August 3rd in the Time Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Tom Jenkins 1872
Steve Gobrukovich\Nicoli Volkoff 1915
Mars Bennett 1922
Karl Gotch 1922
Haystacks Calhoun 1934
Apache Bull Ramos 1937
Happy Birthday:
Eric Esch\Butterbean (59)
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.
Juanita Coffman\Juanita Gallagher 8-3-1987 at the age of 66
Jim LaRock 8-3-2006 at the age of 82
Dutch Savage 8-3-2013 at the age of 78
Jody Hamilton\The Assassin 8-3-2021 at the age of 82
40 Year Flashback
The Evolution of Pro Wrestling:1985
8-3-1985 NWA Promoter Lia Miavia hosted the event "A Hot Summer Night", an inter-promotional supercard at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii featuring wrestlers from NWA Polynesian Pro Wrestling, her promotion, the AWA, New Japan Pro Wrestling and Jim Crockett Promotions.
These days the days of the Hawaiian promotion under the Miavias is talked about with reverence and glory.
However, when Ed Francis sold his wrestling promotion to Peter Miavia in 1979, the business was already dropping off. Through the early 1980s, many wrestlers have said they worked a whole week's worth of shows for only a $25.00 payoff. But it really wasn't the money that was the greatest benefit to wrestlers. It was a great stop off coming back to North America from a Japanese tour where most of the boys and ladies had made great money for anywhere from 20 to 28-day tours.
Ata Miavia, the daughter of Peter and Lia shared here memories of her parents struggling to make the promotion work: ""My parents just wanted to make an impact in Hawaii, simple stuff like local promoter does good. They worked hard, and it would have been a dream come true for them if they ever had a sellout show at the Blaisdell Arena (then known as Hawaii Convention Center), but as hard as they worked, a sellout never happened," she said. "Dad certainly was not a threat to any other promoter. My dad was a wrestler, one of the boys, who wanted to promote the business that he loved. I often thought that the big promoters in the mainland, Vince McMahon Sr. and Jim Barnett, felt sorry for my dad and would send guys in just to help him out. I never forgot that. Getting booked in Hawaii meant beach, sun, great food. Therein was what differentiated Hawaii wrestling from other territories -- after all Hawaii is paradise, guys loved to come in, enjoy a couple of days on Waikiki beach and work the show, all fun and no stress."
Ata and her husband, Rocky Johnson, along with their son Dwayne, moved to Hawaii in 1980 to help with the family business.
**Tony Note: It's ironic to note that while Peter & Lia never sold out Blaisdell Arena, on a WWE show in 2002, when their grandson Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson headlined the card on his first appearance on a show in Hawaii, it sold out in four hours. The same arena his grandfather tried so hard for a sell-out, 17 years later, he comes in and makes his grandparents dream come true very quickly.
In 1982, the "High Chief" Miavia passed away and his wife, Lia was left to run the promotion, she hired Lar Anderson to become her booker and from 1983 to 1988, Lia Miavia and Anderson booked some of the most interesting but not always good wrestling with talent pieced together from all over the world.
The peak of this period of Polynesian Pro Wrestling happened with the "Hot Summer Night" event on August 3rd, 1985, the biggest show the promotion ever held.
This mega-promotional working arrangement drew a big crowd with estimates between 12,553 and 19,955 for a card that had Ric Flair defending the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on top against local Polynesian Pro star Sivi Afi in what was described at the time as the best match on the card and ended in a DDQ. Also, a draw was Bruiser Brody taking on Antonio Inoki. This was the first card in the state of Hawaiian wrestling history to draw a gross of over $100,000. The attendance record remained in place until the WWF ran a live house show in the same stadium in 1991.
The card featured 16 matches on the show:
The Cobra (CH) defeated Super Fly Tui Selinga to retain the WWF Junior Heavyweight Championship
Seiji Sakaguchi defeated Matt Borne
Kango Kimura & Tatsumi Fujinami defeated Gary Fulton & Gene Lewis
Jimmy Snuka defeated Larry Sharpe
"The Ragin Bull" Manny Fernandez defeated Black Bart (CH) by DQ, Bart retains the NWA National Heavyweight Title
Mighty Milo & Steve Regal (CH) ended in a time limit draw, Regal retains the AWA Light Heavyweight Title
Debbie Combs defeated The Fallen Angel by DQ in a Women's Street Fight Match
The Samoan Connection (Farmer Boy Ipo & LeRoy Brown) defeated The Deaton Brothers (Joel & Vernon)
Little Kevin defeated Pancho Boy
Richie Magnett defeated Gypsy Joe
Dusty Rhodes & Magnum TA defeated The Russians (Nikita Koloff & Khrusher Khruschev)
Andre The Giant, Angelo Mosca & Steve Collins defeated King Kong Bundy, Mark Lewin & Kevin Sullivan
**Lars Anderson defeated Bad News Allen (CH) to win the NWA Polynesian Pacific Heavyweight Championship
The Soul Patrol (Rocky Johnson\Ricky Johnson) defeated The Dirty White Boys (Len Denton\Tony Anthony)
Antonio Inoki vs Bruiser Brody ended in a DCO
Ric Flair (CH) vs Siva Afiu ended in a DDQ for the NWA World Heavyweight Title
The most dramatic thing on the card though was backstage, not in front of the fans as Jim Crockett, Jr and Polynesian Pro representative, Lars Anderson (Larry Heimini) have an argument that devolves into a shouting match in the locker room area. Brody keeps shouting for Anderson to deck Crockett, which results in Lars throwing his drink into Crockett's face.
For a time in the mid-1980s, I had access to Polynesian Pro Wrestling's weekly television show, as did many people in North America who had large C-Band Satellite reception dishes in their backyards. The show ran on the Financial News Network (FNN), which today when fans watch videotaped recordings of matches (the most famous being a Ric Flair vs Kerry Von Erich NWA World Title Match) with financial ticker results crawling the bottom third of the screen, it was recorded from the FNN network in the mid-1980s. The President of FNN was a huge pro wrestling fan, and he ordered a few shows for the network, which Polynesian Pro was one of them. Ripper Collins, who will be a factor in my upcoming Dory Funk, Sr book, due to his early career starting in West Texas, was the host of the television show.
As mentioned, this was the very highest peak of the promotion, which began to have a steep decline after this show.
Sunday Special Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Week-In-Review 7/28-8/2/2025
This Past Week's Issues of The Daily Chronicle
Issue 104, Monday July 28th, 2025: The Evolution of Pro Wrestling 1985: Analysis of Cards Cards Presented on Sunday, July 27th, 1985
Issue 104 Monday, July 28th, 2025
Issue 105, Tuesday, July 29th, 2025: The Evolution of Pro Wrestling 1985: Analysis of Cards Presented on Monday, July 28th, 1985
Issue 105 Tuesday, July 29th, 2025
Issue 106, Wednesday July 30th, 2025: Community Update
Issue 106 Wednesday July 30th, 2025
Issue 107, Thursday July 31st, 2025: The Masked Marvel Unmasked in 1935, Triple World Unification Match, Mahoney vs George in 1935, 1988: Hogan vs Andre in a Cage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Issue 107 Thursday, July 31st, 2025
Issue 108, Friday, August 1st, 2025: 1972: The Death of Ray Gunkel
Issue 108 Friday, August 1st, 2025
Issue 109, Saturday, August 2nd, 2025: The Life and Career of Leo “The Lion” Newman
Issue 109 Saturday, August 2nd, 2025
Time Tunnel Podcast This Week: Personalities, Territories, Towns and Buildings
Episode 16: The Passing of Hulk Hogan with Tony Richards, Steve Gennerelli and Jake Hamar
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History
Jim LaRock placed second in the 1950 NCAA Wrestling Tournament at 165 pounds. He was a member of the wrestling team in the 1952 Olympics. He was an AAU Champion from Ithica College representing the New York Athletic Club at 160.5 lbs in 1952 and 1953. LaRock was broken into Professional Wrestling by Ohio Promoter Al Haft and he had his first pro match on January 1st, 1954. He held the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship while working for LeRoy McGuirk’s Tri-States Wrestling in Oklahoma in 1958 and LaRock also had the honor and distinction of have the very first match on the St Louis wrestling program, Wrestling at The Chase, a time limit draw match with Mighty Atlas (Morris Shapiro) on May 23rd, 1959.
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!
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