King Kong Bundy: The Master of the Five Count

Robert Segedy

Wrestling has always had its share of big men: Andre the Giant, Yokozuna, The Undertaker, but few could match the supreme awesomeness of this man: King Kong Bundy. Standing at 6’, 4” and weighing in at 458 lbs. Bundy was labelled “the walking condominium” by Gorilla Monsoon. Bundy was born as Chris Pallies in Woodbury, New Jersey. He was born on November 7, 1955, and he died on March 4, 2019, at 63 years old. His finishing move was the “Avalanche Splash.” He debuted on March 7, 1981, after being trained by Larry Sharpe at “the Monster Factory.” 

Originally, he debuted as “Big Daddy Bundy”, a sort of Haystacks Calhoun style clone complete with blue jeans and a rope belt in WCCW in 1982, but the face side of that promotion was already stacked, and he soon started wrestling as a heel. “Playboy” Gary Hart soon managed Bundy, and he was soon destroying his opponents. He lost his hair during a feud with the Von Erichs and that resulted in his getting his head shaved. Bundy liked what he saw and decided to keep the look. He wrestled Fritz Von Erich in 1982 at Fritz’s retirement match. Bundy bounced around in the meantime, playing the role of an invincible monster in the AWA, NWA, and Memphis territories. He often could be found teamed with Rick Rude or Jim Neidhart during that time. Bundy and Rude held the Continental Tag Team titles and he also was the Southern Heavyweight Champion. With the Masked Superstar as his partner, they held the Georgia Tag Team titles. A little-known fact was that Bundy was one of the original members of The Legion of Doom along with Paul Ellering, Hawk and Animal, The Warrior, The Spoiler and Jake “The Snake” Roberts.

Bundy broke into the WWF in the 80’s and he defeated S.D. Jones in a record 17 seconds at the inaugural WrestleMania. It was while wrestling in the Mid-South territory that he developed the gimmick of insisting that the ref give him a five count for the pinfall, and he used that ruse in the WWF as well. Wearing his signature black singlet, Bundy certainly looked menacing with his large girth and shaved head, like a crazed Humpy Dumpty. Manager Bobby “The Brain” soon took over Bundy’s managerial duties and he shortly after found himself headlining the card at WrestleMania 2 where he faced the World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan in a steel cage match. After losing to Hogan, Bundy formed a tag team with Big John Studd where the duo would often feud with “The Machines”: Bill Eadie and Blackjack Mulligan under the hoods. Occasionally they would be joined by a third partner, the “Giant Machine”, which was Andre the Giant in disguise. An angle used was that Andre had suffered a broken sternum during a match at MSG on September 23, 1985, because of outside interference from Bundy’s partner Big John Studd.

At WrestleMania III, Bundy was booked to a 6-man mixed tag team match featuring Bundy, Little Tokyo, and Lord Littlebrook versus Hillbilly Jim, the Hati Kid, and Little Beaver; this was held at the Pontiac Silverdome before a reported 93,000 spectators on March 29, 1987. During the match, after being aggravated by Beaver, Bundy body-slammed the diminutive wrestler and then delivered a punishing elbow drop, which resulted in his team’s disqualification. Bundy’s team partners turned on him afterwards. Bundy was at the King of the Ring on September 4 but was defeated by Randy Savage. In November 1987, Bundy defeated Hulk Hogan via a count-out on Saturday Night’s Main Event XIII but was defeated in a re-match on the next episode of the series. After his popularity was on the slide, Bundy found himself reduced to wrestling house shows often against Bam Bam Bigelow.

Bundy resurfaced once again after a brief retirement period, and he was featured on Eastern Championship Wrestling’s first pay-per-view “November to Remember” in 1993. Bundy teamed with Terry Funk versus Road Warrior Hawk and Sabu.

In 1986 Pallies appeared in several television commercials and print advertisements for a personal computer system. This led to a guest appearance on the television series “Married…with Children” as Uncle Irwin. The show’s creators had named the family after the wrestler on homage to him. He also tried his hand at stand-up comedy.

On March 4, 2019, Pallies died from complications of diabetes at his home in Glassboro, New Jersey, at the age of 63. Bundy was noted for being an easy-going personality that enjoyed joking around with his fellow grapplers.