“After breakfast I finished what he was telling me to do, which shocked him. He thought I had rolled over and died. He came into my house with a guy with a camera that pissed me off enough that I was going to finish this $%^& whether it killed me or not.”

Page was shocked Roberts was continuing to do what he asked and could see he was determined to get his life back on track. He gave him a goal that if he could continue on the plan on his own and lose another 15 or so pounds and get down to 25 pounds, Page would move him into his Atlanta house and continue the regimen together.

After a couple of weeks he was down 28 pounds and doing his workouts on a continuous basis. A man of his word, Page brought Roberts down to his house or what he called the “Accountability Crib”. Progress was being made.

“He couldn’t do a pushup on his knees, but after a couple of weeks and months he could do a pushup on his knees where he would lower for three and hold for three,” Page said.

“Then he would go down and try to get up, where before he knew it, he could do that three-second pushup. Then he did the five-second pushup. I was blown away. Around that time he wanted to go back to the gym and hit some weights. I was like, ‘Dude, don’t do that. You don’t need to do that.’”

Roberts told Page he wanted to get back to lifting because he wanted to feel like a man again.

“When you lose that much weight and feel so good about yourself, I wanted to go back in the gym,” Roberts said. “You had people patting me on the back, but that is not the right thing to tell an alcoholic or a junky because when you have an itch, you push too hard. I pushed too hard and tore my shoulder out.”

At this point he was down to 55 pounds, but needed surgery. A campaign was started online at Indiegogo to cover the $9,000 it would cost. The goal was not only reached, but today has totaled more than $24,000. This was a testament to the love fans around the world had for the master of the DDT and wanting him to change his life for the better.

“It blew me away because when you’re down and out, you don’t think anybody cares because you don’t care about yourself,” Roberts said. “To have these people step up and say, ‘Hey, we love you man, and we’re going to do this.’ It just blew me away. It humbled me. It messes with my head thinking about it because these people didn’t owe me that.”

Roberts, who in less than six months dropped more than 60 pounds, was scheduled to have the surgery on Friday, February 8. In spite of his injury, Roberts has tried to work around it to break up scar tissue. Page says guys like Roberts and himself who are in their 50s and 60s come from a generation of gym rats. He created DDP Yoga as a way to show you can be in great shape without beating up your body. Retired and current wrestlers from all over have found success with the programs Page puts out. Among them is Chris Jericho.

“He came back a few years ago after they said he was done because he did DDP Yoga,” Page said. “In three months he was 100 percent pain-free or 95-percent pain-free and ending up headlining WrestleMania. The reason I bring this up, because it still blows my mind, is that he took off six months and went on tour with Fozzy and then shows up at the Royal Rumble. You saw him go 47 minutes and 53 seconds, and he hadn’t wrestled in six months. He does one workout.”