‘Man Mountain’ was both friendly face and heinous heel

The local pro wrestler once known as “Man Mountain Mike” had a unique sense of humour, said those who knew him best.

“He was quite out there,” said his son, Brett Phillips, the oldest of the three children who survive him.

Brett, 29, recalled one practical joke his father played.

“My father had convinced me and my sister, Crystal, that there were these things in the field called snipes,” he said. “We would go out there with little wooden bats and tin foil on our heads and we would go into the field yelling, ‘Snipe, snipe, snipe!’ They would supposedly come up and we would whack them on the head like Whac-a-Mole.”

Why tin-foil hats?

“Because they’d eat our brains,” Crystal Phillips said. ‘We believed that full-heartedly. He made us search for, like, an hour. He was just sitting there smoking, laughing, enjoying it, trying to scare us. He’d be like, ‘Be careful, they will bite you! They will get you! They will drag you into the ditch!’

“Then, he finally told us he lied after we searched for them for an hour. Oh my God, were we mad about that.”

Winnipeg’s Michael James Phillips died on April 20, 2023, at the age of 57.

Over the years in the wrestling ring, Phillips was also known as Sgt. Tommy Steele, JR Bundy, Tex Watson, Mountain Lou, Jim Driver, Sgt. Psycho and the masked Bo Nanas.

He was 6-1, once weighed at least 350 pounds, and wrestled against such legends as Larry (The Axe) Hennig and worked for iconic promoter Al Tomko.

“When he was Sgt. Steele, he’d give me a (stuffed) monkey — he was like a bad guy — and he’d come into the crowd and take my monkey away,” said Marie Phillips, his youngest child. “Then, he’d rip it up in front of everybody. I didn’t appreciate that much. He had to buy me another monkey.”

Crystal, 27, also has fond memories of going fishing with her father and mother, Raechel (who pre-deceased him), at Netley Creek.

Phillips sometimes left fellow wrestlers in stitches, such as the time he tricked a rookie wrestler into going out into the ring naked, then locked him out of the dressing room just before the rush crowd was let in.

Dan Turner, once known as pro wrestler “Dirty Dan Denton” – who had lived with Phillips in Vancouver, where they both wrestled — said everyone knew them as “bad guys” in the ring because they were often on TV.

“We went to a restaurant one time before a show and Mike orders borscht — and I don’t have to tell you that the borscht was terrible,” Turner said from California. “The borscht comes and they brought me the wrong meal twice.

“We were explaining to the waitress that the food sucks and she’s not admitting that the food sucks. So I just say, ‘Your food sucks!’ Then, Michael says, ‘We are leaving this establishment!’ We get up — and because we’re bad guys on TV, we couldn’t be crazy enough in public — so the restaurant started cheering for us. We’re leaving and this biker at the door says to us, ‘Oh man, you guys are awesome — can I get an autograph for my nephew?’

“I said, ‘Your nephew can go (expletive deleted) himself’ and they cheer again. And he goes, ‘Right on!’ And he high-fives us. Only with Mike could you have an afternoon like this.”

Turner said that Phillips could be crazy in the ring but had a completely different personality outside of it.

“I miss that guy,” he said. “He was so funny. You know, in that business, you have a lot of ups and downs. You could be on the worst, miserable tour and he would always make you laugh. What a great guy.”

Turner was stunned when Phillips suddenly quit the wrestling circuit, returned home, had stomach surgery to drop down to about 210 pounds and became a chef.

“He worked in a number of restaurants,” his son Brett said. “The biggest job he had was being a sous-chef at the MTS Centre (now Canada Life) during all of the hockey games, all of the concerts, stuff like that. That was a huge one for him. Then there were little ones here and there. He would end up having his career ended as a chef at Canada Inns when Mom passed away. That was kind of like the beginning of the end.”

Phillips, an avid comic-book collector, also made a painting of Superman for the nephew of his best friend, Chuck Crawley.

“I knew Mike for 40 years,” Crawley said from Penticton, B.C. “I’ve got some great memories of Mike. He was just an all-around fantastic guy. He had a gift. He could walk into situations, and he could just calm the whole thing down.

“I’ve lost a brother. He was the salt-of-the-earth type of guy. He would help at the drop of a hat. Later on, his arthritis — when you’re young, you don’t realize the damage you’re doing to your body in the industry he was in — he wound up in his mid-50s having to walk with a cane.”

Phillips also dressed up as Santa for kids at Christmas.

“He seemed like a tough guy, but he was a softie,” Marie said. “He loved fostering animals. His favourites were cats. He loved cats. He’d foster them and had kittens all over the place.”

His very favourite cat was Pepito.

“He may have been a big, tall and intimidating-looking man on the outside, but he had the most incredible heart on the inside,” his obituary read.