How Magnum T.A. Turned Into Wrestling’s Biggest “What If”

Summary

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The Dale Jr. Download – "How Magnum T.A. Turned Into Wrestling’s Biggest 'What If'"

Date: March 18, 2026
Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Guest: Magnum T.A. (Terry Wayne Allen)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with pro wrestling icon Terry Wayne Allen, better known as Magnum T.A., to explore one of wrestling’s biggest “what ifs.” Magnum T.A. recounts his meteoric rise in the world of professional wrestling, the car accident that tragically cut his career short, his close friendship with Dusty Rhodes, and his remarkable perspective on life after wrestling. Dale and Magnum T.A. reflect on the parallels between racing and wrestling—both the glories and the hard stops—and how to persevere when your dream job suddenly vanishes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Childhood, Wrestling Roots & Breaking In

• Magnum’s Upbringing and Early Love for Wrestling

  • Grew up in Chesapeake, Virginia, watching wrestling with family.

    “Wrestling was something that pulled families together... you may not have anything else in common, but grandparents, dads, aunts, uncles, everybody got connected..." — Magnum TA [06:51]

  • Inspired by Dan Gable’s Olympic run and pursued wrestling in school, eventually winning a state title.

• Breaking into Professional Wrestling

  • The wrestling business in the '70s/'80s was tightly guarded—no schools, required connections.
  • Magnum’s unlikely entry: Buzz Sawyer promised him an 'in' for $10K. His grandfather fronted the money.
  • Buzz initially disappears, but Magnum tracks him across the country, proving dedication.

    “He was either going to have to fight me or shoot me... I wasn't going away.” — Magnum TA [13:52]

  • Magnum’s first in-ring training: a single two-hour session at a bowling alley, followed by his debut match the next day.

    “I wrestled every night from that day forward for the next six months, knowing nothing about what I was doing.” — Magnum TA [15:48]

Early Career: Territories, Characters, and Influences

• Territorial Era and Meeting Andre the Giant

  • Wrestled across Portland, Southwest (San Antonio), and Florida, grinding 7-days a week.
  • Andre the Giant took a liking to Magnum and created the "Magnum T.A." moniker, inspired by Magnum P.I.

    “He looked over at me...he said, you need a name… you kind of remind me of that Magnum PI… you should be Magnum TA.” — Magnum TA [22:11]

• Character Development & The Lone Wolf Persona

  • Originally struggled to find a character until Dusty Rhodes suggested the biker “Lone Wolf” persona and got Magnum a motorcycle.
  • The new look electrified locker rooms and promoters, leading to his first big push.

    “When I roll up in that town... the whole energy changes. Even when I walk in the dressing room with the leathers on... Bill Watts says, 'Oh, you’re not going anywhere. I got big plans for you.'” — Magnum TA [23:40]

Friendship and Partnership with Dusty Rhodes

• Bonding with Dusty Rhodes

  • Became close friends during their time in Florida.

    “We come out of that [road] trip and we're like all of a sudden best buds and we just immediately have this bond...” — Magnum TA [30:01]

  • Dusty mentored Magnum in psychology, storytelling, and bigger visions for wrestling.

• Role in NWA’s Growth

  • Arrived in the Carolinas right before NWA’s national explosion via TBS.
  • Worked a legendary program with Ric Flair, elevating the NWA as the “real competition” alternative to WWF’s spectacle.

• Promos as Art

  • Developed promo skills out of necessity in Mid South—learned intensity, improvisation, and authenticity.

    “You got to be dialed in. You can’t, you know, make yourself, you know, portray something... unless it’s deep down inside you somewhere.” — Magnum TA [35:54]

  • Recalls live promos with Dusty that were “totally improvisational” and “never knew what was going to come out of his mouth.” [37:36]

Feuds, The Four Horsemen, and Wrestling Style

• Rivalries and In-Ring Storytelling

  • Highlights his feud with Tully Blanchard:

    “His only one big one-on-one feud...was with me. Outside of that, he’s only known for the Four Horsemen.” — Magnum TA [41:41]

  • Discusses Ric Flair's dominance and how the NWA title was decided via votes from different regions.

• The Importance of Heels and Babyfaces

  • Explains why wrestling needs strong heels for babyfaces to chase the title.

    “That’s what sells tickets… it’s episodic soap opera.” — Magnum TA [44:41]

• Rise and Potential—The "What If”

  • Dale Jr. summarises Magnum as “one of the biggest what ifs ever” due to his rapid ascent and the sense he was destined for the world championship.

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The Car Accident and Its Aftermath

[50:14 – 58:07]

• The Accident

  • October 14, 1986: After a show in Greenville, SC, driving alone in heavy rain, lost control of his Porsche, hydroplaned, and struck a pole.
  • Suffered a shattered C5 vertebra—immediate paralysis.

    “I hit it so hard it knocked the half shafts out of the motor… compression fracture. My head on the roof, my C5 vertebrae explodes. Can't move anything from my neck down.” — Magnum TA [51:04]

• Hospitalization and Rehabilitation

  • Five months in hospital (30 days ICU), told he had a “million and one shot” at walking again.
  • Wrestlers and friends—Dusty, Flair, Arn, Tully—snuck into ICU fearing the worst.

• Psychological Journey and Letting Go of the Dream

  • Struggled daily to find new victories—feeding himself, sitting up, walking in water—rather than dwelling on what was lost.

    “Everything I got back was a blessing and a gift as it came along... I walked out of the hospital under my own power five months after I went in.” — Magnum TA [58:07]

  • Never believed returning to the ring was realistic, but found pride in his recovery and perspective in not wanting to wrestle past his prime anyway.
  • Draws parallels with Dale Jr.'s questions about retiring and identity after a career-defining dream ends.

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Life After Wrestling: Reinvention and Legacy

[61:00+]

• Transitioning to a New Career

  • Briefly attempted commentary and backstage roles but found it unfulfilling.
  • Left wrestling around 1991, embraced a new career in telecom, applying the same drive and work ethic.

• Reflections on the Wrestling Brotherhood

  • The sense of fraternity/brotherhood in wrestling never leaves:

    “You never get out of [the brotherhood]...it’s something you’ll always be in.” — Magnum TA [63:16]

• Fan Impact and Conventions

  • Realizes in the hospital just how many people he’d inspired, felt responsible not to “let them down.”

    “The only way I could give back now was probably more important than anything I’d ever done… give them a different kind of inspiration. Because we all have adversities in life…” — Magnum TA [64:41]

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Family, Godfather to Cody Rhodes, and Wrestling’s Changes

• Relationship with the Rhodes Family

  • Godfather to Cody Rhodes, present at Cody’s birth and christening.
  • Speaks with pride for Cody’s trajectory and Dusty’s mentorship:

    “He could take a person like myself and see something in you that you didn't see in yourself.” — Magnum TA [70:36]

  • Recounts Dusty’s influence on current stars and what it meant for Cody to carry on that legacy.

• Interest in NASCAR

  • As his wrestling career was peaking, Magnum explored the idea of racing as a second career, even trained with Benny Parsons.
  • Draws direct parallels between wrestling and racing audiences and career arcs.

• Wrestling's Physical Toll

  • Discovered, post-accident, he’d previously broken his neck and back without realizing due to the “play hurt” culture.

• Tastes, Styles, Matches

  • Preferred hard-hitting, brawling matches over technical/“scientific” style.
  • The infamous “I Quit” Cage Match with Tully Blanchard is consistently cited as one of the best, still reminisced about by fans and WWE alike.

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Reflections on Modern Wrestling & The Old School Spirit

• Discusses the evolution from relatable “everyman” characters to elaborate, less “real” personas.
  • “Back in the 80s, a lot of the characters were regular people... even though you had a name and unique clothes, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine walking into a bar and seeing you there.” — Dale Earnhardt Jr. [90:09]
• On the return of “color” (blood) to wrestling in storylines (notably with Cody Rhodes):

  “It won’t ever be like we had...because it just couldn’t.” — Magnum TA [82:12]

• Still watches wrestling, mainly to follow family (Tessa Blanchard) and highlight clips, but not the full shows.

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Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Facing Adversity:

  “Everything I got back was a blessing and a gift as it came along. … Having lost everything, everything I got back was a blessing.” — Magnum TA [58:07]

• On Wrestling’s Impact:

  “That’s what sells tickets… it’s episodic soap opera.” — Magnum TA [45:05]

• On Dusty Rhodes’ Influence:

  “He had a huge imagination and, and just, he had a lot of faith in me...” — Magnum TA [31:20]

• On Letting Go of Wrestling:

  “I wanted to wrestle till I was like 30 years old… because I didn’t envision wanting to be that version of myself going past my prime.” — Magnum TA [58:51]

• On Responsibility to Fans after his Accident:

  “I determined...I was not going to let all these people down that had supported me playing this hero, that were now supporting me in the fight of my life...” — Magnum TA [64:41]

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Notable Timestamps

• [06:51] – Childhood wrestling memories
• [13:52] – Tracking down Buzz Sawyer; breaking into the business
• [22:11] – Andre the Giant names him "Magnum T.A."
• [23:40] – Adopting “Lone Wolf” persona and getting a push
• [30:01] – Bonding with Dusty Rhodes; road-tripping and psychology
• [35:54] – Learning promos, improvising, and intensity
• [41:41] – Feud with Tully Blanchard and the Four Horsemen
• [45:28] – Position as heir apparent to Ric Flair
• [50:14] – The car accident: what happened and aftermath
• [58:07] – Coming to terms with losing the dream (parallels to racing)
• [63:16] – Leaving wrestling and building a new life in telecommunications
• [64:41] – Impact of fans and sense of responsibility after injury
• [70:36] – Dusty Rhodes’ mentorship and legacy, being Cody’s godfather
• [81:42] – Old-school blood (“color”) returning to wrestling with Cody Rhodes
• [90:09] – Dale on “relatable” wrestling characters of the 1980s

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Tone & Feel

Rich in nostalgia, honest reflection, and mutual admiration between two masters of their respective crafts. Magnum T.A. is candid, self-aware, and grateful, emphasizing perseverance, humility, and purpose beyond wrestling. Dale Jr. is openly a fan, drawing out emotional and philosophical depth with his questions.

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Bottom Line

This episode is a portrait of resilience, exploring how to face life’s cruel twists and still inspire others, as told by one of wrestling’s greatest untold “what ifs.” Even for non-fans, it’s a moving story of grit, identity, and finding meaning after fate deals a crushing blow.

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(All ad breaks and non-content sections omitted.)

Transcript

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

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[Commercial Announcer]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

You're Dale Jr.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Should I say it?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

It's Dale Jr. Podcast.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I gotta say it. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download here. It's the guest segment on Wednesday and we got a great guest coming in to the studio. I posted on social media about how excited I was for this, but thanks for joining us here in the Arby's studio. Arby's has their new meet in three box and you get more meal for your money at Arby's so make sure you go over and check it out. Arby's, we have the meets and we also have the great guests here today. This is Stepping outside of the racing industry for a minute, Terry Wayne Allen, also known as Magnum TA was a wrestler and great friends with Dusty Rhodes. You see the figurines over my shoulder sometimes here on the show, but I was a huge fan of Dusty and Dusty was sort of bringing Magnum into the NWA and, and sort of helping coach him up to become eventually world champion. And he was right on the threshold of doing just that when he was involved in a car accident and his career as a wrestler ended. It affected me. I was really, you know, upset about that back as a. You know, when I was a child. I mean, this was. I was 10, 12 years old when this went down. I excitedly woke up every Saturday morning to watch these guys. They would come on after cartoons was over and just some things that I remember about my childhood and that I miss. And Dusty was an incredible character. Magnum TA was an incredible character. I've never met Terry. I've always wanted to tell him at least that I was a huge fan of his and you know, how sad I was about how his career was cut short, but never had the opportunity to do that. But he's going to come in here in the studio in just a few minutes and we're going to. We're going to talk to Terry and just see kind of how he does feel about his career and his impact on the sport and how he was able to sort of figure out what to do next when he realized that wrestling wasn't going to be part of his future. So I'm excited about this. Let's bring Terry in the room and get started. All right, so Terry Wayne Allen, also known, or better known maybe as Magnum TA on the Dale Jr. Download. I am. I've never met you before, and I am a. I'm a big fan. Obviously got my little figurine back here with Dusty, but. And I've talked about it on my show before, but when I was a little boy, every Saturday morning, wrestling would come on after the cartoons would go off and we would watch you and Dusty and the Four Horsemen and Tully and all those guys, Oli and Arn and everybody. That was a big part of my childhood. And I was a big, big fan of the NWA and I had Hulk Hogan figurines. I had that wrestling, plastic wrestling ring, and I had the Roddy. Roddy Piper and all the different ones, but we didn't watch that. We didn't see that on television. You know, what we saw and what was really local to us and as. As being from the Charlotte area and so forth. Was. Was Dusty Rhodes, NWA Magnita and all that. And so I grew up and watching, watching all you guys wrestle. I never got a chance to meet you. And I've always wanted to. I've always wanted to see you and talk to you and learn about you, because as we're going to dive into this, you, in my mind are, for lack of a better way to say it, one of the biggest what ifs ever. And, you know, you had. And we're going to dive into this, and I want to learn more, but in my young eyes, you were on your way. You were. And you were the total package. You had the, you had the looks and you had the ability and you had the character, and you, you were the man, you know, and everything was. All the boxes were checked, you know, until, you know, you had that. You had that terrible accident that would change your life. But, you know, you had accomplished a ton, and we're going to go through that as well in wrestling. And, and I had always just wanted to meet you because even though your career had been cut short in the ring, you left quite an impact on me and I'm sure many, many other people. And so it's a pleasure having you here today, I got to tell you. Thank you, first of all, for giving us some time today.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, it's my pleasure. And it's such a lot of parallels because I grew up in Chesapeake, Virginia, not too far from here. And my earliest memories of television wrestling, watching it with my dad. And, you know, wrestling was something that pulled families together. You may not have anything else in common that you shared or you, you know, that you enjoyed talking about or anything, but grandparents, you know, dads, aunts, uncles, everybody got connected somehow. Yeah, through, through the wrestling. And I never imagined in a million years as a, you know, young person that, you know, I would ever enter that genre in that, that, you know, that square circle. Because to me, just like you growing up watching it, it was bigger than life. It was, you know, real life superheroes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

66 years old.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Be 67 if I make it to June. And, you know, and this year is 40 years since the accident. Yeah, I'm 40 years. I was 27 years old when, when all that went down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

27.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And, you know, and I crammed a whole lot in about a six year. You did and three quarters of another year period.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you talked about growing up in Chesapeake area. You attended Norfolk Collegiate School, wrestled as a, in college, win the state championship in your division. So you grew up, you know, as a fan of wrestling but also wrestling as an athlete.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So I was a fan when I was real young.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And then when I tried to find myself in my niche because I wasn't a natural athlete of any sort. Like the eighth grade, I couldn't do a pushup in my phys ed class. And I got introduced to wrestling during a phys ed class and my school had just started a wrestling team. So I started out in the ninth grade and because there was no depth to our team, I ended up wrestling varsity from the ninth grade on. So I was just getting merged. I got beat every single match I had my freshman year except my last one. I won it. You thought I won the Olympics? I was so excited.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

But that was my thing. And I became so focused on wanting to be a champion of that. And it was back during the Dan Gable era and the Olympics when Dan Gable went and, you know, won the gold and my mom had given me the Dan Gable story and I'd read about his life and he was just huge inspiration to me. And so I just dug in and said, you know, I wanted to go to the Olympics in 80. That would have been the year if I had continued on that path. And of course we boycotted that year. And so as I went into college, I won the state championship at 167 pounds in 1977. And I tried to maintain that size, but when I graduated from school, I just turned 18, like two weeks after graduating. So my body hadn't gone through that mature man thing happens to you between like 18, 19, and all of a sudden I had quit dieting year round like I did for wrestling. And I came back after my freshman year of college and I weighed like 210. They wanted me to go back down. I said, well, you know, I kind of like being this bigger version of myself, but I wasn't really truly big enough to be a college heavyweight because those guys were 250, 260. And when I was in college, started working security in the nightclubs in Virginia beach. And whole new part of my education, street smart and learning out of a guy that was my manager that was with Seal Team 6. Seal Team 6 was out of Norfolk. And so I got this whole other culture ingrained in me. Learned a lot of things that, that really gave me a whole nother set of skills. And the wrestler started coming into the clubs and I was working and I slowly, slowly started. The light bulb goes off. I see like Blackjack Mulligan and Greg Valentine and Ricky Steamboat, Jay Youngblood. These guys are coming in and they wrote an article in the Norfolk paper about them and what a big business it was. And I saw the money that these top stars were making, and they were making 150, $180,000, and that was flipping huge for back in 1979, I thought they were all millionaires. So that's when the light bulb went off that maybe this is something I ought to go after.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, how did you. So you, you're working security at a bar and you met Buzz Sawyer. Who is he?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So Buzz Sawyer was a very talented, charismatic performer. He was also a former amateur wrestler. I don't even think he graduated high school. I think he went right from wrestling in high school right into professional wrestling. And he was really just a real natural, gifted athlete. But he saw me because it was such a tight knit organization. It was no different than thinking you'd played football in high school and you were going to go walk on the NFL. I mean, breaking into the wrestling business was highly guarded. If you didn't know somebody, you weren't getting in. And so he, he saw potential in me, but he also saw a financial potential. And because no one would talk to you. And there was no wrestling schools or anything like, you know, they have today, like the WWE Performance Center. There was no path. You had to know somebody. And he came and came into my mom and dad's home and really and, you know, put on this great big of a big talk about, you know, he could get me in. I had all this potential. But he said it cost 10 grand to get a wrestling license. So 10 grand might as well have been 100 grand to me back then. But I had a granddaddy that believed in me, that I'd worked on his farm and his property all growing up and been with him since I was young and spent a lot, a lot of time with him, and he believed him and he gave me the ten grand and we gave it to Buzz. And then Buzz left the Carolinas and went all the way cross country to Portland and said, hey, I'm gonna get things set up for you. Don't worry, I'm gonna get it all set up. And to make a long story short, I ended up going the long way around, but I ended up knocking on his doorstep and saying, hey, I'm here, I'm ready. And that's. I got in. I got in the business with one day of training.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And was he going to. Do you think that if you hadn't sold out Buzz that he would have.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

You'd never, never

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

say, yeah, I Realized that, you know, reading through the notes, we, we understand that you, you know, you approach him. Were you angry? Were you, hey, were you like, hey man, what's.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I was really serious. And he realized I was really serious. He was either going to have to fight me or shoot me or do something, you know, because I wasn't going away. I mean, I've never been outside the state of Virginia and I've gone all the way across the whole United States and showed up on his doorstep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did you find him?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So I ended up. He'd asked me to pick his little brother up and take him to what was called Mid south. That was a territory. So he had opened a little door and I thought, I think he was just trying to appease me. Well, I never told anybody the story about what he told me and what was supposed to happen. And while I was in the Mid South, I wasn't wrestling. I was just driving these guys around,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

listening, trying to take wrestlers around.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Yeah, I was sleeping on these guys couch, you know, and just trying to figure out, you know, what was going on. And I met a guy named Jimmy Garvin. Jimmy was out of Florida. Good guy, super guy. We're like super close to this day. And I told him everything that happened. He said, look, if I were you, I would go find him. He helped me find out where he was and you know, I packed my car up after I'd been there about three weeks and. And just headed out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Looking for him. And so he had. So he was working in this southeast Mid Atlantic region and he decided to go to Portland and do more do work out there.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Yeah, he. And back then, you know, there was territories all over the United States.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So it wasn't unusual for someone to only stay in a territory maybe six months.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got you.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Unless you were the megastar. People would come in, they circulate you around you, you'd work the mid card, you know, around and then you'd go somewhere else.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you go out there and. And he ends up giving you some lessons.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

One, one lesson.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Lesson.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

One lesson in order. Two hours in a, in a bowling alley with a ring set up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so what for. And you left after that?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

No, I, I wrestled the next day on TV against him. Oh. And he told them that I had been wrestling in Mid south for like six months and I never had a match. And I wrestled, I wrestled every night from that day forward for the next six months, knowing nothing about what I was doing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did it go?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Learning. Learning on the road. On the road on the ropes as I went.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How, how bad was the first match? How good was the first?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I mean, it, honestly, it was respectable. It really was for not knowing anything but, you know, from working out in the ring and learning just how to run and hit the ropes and. And there was a girl wrestler named Princess Victoria, she was working there. And it was her and I and Buzz in the ring. And he was just showing me, you know, all the basics, how to take a tackle, how to grab a headlock, how to do this. And I had a two hour, intense, intense session.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then how quick was the match? The first one?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Probably six, seven minutes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so what do you, you don't even have a character at that point.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Oh, no, yeah, right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So like, well, what were you. I mean, I'm trying to imagine like you. So you're wrestling every single night for the next how many weeks? Months?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Six months.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Six months, right. And so you're, you're just a grunt guy getting in there, getting his butt kicked and getting tossed around.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I'll tell you the deal. Nobody knew, because I didn't smarten anybody up that I didn't have any experience. And for instance, like my second week in the business, they put me out there with a fellow named Gene Kaninsky, who was a former world's champion and tremendous athlete, Canadian guy. And he picked me up, he dropped me behind him and he told me to roll him up. Well, I didn't know what a roll up was. I didn't know the terminology anything, but I was a wrestler. So I waist locked him and I bellied, suplexed, him on his head and we came back and he just loved it because he was just big old raw bone, tough son of a gun that was used to intimidating people. And obviously I wasn't intimidated. I was just trying to do my thing. And you know, the guys were really embraced me because they saw how hungry I was to want to learn it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What were the conditions? Like, what were the facilities like?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

What was small, small little arenas sometimes, I mean, I've dressed in a room that, that wasn't much bigger than this table with a whole card full of, you know, the baby face guys, the good guys, and the heels are on the other side and you know, little small places. And you were making, you know, $50 a night and driving in your own vehicle. And you know, I bought a old 98 four door car. I'd always had sports cars my whole life, but I bought a four door car because I figured you need a big car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What were you telling your what were you telling everybody back home?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I was telling them I was learning it and I was. I was doing. And I was. I was doing it. I was, I was out there learning the ropes and, and, you know, getting. Getting my, you know, head around what it was all about. But from day one, I had that ambition, and it might have been just the way I was wired, but I wanted to be a world's champion from day one. I mean, not. I wasn't even remotely thinking about what I was doing right then and there. I was just intense from the word go. And you never, when you watched me, you. You couldn't see through anything I did because it was. I made contact. I. I moved you around. You knew I was there. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you, you become a hit with promoters. Almost immediately you start. I mean, obviously you get a call to join championship wrestling in Florida.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, there's another step and there's one little important piece of this story. So, because I had that big car when I was in Portland, I met this little fellow named Andre the Giant. Whoever had the biggest car drove the Giant around. Yeah. And so the Giant rode with me for the two weeks he was there. Of course, had some other guys in the car too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who do you remember?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

It was. It was probably Buzz's little brother. Brett was with. With us, and I can't remember who else, but he and I became friends my first month in the business, which would go on to be important later on, and you'll understand why. But I went from Portland to Southwest Championship Wrestling, which was owned by Joe Blanchard, because, I mean, again, I'd been there six months, wasn't going anywhere. I needed more experience and started calling people. And I actually had tried calling the folks in California first and. And didn't make any. Get any movement there. But Joe Blanchard was also somebody that appreciated guys that were formerly amateur wrestlers and had the background. And so he. He brought me there and I did another. I did six months in. In that territory, but I'm, again, I'm. I'm learning, like, linear. I'm wrestling seven days a week. Yeah. And sometimes twice, you know, on Sundays, you know, doing a matinee or something. Wow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So what was. What was. Becoming friends with Andre like, he was just.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

He was a gentle giant. And I've never seen anybody drink. I thought I'd seen people drink, but, I mean, he would. He would cycle between you. He would go like part of the year and drink beer, and then another part of the year he drink wine. And then another part of the year, you drink hard Liquor and that was really bad. But he would, he'd take a regular 12 ounce beer and it looked like a little, little baby can in his hand and he'd take three sips and throw it out the window and it was gone. And he, you know, he, everybody else would have a couple of beers and he'd had a case. Yeah. You know, and he could drink 100 sitting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So, you know, I've only been able to, you know, I hear, I've heard a lot of people say how, how a lot of people have very similar opinions of him. But from someone like myself who had never been in the room with him.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And only seen him wrestle. Right. It's hard to imagine having a conversation with him or sitting in a room with him or hanging out with him. Right. Give us an idea, I guess, of what, what kind of personality, what kind of, what were the conversations like?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Heavy French accent and he actually, he cared about the people around him and he was very, very, very intelligent about the business and what it took to be successful. And I say all that because the setup to all this was when I went from, when I went from Portland to San Antonio, then San Antonio to Florida. Andre had come in again and he hadn't seen me in a year, year and a half. He watched me evolve and he'd seen me come from the, you know, the green as grass kid that couldn't really lace his boots up to someone that put a lot of ring time in. And he's the one that came up with the name, the handle, Magnum TA. So we were at a place called Fat Man's Barbecue, eating breakfast at three o' clock in the morning. And he looked over at me, he said, you're ready. You're ready for something big. You just need a name. You need something catchy. You need something that people remember. And the Magnum PI Series was big back then and I had shorter hair and the mustache and deal. He said, you know, you kind of remind me of that Magnum PI you should be Magnum TA I didn't know what that meant. I thought it was a really catchy name. But, but he's the one that, you know, brainchild that thing. And he was just always thinking about business and how he could help other people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So who, you know, from that moment forward, did you, did you. When do you. When are you able to like, implement that character? When are you, when, how long from that moment to when you would become or was it a process?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

It was, it was a process. And I didn't try to introd that In Florida because I was wrestling in the middle of the card. Scott McGee, Barry Windham and I were there. You know, we were, I was wrestling a lot of tag matches and as a matter of fact, Scott McGee and I were their, what they call their global tag team championship. And we were going out there wrestling 30, 45 minutes every night. So I was getting this great experience and out there with veterans and I mean, people, you know, Kevin Sullivan was there, Jake Snake Roberts was there. Just, I mean, oh, goodness, I'm trying to think of some of the names that you would know. Blackjack Mulligan was there and Dusty Rhodes. But when I had the name, I knew that that would be an opening to be on top. So Andres was working for Vince Sr. At the time. This was for Vince Jr. Had, you know, taking sights on looking at, taking over the world. So he was going back to New York with the idea of talking to Vince Sr. About bringing me to New York. Really simultaneously while all that happens, Paul Orndorff, who's a big star in Mid south, leaves no notice, nothing. Just leaves in the middle of the night, goes to New York, leaves this open, big opening spot, big cat. Ernie Ladd was the booker. He, he was coming in and out of Florida doing guest shots. He had his eye on me. He calls me in the middle of the night, says, hey, I got a spot on top. You know, and we talked about the name. So we're going to bring you in and you know, we're going to give you a push. So that would be my first opportunity to be on top. I'm going to be this new guy that I don't really know what that means. And then so I go and they introduced me as Magnum TA And I'm still wearing lace up boots. And they're trying to figure out my character, my Persona and what they want me to push. And they don't know. They had me. One week they got me dressing up like a Brooks Brothers suit, the next week they trying to get me to wear punk rock clothes like the Rock and Roll Express. I mean, they were just on and on where they didn't get it. And I'd been there six months and Ernie was just frustrated. He was ready to throw up his hands. He said, look kid, this thing just isn't working out. You know, maybe you should, you know, go get some more experience somewhere else and we'll figure this thing out. So Dusty and I were, had become best friends when I was in Florida and Dusty says, hey. He said, he said, I got to. He said, I've got an idea, baby. He said, I want you to get a motorcycle. And he said you were going to be the Lone Wolf Magnum ta. And I'm going to have you ride that, that bike into towns, even if we got a trailer five miles outside the town where you're going to ride right up like the Lone Wolf. And I said, I'm all cool with that. And I said, that sounds good. And I go down, I go down to Baton Rouge, Florida. I mean Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on my way to the town I was going to wrestle that night. Jim Duggan and I were riding together and was dropped. Drops me off and I'll buy. Yep, I saw that. I saw the autograph up there. And anyway, so I buy this motorcycle, buy a new leather jacket and I ride it into the town. Well, I'm still working in Mid south. And when I roll up in that town, even though I've been there six months, the whole energy changes. Even when I walk in the dressing room with the leathers on and the deal, the energy changes. And then Bill Watts, he sees the energy change, he says, oh, you're not going anywhere. I got big plans for you. And then I turned into this rough baby face kind of borderline what the forefront of what stone cold Steve Austin went on to be. And so I got to really hone that character for a solid year working on top in Mid South.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, this is dale and Hart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. Download gear, including the I'm old, drink some beer T shirt we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch.

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

what was it like to work with Dusty out of the gate?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

He was, we, we just struck up this really, really unique friendship. Him and Barry had been very close since Barry was like a little kid because of blackjack. Blackjack and Dusty were friends. He had always watched Barry. Barry was one of the most naturally gifted wrestlers of all time to this day. And when I'd been there six months in Florida, Dorie Funk Jr. Had been the booker. Dory leaves. Dusty comes in. Dusty was gonna like rearrange things. As a matter of fact, he didn't know me from Adam's house cat. He, he was going to have me go, to go send me to Kansas, not to Kansas City, to, to, to work in Tennessee, to Nashville. And Barry said, you know, you might want to take a second look at this guy and you know, look at him from a different perspective. So Dusty and I make a road trip together and we're coming back. And he puts this eight track in. It's Frank Sinatra's show tunes. Well, because I'd grown up in all kind of diversity of culture and exposed to all kinds of things. I do the words to every song Frank Sinatra singing. And we sang and we carried on and we come out of that trip and we're like all of a sudden best buds and we just immediately have this bond. And so we'd established that bond in Florida. And then he wanted to see me be successful in the Mid south and had watched me, you know, really take my game up. And it's funny, he was like, he was like my best friend. But he never talked to me about the mechanics of what we did in the ring, but he talked to me about psychology and his dreams and visions of something bigger than, than just what the regional type wrestling promotions had done. And you know, I was with him when he dreamed the Starcade up. That was just something that came out of his head. He was thinking about the Mega show and, you know, bringing the, you know, the Joe Fraziers in and, you know, bring. Bringing people from other, other sports and other forms of entertainment into wrestling. So he had a huge imagination and, and just, he had a lot of faith in me and he got the opportunity to come to work here for the Crockets. They were just in dismal shape. They were not drawing really, they were not doing well. The guys on top were not making.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why would Dusty want to come do that?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Because he had the vision of wanting to build it into something big. Well, he had brought Barry Windham with him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was it also geographically because of, you know, I don't know, was with the Mid Atlantic region.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

It was just that the Crockets had been around a long, long time. They were an extension of all the southern promotion.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was the physical footprint of the territory back then?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

It was just north, north and South Carolina a little bit into North Georgia and, and, and up to Virginia up to like Richmond.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So it felt like in that time when I was, when I, of course, I didn't see all the other territories on my television, but it felt like that the NWA in Charlotte in general, the location, the physical location was the hub, you know, of all things wrestling. And, and you also, you knew the, the WWF was out there with Hogan and all that. McMahon. But I felt like, I mean, I didn't, I wasn't around watching it in the late 70s. But it's interesting to me to hear that it wasn't doing all that great, that that particular territory wasn't doing all that great. Comparable to, you know, what you, what you'd experienced in Florida and so forth.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So do you remember when it showed up on TBS on the superstation? So that was the turning point.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So the first six months I'd come here, it was on its rear end. And I remember looking at Dusty saying, man, we got to do something because we're out there killing it. We're giving them great matches. But it wasn't popping the place. And Jim Crockett went and made a deal with Vince McMahon because Vince had somehow secured the TBS superstation, but he was also on the USA Channel. Well, it was a conflict of interest and nobody was real, real happy about it. So Jimmy gave him a check rumored for like a million dollars to get that spot. The minute, almost simultaneously of us going on TBS and then we had the Saturday morning show, the two hours at 6:05 at night and the Sunday night show that became the star maker. And Dusty was like he was a kid in a candy store. Yeah, he had me like. So when I came on the scene on tbs, it was like nobody had ever seen me before. Right. All of a sudden I'm on brand new national television, but I have five years of experience, nobody knows seven nights a week. So I'm seasoned, ready and locked in. And they put Flair and I head to head and we go all the way around the whole loop hour every night.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And that's what establishes the credibility of our wrestling product as opposed to the WWE was sheer entertainment. Hogan coming in, you know, glitz and glamour, big promos, ripping the shirt, stomping around and we're going out there depicting a real competition and a marketably different thing than they did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The matches were, the matches were incredible. But also what I enjoyed particularly about the Saturday morning shows was the promos. So help me, you know, that I think for a wrestler I'm just, you know, imagining from the conversations I've had and watching it myself, you're not going to be a superstar unless you can do the promo. How was, how was that process for you? What, how did you, you know, how did you learn, I guess how to work the camera and to be charismatic.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And so I learned it while I was in mid South. I got. Because we would do, we would do two, three hours of promos every week because they were for individual towns. So we'd go in just non stop. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And, and I had Bill Watts and the, the booker was a fellow named Superstar Bill Dundee. And I had them in my ear telling me this, want me, tell me to bring the intensity up, you know, finding my lane. Find what I. Because there's gotta be a magnification of something you believe. Yeah, you got. You got to be dialed in. You can't, you know, make yourself, you know, portray something that something isn't deep down inside you somewhere. Obviously it's a, you know, monsters turned up the knob all the way to the top version of it, but you've got to be comfortable in it. So I got all that under my belt there. So when I came here and got the form and got the. Got the, you know, the green light, I was ready. And again, I got to, you know, by working with Flair, Russell and Flair all around, that elevated me to, you know, a whole different level immediately. And I, you know, greats like Wahoo McDaniels and, you know, folks that had such history and credibility to be showcased and get victories over those people just, you know, kept taking you right up that ladder.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When you watched. When you watched Dusty and, you know, Flair as well, do promos.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Two of the best ever.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Never missed. Never missed. I don't know how, I mean, how, how much effort and work goes into being able to go out there and nail it. Because they never made mistakes.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

They were totally.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We never knew it.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Yeah, they were totally improvisational, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Never knew what was going to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Never knew.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And being on. Being on live camera with Dusty and being his partner and not know what's going to come out of his mouth.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I mean, he busted Baby Doll and I up so many times. I mean, he. Because, you know, this is before politically correct was even a thing. Right. And he would say anything. Yeah, they came across his mind.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Me and my friends, like, that's half the time when we're sending anything wrestling related. It's just these old promos back and forth to each other. Like, man, you believe this? Look at this. This is because they were just so good.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, and, you know, again, Dusty was great at finding people's strengths and ways to, you know, elevate them. Even up. He would have. He had a cameraman that would zoom in when. When I started doing a promo, particularly if it was just me. He'd have him zoom in and capture me from here to here just to get the intensity of my eyes. And because you were, like, looking into people's homes, they're sitting there, you know, eating dinner, sitting on their couch. They're all talking about it. And when you look at that camera and. And just nail it. They feel like they're in it with you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you know, it's pretty Pretty incredible. So Dusty and Dusty's kind of in, in a sense taking you under his wing, would you say, helping you?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Oh, 100%. I would have never had the Super Star run working for the Crocs had it not been for sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're working with them. And you won the North American heavyweight championship in 84, defeating Mr. Wrestling to. You held that until October that year. But you would, you know, you were, you were in tag, tag team matches with Dusty. You were in title matches on your own. You had, you, you had made it. You then began a feud with Tully Blanchard. The Four Horsemen. They were kind of pitted for folks who, you know, didn't, didn't watch this or wasn't, wasn't, wasn't around back then. It was you and Dusty and the Four Horsemen, which was led by Ric Flair. And it was, you know, had Ole and Arne Anderson in there. And if I remember correctly, every now and then Olie would, Would sort of be in the. Be in the. Be in, be in the middle. He was one of the nicer of the four, from what I remember. It might have been Oren, but I, it was kind of odd because I remember his characters. I hated Tully, and he was easy to hate. He, he wanted you to hate him. Rick was so great at promos. It was, it was. He. It was hard to hate him because he was so good at his promos, but he, he was. The Anderson brothers, on the other hand, didn't look or seem or come across as bad guys to me. And so every now and then you'd kind of be pulling for them. What was your, what was your personal relationship with those four guys?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So we didn't travel together back in the early time because we were all in cars, you know, and, and this was back when we were, you know, we were just dead set at, you know, portraying this as a real feud and a real hatred. So we had never interacted in public. We were never seen together, any of those kind of things, not until later on when he started traveling in our private jets and all that stuff, you know, where we'd be in the same little bubble. Yeah. Tully and I had, had met when I was working for his father in San Antonio. And Tully saw potential in me, even though I'd only been in the business six months. And he told me about his vision for what he wanted to be, and he just wanted to be the best heel in the country. And he never had any, Never had any ambitions of being liked. Wasn't any confusion about it. And that was and that was a magnification of his personality because he could rub people the wrong way just like that, inside and outside the ring.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And. But. But he was. He was one of the best professionals ever got in the ring with. Really. I had an eight month program with him that ended in that I quit match.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

In the steel cage here in Greensboro. And he was just an absolute phenomenal performer when he had Baby Doll doing the distractions and all the things that they did. So he was like the ever ready Bunny. He would go. I mean, you could be beating him and had to work so hard because you'd knock him down and he'd be back up coming for another punch just like that. I mean, he was like just killing it. And you know, I often think, you know, we talk about what could been this, that and the other. He really would have been an amazing world's champion if he had been cast differently than he had because his only, his only one big one on one feud. His entire career was with me. Outside of that, he's only known for the Four Horsemen tagging with, you know, with Arn and you know, and he was, you know, I mean, just incredible performer, you know, all the way around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How do you. How about the Anderson brothers?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So I had met. Is funny. Somebody sent me a clip of Arn and I in Mid south because Arn was a. Was one of like the, what we called enhancement guys that would just come to TV and, you know, you know, bounce around for, you know, five, five minutes, ten minutes, get beat. And I remember seeing him the first time and saying, that guy's got some huge potential. And then when they brought him to the Carolinas and gave him the Anderson name and that whole deal, you know, he was just superior athlete. But he was also so good on the mic. I don't know. He's the one that came up with the Four Horsemen deal.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

The Riders of the Apocalypse. I mean, he quoted something that he'd remember for his grandmother from scriptures and next thing he knew, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse came, came out and just. It just rolled. Wow. But he was a really gifted guy on the mic. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So was with Ric Flair being so successful in that moment. Was that detrimental maybe to Totally. A bit was he was totally sort of having a hard time coming out from underneath how big of a deal Rick was growing into.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

He didn't. He did. It did. If you, if you tried to put him in a singles role because they, they really. The Horseman really came about after we had. He and I had Finished our feud because I was into the feud with Nikita by that time. And it really did. I mean, it put him in a, you know, in a spotlight, certainly, where he was in a lot of main event matches. But it kept that doors that, that lane was shut for him because he couldn't. I mean, they, they put another. I think they had a national heavyweight title and then a world television title, and he held both of those.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But is that lane wider for babyface than heels?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

No, it's actually wider for heels. Reason being, typically, you want to see somebody chasing for the title.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's right.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And you're not going to be cheering the heel chasing for the title. You want to see that baby face overcome all the things that, you know, he's getting cheated. He can't get a fair shot. There's outside interference. Is this, is that. And that's what sells tickets. Yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's what we watched Dusty do for so many times, thinking, man, he just gets so close. And that's what kept you turning in every single week. Because maybe this is the week. Maybe this is the week.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

It's episodic soap opera.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So, so good. So you and, you and Rick had a rivalry, and you are, you know, around this time, sort of being positioned as. As the guy to go, you know, you're kind of falling into that role that Dusty had played for so long trying to grab that championship belt from Rick.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So back then, the world's heavyweight belt was controlled by a group called the National Wrestling alliance. And that was an actual alliance that was promoters all over the country that had a vote and they had a say in who represented the country, because that was really, it was an extreme honor because everybody recognized your level of performance, felt like you could come to their area, you know, wrestle their top guy, elevate, you know, ticket sales and whatnot. So it was a lot to it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're. So you're telling me that the World Heavyweight Champion could be a member of any of the geographical regions.

[Commercial Announcer]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But he. It was decided in this case to be Ric Flair, which was. Which was a member of this specific, you know, mid Atlantic geographical location. But that was decided on by all of the members.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Had to vote at a vote. And I remember vividly, they brought me. So the convention was in Vegas and Jimmy Crockett flew all of us out to Vegas for the convention, and they had me address the room and to introduce that thought.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What thought?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

The thought of me being the guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so you had to get up there and speak and try to convince these guys this might be a good idea for me to be in this role.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And it wasn't that. It was just addressing the room and them seeing that in you. You're not trying to convince anybody. Your work and what you did on the mic and where you carried yourself and all those things were the deal. But it's like, so Flair was, Flair's 10 years older than I am and they wanted a, they wanted a youth, they wanted more, they wanted somebody in their 20s and they tried it with, with, with different folks. Tommy Wildfire Rich was a big star in Georgia and I think he held the title a couple of weeks. But to, to maintain that title, you had to be able to go out there and wrestle and have a great match with pretty much anybody. And Flair had that capability. But the reason he, they call him the 60 Minute Man. When you, when you attain that title and you go to those places, they don't want you to beat their champion because then you leave and they got to draw money with that guy. So they'd have you do the hour, you do the, what they call the Broadway, the 60 minutes. And so you, you do have that six minute match and the last 15 minutes that everybody would think, oh, their guy almost had it, almost had it, almost had it. But of course, Flair would somehow maintain and get through the 60 minutes and time limit. And the champion always maintains the title, right? So it was, it was quite a task you had to be able to do, perform with, with literally whoever they threw at you, right?

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's talk about the accident. 1986, October. You're on your way home from a match. Do you remember?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Oh yeah, that day, October 14th. I was coming. I wrestled Jimmy Garvin in a lumberjack match in Greenville, South Carolina and Dick Murdoch rode back with me when I had a 911 Turbo Porsche. That was my dream car from when I was a kid. I'd bought it, I'd had it about four or five months and it was pouring down rain and it was just horrible out and we get all the way back to Charlotte and we stop at the Bennegans was like the watering hole where we all hung out when we got back to town and we got back before it closed and I lived literally 10 minutes from there and I said good night to him. I was heading home, coming down Sardis Road and back then that was a two lane road over there where Charlotte Christian school is and there was a little dog leg turn in the two lane road and there was a dip in it and it was raining so hard that the water had gathered really heavy and so I'm running faster than I should. I'm running like 55 miles an hour and a 35 but in that car it felt like you weren't moving right and I hit that water in a hydroplane and I've hydroplane so many times I can't even tell you other times in my life but I'd never done it in a rear engine car and when I let off the gas and went to turn into it to catch it, it didn't catch. And then I then, like in a millisecond, I said, you know, they told me you had to drive these things out of a problem when you got it. Well, when I got back in it, it spun the tires, the turbo kicked in, and I spun the other way and I broadsided a telephone pole. You know, no telling with the whip that it made how hard I hit it, but I mean, I hit it so hard it knocked the half shafts out of the motor. Motor never turns off. Compression fracture. My head on the roof, my C5 vertebrae explodes. Can't move anything from my neck down. I'm driven down in the floor of the car. And, you know, there I lay for what seemed like forever. A young man who was a student on his way home found me and called the. Called 911. And they used the Jaws of Life, cut the top of the car off and take me to. They couldn't airlift me out because it was raining so hard. And I got to get to the hospital and all of a sudden I got this, you know, the surgeon standing over me telling me I've got a million and one shot of ever walking again.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

You know, like you said, on the precipice of the biggest time in my

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

life, career wise, when do you start to realize, you know, what you got right?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

It. I realized when he told me because first of all, I didn't hurt and I didn't have a cut on me. I had a little scratch on my head, but I just hit my head on the roof. And like I said, the pressure drove me down. And so I wasn't in pain, but it was a horrible feeling. You know, I didn't know why I couldn't move. You know, I always thought if you broke your neck, you were dead. I didn't know you could break your neck and survive. And so I wasn't putting it all together, but I was five months in the hospital. I was 30 days in ICU and then another four months in the hospital and rehab in Charlotte. And it was just the most brutal battle of my life. Just trying to get back where I could breathe off a respirator and, you know, start getting some movement. I had a decompression surgery done within eight hours of the accident. So I had fragments in. In my cord. My disc was pushed l shape up against the cord. I mean, they didn't. They didn't know if I was going to make it overnight, right. Much less anything else. So it was really touch and go. And I mean, they snuck Dusty. Dusty Got the Doug Dillinger who did our security was also a Charlotte police officer and he made a way to get Flair and Arne and Tully and them up to come see me because they didn't know if I was gonna make it. And they all came to see me in the icu.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember that?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Do what?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember them?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Oh, yeah, I remember it well. And I couldn't talk because I had a trach. And it was most.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Helpless feeling imaginable. Yeah. Can't move, can't talk, can blink. And you see the pain on everybody's face just looking at you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Worry and concern, I'm sure. Golly. You know, you talked about how long it took you to start a rehab. What are some of the milestones or some of the breakthroughs, I guess, that you recall having where you're thinking, well,

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

immediately after the surgery, I could bend my left arm. So that was a big deal. That was. So I got some immediate return, you know, instantly, I think so moving my arm. And then the first time they set me up, oh, goodness. I felt like my whole body was full of just made out of jello. Because all my. Because all those. Once all those muscles are turned off, even if you haven't returned, going back to them, you have to re. Educate them and do all kinds of things to get things working again. So it was that it was being able to feed myself at first, then sit up, and then I think two months in, I actually was able to take some steps in five foot of water. And that was a big thing. But my right side was much weaker than my left. I have what they call a brown support injury, meaning my motor nerves were more damaged on my right side, but I can feel better on my right side. That doesn't work as well. And the same thing vice versa. This side works better. It's still not 100%, but it's all functional to a degree. And I just started to wrap my head around what it was I could actually do. Everybody kept saying, oh, you got to come back. I was trying to figure out how to come back to life. I wasn't even thinking about. I knew what it took to do what I did in the ring. I had no earthly thought in my head that I'd ever be able to do that again.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I just wanted.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You already made. You had. You had self awareness.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Yeah, yeah, I had complete self awareness, even though those around me didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. So, yeah, I'm sure there's other people thinking, you know, maybe we can. Maybe there'll be an opportunity to come back, right? But you was that emotional for you to have to cut, you know, you, I, I, so I, this is a different situation than, than what, you know, race car drivers. We, we have some similarities in the fact that we, you know, you dreamed of making, you dreamed of doing this, right? I dreamed of driving race cars. You dreamed of becoming this guy. You were in the ring and you got to do that, you got to live that dream. And, and I genuinely mostly have racers on here and I like to talk to some of the guys that have retired. And one of my, one of the things I really enjoy discussing with them is coming to terms with the end of that dream, right? Or coming. How do you, some guys struggle, some guys really still, even years later, have a hard time seeing themselves as anything but that guy that they were in that race car. And, and it's still a journey for myself to really wonder when there'll be a day where it's completely shut off. Right. I'll never drive another race car again in my life. And so I can't, you know, I kind of, I like having these conversations because it not only helps me, but how this is not, our, our situations are not similar. I did not, I was not necessarily in the same experience that you had with, with the accident, but how was that emotionally to realize, you know, that, man, I'm not going to get to continue that thing that I've worked on and worked hard for.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

It was a day to day thing. I had to learn to celebrate victories that weren't something that others would measure as something spectacular. Realize having had lost everything. Everything I got back was a blessing and a gift as it came along. And it, you know, I walked out of the hospital under my own power five months after I went in. And they gave me the million and one shot of ever walking again. So I took great, great personal, you know, victory inside for, you know, pushing, pushing, pushing and not giving up and getting to that point. But to your point, say I'm 27 years old at this point in time. And, you know, I mean, I had my, I didn't want to wrestle forever anyway, right? I wanted to wrestle till I was like 30 years old because I didn't envision wanting to be that version of myself going past my prime. I wanted people to remember me being the best I could be the best version of myself. And I actually had had an opportunity to drive a race car. And it was the most exhilarating thing I'd ever done. Benny Parsons took me out at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And I got to drive his car and met Hal Needham that owned the car. And I played that all through my head. And again, just like wrestling, not knowing. Not knowing about guys coming up, starting in go karts and all the things they do to attain all those skills. Because just because you've got big balls and you don't mind going fast and, you know, going. Going 200 miles an hour in a circle is one of the most grueling things I've ever physically experienced. Because I held onto the roll cage while he was. I drove the car myself. Then I sat in the other side, held on the roll cage, and he drove me around, you know, wide open.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And I experienced those G's and what y' all did. So I had a great deal of respect for that. And, you know, I saw that as being a potential. Another path I would have gone through the Buddy Baker Driving School and tried to learn, because this was before Tim Richmond and before these young guys. And it was a hu. Parallel with the audience from wrestling to nascar. They were always looking for that next young guy, that thing, marketability and sales and bringing people out there in the stadiums. And so I understood that. But again, I felt I had unsettled business because I didn't ever achieve the world title. That was tough. And then I tried to throw myself back into what was familiar. So when I got back where I was ambulatory enough, I could, you know, go to and from and do things naturally. I did what I could do within the wrestling circle. So I tried my hand at color commentating, and I did some interviewing. And then I ended up eventually working with Dusty as what they call the deputy chief talent director, which meant he was the booker and I was his assistant. And I made sure what he wanted to be done was being done with the guys. But it was really hard to try to communicate to people how to do something that I knew how to do with my eyes closed. And they're looking at you like, you know, they're making all this money and who am I? And it was just. It was a horrible place to be. And I did that up until, like, 1990, 91, and I got out because it just was not. It wasn't a path I could see myself continuing. It was a good mental headspace for me. And God opened up another door and introduced me to something else. And I got in a whole crazy another world that wasn't in the spotlight, but something that I couldn't even imagine how demanding it would be. But to say all that I met a fellow here, was from Kannapolis. His name was J.R. richardson. He'd been in the tower building business for his entire life and he was a wrestling fan. So he was all happy, you know, getting to know me and all this. And, and he introduced me to this thing called telecom and I've been in it for over 30 years now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you got out of, yeah, you got out of the wrestling business. And so, you know, for, for people like me, you know, we, we think, we think that, that it's just a spotlight, you know, no matter what role you're playing in the business, it's under the spotlight and it's got to be great, right? But you just explained like how difficult some of the roles could be if you're not the man, if you're not the star. Being in that business can be, can be challenging and choppy. How. And you finally made this decision, like, I'm going to completely go in an entirely new direction unrelated to anything of, of, of notoriety or celebrity. Right? You, and you had, and you and you made that work and you did, you succeeded.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And, and the, the keys to success, the work principles, same things you guys, you know, you know, apply to, you know, build championship teams and, and quality people. Those skill sets apply to whatever it is. It doesn't matter if you're in a factory making widgets or if you're in, you know, in some kind of, you know, healthcare, whatever the good work ethic, the people with drive are going to be a value add in whatever lane they end up if they stick with it. You can't, you can't be the jack of all trades and master of none. You got to find something, Elaine, and stay in it. When. But the wrestling legacy, the, the, the heritage thing is something just like racing you never get out of. You're in a brotherhood, you're in a fraternity that you'll always be in. And, and I have, I have spent more hours with Tully in conventions and stuff talking about that blooming series and that I quit match than anything you can imagine. And like the WWE, you know, put us in the 10 most violent strikes cage matches in history and memorialized it. And you know, we, we weren't even thinking anything about it at the time. It was just really the day at work, you know, and it's, you know, some people talk about all these years

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

later, how much do you enjoy getting out to conventions and meeting fans and hearing about their experiences watching you wrestle all those years ago?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, you know, I'll segue and tell you A couple of things. One, in the hospital, we were going seven days a week, hard as we could go. And I knew we were. We had a large audience, but I didn't really realize how large. And so the impact that we were having really hit me while I was laying flat on my back, had a lot of time to think and self reflect, and I determined and made it just my life. Every moment thought that I was not going to let all these people down that had supported me playing this hero, that were now supporting me in the fight of my life and use this as an excuse to, oh, well, I don't blame him for, you know, spiraling out of control or ending up in a ditch or, you know, going down some bad path or whatever. I was determined that I was the only way I could give back now was probably more important than anything I'd ever done. So I'd had their attention, and I was going to persevere, and I was going to let them see that this guy that they saw play, this guy really was made of something and give them a different kind of inspiration. Because we all have adversities in life, some large, some small, but everyone has something. And you're influencing somebody every day, whether you're going through a parking lot in a grocery store, at work. People are always measuring how you handle things. And it's just if it becomes ingrained in you to be that persevering person that doesn't complain and doesn't sit around and get on their pity pot and finds a way to overcome that, that's more of a legacy of anything you could ever leave. And that's what I kind of dug into and have applied that principle with my kids and everything I've touched for the last 40 years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're Cody Rhodes, Godfather. You remember being presented with that idea?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I do. And I watched y' all's interview, and, you know, I feel bad in ways because Cody, I was there the night he was born. We had flown in on a flight and rushed to the hospital. And it was dusty and I, Manny Fernandez, I can remember it like it was yesterday. And, you know, I was there. And I was there when he was christened down in Tampa, Florida, and held him while they, you know, they did the whole ceremony. And, you know, shortly thereafter, I have this catastrophic thing happen. So, you know, certain things in your life, you just like. I don't know whether your mind just doesn't wrap its head around all these things, but it wasn't really until he became a teenager that I remembered, oh, by the way that's my godson.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

You know, because it just. It was just during that very dramatic time of my life where certain things had shut down and, you know, I'd gone on into a new life. And so, I mean, I watched him and Dusty's wife Michelle and I actually talked a lot more in later years than. Than Dusty and I did because she would always be home and answer the phone and tell me what was going on in everybody's life and what was happening. But, you know, as Cody's, you know, sat his sights on what he wanted to do in the business and his big brother Dustin had already had been very heavily rooted in the things he'd done. Cody was just like this hybrid of what his dad had been and what the business evolved into. He had vision like his dad, because to have worked for the WWE as a young man like he did and have a huge contract and then realize that they're not seeing in you what you see in yourself and having the courage to go out there and prove to the whole world what you're really all about. And look at him today. Now he's three times World Heavyweight Champion in WWE and arguably, you know, gonna go down in history as being one of the biggest stars of all time and is, you know, done things that his dad never even dreamed of as far as a performer. So, Yeah, I mean, I'm so proud of him. I wish his. Wish Dusty was, you know, here, you know, in the corners, you know, and we were sitting back, smoking a cigar, laughing. Yeah. Watching him. But it's. It makes me smile every time I see him out there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I text him the other day. We were going to sit down and have a talk because he. He had told me about how. How much you were a part of his life and is. And such a great friend of his dad. So he's. I'm hoping he'll. Hoping he'll be excited to listen to this conversation when it. When it comes out. But it's interesting because I had gotten, you know, when he came in here and we got to sit down and talk, I was really kind of taken aback by how genuine and honest he is about how he feels. And you can tell that he doesn't. He wears his feelings around his father and all of that and missing his dad and everything that he's experiencing and all the success that he's enjoying while knowing his dad's not here to see. He wears all that right on his sleeve. There's no. No question. And it is as tough as that. Is. It's so good to see because he's. He's real. You know what I'm saying? Which I really. And was impressed, I guess, by getting to. Getting to talk to him for a couple hours in here. And that was before the big push then. And what he's done in the last year and a half.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, what you ought to do sometime is listen to Dustin's story.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And Dustin's story, because his relationship with his dad was from the outside looking in and only got to be engulfed in that when he was already 16, 17 years old and moved here and lived with his dad and Cody. Dusty had so many regrets over not being able to be in his children's lives from his first marriage, more than he was. And he poured himself into Cody in his football and his wrestling and everything he did. I mean, Dusty took a partial coaching position and things that he did and just mentored that young man and gave him every last ounce of what he has left in him to help him believe in himself. He could take a person like myself and see something in you that you didn't see in yourself. And if I was so Dusty, coincidentally enough, passes away on my birthday, of all things. Right. And I went to his funeral in Tampa and all those now WWE Superstars like Seth Rollins and the Bella Twins and just on and on, these people that Dusty had done the same thing in that performance center, touched their lives and brought something out of them that they didn't know they had.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

He impacted so many people in this sport, be it behind the scenes that he's responsible for so many superstars that are, you know, making millions today that I don't even. I couldn't even tell you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you. You mentioned earlier about driving a race car with Benny Parsons now, you know, you had a genuine interest in somehow transitioning out of the wrestling world and, and, and exploring the idea of being in the NASCAR world.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I. I did because I'd grown up around that, too, or Ricky Rudd's from where I'm at in Chesapeake. And, and, And I have an uncle who's actually too much younger than me, my dad's youngest brother, and they raced dirt bikes and rode go karts together. And then of course, Ricky went on and goes on to nascar. And so I'd always enjoyed it and watching it, but when I got behind the wheel of a car, I had a whole different perception. I realized that there was nothing simple about it, that it was. It was a skill set. It wasn't just driving in circles and on the heels of that, I get on a plane, and Hal Needham's on the daggone plane, and we end up talking for hours, and he's the one that kind of laid the path out for me, so. Well, this is what you need to do, and I can help you do this. And Jimmy Crockett's on the plane, and he's about to have a cow. No, I got plans.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you got all this invested, but

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I figured, you know, if I was. I was 27. I'm gonna be the world's champ, you know, I'll be the world champ for three years, you know, and I can start doing some. Some driving school stuff on the side and learning and, you know, maybe. What a crossover, right? And. And. And it scared the crap out of everybody. But. But I saw that as. And don't take this the wrong way, but I saw that as a less physical path than what I was doing every day, because I'm doing this seven days a week, and I am, you know, I'm. I'm beating people up, and I'm getting beat up seven days a week. And I didn't see, you know, I saw 30 to 40 is. Hey, that car. I might be able to hang on to that steering wheel for. For 10 years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So speaking of the. The wear and tear, like, what. What I. You know, obviously the accident had a heavy toll on you physically, but what are some of the. I guess, what are some of the scars and things that you carry just from actually bouncing around the ring all those years?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, so I found out when I had the wreck that I had already broken my neck at C7, sometime a year or so earlier, and never knew it and never missed a day at work. And I knew I'd hurt my. My neck real bad. One time I. I went to. I threw a guy into a corner, and I jumped up to monkey flip him out, and he held on, and I catapulted myself all the way in the middle of the ring, and there was a board sticking up, and I landed right on that board, and it felt like it killed me. But, you know, we played hurt all the time, so I didn't think about it. So, yeah, I broke my neck sometime probably eight months, nine months prior to having the car wreck. And then I also found out in the last 12, 15 years, I had broken my back to. At the L4, L5 level. I'd broken the little wings off the back. My vertebrae, they were gone. And so, I mean, there were things there were, you know, that would have come back to haunt me sooner rather than later had I kept that pace up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Take yourself back to, you know, 25, 26 years old. What were your favorite matches? Were they, I mean, and I'm asking like what style of match was your favorite? What, what, what was the cage? Is it a cage match? Is it, what is your favorite one?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So I started out the scientific drop, kick, arm drag, Ricky Stone, Steamboat style, you know, scientific wrestling thing. But, but the character that I became is Magnum, particularly in the mid south days. You know, you mentioned the, the deal with wrestling too. But before that it'd been Butch Reed who was a big strong son of a gun athlete. And I like the battles, I like the punch and kick and John Wayne style brawls better than I liked anything. So Tully was tailor made for that. Before Tully, I'd had Wahoo and Wahoo had been like, you know, he was like a hero to me. I'd watched Wahoo and Johnny Valentine when I was a kid beating each other to death over the Silver Dollar Challenge. And you know, so to have him kind of pass the torch to me in Charlotte, which was the centerpiece for the Crockets inside of the steel Cage, the US title, you know, that was the start of the run. But then Tully, and you know, Tully was such a seasoned pro, the thing that really I hang my hat on. And the reason I thought I was, I felt I was ready to have the world title run. They put me in this program with Nikita and Nikita's 290 pounds, raw, green as grass, intense, fast, brutal, everything you could think of in a monster.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's a big boy.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

And we had a program that was absolutely stellar. And I was then the veteran, then I was the lead. I was the guy that needed to make sure that this thing lived up to everything else I wanted to do. And we had that, what they call the best of seven series for the world title. I'd gotten a beef. I had my mom at a, at a match signing deal and she didn't know anything was going to go on. And, and I ended up, Nikita calls me a mama's boy or something and I dive over the table, get in a fight with him and my mom's oh my God over there in the corner screaming. And so Bob, go president of the NWA is going to reprimand me because conduct unbecoming a challenge, the, you know, the US Champion and I, and I deck him so that this is the precursor to the Steve Austin, you know, deal. And I knock out the president of the nwa, then they strip me of the title. And we go into this best of seven series which ended up, I think we actually had like 15 matches or so before it was all over with. But you know, I ended up passing the title to him with interference from Ivan and, and Crusher. Crew Chef in a deal and puts huge heat on him. But it was the idea I was going on to. The next thing I was making him, you know, making him in the process and next time we would see each other, I'd have a different belt. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So when you were going to fight in a cage match, was there anything unique that you had to be aware of or prepared for or, you know,

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

back then the biggest difference cage matches were they were bloody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They were bloody and brutal and, and I mean fans ate them up. They were different than they are today. Yeah, they're a lot cleaner and well,

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

you know, back then it was just, you know, old dag on galvanized, you know, cage. I remember I, I, with Wahoo, I, I hit the cage and I came back off the cage and I, my whole eyebrow was hanging down over my, my head, my, my, my eye. And he said, well kid, he said, you don't have to worry about bleeding. You're bleeding. And I said what do you mean? And I just ripped it like, like off. And you know, those things happen. You, you, there's barbs sticking out and things you'd run into and but, but people had a level of, of intensity. To your point that I go back and watch some of the old matches on YouTube and you listen to the sound effects when we throw a punch. The whole place is, you didn't have to have anybody thing piped in. They are so with it there. Every move, everything you do, they were right there. And they'll never have that again because it's a bigger show today. You can't cut the house lights down and have just everything featured on that center stage because they got 30,000 people in the building, they wouldn't be able to see because they got to have a Jumbotron so they can see what's going on. But in a 10,000, 11,000 seat building with all that focus on you, it could be so loud you couldn't hear anything. It would be so loud, it'd be like quiet and it's damaged my ears. Probably just like racing probably did to yours. But it was, it was a different, it was a different magic. It wasn't the choreographed, you know, high flying, all these, you know, exciting, you know, stuntman looking moves people do today, but people hung on everything you did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, man. Me and I had Steve Austin on the show years ago and we talked about color a little bit and how. Because I'd always kind of wondered how that was, you know, how, how that would come about and what was the conversation around that. It seemed like there was not a. It seemed like there was never a fight without color in your matches.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, you think about it, if you're, if you're damaging somebody. I mean, who hasn't, you know, as a kid been in a scrap with somebody and you know, got a bloody lip or bloody nose or, you know, something dinked and if you can't bust a grape and you know, you're, you're, you're throwing these haymaker punches and all this stuff and nobody's bleeding. Yeah. What credibility is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, they took that. They've been. Eventually one day they decided, I guess through the networks and because of the size of the industry to do away with that. Now it's back again.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Is back. But they're using it gingerly and making it mean something when they do. Like what they just did with Randy and Cody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's right.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

You know, and it was perfect. I texted him right after. That was an old school angle. You've done perfect. You know, fantastic. You know, kudos.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

An interesting. Do you find it ironic too or just so coincidental that it's in Cody's peak that color would come back? A guy whose dad was known for color it.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

You know, I see. You know, it won't ever be like we, like we had.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Because it just couldn't. I mean, literally.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I guess my feeling is, is that like the industry changed so much and I don't know that anyone currently in today's roster would be willing to bring that back, but Cody would.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Because he's old school.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's old school. Its roots are in that style of a match. And so I just find that really interesting that, that it. If it. I didn't think it ever come back, but it did. And it's.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, the age thing was the first thing everybody was afraid of for sure. You know, when that became a thing and blood mixing with blood and all that stuff, they were terrified over that because of liability. But then as it became, you know, you know, sponsors and backers and commercial this and that, the other, you know, then all of a sudden that doesn't play real friendly with family entertainment. So we had the. But we had the grandmas and everybody else on the front row, you know, just swinging, hitting you with their cane if they were mad at you, you

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

know, so had you ever had a fan, you know, maybe cross the line? I'm sure you have. Like, do you recall any not, you

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

know, literally, I mean, because Tully and I in some of the house shows would go fight out two, three rows deep in ringside sometimes, but we were so physical. Nobody really wanted to get close because they could. I mean, they could hear the shots. They. I mean, I mean, I would hit him on the side of the deck. He'll. He would tell you this. He couldn't talk, right. For about eight months because I would hit him right inside the neck where it was soft tissue and I could make contact and it was thrown full speed. It wasn't thrown trying to take his head off. But even at 240 pounds, throwing your hand that fast, you're going to leave a little mark.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah. So you brought your son along with you to the podcast today. Does he ask you about, you know, there's sort of this meme on the Internet now. What were you like, you know, mom or dad? What were you like in the 90s or the 80s? Like, do you find him digging into your history?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Oh, yeah. And he's been. And he's already been in the ring and done some training and the most surreal thing I've ever seen. So there's a guy named Lodi that wrestled in WCW as a. He has a ring in Matthews and he school there. And Tucker had been a few times, just learned a few things. And so I'm sitting there and Arn comes in. Arn sits down next to me. Arne's son wrestles. Arne's son looks almost just like Arne. I mean, they're like spitting image each other. Well, he goes in there with Tucker and all of a sudden I'm watching Tucker and him. Mind blown. Right. I mean, just the most. Most emotional moment I think I can remember in the last 10 years because I was watching something evolving and I'm watching history and I'm thinking about all this stuff from 40 years ago, and here's my youngest son and his son, and I'm going, oh, my gosh, this is, you know, is this looking into the crystal ball of what, you know, could be? And, you know, so, yeah, unfortunately, I can't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hi.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Nobody has to ask what I was doing back then because I'm captured all over, for sure. The stinking Internet. Yeah. You know, sometimes things I wish they hadn't captured. Glad they didn't have cell phones back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Or we'd really been in trouble.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I got a five and a seven year old daughter and I'm, I'm curious I guess as a, as I get older and they get older, they don't, they don't. They, they never saw my, my racing career when it was in its full swing. But I'm curious, I guess as I get older how much they might want to know about it and maybe how inquisitive they might get. But it's, it's got to be an incredible feeling for your son to not only want to understand who you were and what you did, but want to be a part of it.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's, you know, it's something that's either in your DNA, it's not something you can force somebody. Yeah. I've got my oldest son, just turned 30 and, and he's a big, healthy, raw bone young man and could have certainly, you know, chose that path and I would have helped him had he wanted to, but he had no inclination for it whatsoever. And, and then my, my stepdaughter, Tessa, Tessa Blanchard, Tully's, you know, daughter, you know, she's been out there in the business for 10 years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So you, it's either, either got that itch or you don't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You married Tully's ex wife.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did that happen?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

So we all lived here in Charlotte. I had a, I had a rocky situation going on at home. She did too. And you know, and we just, we, we ran it. I mean I was there when her, until he got married and they were already on the rocks. They were, they were going south and here she had a 1 3, 3, 5 and 7 year old and I had my oldest son young and the moon and stars lined up and we just had this undeniable chemistry. And I never imagined having more than two kids, much less I go from one to five and raise all those kids until he was part of their lives. I mean in and out seeing them on the weekends and, and whatnot. Him and I still work in events and stuff. Yeah. You know, so it was wild. It was, you know, I didn't know that till. Yeah, very, very strange. Very, you know, just strange path those things took. But I mean we've, you know, we've, we've all interacted with the, the trials and tribulations and challenges of parenting and trying to solve things that those kids went through and him and I kibitzing on, you know, how to best see them through something and. Yeah, it's just been a crazy, I mean I got about 10 books in my Head and I don't want to write any of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you, you mentioned Stone Cold a couple times during our conversation. You see a lot of parallels or similarities with, with his, his story and in his character.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I, I, I guess the fact, first of all that he became that kind of antihero kind of deal was what Dusty was really letting me lean into. Like, I was like, I would have tag matches where I'd go help the Rock and Roll Express or we'd tag up with the Road warriors or do something. But typically because I was chasing singles championships, I kind of stayed in my lane and wrestled a very rough style, yet I would be that baby face, fighting from the bottom up, usually bloodied up, and just get people pulling. For me. And Steve, the similar path was that Steve was a great athlete from the get go and very good in the ring from the get go. But he found that Rattlesnake character kind of like after same thing like me in Mid south, they brought him in as the professional or some goofy thing. They had him, the WWE first. And usually your first impression is, you know, your best impression. And if you're going to be successful, it either gets over or you go somewhere else. Well, he, like me, got a second chance with the same group. I got that second chance in Mid south and, and it popped. And, and of course he became the, arguably one of the biggest phenomenal, you know, personalities, you know, ever. Yeah. In wrestling and got to, you know, I could have, I would have never wanted to take it to the follow the exact same path he did because, you know, but, but he was very comfortable in it and did a great job with it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, is, I think they're, I am a wrestling fan. When there is a Dusty Roads, when there's a Magnum ta, when there's a Stone Cold, when there's a person in that ring that looks like I might, you know, the kind of person I might see walking down the street and, you know, not, not to, and I'm a fan of Cody's, so I watch, you know, what's going on with his career and his story. But what drew me in, I think, and was really common back in the 80s, was a lot of the characters were regular people. You're, you know, even though you had a name and you wore, you know, maybe some unique clothes, it wasn't a stretch to imagine walking into a bar, a restaurant and seeing you sitting down on, you know, having dinner or, and it's transitioned. I think particularly in the last handful of years, the characters are More extravagant, more elaborate and less. They're not wearing, you know, regular clothes. They're not wearing even, you know, Stone Cold was kind of the last of.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Oh yeah. They wouldn't let no more let you go out there in your jeans and boots and a T shirt today and cut a promo than a man the moon.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're. They should. Yeah, that guy's missing for me.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Yeah. And the blue collar America. And I mean my dad was, my dad and his dad were in ironwork steel construction for 30 years and. And you know, I come from that lifestyle and that hard working, all American type deal and I worked, worked in steel before I ended up, you know, I ended up in telecom and construction. My dad, but dad used to laugh because when I was in high school he would try to get me interested in that stuff and I had no interest in it whatsoever. And then I go have this catastrophic wreck. You know, I'm not 100% physical and I end up owning my own boom truck and you know, hanging steel and building towers and doing all this stuff vicariously that, you know, I'd been around, you know, steel and I ended up on a whole nother channel, you know, after the fact.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But you know, do you, when do you watch wrestling much outside of what Cody's doing?

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

I do to, to a degree. Just because first of all, Tessa works for a company called tna and they, and I can see her on TV and she's also working for a company in Mexico. She lives down in Mexico. And so I can watch her on a YouTube channel. And then I watch that and then you know, basically what I'll do, I do, I cheat. I'll. I'll go, I'll watch YouTube just to see highlights of things that have happened. If something, somebody says something was really good, I'll go back and watch it, you know, but I can't. I don't have the bandwidth and the time to spend the hours because the shows are so long now. And I mean you could literally make, make a career out of just watching wrestling between AEW and TNA and the wwe. I don't have time. I'm busy. I got, I got stuff to do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, man, it's been a lot of fun talking to you. I'm so thankful that you, you made time for us today to come in here and sit down. As I said when we started this, you know, I put out a tweet the other day about, on social media about the, how excited I was about this guest. You, you know, you impacted my childhood. I, I got up every Saturday morning. So excited that I was going to get to see you and, and Dusty and the Four Horsemen and get to watch that continuation of. Of what you guys had created. It was perfection. And I mean, in that little. We didn't know, you know, as fans, we did not know how good we had it in that particular time, but you guys were hitting home runs every single week, and it left quite an impact on me. And I, you know, I was a fan of yours, always admired your style and the character that you'd created and the friend that you were to Dusty. And I love to know that that was a genuine thing that would carry on for years. I've loved to have. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to. To sit down and talk to my heroes, you know, and understand how that business worked and how you grounded out and where you went to find all this opportunity and create opportunity for yourself. So I think people are going to love to be able to hear it. For the ones who haven't seen you out and about at some of the trade shows and whatnot, they're going to love to know what you've been up to. For people that are a little bit younger and may not have been able to experience what you did in the 80s, a lot of people are going to hear your story for the first time. So thanks so much for being here today, Terry. It was a great honor.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

Well, it was a pleasure. You're right here in my backyard. And it would have been a travesty I've got together.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm surprised. I'm, you know, surprised that we haven't crossed paths, honestly. And I guess the responsibility a little bit on me for that too. But I am thankful for today. Very much my pleasure. That was Magnum TA on the Dale Jr. Download. All right, so that was it, man. Magnum TA I know a lot of people. I put that post out on social media today telling people that I was pretty excited about my next guest. And I know a lot of people probably weren't. Weren't thinking Magnum TA but that's going way back in the early 80s, maybe the mid-80s. But yeah, I mean, his story is a cool one. Also sad and tragic because his career was cut short. His opportunity, which I feel like that he was probably going to be world champion at some point and, you know, just didn't get that opportunity. But to hear, Heck, I mean, he was in his mind maybe just about three or four years away from transitioning out of the ring, which is interesting. I'd be. I'd Be hard to believe that, you know, if he had found his opportunity as a world champion, he would give up the, you know, the chance to keep staying on top and working, working the industry in that role. But who knows what would happen with Magnum TA you see him right over my shoulder here with. With Dusty Rhodes.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

They were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They were a tag team, man, they were so much fun. I want to go back right now and get on YouTube and look at some of those old matches, because, honestly, I mean, I know today's wrestling. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm a big fan of wrestling, and I know that it's a massive industry now, and there's fans all across the world, and there's so many incredibly talented and elaborate characters in the industry now. But I don't know, you know, you know, how our nostalgia works. It does the same thing in racing. We think, oh, man, the same 70s and 80s, it was so good. But I feel that way, you know, about the NWA and watching the Four Horsemen and ganging up on Magnum TA and Dusty Roads every week and how that was so much fun to watch. And it wasn't even so much about what happened in the ring. It was the promos and the talk and the, you know, the. The acting and the storytelling was so, so good. Oh, man, you were not gonna miss the next show. You had to tune in. It was gonna continue, you know, and it was just like watching. It was just like watching your favorite television show, like Dallas or any of those things that were on TV at the time. You couldn't miss a week because things were changing and evolving. But, yeah, I was heartbroken when. When Terry had his automobile accident and. And I knew that his career was over, but I had no idea the significance of his injuries. And I'm, you know, we're witness. Witnesses today to. To what that did to his body physically and also how it changed his life. And so I knew that, you know, even if you don't know who Magnum TA was, and even if you not a wrestling fan, the story of a guy who had the. The top of the world right there in sight and lost it all, but still found a way to not only survive, but to push forward and to. To make something out of his life. You know, he went on into a field totally unrelated to wrestling, totally unrelated to, you know, what. What athletic ability he possessed before his accident. I mean, he had to. He had to find something to work, you know, and he did. And he doesn't seem to have any emotional baggage around all that. Oh, man, I don't know that many of us would have been able to come to terms and negotiate with ourselves the reality of that situation. Right? And he talked about it. He's like, man, you know, people were telling me that I had this sort of opportunity to spiral out of control or throw my life away and throw a pity party or whatever, and he didn't do that, man. He just buckled down and found something else to do with his life. And I don't know, man, pretty cool to be able to say that. I've actually had the chance to talk to him and he was very good at, you know, describing everything that he went through and, and I didn't, I just, I got everything I needed out of this. So it was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it. Every now and then I'm very lucky to be able to bring somebody in that I truly can't wait to, to meet and, and talk to and this was one of those episodes. So hope you all enjoyed the conversation with Terry, also known as Magnum. Ta. Thanks for joining us here at the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meet in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. Arby's we have the meats. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo media on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok packages by Expedia.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh joy. Another day another bus delayed.

[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

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[Quince Brand Spokesperson]

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[Magnum TA (Terry Wayne Allen)]

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[Quince Brand Spokesperson]

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