The Alexander City Outlook

Moondog Rex

Life is just a little bit simpler nowadays for Alexander City native Randy Colley.

The former professional wrestler spends his time now playing guitar, working with his son, or chasing the best deals at yard sales at daybreak.

“Yard sales are my weakness,” Colley said with a smile. “My wife (Rhonda) and I have a system. I’ll go and buy stuff at a good price and six months later she’ll have (a yard sale) and get rid of it all.”

Colley may enjoy the simple life now, but as recently as the middle 90s, he made a living in the ring.

What started as a part-time hobby in 1973 for one half of the Moondogs tag-team duo of NWA and World Wrestling Federation fame, became a full-time job. The one-time Judo teacher at a YMCA in Columbus, Ga. can recount his start in the sport.

“I was too lazy to work,” Colley said, with a laugh, of his start in wrestling.

“It was exciting, the glamour. It was great being in places like Madison Square Garden. It’s like ‘wow.’”

Randy Colley

“It was really hard to get into the wrestling business at that time,” Colley recounts, but he met “a big boy,” who was a part-time wrestler, who needed help training.

Because of an injury to his training partner, Colley got the chance to fill in one night in Jackson, Ga. and was instantly hooked.

“It escalated from there,” Colley said. “It was one day a month, then twice a month, then once a week, twice a week and it kept building from there.”

Colley’s career took off after a promotional trip to Puerto Rico.

“When I got back to the states everyone knew who I was,” He said.

Colley, who started in single matches at the beginning of his career eventually switched to tag team matches because “they were more exciting.” The name of the duo was adapted from the name of wrestler Moondog Mayne at the suggestion of Vince McMahon.

His first partner as a member of the Moondogs was wrestler Sailor White, but White was replaced by Tennessee native Larry Booker.

“We had a lot in common,” Colley said of Booker. “We got along good.”

Colley said the training for the sport was tough. He recounts being in the gym three or four nights a week at the height of his career.

“It was pretty tough,” Colley said. “You went one to two hours a night or until you just couldn’t go anymore.”

During his career, Colley has seen a number of championships in the WWF to go along with having his nose broken a total of seven times.

“Those were all in the first couple of years when I didn’t know how to duck,” Colley said. “I learned how to duck after that.”

His humble beginnings in wrestling, which started largely because of the earning potential in the sport, eventually led Colley to travel to 29 countries and every state except Alaska during his long career.

“It was a lot of fun and I loved to travel,” Colley said.

Colley still remembers those days fondly and said he would still do it now if he “wasn’t so old.”

Although he added that even with all the travel and glamour there is nothing quite like Alexander City.

“It’s just home,” Colley said. “You can travel all over the world and live anywhere, but the town you grew up in is home. Alexander City was home.”