We have since seen two more wrestling stars of the past pass away (Dynamite Kid and Larry "The Axe" Hennig) and I'll be adding them in the passings posts later this week that sadly has built up of late, but since there are so many I wanted to finish this off.
Dick Slater was a main event level star in almost every territory that he ever wrestled in (except in the WWF, where he was forced into the "babyface" role of "The Rebel" which didn't suit Slater's strengths), yet from what wrestlers and many fans say his best work cannot be found due to the lack of television tape from the 1970s.
Slater was known for "being more like Terry Funk than Terry Funk" and the people that saw the young Slater have been known to state that Slater's admiration for Funk's style actually took away from Slater as many seeing Slater for the first time would think him as a Terry Funk knock-off.
There were similarities, but Dick Slater was plenty good on his own.
Slater spent most of his career in his native Florida and Georgia, where he was known by nicknames such as "Mr. Unpredictable" and "Mr. Excitement", but formed one of the time's best tag teams with Bob Orton Jr in the Tennessee area in the late '70s and was a main part of two huge runs in the 1980s.
Slater with Orton was a major portion of the story entering the sport's first showcase event in Starrcade in 1983 as the pair attempted to collect the bounty money posted by NWA champion Harley Race to make sure that Ric Flair was unable to challenge Race at Starrcade.
Flair would survive their attempts, although the pair did briefly injure Flair before Flair would dethrone Race in Greensboro NC.
Slater would have an even better run in the Mid-South area as the "booker" and as the company's North American champion with his valet Dark Journey, who he was reported to have found in an Atlanta strip club as the company's lead heel.
This run was most famous for Slater, who held the North American title and the company's television title, and Journey's trip to a Tulsa Oklahoma bridge where he dropped the TV title medallion (the company wanted to start using a TV title belt) into the Arkansas River.
After Slater's time in Mid-South, he moved to the WWF as the Rebel and it never seemed to be a good fit for him.
Slater would only have a short, but entertaining WCW run with Dick Murdoch as the Hardliners before his career ended.
Dick Slater was known as a legitimate tough guy with stories being almost legendary.
Slater was a Tampa native and it's been documented by several people about his bar fight with 6'8 300 pounds NFL defensive lineman John Matuszak where Slater knocked Matuszak cold and then woke his college teammate (Both played for the now-defunct Tampa football program) up and closed the bar.
Slater was also remembered for his locker room pounding of Sting when Slater thought (unsure if true or not) that Sting was involved with Dark Journey (Slater was dating her), destroyed him in seconds, and then gave Sting a "swirly", which is performed by stuffing someone's head into a toilet and then flushing it!
There were a few memories that I have of Dick Slater that always are good ones.
In the early 1980s, my brother and I were rabid fans but didn't have cable yet, so one of the best parts of vacations and trips to visit family was the once or twice a year chance to watch World Championship Wrestling.
I doubt I remember this correctly, but Slater did a run-in under a mask to enter the territory and attacked someone (I don't remember) and then did an interview unmasking himself as "Mr. Excitement Dick Slater"!
The story goes that the crowd in the WTBS studio could have cared less and Shane and I got a laugh about how "excited" they were about "Mr. Excitement".
I'm not sure it actually happened that way, but I do remember sharing the laughs!
Another memory saw the WWF hit Hagerstown with a card at North Hagerstown High School during Slater's "Rebel" stint.
Shane and I rooted for the "bad guys" and reveled in the good-natured back and forth with the standard fans.
On this night Slater faced off against Canadian Dino Bravo and this guy that had been the loudest in rooting for his favorites and giving it back to us, suddenly turned to us as Slater's music, a version of the Confederacy theme, and hollered to us that "I'm with you guys for this match"!
The fan hollered that he was "against all things from the South" and therefore was rooting for the bad guy Bravo!
I don't remember if Slater or Bravo won, but that incident alone showed that Slater and the gimmick weren't going to be a massive success in the McMahon era.
My final memory was from Slater's WWF time that saw him wrestle the Magnificent Muraco on a Saturday Night's Main Event that was more memorable for Muraco and manager Mr.Fuji's pre-match promo than anything that happened in the ring.
I couldn't find a complete video, but it featured Mr. Fuji's halting version of "Dixie" complete with the Magnificent One (my childhood hero as noted so many times) stomping along and shouting "Hit it Mr.Fuji"!!
Dick Slater was reported to have spent the final few years of his life in a nursing home after botched back surgery left him mostly bound in a wheelchair (although that didn't stop him from an altercation in 2004 from stabbing a girlfriend that resulted in a year of house arrest, Slater claimed that pain medication for the back contributed to the attack) and his quality of life wasn't very good by any means, but his wrestling career was an underrated one and we welcome him to the Forgotten Superstars universe.
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