Ancient Web: Paul Bearer's 2004 Web Memoir Told the Person Behind the Makeup

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

The wrestling character Paul Bearer appeared in dark makeup, carried a funeral urn, and spoke in an unmistakable voice. In an August 2004 personal-web essay, the performer behind him tried to explain what audiences could not see.

Read How Paul Bearer Saved Percy Pringle's Life.

The article is signed in the voice of William Moody, also known professionally as Percy Pringle. It begins by addressing fans, but its primary subject is his health and his decision to undergo gastric bypass surgery in November 2003.

Moody recounts being overwhelmed by serious health problems while feeling unable to return to the demanding schedule of professional wrestling. He explains that his relationship with WWE had ended in October 2002, but a representative contacted him in September 2003 about a possible return.

According to Moody's account, those conversations led to a new contract that helped cover his surgery. His story presents the offer as a turning point: returning to work as Paul Bearer required confronting the medical difficulties affecting Bill Moody.

The real person walks onto the wrestling stage

The essay has the unusually intimate character of early celebrity websites. Moody describes conversations by telephone and email, family gatherings before surgery, frightening postoperative complications, and the awkwardness of adapting to a changed diet and routine.

He also describes his March 14, 2004 return at WrestleMania XX, including arriving discreetly at Madison Square Garden and being welcomed by Vince McMahon. In May he underwent another operation, and the article relates his recovery to the on-screen storyline that temporarily removed Paul Bearer from WWE television.

Two dated photographs with his niece Donna Marie contrast November 2003 and July 2004. The original page's GeoCities-era image references, decorative graphics, and disordered tables remain visible, even where some images no longer display reliably.

There are important limits. This is a first-person account, not a clinical record. Its medical explanations, percentages, and views about weight-loss surgery reflect Moody's experience and the advice available to him in 2004; they must not be used as current medical guidance.

Moody closes by distinguishing the wrestling persona from the man who had regained parts of his life. Rather than a publicity announcement, the page survives as a personal letter to an audience accustomed to seeing a fictional character.

Read Moody's dated 2004 essay and its original photographs.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.