OK, I want you to close your eyes for a second.
We're going to do a little time travel with you.
We are going back to, let's say, Saturday morning
in the mid 1980s. You're sitting on the carpet.
You've got your bowl of cereal. The TV is glowing
and you are watching professional wrestling.
It's a sacred ritual for millions of kids back
then. Absolutely. It really was. Now, I want
you to picture the bad guy. And I don't mean
the cool leather jacket wearing antihero we see
today. I'm talking about a true monster. a walking
nightmare someone who legitimately scared you
like change the channel scared exactly picture
a man who is six foot seven he weighs nearly
400 pounds he's barefoot he's got these white
stars painted on his massive chest a crescent
moon on his stomach and he's marching to the
ring with a spear and a shield and he's not shouting
catchphrases he's just slapping his belly and
growling there's this primal energy to him this
is the character of kamala the ugandan giant
The lore, the story they told us, was that he
was a savage headhunter plucked from the jungles
of Africa. He was a cannibal. He was a beast.
I mean, do you remember the story about the live
chickens? Oh, how could you forget? It's one
of the most infamous segments in television history.
The implication that this man was so wild, so
primal, that he would just bite the head off
a live chicken on national TV. It's an image
that is burned into the brains of an entire generation.
But here is why we are here today. We aren't
just here to talk about a wrestling character.
We are here because that monster was a complete
fabrication. Inside that paint, inside that terrifying
performance, was a man named James Arthur Harris.
And he wasn't a headhunter. Not even close. He
was a gentle, soft -spoken sharecropper from
Mississippi. That disconnect between the savage
on the screen and the man who drove a truck for
a living is what we are digging into today. We've
got a stack of sources here, including his autobiography
and some really heavy reporting on his health
battles. We're going to look at how James Harris
built this character, the brutal economics of
being a monster in the wrestling business and
the tragedy that followed him even after the
cameras turned off. It is a heavy story, but
it's also a timely one, because as of April 2025,
the wrestling world finally sort of tried to
make things right. James Harris was inducted
into the WWE Hall of Fame. Which is a huge deal.
But also, well, it raises some pretty big questions
about timing, considering he passed away five
years ago. But before we get to the end, we have
to start the beginning. And the beginning of
the story isn't in a wrestling ring. It's in
Coldwater, Mississippi. And to understand James
Harris, you have to understand the world he was
born into. This is 1950, the Jim Crow South.
And his life was, you know, really defined by
a single event that happened when he was just
four years old. I was reading the notes on his
childhood and it reads like something out of
a Steinbeck novel. It's just bleak. What happened
when he was four? His father was shot dead. Wow.
Yeah. It was during a dice game. Just a gambling
dispute that turned violent. Just like that.
A four -year -old kid loses his dad over a dice
game. Just like that. And you have to contextualize
what that meant for a black family in rural Mississippi
in the 1950s. The father was usually the sole
economic engine of the family. There was no life
insurance. There was no Social Security safety
net waiting for them. When his father died. The
family, his mother and four sisters, didn't just
suffer an emotional loss. They fell off an economic
cliff. And this is where the term sharecropper
comes into his biography. And I feel like we
hear that word in history class and we just think
farmer, but it's not really farming, is it? It's
something else entirely. No, it's much closer
to feudalism or indentured servitude. The entire
system was designed to keep families in a perpetual
cycle of debt. You work land you don't own. You
buy your seeds and your tools from the landowner's
store, usually at ridiculously inflated prices.
Right. Then at the end of the harvest, you split
the profits. But somehow, the math always, always
works out that you still owe the landowner money.
So you start the next year even further in the
hole. You can never get out. You can never get
out, exactly. And James, as the only male in
the house, had to step up. He wasn't playing
with toys. He was out there working the fields.
The burden of survival was on his shoulders before
he could even properly read. Which would explain
why he dropped out of school so early. Ninth
grade. He had to. The immediate need for food
on the table outweighed any long -term potential
of an education. It's a real tragedy of circumstance.
He was actually a very creative kid. We'll talk
about his songwriting later. But that part of
his brain just had to be shut off to focus on
manual labor. So you have a kid with no father,
no education, working a dead -end job in a system
that's completely rigged against him. I assume
this is where the trouble starts. It's a classic
trajectory, isn't it? Without structure and with
a whole lot of desperation, he started drifting.
The sources say he became a habitual burglar,
just breaking into places, stealing small things.
He was on a path that usually ends in one of
two places, prison or an early grave. But instead
of prison, he got an ultimatum. This part of
the story sounds like a movie script. It's wild.
It does, but it was the stark reality of 1967
Mississippi law enforcement. He was 17 years
old. The local police picked him up for burglary,
but they didn't book him. They gave him a choice.
Which was? Leave town or be found dead somewhere.
Found dead somewhere. That is incredibly dark.
That's not, we will arrest you. That is a direct
death threat from the people with the badges.
And Harris knew they weren't bluffing. He said
in interviews later, Back then, if you didn't
leave, like they said, you would be found dead.
He knew the score, so this wasn't a career move
for him. This was a migration for pure survival.
He fled to Florida. Just imagine that. You're
17 years old, you have no money, no education,
and you can literally never go home again. How
did he even survive? His body. His size. He was
already a massive kid. He worked as a fruit picker.
He drove trucks. He eventually moved north to
Michigan to a place called Benton Harbor. And
he was just trying to exist. He wasn't thinking
about fame or anything like that. He was thinking
about where his next meal was coming from. But
his size. I mean, you can't hide a guy who is
six foot seven and nearing 400 pounds. Eventually
someone is going to notice that. And the person
who noticed him was basically wrestling royalty.
Bobo Brazil. OK, pause. For some of our listeners
who might only know Hulk Hogan or The Rock, who
is Bobo Brazil. Bobo Brazil was a true pioneer.
He was one of the very first African -American
wrestlers to break the color barrier in a really
meaningful way. He wasn't some stereotype. He
was a legitimate athlete, a hero to millions.
He was huge in the Michigan area, a real legend.
So Bobo sees this giant kid picking fruit or
driving a truck or something. And he sees dollar
signs. Or at least he sees potential. In the
wrestling business, you can't teach size. You
can teach a guy how to fall down, but you can't
teach him to be a giant. Bobo tells him, you
need to be in the ring. So James Harris, the
sharecropper on the run, enters the circus. He
starts training under a guy named Tiny Tim Hampton.
And here's a detail from the research I just
love. Harris eventually moved to Arkansas to
continue his training, not because the wrestling
school was better, but because he absolutely
hated the snow in Michigan. That is the most
relatable thing I've heard so far. I may be a
giant, but I'm cold. Right. So he makes his debut
in 1978, but he isn't Kamala yet. He's really
struggling to find an identity. The notes list
some of his early names. Sugar Bear Harris. Sugar
Bear Harris, that sounds like a breakfast cereal
mascot, not a terrifying wrestler. Exactly. It's
not threatening at all. He also tried Ugly Bear
Harris and Bad News Harris. He was just bouncing
around the territories, working in the UK, Germany,
the Deep South. He was winning some regional
belts, getting experience. But he wasn't a star.
He was just another big man. And in wrestling,
being big isn't enough. You need a hook. You
need a gimmick, a character. You need something
that makes people stop changing the channel.
And James Harris didn't find that special something
until 1982. This is the Memphis chapter of the
story. This is the birth of the monster. He goes
to the Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis.
Now, this territory was run by Jerry the King,
Lawler, and Jerry Jarrett. And you have to understand,
Memphis wrestling in the 80s was just... It was
wild. It was like a comic book written by crazy
people. It was violent. It was theatrical. And
it was the perfect laboratory for a new kind
of character. So Lawler and Jarrett look at this
giant James Harris and they see. They see a blank
canvas. They wanted something that was truly
shocking. And they actually found their inspiration
in an art museum. Okay, maybe not a museum, but
in the art world. It was a Frank Frazetta painting.
Frazetta, the guy who did all the iconic Conan
the Barbarian covers? The very same. They saw
a painting of this savage, dark -skinned warrior
with a spear and a shield, and they said, that's
it, that's James Harris. So they basically looked
at a fantasy painting and decided to turn a human
being into that image. Precisely. They came up
with the name Kimala, originally with an I, and
then they drafted this whole backstory. And this
backstory is, well, It's a lot. They decided
he was a former bodyguard for Idi Amin. Idi Amin,
the brutal dictator of Uganda. Yes. Amin was
in the news constantly for his atrocities. So
by tying Harris to Amin, they instantly gave
him this aura of real -world danger. The story
went that a manager, J .J. Dillon, had gone on
a scouting trip to Africa and discovered this...
beast in the jungle. Okay, so they have the backstory.
Now they need the look to match. And that's where
the iconic visuals come in. The face paint, the
white stars on the chest, the yellow crescent
moon on the belly. He wrestled barefoot. He wore
a loincloth. It wasn't just a costume he put
on for the matches, was it? I was reading about
kayfabe and the lengths they went to were just
insane. Kayfabe is the old code of the business.
It means protecting the illusion that wrestling
is 100 % real. And in 1982, you didn't just play
the character in the ring. You had to live it.
To make the fans believe he was a savage who
couldn't speak English, Harris was forbidden
from speaking in public. Forbidden? Like by his
bosses? Absolutely forbidden. He had to wear
robes in airports so people wouldn't see his
regular clothes. If a fan came up to him for
an autograph, he was instructed to just growl
or stare blankly. Imagine the psychological toll
of that. You were in your home country, surrounded
by people speaking your native language, and
you have to pretend you don't understand a single
word of it. That sounds incredibly isolating.
And honestly, we have to talk about the optics
of this. A black man from Mississippi being told
to act like a primitive savage for the entertainment
of a largely white audience. I mean, that is
heavy. It's more than heavy. It's deeply problematic
by any modern standard. Critics like Ryan Byers
have written extensively about this. The character
relied on every single colonial trope in the
book. The idea that Africans were uncivilized,
dangerous, and needed to be controlled by a white
handler. The fans at the time, they ate it up.
They absolutely loved it. And this is the great
paradox of Kamala. The character was, yes, a
racist caricature. But James Harris was so good
at it, his eyes, his body language, the way he
moved, that he made it genuinely terrifying.
He took a stereotype and turned it into a horror
movie monster. He didn't wink at the camera.
He committed 110%. Speaking of commitment, I
have to ask about the promo video. The notes
mention a jungle vignette. Oh, this is legendary
stuff. To introduce the character. They wanted
to film him emerging from the steamy jungles
of Uganda. But the budget for Memphis Wrestling
was, let's just say, modest. They couldn't exactly
fly a film crew to Africa. So where did they
go? The local zoo? Even better. They went to
Jerry Jarrett's farm in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
You're kidding me. A farm in Tennessee? You just
can't make this stuff up. It gets better. How
do you simulate the steamy, misty jungle heat
in the middle of Tennessee? I'm afraid to ask.
Dry ice. No! Yes. They pumped a ton of dry ice
around a creek on the farm. Harris emerged from
the fog with a spear. And you know what? On those
greedy 1982 television screens, it looked real
enough, it sold the ticket. That is the magic
of low -budget creativity. So the character takes
off, he's a huge draw in Memphis, and eventually
the big dogs come calling the World Wrestling
Federation. The WWF. 1984, this is the absolute
peak of the industry. Vince McMahon is taking
wrestling national. And he needs monsters for
his hero, Hulk Hogan, to slay. And who was it
that brought Harris into the company? Andre the
Giant. Really? Andre himself. Yeah, Andre had
worked with Harris in other territories and vouched
for him. And in the wrestling world of that era,
Andre's word was basically law. If the giant
liked you and thought you could draw money, you
were in. So Harris arrives in the WWF. And they
take the monster thing and just dial it up to
11. They polish the act. They gave him handlers,
first a masked guy named Friday and then the
more famous one, Kim Chi. The visual was that
Kamala was so wild, so uncontrollable, he needed
a keeper with a pith helmet and a stick just
to direct him to the ring. It just reinforces
that whole wild beast narrative. Which I guess
brings us back to the chicken. I knew we'd get
back to the chicken. We have to. It's the thing
everyone remembers. Break down exactly what happened
on that show. Okay, so Harris is a guest on Tuesday
Night Titans, which was the WWF's bizarre talk
show. It was a surreal format. He's sitting there
with his handler. And the host, Vince McMahon,
brings out a live chicken. And the implication
is lunch. The implication is that Kamala is hungry
and doesn't understand that we don't eat live
animals in a TV studio. The handler holds the
chicken up. The camera zooms in on Kamala's face.
His eyes are wide. He's licking his lips. Then
they do a quick cutaway, maybe to the audience
or a reaction shot. And when they cut back to
Kamala, there are feathers flying out of his
mouth. So he didn't actually eat it. It was a
trick. No, of course not. It was a magic trick,
a sleight of hand. But it was so visceral. It
was grotesque. People watching at home were genuinely
gagging. It established him instantly as a monster
heel, a villain you were truly, deeply afraid
of. And that fear is what made him money. He
wasn't wrestling in the opening match. He was
at the top of the card. He was main eventing.
He challenged Hulk Hogan for the World Heavyweight
Championship in August 1984. They fought to a
double countout, which is actually a really big
deal. Why is a double countout a big deal for
those who don't know? It means the promoter didn't
want Kamala to lose yet. They wanted to protect
his aura, his mystique. If Hogan beats you clean,
one, two, three, the movie is over. A double
count out means tune in next time to see who
really wins. It kept the money train rolling.
And he wrestled Andre too, right? The two giants.
Many times, including a steel cage match. And
listen, wrestling might be scripted, but gravity
is very real. Andre was deteriorating physically
by this point, and he was just massive. There's
a famous story about Andre literally just sitting
on Kamala's chest to pin him and win a match.
Imagine 500 pounds of giant just sitting on your
ribcage. Harris said it was like having a Volkswagen
parked on you. You have to be incredibly tough
just to survive the fake fighting, you know?
So he's wrestling Hogan. He's wrestling Andre.
He's selling out Madison Square Garden. By all
logic, James Harris should be a millionaire by
this point. He should be set for life. You would
think so. But this brings us to the most infuriating
and frankly heartbreaking part of the story.
Section four in our outline, the economics of
being a monster. This is the part of the research
that made me stop reading and just stare at the
wall for a minute. The pay disparity. It is the
dark underbelly of the golden era. Let's look
at SummerSlam 1992. This is years later. Harris
has come back to the WWF for another run. It's
a massive show at Wembley Stadium in London.
80 ,000 people in attendance. A huge gate. Huge
pay -per -view revenue. A massive event. And
Kamala is wrestling The Undertaker. It's one
of the featured attractions on the show. Now,
Harris claimed later in his life that for this
match, The Undertaker received a payout of $500
,000. Okay, which makes sense. He's a top star.
It's a huge show. And Harris claimed that he
received $13 ,000. Wait. Stop. Say that again.
$13 ,000. $13 ,000. That is, I don't even know
what the math on that is. That's a fraction of
a percent. How is that even possible? Weren't
they paid based on the house, on the attendance?
Wrestling pay is a complete black box. There
are no unions. There is no transparency. You
get what the promoter decides you get. The top
stars, the Hogans, the Undertakers, the Warriors,
they had favored nations clauses or percentage
deals on the gate and the merchandise and the
PPB buys. The opponents. even if they were the
main villain driving the story, were often treated
as interchangeable, disposable labor. But 13
,000 versus half a million, that feels criminal.
It really does. Now, to be a responsible researcher
here, I have to mention that Dave Meltzer, the
most respected wrestling journalist out there,
he did dispute those specific numbers. He said
that while the disparity was very real, a gap
that wide was hard to believe. based on the typical
pay structures of 1992. So maybe Undertaker got
a bit less, maybe Harris got a bit more. But
the exact numbers don't matter as much as the
feeling. James Harris knew he was being exploited.
He knew he was the foil. He was there to make
the other guy look good, and his paycheck reflected
that role. Exactly. And James Harris was a quiet
man. But he had a line. He had his dignity. And
he walked away from the WWF multiple times because
of money. She left in 1984. He left in 1987,
right in the middle of a major feud with Hulk
Hogan. He walked out on a Hogan feud. That's
like walking away from a winning lottery ticket
in that era. It takes immense guts to do that.
But he felt he wasn't being paid what he was
promised. He packed his bags, went home, and
went back to driving trucks. He essentially said,
I'd rather drive a semi for a fair wage than
wrestle in Madison Square Garden to get ripped
off. That is such a powerful statement on self
-worth and dignity. It is. But the wrestling
bug and, you know, the need for money, it always
brought it back. He returned in 1992, which led
to that Undertaker match. And then things got,
well, they got weird. Weird. The face turned.
In 1993, the WWF decided to make Kamala a good
guy. He was paired with the manager, Reverend
Slick. And they did these comedy vignettes where
Slick was trying to teach the savage how to be
civilized. Well, I think I've seen clips of this
on YouTube. They went bowling. Laughs, yes. They
went bowling. The Ugandan giant in full face
paint and a loincloth learning how to bowl. It
was charming in a way because Harris actually
had fantastic comedic timing. But it completely
killed the character. You can't be a terrifying
monster if you're out there wearing bowling shoes
and high -fiving kids. It turned him into a joke.
The monster was gone. It did. And shortly after
that, he left the major spotlight for good. And
this is where the story shifts. Because when
the face paint finally comes off for the last
time, we get to meet the real James Harris. And
he was made man of surprising, incredible depth.
I was absolutely blown away to learn that he
was a musician. And not just a dabbler who played
a bit of guitar. No, he was serious about it.
He wrote over 100 songs. He sang. He played guitar.
He even released an album called The Best of
Kummel of All One. What kind of music was it?
Was it like wrestling rock anthems? Not at all.
It was soulful. It was country. It was blues.
It was ballads. And the lyrics. The lyrics tell
the story we're talking about today. He wrote
songs about his frustration with the wrestling
business. He wrote about the poor working conditions.
He used his music to say all the things that
Kamala was never allowed to say. It's such a
stark, incredible contrast, the voiceless savage
on television and the soulful, articulate songwriter
in real life. But there was a lot of pain in
those songs, too, wasn't there? Tragedy followed
this man his entire life. In 1993, right around
the time he was leaving the WWF, he was on tour
in Oakland, California. He got a phone call.
His youngest sister and her stepdaughter had
been shot and killed. My God. History just repeating
itself. First his father, now his sister. It
devastated him. But again, you look at the man's
character. He didn't crumble. He fought. He pushed
the police to find the killer. He attended the
trial. He helped raise his surviving niece. The
guy who played a monster on TV was actually the
glue holding his family together through these
unspeakable acts of violence. So the wrestling
career effectively ends. The crowds disappear.
What does daily life look like for the retired
Ugandan giant? It looks like work. He took his
savings, what he had managed to squirrel away,
and he bought two semi -trucks. He went back
to the road, driving, hauling freight. Just a
working class guy in Mississippi, living a quiet
life with his wife, Emergene. But you can't wrestle
for 20 years at that size without a physical
bill coming due. And the bill for James Harris
was astronomical. We have to talk about his health.
He had been diagnosed with diabetes way back
in 1992 during his wrestling career. Which is
manageable for many people, but... But not if
you're a professional wrestler in the 90s. Think
about that lifestyle. You're driving 300 miles
a night. You're eating gas station hot dogs and
diner food at 3 a .m. You're taking massive painful
bumps in the ring. You aren't seeing a doctor
regularly. His diabetes went largely uncontrolled
for years and years. And the consequences were
just... They were devastating. In November 2011,
complications from the diabetes led to his left
leg being amputated below the knee. The man who
made his entire living on his size and his physical
presence losing a leg. That's just awful. And
it didn't stop there. April 2012. Not even five
months later, his right leg was amputated as
well. So now he is a double amputee. He can't
drive the truck anymore. He can't wrestle on
the indie shows. How does he survive financially?
He barely did. He was living on a disability
check. He told Bleacher Report in an interview
in 2014 that he was just scraping by. But, and
here's that incredible resilience again, he didn't
just sit there and give up. He started building
chairs. Chairs. Wooden chairs. He had a workshop.
He would build these beautiful, sturdy wooden
chairs by hand, painting them and selling them
to fans online who wanted to help him out. He
also wrote his autobiography, Kamala Speaks.
He funded it through a Kickstarter campaign.
He was hustling right to the very end just to
keep the lights on and pay his medical bills.
It's so inspiring on one hand, but it's also
infuriating. Why did he have to hustle like that?
Why wasn't there a pension? Why wasn't the WWE
this billion dollar company he helped build helping
him? That is the million dollar question, isn't
it? And it's a legal one. In 2016. Harris was
part of a massive class action lawsuit against
the WWE. It involved dozens of former wrestlers.
They alleged that the company knew about the
long -term risks of traumatic brain injuries,
CTE, and concealed it from the talent. They were
suing for long -term medical care. That is a
bold move to take on the empire like that. It
was, but it also meant he was persona non grata
with the company. You don't get invited to the
Hall of Fame while you are actively suing the
organization. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed
in 2018. The courts ruled that the statute of
limitations had passed on most of the claims,
but the damage to his relationship with the company
was done. He was on the outside looking in. So
the corporation turned its back on him. But what
about the people, the so -called brotherhood
of wrestling? This is the redeeming part of the
story. The boys came through for him. In 2019,
Harris was on the verge of losing his home. He
had unpaid property taxes. He was going to be
evicted. That is just a nightmare scenario. A
double amputee, a legend of the business, about
to be homeless. But the word got out. Fans started
to go fund me. And then the wrestlers stepped
in. Chris Jericho, specifically. Jericho's name
seems to show up a lot in these stories of guys
from the past needing help. He really does seem
to have a big heart. Jericho quietly donated
$5 ,000 to pay off the tax bill and save Harris'
house. And then later, when Harris passed away,
Jericho donated another $5 ,000 for the funeral
expenses. Scott D 'Amour, an executive at Impact
Wrestling, he threw in $2 ,500. It's assured
that even if the business of wrestling is cold
and unforgiving, the people inside it really
loved and respected James Harris. And sadly,
we lose him in 2020, which was just a... terrible
year for everyone. A brutal year. And for someone
with his health conditions, diabetes, kidney
issues requiring dialysis, it was a death sentence.
In August of 2020, he contracted COVID -19. His
wife believes he probably caught it at the dialysis
center. Which he had to go to. He had no choice
in the matter. Exactly. He went into cardiac
arrest on August 9, 2020. And he died at the
age of 70. It's such a tragic end to a very difficult
life. But the story has this one final epilogue.
The reason we're talking about him right now.
April 2025. The Hall of Fame. Five years after
his death, the WWE finally calls his name. They
inducted him into the Legacy Wing. It's a special
category they have for historical figures. He
went in alongside guys like Dory Funk Sr. and
Ivan Koloff. It's for people who, for whatever
reason, didn't get their due during their lifetime.
Does that fix it, though? Does a ring and a ceremony
and a video package, does that fix the fact that
he struggled to buy groceries? No. Of course
not. It doesn't put any money in the pockets
of his widow. It doesn't give him his legs back.
But symbolism matters. It's an acknowledgement.
It says that he wasn't just a jobber or a cartoon
character. It acknowledges that he was a legend
who drew money and made an impact. It puts his
name in the history books forever. I guess that's
the complexity of professional wrestling. It
breaks your heart over and over, and then it
gives you a nice montage at the end. That's a
perfect description of the business. So when
we step back and look at the entire life of James
Harris, from that sharecropper shack in Coldwater
to the main event of Madison Square Garden to
that workshop where he built those chairs, what
is the headline? What's the takeaway? For me,
the headline is just one word, survival. Think
about the odds. The statistical probability of
a black kid from 1950s Mississippi whose father
was murdered who dropped out in the ninth grade.
the probability of that kid becoming a global
superstar is basically zero. It shouldn't have
happened. No, he made it happen. He willed it
into existence. He took this problematic, you
know, possibly racist character, and he performed
it with such dignity and such power that he became
an icon. He survived the streets. He survived
the brutal politics of the ring. He survived
the medical system that failed him. And he did
it all while staying kind. That's the part that
sticks with me. The songwriter, the family man,
the guy building chairs. Absolutely. We spent
years asking, who is Kamala? The answer turns
out to be Kamala was a mask. The real giant was
always James Harris. It really makes you rethink
what you're watching. We're conditioned to cheer
for the hero and boo the monster. But maybe,
just maybe, the monster is the most human guy
in the locker room. I think in this case, he
definitely was. That is a lot to process. But
I'm really glad we took the time to unpack his
life. James. Kamala Harris. Hall of Famer. Songwriter.
A legacy absolutely worth remembering. Thank
you all for listening to this deep dive. If you
want to see pictures of those chairs he built,
they really are beautiful pieces of craftsmanship.
Check out the show notes. We'll catch you on
the next one. Goodbye, everyone.