April 26th in the Time Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Killer Karl Kox 1931
Larry Matysik 1947
Crusher Jerry Blackwell 1949
Happy Birthday:
David Lee "Tank" Abbott (60)
Glenn Jacobs\Kane (58)
Ron Reis\The Yeti (55)
Jonathan Figueroa\Amazing Red (43)
RIP Memorial: We stop & remember those who have passed on this day and gave themselves to the business for us, the fans. We salute you and thank you.
Leon Stap\Fuzzy Cupid 4-26-1979 at the age of 50
Jose Angel Vargas Sanchez\Angel Blanco 4-26-1986 at the age of 50
Lee Marshall 4-26-2014 at the age of 65
Devoy Brunson 4-26-2022 at the age of 76
Select Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling Match Flashbacks:
60-Year Flashback: 4-26-1965: The Assassins (Renesto/Hamilton) & The Avenger (Lee Henning) defeated The Kentuckians (Brown\Smith) & Dick Steinborn at American Legion Arena in Orlando, Florida
*Tony Note: The Assassins and The Kentuckians program was taken everywhere in pro wrestling from the Carolinas, to Georgia, to Oklahoma, to here in Florida. They drew huge crowds and big money everywhere they ran the program. Imagine this, The Assassins are also involved at this time in a program with Eddie Graham and Sam Steamboat, who had been the number one babyface tag team in the Territory before the arrival of the Kentuckians. These two programs were really lighting up the Florida territory and setting the stage for the legendary pro wrestling territory that we know today. Dick Steinborn's father, Milo Steinborn, was the local promoter in Orlando for Cowboy Luttrall and Graham, who was Luttrall's booker and basically was running the office at this point as a minority ownership position. Milo Steinborn would become the cornerstone of the great team of local promoters in the state of Florida that Graham would put together.
I also want to mention Lee Henning, who was a big-time heel in territory wrestling by this point. Like most pro wrestlers hailing from the state of Iowa, he was a rough and tough brawling, wrestling heel. His nickname was also "Bulldog", like the Texas wrestler, Danny Plechas. Just the other day, I did a flashback on a match involving the Masked Avenger and Super Destroyer in the Carolinas, 10 years after this match, but Henning did the original masked "Avenger" gimmick, as he portrayed here in this match, making them a 3-man masked team. Henning was, for this time, a traditional kicking, punching and stomping heel, which contrasted with The Assassins, who were workers in the ring.
The Kentuckians and Steinborn had done interviews on television promising to unmask all three of the masked opponents, which broke with traditional wrestling booking philosophy at the time, as babyfaces were never to make promises to fans that they could not actually deliver. No doubt it did add heat and interest to the match, and as the program progressed, didn't seem to take any steam off of it, as fans in various towns and markets didn't know outcomes in other towns of the time unless it was mentioned on television, which it wasn't. The reason for the six-man tag match was there was heat between Steinborn and the Masked Avenger the following week after Henning came into the ring illegally as part of the finish of a tag team match between The Assassins, Steinborn and Danny Miller. Henning, as The Avenger, gave Steinborn a huge beat down with the help of The Assassins. "All I want is to get that big ape alone tonight and I'll either pull his mask off or go down trying". Steinborn added "The mask is probably better looking than this guy's face-I may die of fright when I pull his mask off"1. This 6-man match ended with a count out when Jake "Grizzly" Smith could not beat the 10-count by the referee after he was tossed out of the ring by the Assassins and then being run in the ring post.
50-Year Flashback: 4-26-1975 Fritz Von Erich (CH) defeated Blackjack Lanza by 2 falls to 1 to retain the NWA American Heavyweight Championship at Astroarena in Houston, Texas
*Tony Note: This was the first card that the Dallas office, the Houston office and Paul Boesch ever held at the Astroarena. The was a sports facility that had opened in 1974 next door to the famed Astrodome in the same sports complex. The Astroarena was later named the Reliant Arena and is now called Reliant Arena. In 1993, modern fans may remember World Championship Wrestling held their Fall Brawl in this location and in 2005, WWE held a Smackdown show here. This match was promoted as a "Battle of the Claw Hold", as that was each of these wrestlers' submission and pinning hold. The match could end if either man was pinned or submitted using the claw, or by regular pinfall. Von Erich had debuted at the very end of the 1950s, using the new move, which he called "The Iron Claw", this was also the title of the recent movie chronicling the story of the famed Von Erich wrestling family. Lanza, who dressed all in black, with a black vest and hat and wore a thick black mustache called his hold. The Black Claw". Lanza, in his television interviews of the time, wanted to be not only the man to beat the local legend, Von Erich for the territory's top singles title, but also the first wrestler to win the first main event at Astro arena.
Von Erich retained his title with the match going the entire three falls with Von Erich pinning Lanza in two of the three falls and Lanza winning one pinfall by pinning Von Erich. This finish regardless of the hype around the claw hold kept each man's move intact and Lanza proving he could pin Von Erich at least once and fans believing he could possibly do it again if Von Erich wrestled him. Lanza had been top as a heel in the territory since 1973 and this kept him strong regardless of losing to the top babyface, who was only making sporadic appearances by this time, but did have a running program with Lanza and Blackjack Mulligan, who had since left the territory in all the Dallas office towns of Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Houston including Texas Death Matches, Falls Count Anywhere, and other assorted gimmick matches. Von Erich and Lanza would usually work one night in each town each month, usually throughout the month with the big towns, Dallas and Houston being the last card of the month for each town.
50-Year Flashback: 4-26-1975 Pat Patterson (CH) defeated The Brute to retain the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship at the Cow Palace in San Francisco
*Tony Note: Patterson dominated the Roy Shire San Francisco territory in the 1970s, winning the top singles title, the NWA United States Championship and several tag team titles with Chief Peter Miavia and Rocky Johnson. He had also won the annual Cow Palace Battle Royal earlier in the year which kicked off 1975, a major event that typically started the wrestling year in San Francisco. The Brute was Leo Burke, one of the famed Cormier (Leonce) brothers from New Brunswick. Burke had been in the Kansas City territory for most of 1974 and early 1975, where the Cormiers wrestled as The Martins, one of the brothers being Terry and Leo being Tommy, where they had a great series of matches with another brother team, Jerry and Ted Oates. "We would have great matches with each other" Jerry Oates told me in a phone conversation in January of this year. "Terry and Tommy would speak French Canadian and call spots to each other in their language, none of us knew what they were saying" Oates said. Patterson and Burke, as The Brute had started their program in early April continuing through this match drawing almost 7,000 fans to the Cow Palace on this night.
40-Year Flashback: 4-26-1985 Super Tiger (Satoru Sayama) & Mach Hayato defeated Dalibar Singh & Caswell Martin in Hayato’s Retirement Match in the UWF at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan
*Tony Note: I don't know a lot about the UWF promotion in Japan to be honest with you, however when researching this match I learned a few things. Mach Hayato, who was Shigehisa Hido, a former Toyota employee who wanted to become aa pro wrestler but was rejected due to being 5 foot 9 inches tall. Being rejected in Japan, he traveled to Mexico to get trained after hearing the story of Gran Hamada, who had experienced the same thing. He debuted as Karate Hayato in 1976 and returned to Japan for the first time in 1979. While he struggled to gain any momentum for several years in Japan, he really didn't work much more there until he was booked on All Japan tours in 1984. Akio Sato was the booker for AJPW and didn’t have much appreciation for Hayato's lucha style. Hisashi Shinma wanted another lucha-style performer besides Gran Hamada in his UWF promotion and Hayato got Giant Baba's permission to change promotions. When the UWF transitioned to the first shoot-style federation, Hayato didn't fit so well, but he tried hard leading to his retirement in this match. In the finish of this contest, Hayato gained the submission from Singh utilizing the triangle choke, which ended the match. After the match ended, a retirement ceremony took place for Hayato who started to remove his mask for the fans, but Sayama stopped him and said he didn't have to unmask. After this, Hido moved to San Francisco to work in gardening, turning down a Mexican promotion who offered him an opportunity to come back to the ring. He passed away in 2021 at the age of 70.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History:
Ann Casey had a sister in the business named JoAnn Casey. Ann introduced her to the business and got her trained at the Fabulous Moolah school in South Carolina. JoAnn didn't wrestle for very long, but mostly she worked under a mask as The Black Orchid, while also on few occasions, she appeared as JoAnn Casey working as a tag team with Ann.2
Thank You for Reading
I'm Tony Richards, Pro Wrestling Historian, Author and Storyteller. I share pro wrestling historical items in each issue of the Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling History Newsletter. Thanks for reading! If you enjoy my information on select events, matches and insights, please share it with folks you think might like to be a subscriber!
Remember, paid subscribers get access to exclusive and special content such as to commemorate his induction to the WWE Hall of Fame, I'll be publishing some special issues including a multi-part career retrospective on Dory Funk, Sr, a multi-part flashback on the Tennessee Territory in April 1975 including all the recorded cards for the month, some special audio and video interviews and more.
4-26-1965 Orlando Evening Star pg 25
Chris Bergstrom, Fabulous Ladies of Wrestling Facebook Group