Illegal Foreign Object

On March 23, 1985, Memphis television viewers were treated to a surprise appearance by a charismatic man known around the wrestling world as Sweet Daddy Siki. A week earlier, the dastardly Tux Newman helped Randy Savage steal the AWA Southern Heavyweight Title from Jerry “The King” Lawler — Sweet Daddy was brought in by Newman to ensure Savage held on to the belt. But a funny thing happened from Point A to Point B: Newman got on the mic and referred to Siki as his “boy.”

Making his way to the interview area where Lawler, Newman, and announcer Lance Russell were arguing, Sweet Daddy turned on Tux, admitting that, though it might cost him his run in Memphis, no man could call him “boy.” A bemused Lawler rolled with the apparent adlib, saying he’d talk to promoter Eddie Marlin and smooth everything over. Siki destroyed a contract Newman waved in his face, which sent the manager running — then Sweet Daddy hopped in the ring in his street clothes and made short work of Mr. X, winning the crowd over in under a minute. Just like that, Sweet Daddy Siki, as he had in every other territory he ever worked, became a star in the territory.

Sweet Daddy got his start in the wrestling business in 1955 between the ages of 15 and 17, working in New Mexico after being trained in California by Ray Ortega and multi-time regional champion Sándor Szabó. “My first match, and I thought it was a lot of money — eleven dollars and fifty cents,” said Siki. Around this time, he supposedly spent some time in the military fighting in the Korean War (calling into question his actual date of birth). The Montgomery, Texas native made his first trip to Canada in December of 1956, foreshadowing a permanent move to the country. Still going by his real name, Reggie Siki, he spent much of the following year and a half splitting time between the Vancouver and Oregon territories, feuding with Nick Kozak for several months.

Siki traveled back to California during the summer of 1958 and attended college while working for NWA Los Angeles (also called NWA Hollywood). Cal and Aileen Eaton (the mother of Gene and Mike LeBell) founded the promotion under the banner of the NWA but split from the governing body once the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) revealed that Cal was three years delinquent in paying his NWA member dues. Siki was the NWA International Television Champion at the time of the wrestling promotion renaming and held the title for just over three months before dropping it to Mr. Moto at the Olympic Auditorium.

Siki struggled to make ends meet. He was working regularly, but often for little to no money. During this part of his career, it wasn’t uncommon for him to eat roadkill, or from dumpsters, and sleep outside due to a lack of funds. Still, giving up and going home wasn’t an option — there was no home to return to.

The son of a Texas sharecropper, Siki understood a real hard day’s work. Picking cotton alongside his family, Siki’s hands were a mess of cuts and tears — cotton bolls will do a number on tender skin. “It was nice to have a big family when you could take care of your family,” said Siki in his documentary Sweet Daddy Siki, “but my dad was always drunk. Mom wasn’t a real big woman, and my dad used to beat her up.” One of the beatings left Siki’s mom so ill that she ended up in the hospital. She eventually came back home, and for a time, Siki’s dad was “kind of nice to her.” Then, one day Siki and his brothers and sisters never saw her again. “We didn’t go to a funeral or anything like that,” said Siki.

Shortly after his stint in California, Siki returned to Canada, working for Eddie Quinn’s NWA Montreal for a few months. The move proved to be the best decision of his career — this was when Reggie Siki began going by the name Sweet Daddy, the name (and persona) that took him around the world.

“I went to Montreal, and there was a young lady at ringside, and when I got in the ring she stood up and said, ‘Oh, Sweet Daddy, Sweet Daddy,’ said Siki. “Well, the following week, I came back to Montreal, and she was there with a couple of girlfriends, and they all called me ‘Sweet Daddy, Sweet Daddy’. That name caught on.”

After a five-month stay in Columbus, Ohio, with the Midwest Wrestling Association, which started at the beginning of 1960, Sweet Daddy took his show on the road. Using Toronto as his base, the city he calls home to this day, Siki spent the next nineteen months working in several territories, including Chicago, New York, and the Carolinas. Sweet Daddy became a main event player and engaged in short feuds with legendary figures like Giant Baba, Eddie Graham, and Mark Lewin.

The feuds proved pivotal in his preparation for a run of matches against one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time that would send his fame into the stratosphere.

By the summer of 1961, Sweet Daddy and NWA World Heavyweight Champion “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers were very familiar with each other, having wrestled in several singles and tag matches. The men shared an undeniable in-ring chemistry, and Rogers smelled money. Because of their in-ring spark (and each man’s drawing power), on July 15, 1961, some historians believe Sweet Daddy Siki became the first Black man to wrestle for the world title. “Buddy Rogers took me under his wing,” said Siki. “I was lucky to meet him — he made the majority of my career.”

The match, however, was not without controversy. Hearing about the event, the Ku Klux Klan showed up to protest and surrounded the ring. Despite the very vocal threat, Buddy and Sweet Daddy were undeterred. It wasn’t Siki’s first run-in with the Klan, nor would it be his last — he married Anu Liis Kõks, a fair-skinned woman from Estonia in 1964. Their union elicited multiple threats from the hate group throughout his storied career.

The match with the “Nature Boy” wasn’t a one-off. Between July and October, Siki wrestled three more championship matches against Rogers, and though he came up short on each occasion, Siki didn’t need a belt to look like a star. The man became more popular than any championship he could win.

Sweet Daddy’s run with Rogers led him to New York, where he wrestled in Madison Square Garden six times and earned a nice living. After attending a party with his wife, however, local promotors cooled on him. Sensing his run in New York was coming to an end, Sweet Daddy went back to his home State of Texas for a string of matches. On February 22, 1963, with his status as a main event wrestler now etched in stone, he defeated Rip Hawk in Houston for the NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship. The two men wrestled again two weeks later at the “World Famous” Sportatorium in Dallas, this time in a Two-out-of-Three Falls Match. Sweet Daddy came out on top, setting up a run with the championship that lasted the entirety of his time in Texas (a little over two months). Before returning to Canada, Sweet Daddy dropped the belt to his semi-regular tag partner Sailor Art Thomas (but not before wrestling a 90-minute draw in Dallas against Lou Thesz, then the NWA World Heavyweight Champion).

Back in his adopted home of Toronto, Sweet Daddy planted his flag, spending much of the next two years in Canada, working for Stu Hart’s Big Time Wrestling (also called Wildcat Wrestling and Stampede Wrestling) and Frank Tunney’s Maple Leaf Wrestling. During this stretch, Sweet Daddy became the biggest name in Canada. Bleaching his hair, donning sunglasses and elaborate capes and robes, Siki turned himself into “the ladies’ pet and the men’s regret”. According to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s dad, Rocky Johnson, Siki was, “the guy you loved to hate — the Muhammad Ali of that era” in pro wrestling.

Siki wrestled in yet another NWA World Heavyweight Championship match during this time — a Two-out-of-Three Falls battle against Killer Kowalski in July of 1964. Though he didn’t leave the ring as the winner, losing did nothing to cap his steam. Sweet Daddy remained a top draw throughout North America for the next several years, winning a handful of regional titles and feuding with Abdullah the Butcher, Bobo Brazil, and Dave Ruhl. He even found time to record a couple of albums of country music hits and return to Stu Hart’s territory to wrestle a bear. The bear won both altercations.

As Sweet Daddy reached his mid-forties, he took fewer and fewer bookings abroad, preferring to stay local and spend time singing with his country band and hosting at his local karaoke bar. After a 2-month tour of Japan near the end of ’84, Sweet Daddy made his way to Memphis for his final big territory stay, his now infamous run-in Jerry Jarrett’s CWA.

Back in Toronto, Siki started training new wrestlers. He opened a wrestling school with Canadian wrestling legend Johnny Powers called the Johnny Powers/Sweet Daddy Siki Academy of Professional Wrestling. “We will teach you how to wrestle clean, and we’ll teach you how to wrestle dirty,” said Siki. One of his first students, Ron Hutchison, spent 1985 and 1986 as one of WWF’s main enhancement talents when the company ran shows in Canada. He had matches against some of the most popular wrestlers of the era, including Bret Hart, Randy Savage, and “Mr. 1derful” Paul Orndorff.

With Siki’s in-ring career winding down, he partnered with Hutchison and opened another school called Sweet Daddy Siki and Ron Hutchison’s School of Wrestling. Even without the flashy robes and boisterous promos, he continued to give back to professional wrestling, training WWE Hall of Famer and current AEW star Adam “Edge” Copeland. Christian, Trish Stratus, Gail Kim, Beth Phoenix, and Traci Brooks also received training at his school.

Sweet Daddy Siki’s influence on the following generations cannot be overstated. His persona was everything wrestlers like “Superstar” Billy Graham and Jesse “The Body” Ventura would emulate to become legends in their own right. Bret “Hitman” Hart is quick to profess his love and respect for “Mr. Irresistible”, saying, “When I was trying to find myself (as a wrestler), the first character I thought of was Sweet Daddy Siki.”

These days, the 83-year-old Siki is content to enjoy his “rocking years.” He remained the host at his local karaoke bar until last year. His bleached blonde hair remains, as do the massive shoulders for which he was famous. His friends say that Siki’s a kind man and far more likely to give of himself than take from another, but make no mistake about it, a bigger-than-life heel remains inside of him. Throw one of his old capes around him or get him anywhere near a wrestling ring, and Sweet Daddy is born again.