!"

On working with Matt Bourne:
"Matt Bourne was good. I still liked the match with Big John Studd better. But, Matt Bourne was good. I liked working him. And, the people hated me down there. They really did! So, that made it easy. But, I remember Matt Bourne telling me he was looking to get out of the business even then. He was the son of "Tuff" Tony Bourne up in the Pacific Northwest. Matt had some issues, some mood issues. He had done OK for himself but said he wanted out. So, after we worked together, I was really glad to see he got the chance to make it to the WWF and be Doink the Clown. That character was perfect for him."

On why he left World Class:
"Well, I called Vince and I wanted to go back. but, I had started my supplement business and I was using my exposure that I had to help get my supplements in GMC especially in the Northeast. Well, I called Vince and I told him what I was making and asked if he would match it so I would go back with the WWE and wrestle with Patera. Vince said he couldn't and it wasn't time. So, I understood and we parted ways and I put my full energy behind my supplements."

On why he never went to WCW:
"I never considered going to WCW in the 90's because I saw it as a step down. I really did. I ahd worked for the WWF when it was growing. And, I just felt like that would have been a step down."

On the WWF guys of the 80's being considered "bodies" by the NWA:
"The NWA guys looked like jobbers. They did. They say it was all steroids. I'll give them a vile of steroids and they can show me that vile benching 700 pounds. It helped. But, you had to put the work in. That's the same thing as the guys of today. A lot of them, they are unimpressive. They wouldn't stop traffic. You wouldn't recognize them in an airport. They don't look like athletes or like wrestlers. They do that for 2 reasons. One is they are high flyers. And, the other is they don't put the work in that we did. They just don't."

On Jim Cornette being responsible for that viewpoint:
"I like Jim Cornette. I do. He started as a mark down in Memphis or Texas with a camera. But, I think he harbors animosity because he didn't get to go to the WWF until later. He was in the smaller territory."

On if he's surprised by the loyalty of wrestling fans:
"All I can say is thank God for the Internet. Facebook, YouTube. It has kept our memory alive and it is amazing. I'm very grateful for the fans still being there."