May 5 in the Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Billy Two Rivers 1935
Wally Yamaguchi 1958
Happy Birthday:
Cowboy Bill Watts (86)
Vickie Otis/Princess Victoria (63)
Chad Patton (49)
Brooke Hogan (37)
Tommy Warsaw Jr\Bear Boulder (35)
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.
Edwin Bibby 5-5-1905 at the age of 56
Randy "Pee Wee" Anderson 5-5-2002 at the age of 42
Millie Stafford 5-5-2008 at the age of 81
Valiant Debut
*On a special note, Happy Anniversary of his debut in the Professional Wrestling Business to "Handsome" Jimmy Valiant, who made his debut 61 years ago on this day in Pro Wrestling History, May 5th, 1964, at the St. Andrews Gymnasium in Chicago, Illinois.
Select Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling Match Flashbacks:
50-Year Flashback
5-5-1975: NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jack Brisco and Dory Funk, Jr go to a 60-Minute time limit draw for the title at the Show Palace in Phoenix, Arizona
*Tony Note: This match was the premiere money-drawing match both in terms of selling tickets and match quality. Not many matches before or since can match with the match quality of this one. The thing about Brisco and Funk Jr is they had multi-variations of their match. If you never saw some of them, modern fans might think "oh man, they are doing that match again", but these two guys were such great storytellers in the ring, they threw in multiple subtle things through the contest to make it different. Also, but this time, they had been wrestling each other at least since around 1968, and they had variations on the match depending on whether Funk Jr was the champion and a completely different match if Jack was the champ. They had at least 15 or 20 different finishes for their matches, even different finishes on the time limit draws.
In my upcoming book "The Life and Times of Dory Funk, Sr and the West Texas Wrestling Territory ", I take a deep dive into the Amarillo's involvement with Arizona. Doc Sarpolis and his investors actually bought the Tucson booking office in the late 1950s and they spent a couple years booking their Amarillo talent into the Arizona towns on Tucson, Phoenix, Mesa, Flagstaff and Tempe, even though that was 700 miles away from the office on two-lane roads through the desert. They ended up selling it back to the guy the bought it from, Rod Fenton. The next time they tried to run Arizona was in 1970 during Dory's World Title run, putting their television tape into the Arizona markets. This move actually led to Ted DiBiase getting interested following his stepfather’s footsteps in the wrestling business. DiBiase saw one of the Amarillo tapes on television while he was attending school in Arizona. Also, there's a fresh new Braintrust in the Amarillo office including the brother of Dory Funk, Sr, Herman Gust, Dory Funk Jr, Jerry Kozak, Ray Stevens and Ricky Romero are all helping guide, direct and run the office. They expanded into Idaho in April and now they are back in Arizona, as it's obvious these guys have big plans for the territory.
50-Year Flashback
5-5-1975: Danny Miller defeats Bob Sweetan (CH) to win the NWA Tri-State Brass Knuckles Championship at the Civic Center in Monroe, Louisiana
Pictured: Danny Miller with the NWA Tri-States North American Title
*Tony Note: As I have noted in previous issues and podcasts, Bill Watts left Florida as the booker for Eddie Graham's office in Tampa to come back to his home territory. He had some ownership points in the office in Tulsa and to lure him back home, McGuirk increased that ownership plus agreed they would buy out their other partners, Verne Gagne and Fritz Von Erich. Watts started moving chess pieces around on the board immediately, inserting himself into the A-Towns, bringing in Dick Murdoch, Ronnie Garvin and Waldo Von Erich to bolster the roster, plus get a better building for Tulsa shows and re-arrange the house show loop to produce more revenue. Watts immediately put his majority focus on Louisiana, especially the big four weekly towns of Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Monroe and Alexandria. Later in the year, he will do some renovation to New Orleans, but that adjustment was slow, and being a smart businessman, he started with the easiest first starting with switching Shreveport and Alexandria to Tuesday night towns, moving Monroe into the coveted Monday night slot. The next thing was to make the fans in Monroe feel important by doing title changes there. This being the first of two title switches this month in Monroe.
According to Al Getz "Charting the Territories 1974-1976 LeRoy McGuirk Wrestling Almanac", the Bob Sweetan and Danny Miller program was not in the top 15 feuds for 1975 in the territory.1 However, Bob Sweetan was the most utilized wrestler in the territory for the time period and Danny Miller was number 7 overall. Sweetan was definitely right behind Scandor Akbar, the current NWA North American Champion as the number one heel booked by the office and this is a clear attempt to move the very capable veteran, Miller up the pyramid giving him basically a B-show main event title to bolster his credibility by defeating the rugged and tough Sweetan. This is a particularly exciting time for me in this project, as having the luxury of hindsight, I can see the beginnings of Watts maneuvers and what they will eventually lead to, although I don't believe he had thoughts of breaking away this early in the relationship.
Pictured: Cowboy Bill Watts
40-Year Flashback
Friday 5-3-1985: Ted DiBiase and Steve "Dr Death" Williams defeated The Rock & Roll Express for the Mid-South Tag Team Titles at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas
Pictured: Ted DiBiase and Steve Williams, Mid-South Tag Team Champions
*Tony Note: Fast forward 10 years in the same territory and the same Bill Watts. It's difficult when you do this research, and you attempt to figure out when the top of the business occurred. 1984 was no doubt the hottest year Mid-South Wrestling ever had or will have in its life cycle. In May of 1985 things in the professional wrestling business continued to shift. Jim Crockett Promotions has now been on the nationwide broadcast channel of Superstation WTBS-TV17 from Atlanta. Less than a year ago, Watts had been on the Superstation as well when there was no Crockett to be found. TBS had the Saturday Night show with the WWF, Saturday morning Championship Wrestling from Georgia show with Ole Anderson and his Georgia promoters, and a Sunday afternoon show that showed the highest ratings for wrestling, which was the Mid-South television show. Ted Turned had given assurances to Bill Watts (whom he met while Watts booked Georgia in 1973) that he had a firm business relationship and there were at least overtones that Watts would someday end up with the Saturday night slot. Except, Jim Crockett paid Vince McMahon a handsome one million dollars for the time slot, which made Turner happy to rid himself of McMahon's arena wrestling, because Ted wanted a studio show. One condition Crockett got in the deal was he was going to be exclusive wrestling on WTBS. He didn't want anyone to do to him what he was about to do to McMahon, Watts and Ole. I have to admit, historically I have been critical of Jim Crockett Jr's business acumen, but I have to give him credit for that one. In the back of my mind, though, Jim Barnett is lurking and could have suggested that move to Jimmy. Perhaps?
So, that's the situation which leads us back to this match. What's special about this Friday night match in 1985 and the next one we will flashback to on the same weekend on Sunday? Two amazing talented tag teams are losing titles in two territories to go to the one who just got on WTBS. The Rock and Roll Express had been one of the catalysts and driving forces to the best business year Mid-South ever had, and now five months after the end of that year, they are pulling up stakes soon, although this program with DiBiase and Williams rolls on for another 5 or 6 weeks. If you've seen this match, you may have noticed an awkward finish to it. Ricky and Robert hit the Double-Dropkick on Dr Death while the referee is distracted trying to separate DiBiase and Morton in the babyfaces' corner. DiBiase and Morton trade blows until DiBiase gets knocked down and the referee pushes Morton back toward his own corner. Gibson catches Williams in a roll up, but while the ref's back is turned handling Morton, DiBiase loads his glove and clocks Gibson who sells like he's been shot with a cannon. He literally flies off Williams. The ref turns around to see both men down until Williams struggles to cover Gibson, Morton standing there looking right at the pin, hesitates to come in and break it up, Williams and DiBiase win the belts while the Houston crowd goes nuts. The reason I say it looked awkward is, if you were watching it for the first time on broadcast television without the benefit of rolling it back or watching it again and again, you might think they were going to use that clip to turn Morton heel. The hesitation was like he didn't want to make the save for Gibson, which could be pointed to later in a heel promo. Alas, that didn't happen though and maybe I'm the only person who has ever noticed it.
40-Year Flashback
Sunday 5-5-1985: The Fantastics (Fulton\Rogers) defeat The Midnight Express (Condrey\Eaton) to win the American Tag Team Championship in two rings with Jim Cornette having to sit in a chair next to Little John at the second World Class Championship Wrestling Parade of Champions Event at Texas Stadium in Dallas (Irving), Texas.
*Tony Note: Speaking of peak years, World Class may have had theirs in 1983 or early in 1984. Many fans have bought into the narrative if David Von Erich had lived in 1984, he would have gone on to win the NWA World Title and the Von Erich Kingdom would have reigned supreme for years upon years. I do not argue that if David would have not died, World class would have had a longer stretch of success, I believe that to be true. Just as I disagree with the "Magnum TA was going to be NWA Champion at Starrcade 1986" people, I don't think David being champion was so sure a thing. This actually ties in with the overall similar theme of these two important historical matches. The National Wrestling Alliance was shifting and changing just as much as the territory system and the television landscape. Jim Crockett Jr was slowly and meticulously taking over the National Wrestling Alliance. At the close of 1984, the booking office network, known as the territory system, was at its weakest point in history since its beginnings, therefore since the NWA membership roster was made up of the owners of the booking offices consequently that made the NWA the weakest it had ever been since its beginnings. Also, one of the historical kingpins of the organization, Eddie Graham had tragically committed suicide on Super Bowl Sunday of 1985, leaving a huge chasm in the workings of the cooperative and system. Fritz had already had his day politically in the system when he became President in 1975 and the wild success, he had in his Dallas office with the rise of his sons had made him even more wealthy as a wrestling promoter, but perhaps less effective in the NWA workings. Bill Watts, the other power broker with some stroke was not a member of the organization, choosing to withdraw in the latter 1970s before he broke off from McGuirk and never perused membership although he did use the World Champion and did attend the conventions. After the 1983 meeting and his own promotions' success, he had decided he didn't need the NWA, and the NWA didn't need him. Muchnick abdicated long before and officially retired New Year's Day in 1982.
This leaves Jimmy Crockett, who had served as President in the past and really, no matter who held the top position, he was the most powerful promoter, who also had the most powerful television slot in the country and after seeing World Class have a run in 1983, Mid-South in 1984, he was in the beginning stages of his own best run in company history, and he was about to acquire two of the best tag teams in the nation to fuel it forward. This is what makes this daily newsletter project so interesting for me as a historian, storyteller and writer, looking at the changes occurring in the 20-year spectrum of 1965 to 1985 and following up on the work so many have done to add to the documenting of it. I first saw Jimmy Cornette on Jarrett's television show, I think in 1981 presenting Lance Russell with some kind of award. Even though we are close to the same age and grew up in the same state during the same time, I never interacted with Jim or met him, even though I am sure we were both in Evansville, Indiana at the Coliseum on several Wednesday nights in the 70s and early 80s, or perhaps at a Madisonville, Kentucky show or three. Many people have differing opinions on Jim, but I am proud of him and what he accomplished growing up in our state. In just three years in the business, he is perhaps one of the three or four best managers in the business by this point.
Pictured: one of the World Class Tag Team Title Belts
Fast forward to 1988 and Dusty Rhodes would book this tag match program for the first half of the year. Even though this show drew a tremendous 25,153 fans to the show, they weren't seated in any consolidated manner, meaning people were scattered all over the huge stadium with a lot of gaps in the seating. Also, I don't know how the taping was set up as far as crowd microphones, but the match doesn't seem to have much heat until almost 3/4 of the way through, then the crowd starts getting into the match. Condrey actually gets the pin with the referee calling for the bell, Mark Lowrance hinting that "this may not be over yet" and rather than re-starting the match and allowing the babyfaces to get the win, the referees simply took the belts and gave them to The Fantastics, declaring them the new World Class Tag Team Champions. I despised this finish in 1985, and I still dislike it today. This is the kind of booking that really put a dent into the momentum of World Class. They never used Cornette and the Express correctly and as I pointed out a few issues back, they could have put more butts in seats in Texas Stadium using the Express against the Von Erich family in a prolonged feud. The Express are off to Crockett land and their timing could not have been better. This card had Kevin Von Erich vs Ric Flair and Kerry Von Erich vs One Man Gang as the top two matches.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History:
Earl Caddock won the AAU National Title at 175 pounds in both 1914 and 1915 and was AAU National Champion at heavyweight in 1915.2 An amazing accomplishment as an amateur.
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 flashback on the Georgia Championship Wrestling Territory in May 1975 including all the recorded cards for the month, some special audio and video interviews on territory pro wrestling and more.
Al Getz, Charting the Territories 1974-1976 LeRoy McGuirk’s Okalhoma-Louisiana Wrestling Almanac
Mike Chapman, Legends of the Mat, Earl Caddock