Cleaning Out the Inbox: Wrestling Passings

  I've had a few of those tributes in the inbox for months and never seemed to have the right time to write about them, so I decided (despite the length of time for some tributes) to write about them in one post devoted to the wrestling world.

A few of these gentlemen might deserve a post all their own and the first tribute almost certainly deserves one.

Goodbye to Terry Funk at the age of 79.

Terry Funk spent fifty-two years in the wrestling business between his first match in 1965 and his final bout in 2017 and had several incarnations of his career that each might be remembered most fondly to the age of the fan recalling Funk.

A fan from the seventies might remember Funk as the "bodyguard" against contenders for his brother Dory Jr.'s NWA title or later in the decade during his own NWA title run.

A fan in the early eighties might remember Funk's terrific series in Memphis against Jerry Lawler, one in the middle eighties, his WWF tenure against the Junkyard Dog, and his title challenges of Hulk Hogan.

A fan of 1989 or the early nineties favorite memories of Funk would be of his WCW time and his classic attempts for Ric Flair's title, and the early 2000s might be the run as the aging veteran gunslinger helping to build ECW out of their bingo hall in Philadelphia.

And any of those versions of Terry Funk would be more than correct as a personal choice.

For me (and I didn't even include his stardom in Japan for All-Japan Pro Wrestling), my favorite Funk version was the WCW version that famously returned from retirement with his attack on Ric Flair in the ring after Flair regained the championship in Nashville.

Known for his crazy "bump-taking" and often-manic interviews, Terry Funk re-invented himself so effectively so often that one could make an argument that without really changing his name or character Terry Funk may have been the most successful without a complete revamp.

Funk was a huge influence on many in the profession, most notably Mick (Cactus Jack) Foley and the late Dick Slater, who was regarded by many as being "More like Terry Funk than Terry Funk" often to his own detriment.

Terry Funk was able to transition to the faster-paced style of pro wrestling through the eighties better than older brother Dory Jr, who while a beautiful technical grappler never seemed to connect to the quicker pace and emphasis on interviews as Terry was able to.

Terry Funk is generally in most long-time fans' top ten wrestlers of his time and his style continues on through the wrestlers today.

Goodbye to Adrian Street at the age of 82.

The Exotic Street was known for his flamboyant style that hinted at homosexuality ( in actuality Street was married to Miss Linda, his ring valet) and his David Bowie-like glam rock outfits.

Noted for his real-life toughness, Street never stated he was gay but would walk the line with wrestling fans of the day despising him for his effeminate nature.

Street also released a few albums with his singing including his ring entrance song "Imagine What I Could Do To You".

After leaving wrestling, Street and Miss Linda opened a business making wrestling gear and selling equipment to wrestlers.

Goodbye to Killer Khan at the age of 76.

Masashi Ozawa was huge for a Japanese wrestler, so coming to the United States as Mongolian giant Killer Khan made financial sense and in 1981, Khan arrived in the WWF as the heel challenger of the month against WWF champion Bob Backlund, managed by Fred Blassie, and he dropped down the cards following his unsuccessful title attempt.

That was until a May 1981 match vs Andre The Giant, when Andre suffered a broken ankle getting out of bed the next morning which was attributed to Kkan's off-the-top rope kneedrop in the storyline and made Khan a star instantly worldwide.

Khan and Andre would feud throughout the nation (but especially in the WWF) usually ending with Khan taking the ride in the series-ending Mongolian Stretcher Match.

Khan's fame would enable him to headline in Mid-South and World Class before a final quickie return to the WWF where he memorably choked out Outback Jack before a short 1987 series against Hulk Hogan before Khan retired later that year.

Goodbye to Ole Anderson at the age of 81.

Anderson was one of the original Four Horsemen with Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, and Arn Anderson for Jim Crockett Promotions in the mid-eighties but was far more than only a Horseman both in and out of the ring.

Anderson was half of the "Minnesota Wrecking Crew" with his "brother" Gene, who terrorized Southern wrestling for the seventies and early eighties, infuriating crowds to the point where Ole was attacked with a knife by a fan in Greenville, South Carolina cutting several tendons in his arm that needed to be surgically re-attached.

Anderson won the NWA world tag titles with Gene on seven occasions and another with Stan Hansen and had his best days with the Mid-Atlantic and Georgia territories, where he often served as "booker" and owned a small piece of the Georgia promotion until it was sold by the majority owners to Vince McMahon and the WWF in 1984 to gain its television slot on WTBS.

Anderson would memorably tell Vince and his wife Linda to F-off when they arrived at the WTBS studio to introduce themselves to the company and it was after that event that Anderson would move to JCP and tag with "Nephew" Arn as the New Minnesota Wrecking Crew and eventually the Four Horsemen.

Unanswered Rewatch: 1986 Mid-South Wrestlng

    I've been rewatching YouTube videos when I have downtime at home and the office and usually I'm watching old football games as I can mute the television and watch as I speak with someone on the phone or on video chat.

However, I sometimes rewatch entire years or seasons at once and I'm working on 1986 in the promotion owned by Bill Watts that started the year as Mid-South Wrestling and changed its name to the Universal Wrestling Federation as the year progressed in an attempt to establish itself as a national promotion.

I first noticed the UWF on Baltimore television in August 1986, and I am currently watching May, so up to that point, it's either a new episode to me or I saw it so long ago that I remember very little about seeing the episode.

For the purposes of this, I am going to ask questions that I do not have the answer and should I ever receive those answers- I will edit this and give credit to whoever gives the answer.

On one program, the old (not the one that would be turned over to the company when the UWF title becomes the top title in the federation) North American championship belt was offered in a contest with one clue given over four shows to make a guess on the trivia question with the winner winning the belt.

I've seen two of these four episodes, so I'm sure they eventually announce the winner, but does that person still own that belt? And if not, who does?

The big Russian character Korstia Korchenko managed by "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert was being given a huge push on television and even had interaction with Cowboy Bill Watts but disappeared suddenly and quickly shortly after that.

Why was this cut off and was there an incident with Korchenko and someone else in the territory?

I didn't recognize Korchenko, so did he have a previous gimmick in another area? And where did Korchenko wrestle after leaving Mid-South?

Then-North American champion Dick Slater, also held the Mid-South TV title, which was against the promotion rules, and a vignette was shown with Slater and valet Dark Journey dumping the TV medal ( yes, medal) into the Mississippi River.

It was an excuse to replace the medal with a traditional title belt (I didn't care for the medal but credit them for trying something different) but the question is did anyone ever look for or find the medal at the bottom of the river?

Am I the only person who thinks the Fantastics were better than the Rock N Roll Express?

Granted, they never drew the same money as the RnR but some of that was good fortune in getting to an area first, their matches hold up a little better and I firmly believe that the late Tommy Rogers of the Fantastics ranks with the most underrated stars of the age.

The commentary of Bill Watts is so on point and more like a true sports analyst rather than the often cartoonish aspect that so many wrestling color commentators portray.

While Watts does an excellent job in getting the points across that he wants, I'm not sure that it would play as well today.

Take, for example, his feelings on Russia and yes, he is trying to make the Russian Korchenko the heel in this case but he paints such a broad brush covering all Russians as being cheats and horrible people (you had to know the times) that I'm not sure that his commentary would wear well in the current climate.

Another topic that both Watts and Jim Ross mentioned on two different shows was how Michael Hayes was the "Charles Manson-like" cult leader of the Fabulous Freebirds and once mentioned that Terry Gordy was under the spell of Hayes.

While I've never heard of anything beyond pointing out that Hayes was the leader of the team, I wonder if it had ever been discussed to have Hayes as a cult leader with Gordy and Buddy Roberts doing his bidding?

It's more likely that it was a talking point to establish Michael Hayes as the leader and mouthpiece of the group but it's interesting to think about.

I have watched into May at this point, so I may do a second post on this topic after I have finished the year.  

Superstar Billy Graham

   In 1977, I remember flipping through the tv stations on a Saturday morning and seeing a large, muscular blond man with a receding hairline flexing his biceps with a much smaller man with a turban on his head gazing at him with a look of admiration on his face.

I turned to my father and asked "Just what IS this?"

His response was "Oh, that's the stupid fake rasslin'".

I wouldn't become a wrestling fan for another two years but I never forgot the big blond man and when I did become a wrestling fan, that wrestler wouldn't be seen on television for another three years-and when he did make his return, it would not be the same as he was an almost emaciated looking bald man using "martial arts" moves that looked weak even to the hardest of hard-core believers in pro wrestling.

That man was Superstar Billy Graham with his diminutive manager the Grand Wizard, and even though when I saw him wrestle, he was well past his prime, there was still a charisma to him that most wrestlers would have killed to have possessed.

Graham's death at the age of 79 brought the Superstar back to the mainstream as tributes flowed to arguably the most imitated wrestlers by other wrestlers ever.

Noted as the man that may have influenced the largest number of pro wrestlers of his age, such as Hulk Hogan, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Scott Steiner, and lord knows how many others, it was Billy Graham that was first with the rap and with muscles far beyond anyone in pro wrestling of his time.

Graham was never a strong performer in the ring but his interviews and muscles brought people to the building as a star through the seventies and both during and even after his run as WWWF champion as the first "heel" champion in the territory to hold the title for more than a few weeks.

Graham upset Bruno Sammartino in Baltimore (Chosen in order to avoid a riot in New York, where the title usually changed hands) using his feet on the ropes for leverage, on April 30, 1977, and held the title until February 20, 1978, with a title reign that worked for two reasons- Graham himself and that so many of the region's fans favorites that would never receive title shots against Sammartino were suddenly able to have their chance for the world title.

Dusty Rhodes, Ivan Putski, Tony Garea, Mil Mascaras, and Chief Jay Strongbow could never challenge Sammartino but they could try Graham, and fans of those wrestlers paid their money to see if their man could be the man to upset Graham for his title.

As a headliner at the company's unofficial home- New York's Madison Square Garden, Graham sold out nineteen of the twenty times that Graham was in the main event and the Graham title reign is noted by many as the one reign before the "Hulkamania" times that could have been extended and even more successful as Graham been turned "babyface" as both Graham and Bruno Sammartino suggested.

Instead, Vince McMahon Sr. honored his word and kept his commitment to Bob Backlund to dethrone Graham as Graham had been told would happen well before Graham's title win.

Graham would continue to sell out arenas for the remainder of his time with the WWF for rematches against Backlund, along with matches against Bruno Sammartino and Dusty Rhodes, with both men avenging "controversial" defeats or disqualification wins against Graham when he was the champion.

Graham's career changed after that run, seldomly wrestling for periods of time, and appeared in CBS's World Strongest Man contest, finishing seventh with a shaved head look that he would use in his 1982 return to the WWF for the rematch series with Backlund with the martial arts gimmick that is so often panned by Graham fans that would see Graham destroy the championship belt on television with Backlund crying, which is credited as the start of the fan backlash against Backlund.

Graham returned to the massive muscular look after leaving the WWF, keeping the shaven head but never quite returned to the top of the card status in runs in Florida and for the Mid-Atlantic/JCP territories before a touted return that never really panned out as his body was breaking down from injuries as well as various illnesses.

Graham spent some time after his wrestling career ended as a awful commentator which was a surprise considering that Graham was such a great talker but this happens frequently as some people are great at talking about themselves but not so great when talking about others.

Graham was off and on the good side of Vince McMahon and the WWF/E through the last thirty years or so as Graham would periodically appear in the news with criticism of McMahon and then reconcile, most notably when the WWE was promoting a career DVD about Graham and his autobiography and his entry into the company's Hall of Fame.

I have two personal memories of the Superstar in the ring, with the first of these with Graham in the main event of the first WWF card in Hagerstown in years against Ivan Putski.

I've mentioned often that I always rooted for the "bad guys" as a younger fan and I was one of few, if not the only, fan rooting for Graham on this particular evening- Until my mom decided she didn't like Putski for something "foul-mouthed" he must have said and begin cheering for Graham, which was really odd because she was never a huge wrestling fan, especially at that time.

Putski won by disqualification but I remember that night more for my mom cheering for Graham than anything in the match, which makes sense as neither Graham nor Putski's ring work would remind you of anyone noted for great matches!

Graham would return for another Hagerstown card in a main event that (by name anyway) seems to be much too big for a spot show in Western Maryland as Graham teamed with Magnificent Muraco against Andre the Giant and Pedro Morales.

I believe this may have been Andre's only match in Hagerstown and I remember my dad running late to take me to the match, which resulted in us standing for the entire card!

I think the end saw Andre pinning Graham after his big boot to the face and big splash onto the prone Superstar but I don't remember for sure.

Graham references this match in his autobiography, Tangled Ropes,

Superstar Billy Graham may have been referenced by some as a lovable rogue and I'm sure that there was something of a confidence-man to him as the wrestling business both attracts and creates people that are able to stretch the truth a bit as most salesmen do but I'm not sure that Graham hurt anyone other than himself and his wife Valerie, who comes out of Graham's book as the true hero of the story.

In the ring, Graham was a little below average but with his look, ability to speak, drawing power, and his influence on so many stars that came along after him and built on the foundation of his character, Superstar Billy Graham would be a deserving member of any wrestling Hall of Fame.

After I started working on this tribute to Superstar Graham, the greatest running back of all time, Jim Brown, passed away.

I want to work on a tribute to Brown this week but this was already in progress and I didn't want to stop halfway through.

Beautiful Bobby Eaton

 The death of "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton at the age of 62 brought forth every voice from the world of professional wrestling to give their tribute to the one man in the business that no one ever mentioned negatively.

Bobby Eaton won the world tag team titles (NWA/WCW version) three times with three different partners, winning the championship with Dennis Condrey and Stan Lane under the banner of the Midnight Express and with Arn Anderson.

Eaton's team with Stan Lane held the same promotion's United States tag championships on three different occasions and would hold the World Television Championship, defeating Arn Anderson a few months before Eaton would win the tag team titles with Anderson as part of the Dangerous Alliance.

Known as arguably the best "worker" in the business at his peak, Bobby Eaton was known for his aerial work off the top rope (Eaton was known to come off the top rope during the Midnights matches at the WTBS studios and touch the ceiling to "show" how high he could leap) and his realistic punches that looked like he was knocking the opponents head off but in actuality wasn't even touching them.

Eaton wasn't an aerial star as some wrestlers were with dropkicks and bodypresses, but it was his daredevil work off the top rope that helped make his name as a star with the most notable being the "Alabama Jam" with Eaton leaping into the air and landing with a leg drop onto his opponent.

The Midnight Express was noted as the best heel tag team globally, whether it was Eaton and Condrey or Eaton and Lane during their run from 1983-1990 for both their matches and their interview quality, although Jim Cornette did almost all the speaking for the Midnights.

Their standout matches against great teams such as the Rock N Roll Express, Fantastics, Road Warriors, Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson, and countless others have made them the most popular team to the wrestling "smart marks" and only Blanchard and Anderson approaching their ranking as the top of the era historically.

The Midnight Express used their teamwork to shine in their matches and Bobby Eaton was the star of both versions of the team.

That's not to diminish the role played by Dennis Condrey or Stan Lane, but it was their job to set up the spectacular moves by Eaton and allow Eaton to pull off the moves that allowed him to shine.

Which Midnight Express version that you prefer depends on what is more important to you as a wrestling fan- If you prefer a pure old-school heel team then the Condrey and Eaton team could be your favorite with matches that would have a crowd sizzling and seething with hatred.

Should you prefer "workrate" then Eaton and Lane would likely be your preferred team with a catalog of great matches that hold up even to the modern fan.

The double team moves, many of which were created by the wrestlers themselves, were part of what made the Midnights so great, but just as knowing what to do at the right time can make a wrestler great, knowing what not to do at a certain time can be just as important.

Eaton is most remembered for his time with the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette, but his last big run came as part of arguably the greatest collection of talent in a group ever and one that often is forgotten due to the state of WCW at the time in Paul E. Dangerously's Dangerous Alliance.

It would be as part of the Alliance that Eaton would win his final title in WCW when he teamed with Arn Anderson to win the tag team titles for the final time in his career.

The Alliance consisted of Ravishing Rick Rude, who was at his peak before the back injury that essentially ended his in-ring career, a pre-Stone Cold "Stunning" Steve Austin,  Larry Zbysko, Anderson, and Eaton and not surprisingly was handled poorly by WCW.

Eaton had a brief time as a hilarious mid-card team "The Blue Bloods" with Steven Regal with funny vignettes with Regal "teaching" Eaton manners and how to behave in social situations.

The Blue Bloods would challenge for the titles many times but fail to win them.

After Eaton was replaced on the team by Dave Taylor, Eaton moved down the cards and would finish his time on WCW's lower television shows and wrestle on house shows before leaving the company.

Eaton would become a regular on the independent circuit for years until health matters forced him out of the ring, although he would continue to make appearances for independent promoters/

Bobby Eaton had the knack of being able to look realistic in a business that often makes stars of those that are not and he did so by being a wrestler that not only made himself look strong but his opponents as well.

Eaton's ability to throw a punch well as noted above was top notch but his ability to take one was also above and beyond the abilities of many.

Eaton taking a shot with his long hair flying about, bouncing into a corner or off the mat was renowned for its value with Eaton often rubbing his jaw to emphasize the power of the blow.

The major bumps that Eaton took from opponents also helped stamp him as an elite wrestler of the time as Eaton would take drops and slams that few others would take even if they were capable of taking- which very few were.

The best in the game wanted to work with Bobby Eaton, even with Eaton's status as a tag team wrestler as both Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair took specific lengths to program themselves in television programs with Eaton with Rhodes doing a series of matches on their "World Wide" show that saw Eaton win the first two matches by disqualification and count-out before Rhodes won via pin in a steel cage match that saw Rhodes throw Eaton off the top of the cage to end the series.

And there was the interaction with manager Jim Cornette, complete with inferences that the two were a couple such as Cornette giving Condrey or Lane a high five before their matches before giving Eaton a hug and then a kiss on the cheek.

It was the small touches such as the above note that made the act of the Midnight Express so entertaining and made almost everyone that watched professional wrestling a fan of the threesome- even if many of them hated them at the time!

A final note about Bobby Eaton, who as noted above few spoke of in a negative manner, that I didn't know until recently.

Eaton traveled to his matches with two huge duffel bags that Jim Cornette compared to aircraft carriers, one of which was filled with his ring gear and extras of each of the items that he would need for his match that evening.

The other of the massive bags held everyday items such as towels, socks, toiletries, etc that were available to anyone that may have forgotten an item that they could need along with what Cornette described as a very large plastic bag filled with penny candy.

That not only speaks to the professionalism of Bobby Eaton in wanting to be prepared as possible for a situation but it also speaks of the generosity of the man outside of the ring.

I never met Bobby Eaton but I know people that have (including my nephew Jeff) and they rave about his kindness and gentleness as a person.

Bobby Eaton the wrestler isn't lost- he lives on through videos of his matches available through different avenues.

Bobby Eaton the man is the bigger loss to the world. 

There just aren't that many good people in the world that we can afford to lose many before their time.

"Mr.Wonderful" Paul Orndorff

     I still have plenty of passings to catch up on, but a recent one was worthy of a full post in my opinion.

"Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff's passing at the age of 71, is yet another loss of professional wrestling's stars of yesterday, but to fans of 1980s wrestling, Paul Orndorff was a special performer even in an era that held arguably the highest number of top grapplers in the history of the business.

Orndoff played college football at the University of Tampa and was drafted in round 12 of the 1973 draft by the New Orleans Saints as a running back.

Paul Orndorff had established himself as a top babyface and heel during stints in the Mid-South territory and on national television on WTBS as part of the Georgia Championship Wrestling promotion, but his top work was yet to come.

In 1983, Orndorff left Georgia as a babyface to move to the WWF as a heel to be managed by the Grand Wizard, who would pass away before Orndorff's debut.

Orndorff would be managed by Roddy Piper after the Wizard's passing as Vince McMahon initially brought Piper in as a manager believing him to be too small to be a main event heel.

Dubbed "Mr.Wonderful" by Piper, Orndorff would challenge Hulk Hogan for Hogan's newly won title in 1984 before one of the more memorable angles of his career in teaming with Piper against Hogan and Mr.T at the first Wrestlemania.

Orndorff would lose that match when Cowboy Bob Orton missed with a cast shot off the top rope and hit Orndorff instead causing him to be pinned.

Orndorff would turn to the fan-favorite side after Piper blamed him for the loss and not Orton which led to a feud with Piper and Orton before Orndorff slid down the cards as a babyface

Orndorff would then make the biggest money of his career when he turned on Hulk Hogan during a televised tag match against John Studd and King Kong Bundy and would lead to six months of huge crowds including an outdoor show in Toronto at Exhibition Stadium that drew over 60,000 fans to the then-home of the Blue Jays and CFL Argonauts.

The blowoff would be a memorable steel cage match on Saturday Night's Main Event where "video evidence" was shown to prove that both men hit the floor leaving the cage at the same time to force the match to continue where Hogan would retain his championship.

Those matches were the last for Orndorff at the top of the card, although he would continue with the WWF for another year and would have two different stints with WCW.

After his WCW time in the ring was complete, Orndoff would work as a road agent and as a trainer at WCW's "Power Plant" training school and would have one final moment behind the scenes as Orndorff beat up the much larger "Vader" (Leon White) in a locker room encounter.

What I liked so much about Paul Orndorff was the intensity and realism that he brought to the ring.

Orndorff came off as a real athlete and as mentioned above, Orndorff's intensity as a heel might have been unmatched by any of his peers.

For all of the theatrics that comes with the world of professional wrestling, the ability to put the fan into a state of  "suspension of disbelief" was one that most in the business wanted to possess.

Paul Orndorff looked like a fellow that was legitimately angry and didn't have any interest in playing along with the show, which wasn't often the case in the oft-cartoonlike WWF in the 80s.

His punches looked strong and I always loved how he kicked and stomped his opponent with such anger and bad intentions.

It was very easy to believe that Paul Orndorff really was pissed off at his opponent, wanted to beat the hell out of him, and that he would like to have the opportunity to pound on those fans that booed him so much!

My two favorite Paul Orndorff matches were not ones that were classic main events but were television "enhancement" matches that symbolized what Paul Orndorff was all about.

The first was in 1984, not long after Orndorff arrived in the WWF.

It was the transition period between the old All-Star Wrestling and the production values that were to come over the next few years and Orndorff is angry about the fans calling him "Paula".

Orndorff is scheduled against Rudy Diamond, a somewhat scrawny preliminary wrestler, and the fans immediately go after Orndorff with the Paula chant.

Orndorff goes into angry mode and Diamond leaves the ring to walk back to the dressing room.

Orndorff talks to the referee a bit and Diamond comes out wearing a black t-shirt with Paula printed on the front.

Orndorff loses his mind and Diamond literally tries to run away, which is something that not even the lowest wrestlers did, and Orndorff hammers Diamond with a back suplex that looks nasty even today as Diamond's neck hit the mat very awkwardly among other moves before easily winning.

This is a contender for my favorite television squash match ever!

It can be found on YouTube here.

The other match is against Lanny Poffo, who was a level above the Rudy Diamonds of the world. but still usually lost on television and the match takes place shortly after Orndorff's turn on Hulk Hogan.

Poffo, complete with 80s perm, in his role as poet, takes the ring announcer's microphone and gives a catchy poem about Orndorff to cheers from the fans.

Then the sounds of "Real American" ring out as Orndorff was using the theme music for Hulk Hogan as he "claimed" that Hogan's theme was written for him and stolen from him by Hogan and here comes Orndorff with manager Bobby Heenan.

Complete with a stoic face that makes even a "smart mark" stay away from him, Orndorff stomps down the aisle and Poffo is in trouble.

Normally, Poffo would offer an offensive move or two in his role as one of the better enhancement talents, but not in this one as Orndorff tears into him as soon as he hits the ring, suplexes him outside the ring in an era where that isn't done very often, almost decapitates him with a clothesline before finishing Poffo off with a piledriver.

The entire match was incredibly effective in having Orndorff get "over" as a heel (and give Poffo credit for doing his job well) and made me at the time wonder "Damn, did Lanny Poffo do something to tick Orndorff off before this match?"- Suspension of disbelief, indeed.

The Orndorff-Poffo match can be found here.

Orndorff wasn't used quite as well in his days in WCW, although he was usually in the upper-middle of the card, and didn't have many world titles matches, although he did hold the television title and the tag team title with Paul Roma as the team named "Pretty Wonderful".

My favorite WCW memory of Orndorff was this almost operatic theme that he used. Hilarious.

Paul Orndorff's ability to seem real was almost unmatched and at his peak, Orndorff was one of the best wrestlers in the world and very few wrestling fans in the 1980s ever forgot what they saw from "Mr.Wonderful in the ring.

Orndorff won't be forgotten.

Ernest Angley

      The Reverend Ernest Angley passed away recently at the age of 99.

Angley was your stereotypical television evangelist with about every stereotype that one would write for a film script involving that industry.

Angley was involved in scandals like many from the televised evangelical world, but the Reverend stands out to me from childhood more than the others from the business- for one reason.

The business of televised religion comes down to one thing- attracting enough donated dollars to buy televised time on smaller independent stations and occasionally an early Sunday morning slot on a larger station.

When you have those dollars, it enables you to stay on the air, do your routine, and keep an often lavish lifestyle running, but getting those dollars often takes some less than scrupulous dealings, and the Rev. Angley's "Healing" didn't exactly ring the "OK" bell with legitimacy.

SO why did Ernest Angley stand out from the bushel of television evangelists from that era?

Pro Wrestling.

You see, in the era of pro wrestling being a one-hour infomercial for a promotion's live house shows, there was only one hour a week for me in my infancy as a fan and it was Saturday at 11:00 AM on WDCA-TV from Washington.

At that time, UHF stations usually programmed local sports (WDCA had the Bullets, Capitals, and ACC Basketball), reruns of old television shows like Star Trek, and the remainder was left for old movies and time buy programs- such as wrestling and various religious programming.

A time buy was basically someone literally purchased an hour of air time and WDCA placed the program on their network at the agreed time.

The station liked those because they didn't have to try to sell advertising and the buyer didn't have to sell their product to the station, pleasing both parties.

I've shared stories about that time and the WWF show in the past but assuming that my dad wasn't getting his laughs by asking for a chore to be done with ten minutes before the show and I had the time to turn the channel (Literally) to the UHF station, the program before pro wrestling was the Rev. Ernest Angley show, so I'd see the last ten minutes of Angley's hour (which like WWF was paid for by the company) and that was quite a trip, dear readers.

The end of Angley's program would feature the good Reverend and his "faith healing" and this would feature people that took better bumps on the platform than Steve King and Victor Mercado would in the next hour.

Angley wobbled out, usually in a white suit, looking like a bizarre mashup of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith (I spent many a North Carolina game in the 80s, yelling at Dean Smith and calling him "Ernest Angley")  and Eddie Munster, and would ask "followers" what their various malady was that ailed them.

Angley would then give a standard pablum and then call the Lord, strike the person, and drive them backward in a Nestea Plunge-type fall where two fellows in suits would catch them in mid-flight.

Angley then would "test" the newly-healed follower and in a miracle, the problem was solved!

I try not to be too hard on these things because they are more carnival sideshow than real religion, but it was hard not to laugh as a kid and it's hard not to be sad today as you just wonder how many poor people have been conned out of their dollars by stunts like these.

When you are exposed to this every week, suffice it to say that many wrestling fans in junior high school were well-schooled in the Ernest Angley impersonation!

But there is one more wrestling connection to the late Reverend- my childhood hero -The Magnificent Muraco loved adding Ernest Angley touches to his promos for the upcoming card at your local area, in my case, the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland.

Muraco has admitted in recent interviews that he did this and it wasn't hard to see when the Magnificent One was going into "Angley" mode as he would chant "Can you say Baby" (Angley used that phrase often when he had "healed" someone from deafness and would ask them to repeat the word) and would add some "YEA-HH"'s in the tone of a traveling preacher.

The Reverend has always been thought of as a charlatan by me even forty years ago and despite his passing, I haven't seen anything to cause a re-evaluation of him in my mind.

Still, there are a few phrases to this day, that when I hear them I'll flashback to being twelve years old with the excitement of watching wrestling for that week and the odd little man and his routine before the action began.

Butch Reed

     Butch Reed was a wrestler that never seemed to catch the biggest break at the right time but in two territories, the "Hacksaw" proved that he could go with the best of the business as either a "babyface" or a "heel" and with better timing, Butch Reed could have been the first African-American world champion.

Butch Reed's passing at 66 made me think of how good he was and like so many athletes, questions of what might have been.

Reed started his career using his given name Bruce Reed after a college football career at Division II Central Missouri and a training camp spent with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1976.

Reed had parallels to Tony Atlas with the press slams and dropkicks, but Reed's ringwork was much more solid than Atlas's as Reed's shoulder block off the ropes or off a turnbuckle seemed more realistic than Atlas's more cartooney moves.

Reed wrestled in the low-end Central States territory before I first saw him on Georgia Championship Wrestling on one of those yearly chances to watch the show (I've written about this in the past) as Bruce Reed, but it was his next stop that stamped Reed as a star.

The Florida promotion put Reed on top of the card with several challenges of Ric Flair for the NWA world championship, feuding with Big John Studd with the obligatory bodyslam of the quasi-giant, and matches with former NWA champion Dory Funk and his protege, in the only heel run of his career, David Von Erich.

Reed's matches with Flair were excellent and had the time been right and the NWA remained in the same shape it had been before the WWF national expansion, Reed being in line (with others) as a possible future NWA champion would not have been out of the question.

Florida may have been the foundation of "Hacksaw" Butch Reed's rise to stardom, but Reed's best work came in the Mid-South area where he arrived as a fan favorite but shortly thereafter turned on the Junkyard Dog.

Reed would hold the company's biggest title, the North American title, on three occasions and his feud with the Junkyard Dog was the main feud of the company for over a year, but just as the pair were about to hit the high point, the Dog left for the WWF.

After the first of what would be several attempts to replace the Dog with another African-American wrestling in George "Master G" Wells failed, the next attempt would be the one that would come closest with Reed turning on his heel comrade Buddy Landell and Devastation Inc.

Reed would hold the North American title again and meet up with Ric Flair again for title matches that often ended in time-limit draws.

Reed never reached the heights of JYD in Mid-South, but he was easily the best of the rest until he left Mid-South for a brief stint in a return to the Central States before moving to the WWF along with his Central States manager Slick.

Dubbed "The Natural" with dyed blond hair, Reed never seemed to really click in the WWF although he wrestled at Wrestlemania's III and IV defeating Koko B.Ware in the former and losing to Randy Savage in the first round of the WWF title tournament in the latter.

The "Natural" gimmick patterned after the Sweet Daddy Siki version of the 60s and 70s didn't seem to infuriate fans even when Reed "ended" the career of Superstar Graham and few were upset when Reed returned to the NWA as a single for what proved to be a tepid run in the middle of the card.

Reed would team with Ron Simmons under masks as Doom in the worst secret in the history of wrestling managed by "Woman" before losing the masks, moving to new manager Teddy Long and holding the company's tag team titles.

Reed and Simmons would split up and then feud with Simmons gaining the upper hand after winning a steel cage match at Superbrawl I.

That was the end of Reed's career in either of the major promotions, although he would return to WCW briefly in 1992.

Either in the ring or on the microphone, Butch Reed has been almost forgotten through the years and the only reason that I can think of is that his best work wasn't on national television.

Butch Reed was an underrated wrestler and only by watching him in Mid-South or Florida can one truly appreciate how good he really was.

Most will remember Butch Reed as the Natural or as one half of Doom, but I'll remember him best from the territorial days and for what might have been.

If his timing had been a little better...

Road Warrior Animal

The loss of Road Warrior Animal at the age of 60, is yet another lost link to the past, and fans 30 and up likely have special feelings about the final Road Warrior to leave us.

Joe Laurinaitis was part of the most popular and influential tag team of their time, perhaps of all-time, and even if they weren't the best tag team ever in "working quality" (My vote would go to either incarnation of the Midnight Express with Bobby Eaton with either Dennis Condrey or Stan Lane), the Road Warriors are easily the most remembered by wrestling fans older than thirty from their youth.

The first of their time, the Road Warriors used a muscleman look combined with squash matches filled with real pounding of hapless opponents and rarely taking even a punch in return to become the innovators of their style and the number one tag team to fans of the time.

It was difficult to put your company's tag titles on the Road Warriors because like Andre the Giant, once you gave them a title, you would have to eventually take it away, and not only would you have to figure out how to have the Warriors agree  (and they were known to be difficult when asked to lose), but you also would have to have the team that beat them be credible enough that the fans would buy the result because in their eyes- no one could beat the Road Warriors.

For example, the Road Warriors held two world titles during their dominant period ( Even though they held the WWF titles, that stint wasn't as dominant)  the AWA and the NWA.

Both title losses were controversial, didn't come off well, and showed the difficulties in having the Road Warriors losing at all, let alone by pinfall.

Their loss of the AWA titles in September 1985 to the less than remarkable team of Jimmy Garvin and Steve "Mr. Electricity" Regal only occurred when all of three of the Freebirds charged in to interfere and essentially took five on one for the Warriors to lose and their 1989 NWA title reign ended when the extremely fast count by heel referee Teddy Long allowed Steve "Dr. Death" Williams and Mike Rotundo (a very underrated team) to lift the championship from the Warriors, each defeat showed the problems in having the Road Warriors lose.

Fans couldn't imagine anyone beating the Road Warriors and promoters didn't bother trying to force-feed the issue as the Warriors almost never lost and if they did, it had to be against overwhelming odds.

Still, as an attraction, there were very few that could match the Road Warriors and those squash matches were must-see television with the Warriors running from the locker room and pounding opponents into submission usually in two minutes or less.

I'm not sure what really got the Road Warriors over the most- the physical squash matches, the painted faces with the spiked shoulder pads, or their promos, but the combination of the parts certainly created the most memorable team of the 1980s.

 

As the 1980s began to draw to its end, the Road Warriors weren't as unique as they once were.

The WWF had created their own painted face tag team in Demolition (Bill "Masked Superstar" Eadie and Barry Darsow, also remembered as Krusher Khrushchev and later as Repo Man), the NWA created the Powers of Pain (Barbarian and Warlord), a larger team with bigger muscles that later moved to the WWF, and the more spectacular Steiner Brothers arrived on the scene as well.

Dusty Rhodes tried to turn them heel with the team finally winning the world championship from the Midnight Expres to emphasize their new attitude and had them turn on him with the infamous "spike in the eye" angle, but weeks later Rhodes was released for the violence of the role and the Road Warriors were fan favorites again without explanation.

The fans just weren't going to dislike the Road Warriors no matter how much the promotion may try to make it so.

When the Road Warriors finally arrived in the WWF, the long-awaited feud with Demolition awaited and it was a bit disappointing.

The feud ended fairly quickly and despite the Warriors getting the better end of the battles, it was unfulfilling, not that was the first or last time that a dream angle was was dropped in the lap of McMahonville only to be fumbled like a Mark Sanchez miscue.

The Road Warriors slowly moved away from the spotlight with more and more trips to Japan with the occasional stop in with WWF and WCW and when the WWF tried an embarrassing 'suicide' angle with Hawk, the fearsome Road Warriors didn't seem so fearsome anymore.

Hawk passed away in 2003 and Animal didn't have his heart into his occasional wrestling appearances without his long-time partner.

Animal still had the spotlight as his son, James, would be one of the best linebackers in Ohio State history and Buckeye fans often dressed in Road Warrior garb during James' time in Columbus with Animal getting more than his share of television time with interviews during games.

James would play seven seasons with the Rams and currently works for the Big Ten Network.

The Road Warriors would remain in the spotlight personally as they were Ryan's all-time favorite team.

From the time he was old enough to talk and walk, he was a Road Warrior fanatic. Ryan has all of the various Road Warrior figures through the years from different toy companies when he was about five, his favorite hat was one from their initial stint in the WWF complete with one of the colors of the game- neon lime green.

Ryan wore that hat everywhere and he loved it dearly.

One day, Ryan and Cherie came with me to meet my friend Greg at Subway, where he worked at the time.

Greg had a friend working there as well and this fellow was playing/teasing (whatever) with Ryan, took his beloved Road Warriors hat off, and literally jumped up and down on it with his shoes.

Ryan was very upset and after I helped him clean his hat, I walked over to this guy and said "Now you can jump up and down on your hat".

Confused, he said "this is a fill in the blank of cost of a game cap here"! and refused.

I told him he can jump on it or I can, his call.

When he protested about the expense of his hat, my response was "Ryan's hat is just as important to him and you had no problem with it, so let's even the score".

He then sadly began to jump up and down on his own hat, beating it up and getting it dirty.

The Road Warriors will be long remembered as the most popular tag team of their time.

The team that was too popular to turn heel and too popular to be a champion, the Road Warriors will always be special to the fans that saw them in their prime and maybe even to a guy that had to jump on his own hat as well...

Forgotten Superstars; The Masked Superstar

We return to the Forgotten Superstars universe with an actual "Superstar" by name as our latest entry in the series.

The recent passing of Mr.Wrestling II made me think of masked wrestlers and the one wrestler who, for me, deserved to be involved in the Forgotten Superstars series.

You don't see many masked wrestlers anymore, but I always enjoyed the wrestlers who wore the mask as a fan, and it might have been better and more mysterious at that time, as seldom did masked wrestlers wrestle in the Northeast and the McMahon/WWF territory.

Since I couldn't see other wrestling companies (other than the one weekend a year that I visited my Ohio relatives when I would watch Georgia wrestling on WTBS), I relied entirely on the wrestling magazines to gain any knowledge of the happenings around the country and even though the articles were hokey and usually even more fictional than the actual programs (even as a kid and as a regular purchaser of these, it was pretty apparent to see that wrestling wasn't on the level), it was the only way to read about other wrestlers.
I always liked the masked wrestlers because the masks were often colorful and, more often than not, were "rulebreakers" (the term the magazines used for the "heels"), and it was fun trying to figure out any small tip on their "real" identity.

There were many masked wrestlers such as the Super Destroyer, the original Assassin, and his partner Assassin #2, the Masked Grapplers, etc, but for me, three stood out above the rest.

Mr.Olympia was often a "fan favorite", but I liked the mask, and he would eventually turn in the Mid-South area.

The Spoiler had a really menacing look with his vicious finisher- The Claw.
The Spoiler was often managed by J.J. Dillon or Gary Hart, and magazine articles on him would picture bloody grapplers damaged by his fierce grip, but the other was my favorite- The Masked Superstar.
Superstar was a wrestler who stretched the rulebook because he wanted to, not because he had to.
The magazines always stressed the Superstar had the "scientific ability" to win fairly, but he preferred the rougher style of breaking the rules, and that appealed to me!

The Masked Superstar also used several different masks with far more colors than the usual black or white, and those hoods stood out even in the black and white print of the magazines.

The Superstar cemented himself with me on an Ohio visit when I saw him for the first time with his unique interview style because he was a rare entity in pro wrestling.
The Superstar rarely screamed and yelled or made ridiculous threats; he spoke matter-of-factly, as in I mean what I say, take me seriously, he came across as a legitimate athlete, similar to those in other sports, and there was the hook- legitimacy.- The Masked Superstar fit that mold, and his finishing "Cobra Hold" was a little different as well.

The hold and application were similar to the "Cobra Clutch" of Sgt. Slaughter, but the Superstar could use it as a submission hold as Slaughter did, as a "sleeper" hold, and on occasion, even drop the affected grappler to the canvas and pin him as he continued to maintain the cobra.

Slaughter's hold was a bit more flashy, but the Superstar's cobra seemed a bit more realistic and far more versatile in its use.
Superstar brings out his toolbox in this win over Mike Davis, an underrated wrestler who is most remembered for his brief stint as "Dusty Rhodes" (has to be seen to be believed) and as part of the "Rock N Roll RPMs".


Superstar spent almost his entire career under the mask ( Bill Eadie had previously been one of the Mongols) with either the Jim Crockett/Mid-Atlantic territory or the Georgia territory as a heel, but did have brief runs with both companies as a fan favorite in tag teams with Paul Jones (Mid-Atlantic) and King Kong Bundy (Georgia).
Superstar ranked at the top of the list of wrestlers that I wanted to see enter the WWF that I hadn't seen there before, and in 1983, Superstar finally arrived under the tutelage of the Grand Wizard. When the Grand Wizard died in October 1983, Superstar was the last wrestler that he officially managed.

Superstar had to scrap the cobra hold since Sgt. Slaughter was using it there, but using the sweeping neckbreaker as his finisher, he rose to the status of the latest challenger to then-champion Bob Backlund after injuring Backlund's protege, Eddie Gilbert, with the neckbreaker on the floor to boost the heat for the Superstar's challenge.


The Superstar still had the confident, self-assured "real sports" interviews, but other than the Gilbert angle and his two-match set at Madison Square Garden (the unofficial WWF capital at the time), challenging Bob Backlund for the championship, Superstar's WWF tenure likely wasn't remembered as anything special for anyone other than his most devoted fans.

Backlund's November 1983 win over the Superstar was an odd one, as it seemed that Superstar had a solid amount of crowd support, which was unusual, and would be a harbinger of the following month when Backlund's title reign of almost six years was ended by the Iron Sheik.

Had the situation been a little different, Superstar would have been a better choice to be the man who supplanted Backlund, but Superstar was leaving the WWF shortly. If he wrestled as another wrestler (changed gimmick), he couldn't take credit for the title reign anyway.

Sheik was the better choice, but had the WWF chosen a few-month title reign for the conqueror of Bob Backlund, and then lost to Hulk Hogan as the Sheik did the following month, Superstar would have been the superior option.

Ironically, it was the Superstar that would be Hulk Hogan's first title defense, and he received a few title shots around the circuit against Hogan.


For the most part in North America, that was the end of the Masked Superstar.
The Superstar would wrestle in Japan under that mask until early 1986, when he returned to the WWF as one of the Machines (Andre the Giant, Superstar, and Blackjack Mulligan under masks).
After that stint was somewhat disappointing, it was back to the Masked Superstar in the Florida territory in that promotion's waning moments for a program against a young Lex Luger.
Superstar won the Southern title (Florida's top championship) from Luger, lost it back, and then moved back to the WWF as Ax of the tag team Demolition.

Demolition was successful with three championship reigns, but other than an occasional independent show long after leaving the WWF, the Masked Superstar was gone from the ring.

The Superstar did refer once to a possible trip to WCW when Ole Anderson was booking the company, but Anderson wanted the Superstar character, while Bill Eadie preferred to use the Demolition gimmick, and the sides couldn't come to an agreement.

For all of the success that Bill Eadie would have as part of Demolition, Eadie will always be the Masked Superstar to me, and even though the Spoiler is close (The Spoiler could make these pages someday), the Superstar will always be the epitome of the term masked wrestler, and we welcome him to the Forgotten Superstars Universe.

Cherie's Day

We move forward with Friends and Family week as Cherie has made her choice and she asked for me to write about our 1994 trip to Tennessee for Smoky Mountain Wrestling's Fan Week.

During its four years of existence, Smoky Mountain Wrestling was the "old school" wrestling option that was available for wrestling fans.
The WWF was still in their goofy character age, WCW was plenty silly in their own right and the newer ECW was presenting a new style of wrestling based around storylines and lots of violence that was innovative for its time but when I look back at ECW, a lot of their promotion doesn't seem to hold up well over time.
That left an opening for a niche' promotion like Smoky Mountain for owner Jim Cornette for those fans that were looking for wrestling that fit the SMW motto- "Wrestling the way it used to be and the way you like it!"

In 1994, the only access that you had to the "inside" world of Pro Wrestling came from Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer and Cornette saw an opportunity to make some money from the 'smart fans' that knew more about wrestling than the average fan.
Cornette put together SMW Fan Week with a short and long tour version that covered hotel, travel to the various events, tickets to those events, along with behind the scenes dealing with the wrestlers themselves in different environments away from the ring.
Cherie and I signed up for the short version, which would cover four evenings, Smoky Mountain's top two cards in Night of the Legends and Fire on the Mountain, a television taping, and a house show.

Traveling to Knoxville, Tennessee wasn't difficult as I've written in the past because it is almost a straight shot from Hagerstown to the home of the Volunteers.
Our hotel was across the street from the West Town (I think) Mall and that was neat to go over to that to kill some time in the days when malls still mattered.
It's funny because I visited the same mall when I visited Knoxville years later and wasn't all that impressed!
We had some time before the evening card at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum and rested a bit after the car ride before catching the bus for the arena.
The downside to tours like this can be a lot of downtime and we were in the arena for a few hours before the doors opened to the public.
However, when the doors did open for the near-sellout crowd for SMW's "Night of the Legends" that wait was worthwhile as one of the two best cards that I've attended live took place.

The Night of the Legends has been noted by Jim Cornette as the night that made his tenure with SMW worthwhile as he was able to pay tribute to the stars of his youth.
For me, it was a hell of a wrestling show complete with the debut of the controversial New Jack, a legends tag team match with two favorites of mine in Bob Orton and Dick Slater taking on Ronnie Garvin and the Mongolian Stomper. and the Rock N Roll Express against Chris Candido and Brian Lee as part of an excellent card.
The main event was a strong one with Bob Armstrong, Tracy Smothers, and Road Warrior Hawk facing the Funk Brothers (Dory.Jr and Terry) with their partner Bruiser Bedlam in a Coward waves the Flag match in which the chief second at ringside (Ron Wright and Jim Cornette ) would have to wave a flag to end the match.
However, the match that stood the test of time was the Heavenly Bodies (Tom Pritchard and Jimmy Del Rey) matched against the Thrillseekers (Lance Storm and Chris Jericho).
SMW was the first big break for Storm and Jericho and this is the famous match that saw Jericho break his arm earlier in the day and then bleed with one of the worst cuts that you'll see in a pro wrestling match.
It's that match that is a big deal being there for Rachel, who has been a Jericho fan since she was very small.
It was such a good time being there live and when the DVD became available, I quickly purchased it.


The following day saw a lunch at Hooters with Tracy Smothers and I think the Rock n Roll Express (I'm really not sure on the attendees other than Smothers).
Hooters has always been more sizzle than steak for the actual food that you eat, but the reason I'm not sure who was there beside Tracy Smothers is that Tracy Smothers spent a lot of time talking to me!
When I told him I was from Maryland, Smothers suddenly wanted to talk to me about football, especially the Baltimore Colts (this was before the Browns moved to Baltimore) and the Bert Jones led Colts with their top-notch defensive line.
I've noticed with celebrities from different fields that more often than not, they would rather not talk about themselves or what they do and would rather talk about things that they enjoy or are a fan of.

After some hotel time, we boarded the bus for Johnson City for the "Fire on the Mountain" card.
Knoxville to Johnson City is about an hour and forty minutes drive. I've made it a few times on baseball tours and it's not a hard trip.
That's when everything is going well and it was apparent that the bus was having problems.
Not as in moving, the bus still moved.
It just moved slowly as in maybe 25 MPH and a cooling system that was not working, which was not really terrific timing for a bus filled with riders!
For me, it would get worse.
I've written here that since I was very small, a book of some type would accompany me on every trip and continues today with E-Books.
On this trip, I was reading Truman by David McCullough, a gift given by Joe Plum and if you've ever read Truman you know that the book weighs about the same as a VW Beetle!
Anyway, this one guy decided to take this time to "entertain" us all by strolling through the aisle, which was annoying enough, but he kept stopping in front of me.
That meant since he was standing and I was sitting that I was on armpit level with a man on a bus without air conditioning!
Yuck!
It took all I could do to not tell him to sit down, but in a rare case of discipline for me at that age (26), I assessed the situation and figured out quickly that the other attendees knew this fellow, didn't know me and therefore I could tell the side that they would take in an incident!
The bus did make it to Johnson City's Freedom Hall in about twice the time that it normally would have taken, so things could have been worse as it could have stranded a bus full of people on the side of the road!

Freedom Hall is the basketball home of the East Tennessee State Buccaneers of the Southern Conference,
ETSU has been a hat stop on the Fred Landucci hat tour since then!
Fire on the Mountain was another excellent card with Dick Slater challenging the Dirty White Boy for his Smoky Mountain title, Doug Furnas, who was so underrated, battling Cowboy Bob Orton, the six-man main event from the Knoxville card lining up again, but this time under Texas Death Match rules and the Thrillseekers minus Chris Jericho after his injury on the previous injury against the Heavenly Bodies.
The most remembered match on this card was the loser loses their hair match between Chris Candido and Brian Lee against the Rock N Roll Express with the hair of Tammy Sytch (later to be known as Sunny and manager of Candido and Lee) and Ricky Morton at stake.
This match resulted in an upset as the heel team of Candido and Lee won the tag titles, but the Rock N Roll Express pulled a surprise as Ricky Morton dodged his trimming and instead cut the hair of Candido lightly as the hair trimmers didn't work well.

We had another day to go, but the television taping was in Chilhowie VA, which was quite a hike from Knoxville and the TV taping promised to be a long evening.
From the best that I can remember, they were going to use the same bus ( it's been a long time folks) and we were a little leery of that trip after the ride to Johnson City!
So we decided to stay in Knoxville, do some shopping, and enjoy a nice dinner.
I don't remember many particulars there either other than buying several books at a Knoxville bookstore including a Bill Musselman biography that I didn't know existed at the time and that still resides on my bookshelf today!
We drove home the following day and that proved to be the final wrestling card of note that I've ever attended.

SMW would go out of business the following fall and I slowly lost interest in wrestling.
I'd watch some with the kids during the "Monday Night Wars", but the passion was gone and once the WWE bought WCW, my interest was almost empty than reading the Observer for a special issue based on someone passing away or a historical feature.
It was only the advent of the internet that returned pro wrestling to me somewhat with the videos of territories and matches that I wasn't able to see from my childhood days along with listening to podcasts from stars of my youth telling old business stories that I've never heard before.
It's the memories of a time gone by more than anything else when I watch pro wrestling and looking back now, the Smoky Mountain trip sewed together my wrestling fandom- starting in sixth grade and ending fourteen years later in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Beginnings and endings.
Part of all tales and inevitable to avoid.

Back later with either the next installment of the Friends and Family series or cleaning out a rapidly accumulating inbox.

Cleaning out the inbox

Time to clean the inbox without any tributes and we start with three different stories from The Athletic.

With the dearth of sports news other than NFL Draft items, The Athletic has focused on terrific stories from the past and our starting link is a story that is new to me!

In May 1971, the Cincinnati Reds are at Dodger Stadium playing the Dodgers and as Maury Wills takes his lead off second base, Reds second baseman Woody Woodward moves towards the bag to give his pitcher Jim McGlothlin an avenue to try to pick Wills off second, if he chooses.
As Woodward arrives at the bag, a sudden noise startles the stadium as an object fell out of the sky and slammed into the ground where Woodward had been standing.
The bag split upon impact (no kidding) and spread flour all over the infield.
After cleanup, the game continued without incident, but what happened?
Apparently, a small private plane decided to screw around and dropped the flour from the air along with a second bag (no word on if that bag contained sugar) landing in the parking lot.
The Pedro Gomez penned piece discusses why this hasn't made more of an impact (rimshot) with baseball historians and also reports that newspaper recaps indicate that during the same game (and possibly the same time frame) the stadium was enthralled with a chicken running across the outfield.
No further report on the chicken, but the Dodgers did consider signing the chicken as a flychaser in the outfield.

Dr. Meredith Wills investigated an issue that baseball fans had been wondering about for a few months- Why and how did the 2019 postseason suddenly see power numbers drop after record-setting numbers for the regular season?
The answer?
The baseball.
The 2019 baseball had been proven previously to have lower seams and a rounder baseball and therefore carried farther when hit due to less drag through the air, but Wills shows that not all of the 2019 baseballs were from the same batch at those used in 2019 season games with many being new, but older baseballs.
I won't ruin the rest of the story with how this happened, but you have to love baseball and their reaction to every problem with the game- Deny, Deny, Deny...

The final article from The Athletic is from their Indians beat writer Zack Meisel.
Many of the beat writers across the league have been looking back on famous trades involving their covered teams, but with a twist.
The "Trade Tree" takes a famous trade and goes back to the past to look at how a player was acquired and then into the future with what the return (or returns) bounty contained when that player was shipping away.
This version of Trade Tree wasn't limited to one player though as Meizel writes of how John Hart built the powerhouse Indians of the mid-90s through his various swaps.
The centerpiece deal is the 1989 trade of Joe Carter to the Padres in exchange for Sandy Alomar.Jr., Carlos Baerga, and Chris James, but the tree also branches back to obtaining Carter from the Cubs for Rick Sutcliffe, the theft of Sutcliffe from the Dodgers and the trade to obtain and transfer out Matt Williams with the Tribe's 1997 World Series run in between.

Terry Pluto writes for the Cleveland Plain Dealer about how recently deceased football Hall of Famer Bobby Mitchell (More on Mitchell in the next passings post) was part of the power struggle between Art Modell and Paul Brown that ended with Brown being fired and Cleveland being stuck with Modell until he scurried off to Baltimore in 1996.
It was Brown that decided to trade Mitchell and the Browns first-round selection in the 1962 draft to Washington for the first pick in the draft, 1961 Heisman winner Ernie Davis.
Davis would be diagnosed with leukemia and would never play for the Browns, but there was a point that Davis went into remission and wanted to play.
Art Modell backed Davis and found a doctor that cleared Davis for play, but Brown refused to take a chance and Davis never hit the field.
The decision split Modell and Brown for good and after a 7-6-1 1962 season, Brown was fired in January and Davis would pass away in May of 1963.
Modell's Browns would win the 1964 title and no others before he left town.
Paul Brown would be named to the Hall of Fame and would build the Cincinnati Bengals from scratch.
Another note is this- Paul Brown owned 15 percent of the Browns and sold that to Modell for 500,000 dollars raising the question of what would have happened had Brown raised the money to buy the team rather than Modell?
In my opinion, the Browns would have never left for Baltimore, but they would have been stuck with Mike Brown running them all these years.
I'm not sure that would have been a huge upgrade.

The Ringer interviews actor and former WCW champion David Arquette about why he is still wrestling at 48 years old and for next to no money.
Arquette nearly lost his life in a "death match" in 2018 and there is an accompanying documentary on him to be released soon and it's pretty interesting to see how Arquette feels towards wrestling.
The steep decline of WCW began after a silly idea to briefly make Arquette their world champion and the fans were not only upset about the decision, they turned on everyone involved.
I can't say I'm a fan of Arquette, but it's still a pretty interesting article.

CNN's science department writes of the discovery of data from the Voyager 2 mission that shows the need for a return to Uranus and Neptune.
The discovery is that Voyager traveled through a small plasmoid, which is a magnetic bubble pinched off a planet and then sent off into space.
The plasmoid is the first discovered from the Voyager missions and will hopefully be followed up by missions to one or both planets.

Cleaning out the inbox- Wrestling Edition

The inbox has enough passings from the wrestling world to have its own post with four grapplers from the past recently passing away.

Goodbye to Rocky Johnson at the age of 75.
Johnson, who was arguably the best African-American wrestler of the 1970s, is best known today as the father of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson,  but his career was far more than journeyman status.
Johnson challenged the various NWA champions of his time and teamed with Tony Atlas as the first black WWF tag team champions in 1983 with a win over the Wild Samoans.
Johnson held many titles in several territories, including the Florida and Georgia territories when those two ranked at the top of the most prestigious titles in the nation, but his final run came with the WWF when Johnson was used as a stalking horse for Jimmy Snuka with major feuds against Magnificent Muraco and Roddy Piper that built both heels for an even larger feud for each vs Snuka.
Johnson's best work was before my time and access, but his WWF work was pretty good with his matches with Muraco, who ranked at the elite level at the time, was excellent.
The Piper series that was started in Piper's Pit with the photo above, had plenty of "heat" from the fans, but the actual matches weren't quite as strong as the Muraco series for two reasons- mainly for all of the skills of Roddy Piper, he was never at the level of in-ring wrestler of Don Muraco and the other reason was that the audience badly wanted Muraco to lose the Inter-Continental title and a Johnson title win would have made him the first black champion in the territory as the Muraco series took place before the Johnson and Atlas team won the tag team titles.


Goodbye to Charlie Cook- Age not listed.
I cannot seem to find an age for Cook, who was the proverbial "One Year Wonder" as Cook was pushed to the moon in the Florida territory in 1981.
A journeyman grappler that usually was based in the southeastern part of the country that was described as a former NFL player, although I've never been able to find any proof of such unless Cook played under a different name.
Cook was a below-average performer in the ring, but suddenly in 1981, Cook began to become a top star in winning the Florida title twice, initially over former NWA champion Dory Funk Jr., which was instant credibility in the storyline.
1981 was as good as it would get for Cook, who began to move down the cards the following year and other than a brief title victory in the WWC (Puerto Rico), Cook was essentially finished in wrestling by 1984.


Goodbye to Pampero Firpo at the age of 89.
Firpo was a grappler far before my wrestling fandom as his career started in 1953 and ended in 1981.
Firpo's "gimmick" was portraying himself as a wild and untamed character similar to the Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher.
Firpo was named by former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, who would occasionally participate in wrestling as an enforcer referee, after Luis Firpo "The Wild Bull of the Pampas", who famously knocked Dempsey out of the ring in Firpo's unsuccessful title challenge
Firpo's main territory was the Detroit territory where he had several battles through the years against their two top stars in the Sheik and Bobo Brazil but did have a brief run in the then-WWWF against champion Pedro Morales in 1972.
Firpo had recently returned to the news as part of the beginning theme to the popular podcast "Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru" with the line "Who still remembers Pampero Firpo"?

Goodbye to Hercules Ayala at the age of 69.
Ayala, a barrel-chested grappler, spent almost his entire career in the Stampede territory based in Calgary, Canada and the WWC in Puerto Rico.
Ayala was a star in both places, but his biggest run might have been late in his career after being turned heel against Carlos Colon in one of the final big-money runs for Puerto Rico from 1985 to 1987 that matched the two in many various matches with different rules and stipulations before Ayala lost a Loser Leaves Town match to Colon.
The Ayala-Colon matches were noted for their excessive blood and violence in a territory already known for their violence and even involved Ayala attacking and beating Colon's wife.

Cleaning out the inbox- Non-Sports Passings

The passings list in the inbox continues to grow and in this edition, we will be (mostly) sticking to the recent non-sports passings of note.
I'll have a sports version coming soon.

Goodbye to Rene'Auberjonois at the age of 79.
The veteran actor was a regular on three television series and film for decades but is best remembered for his role as the prissy "Clayton" on the sitcom "Benson" and for his performance at the shapeshifting
" Odo" on the Star Trek series- Deep Space Nine.
The roles were so opposite that I wondered if Auberjonois could convincingly pull off the role of a security officer, but he was masterful in the role of a key cast member for the entire run.
Auberjonois also played "Father Mulcahy" in the "MASH" film in 1970 was the inspiration for the series.


Goodbye to Caroll Spinney at the age of 85.
Spinney was the voice and hands behind Big Bird and TRS favorite Oscar the Grouch for Sesame Street from the program's 1969 beginnings through 2018, although Spunney's 2018 performances were not televised until last season for Sesame Street's 50th anniversary.
Spinney almost left the show after the first season because he wasn't satisfied with the less than strong pay for working with a show involved with PBS in its infancy.
That was, of course, the first and only season that saw Oscar the Grouch as orange rather than his green fur that started in the second season and continues today.


Goodbye to Michael J. Pollard at the age of 80.
Pollard, a talented character actor, is most remembered for his role as C.W. Moss in the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde", being the leader of a gang of children on a planet where people die in their teenage years from a plague in an episode of "Star Trek", and as the homeless fellow that freezes to death in "Scrooged".
Pollard also played an inventor in another TRS favorite action film "Tango and Cash" and as "Bug Bailey" in the 90s flop "Dick Tracy".
Pollard was also credited by Michael J. Fox as the inspiration for Fox adding the "J" to his name for professional reasons.

Goodbye to D.C. Fontana at the age of 80.
Fontana was a key person in the original "Star Trek" as a writer and editor on many episodes with writing credits on ten episodes.
Fontana would adopt the name "D.C" as a manner of being gender-neutral in a time where the female writer had a far more difficult time having their works judged fairly and therefore being able to spell scripts.
Leonard Nimoy credited Fontana for coming up with much of the Vulcan culture that was the foundation for the Spock character during the original series network run.
Fontana would later serve as the associate producer on the early 70s Saturday morning "Star Trek The Animated Series, write episodes for "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine", and novels for the genre' as well.

Goodbye to William Ruckelshaus at the age of 87.
Ruckelshaus was the initial administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, which was started by the Nixon administration in 1970, before being moved to the FBI as acting director and then to the justice department as the deputy attorney general to Eliot Richardson.
It was in that role that saw Richardson and Ruckelshaus resign in the "Saturday Night Massacre" as the duo refused to fire Archibald Cox, who was the special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation.
Ruckelshaus led the charge at the EPA to ban the pesticide "DDT", implemented the Clean Air Act. and sued the Jones and Clark Steel Corporation for their companies dumping vast amounts of chemicals into the Cuyahoga River, which caused the Cuyahoga's toxic damage and included the famous river fire.
Ruckelshaus would return to head the EPA in the Reagan administration and would receive the Medal of Freedom in 2015 by then-President Obama.

Goodbye to Randy Colley at the age of 69.
Colley wrestled as several characters throughout his career but is remembered by most as "Moondog Rex" in the then-territorial WWF.
Colley held the WWF tag teams titles with two partners "King' ( Sailor White) and "Spot" (Larry Latham) for four months in 1981 as the Moondogs under manager Lou Albano won the titles from Tony Garea and Rick Martel in March and dropped them back to the same team in July.
Latham replaced White in the middle of the title reign, which may have been shorter than planned due to the switch, due to White being unable to enter the United States for reasons that have had several rumors, yet nothing established as certain.

Colley would have two other interesting times in the wrestling business with the first being as "The Nightmare" as a masked wrestler managed briefly by Sir Oliver Humperdink and then "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert, held the top title in Mid-South Wrestling, the North American title.
The Nightmare held the North American title for just under four months, defeating Terry Taylor to win the title and losing it on a Louisiana Superdome show to Dick Murdoch.
Colley would return to the WWF as part of a new face-painted team called Demolition and Colley has been credited with the idea of the team in which he partnered with Bill Eadie, who is remembered as the Masked Superstar as well as Demolition.
The story goes that at the first television taping for the new team and the second event as a team, despite the paint, dyed hair and trimmed haircut, fans immediately recognized Colley and began to chant "Moondog"!
The fans recognized Colley again at the next television taping and the decision was made to remove Colley from the team and replaced him with Barry Darsow, who had been wrestling for the NWA as "Krusher Khruschev".
Through the years of shoot interviews and podcasts, I've heard several people that were employed in the WWF front office claim that many of their fans didn't know of the wrestlers in other companies, which I guess is why they figured they could get away from Demolition as a similar-looking team to the NWA's Road Warriors to start with, but I never bought that reasoning for the most part.
However, the one thing that made me think they might have had a point is the Demolition issue.
Fans recognized Colley because he had wrestled for the WWF before, yet they didn't seem to figure out that Darsow was formerly "Khrushchev", despite being on a national television program on WTBS for a few years.


That completes the non-sports passings (plus one) for now.
No boxing this weekend, but we do have four playoff football games with the PPM and although I don't provide regular coverage of the New Orleans Saints, I have written playoff coverage in the past and I may do so this year as well.
I also have a sports passing post and yet another regular cleaning of the inbox, so hopefully, I can get caught up some time this week.