Memories of The Iron Sheik shared by MVP.
At the age of 81, The Iron Sheik, real name Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, passed away on June 7th. Tributes to Sheik and his contributions to the pro wrestling business were shared by colleagues and fans of his.
WWE’s MVP joined The Ringer Wrestling Show’s Cheap Heat podcast to discuss Sheik. He recalled a period of his career when he would gift marijuana to Sheik and the WWE Hall of Famer was appreciative of it. Sheik began to refer to MVP as ‘The Gimmick Man’.
The very first time I met The Iron Sheik was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at a TV taping and I recall earlier that day, asking Teddy Long about Sheiky Baby because I wanted to smoke with him and he said, ‘Yeah man, he’s cool. Go holla at him.’ I said, ‘Alright’ and I had some sticky-icky, wanted to share with the legend, the medicine and I saw him and I walked up and I said, ‘Sheiky Baby, I have some medicine for you.’ ‘Oh, God bless you. Oh, thank you, God bless you. You have some medicine for the Sheiky Baby?’ And I gave it to him. I didn’t get to smoke with him that day but I gave it to him. Yeah (as a gift), because hey man, you pay homage to the legend. You pay tribute and later on, I ran into Teddy and Teddy said that he saw Sheiky and he said, ‘Hey Sheik. MVP was looking for you. He had a little something for you’ and legendairly, forever more, I would be known as ‘The Gimmick Man’ because Sheiky said to Teddy Long, ‘Gimmick Man? Yeah, I talked to him. He had present for me,’ and every time I saw Iron Sheik after that, if I didn’t have any, I would find some just to pay tribute to the legend. Give Sheiky Baby his medicine. Now we became pals. Once, I even had him do my voicemail for me and that was funny. You call me up and Sheiky Baby was my voicemail message and the number of people that thought they got the wrong number or confused because he never called me ‘MVP’, never. It was always ‘PVM, MPV.’ But he never got MVP down.
A lengthy obit about the life and career of The Iron Sheik can be read here on POST Wrestling.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit The Ringer Wrestling Show’s Cheap Heat podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
