June 2nd in the Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Jim Crockett Sr 1909
Leo Voss 1912
Dr Timothy Flowers 1960
Happy Birthday:
Ron Mikolajczyk (75)
Lex Luger (67)
AJ Styles (48)
Velvet Sky (44)
Jacy Jayne (29)
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.
Don Voss\Ripper Savage 6-2-1995 at the age of 48
Freddie Blassie 6-2-2003 at the age of 85
Sandy Barr 6-2-2007 at the age of 69
Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling Flashback
50-Year Championship Change Flashback: 5-28-1975 Jerry Brisco defeated Bob Orton, Jr (CH) for the NWA United States Junior Heavyweight Championship at the Municipal Auditorium in Columbus, Georgia
I really wanted to get this title change into the daily newsletter last week, but the other commitments I had with doing the various podcasts we have at the Time Tunnel and also the prep work involved in the Jim Barnett Series for Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw as well as all the other projects just didn't allow me to put the time aside to do it, but I just got home from a quick 650-mile two day round trip to Kentucky and back to check on my Richards Ranch project as well as my Mom, and I thought about this on the way back, so here we go for today's newsletter.
I venture to say that the majority of fans today have never heard of the NWA US Junior Title. Fans who have seen Georgia Championship Wrestling television tapes from 1980 have probably seen Kevin Sullivan's run with the Georgia Junior Title that he won in a tournament in Atlanta defeating the infamous Eddie Mansfield in the finals. In Duncan and Will's Wrestling title Histories, they link that title to the one in our flashback today, even though there's no real relation other than they both are Junior Heavyweight titles controlled and booked by the Georgia Booking Office in Atlanta. The Duncan/Will History book lists Bob Orton, Jr as the champion in April of 1975 and then the title as vacant until the August tournament that Sullivan wins.
Pictured: Greg Peterson, the first NWA United States Junior Heavyweight Champion in 1964
Other records show the NWA United States Junior Going back to November 18th, 1964, when Greg Peterson was crowned the first champion when won a 3-way Elimination Match in Columbus defeating Dick Dunn and Don Carson. This would have been around the time that Don McIntyre sold his partnership points in the Atlanta office to Buddy Fuller making his partners with Ray Gunkel. This is significant because even though business was good in Georgia for McIntyre and Gunkel, the Fuller/Gunkel years were spectacular. Don Carson (Donald Gaston) was from Cleveland, Tennessee and a longtime young friend of the Welch family and so was Dick Dunn being from Nashville. Carson and Dunn had legendary feuds in the Welch owned towns in the South, so it only makes sense that Fuller was a partner by this point, because Buddy had brought several of "his crew" in to "pop the territory" with his new ownership stake involved. Peterson won the 3-way match and the NWA United States Junior Title having a long championship reign of 160 days before losing it to another longtime Welch/Fuller talent, Mario Galento in April of 1965.
And you thought 3-way matches started in ECW in 1993?
So, as you can see the NWA United States Junior Title was established and a well-respected championship through the 1960s and 1970s. As I have written here in the newsletter before, going back to the 1930s and 1940s, the Junior Heavyweight Titles had the same (or in some regions, like Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas) even greater standing than the Heavyweight Titles. Fans of that era really enjoyed the slightly lighter and smaller wrestlers who could really wrestle, so the Junior Champions were big draws. The NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title was created in 1943 by Pinkie George in Iowa, one of the founding fathers of the NWA and pre-dated its existence. In Tennessee, they created the Southern junior Championship and in West Texas, they had the Southwest Junior Heavyweight Title. Having this history of the Southern Junior Title in Nashville in mind, Fuller created this championship for Georgia. The upper limit for the weight class for most of the Junior Heavyweight Titles was 220 pounds. Generally, most of the Heavyweights weighed in anywhere from 240 to 260 or more. The NWA World Light Heavyweight Title, which was generally booked and controlled from Salvador Lutteroth's Mexico City booking office was early on set at 175 pounds but adjusted in 1952 to 200 pounds as Hispanic and Latin American performers were typically somewhat shorter in stature and lighter in weight.
Pictured: Bob Orton,Jr NWA Florida Heavyweight Champion in 1976
While I don't have a reliable source of information regarding Bob Orton Jr's weight when he debuted in 1972, taking into consideration his weight during his career peak around 1985 was 245 pounds, and Bob was six foot one. We do have video tape recordings of Bob at this period of time wrestling for Giant Baba in All Japan wrestling on the Champions Carnival tour in the Spring of 1975 and at 6-1, Bob looks lanky, so I believe we can assume he's either right at the 220-weight limit or maybe slightly below it. In 1975, at the time of this match, Bob is three years into the business having made his debut in December of 1972 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Jerry Brisco stands about 6-2 and typically wrestled at a weight much less than the 220 limit, usually weighing round 209-210 pounds. At this point in May of 1975, Jerry had quite a bit of experience on Bob, having made his debut back in 1967. In professional wrestling, the benchmarks of 5 years in the business and 10 years in the business (especially in the territorial days at this time) were recognized as about the point where you grew into being able to work, have a better grip on what you could do and couldn't do as well as what you should do and shouldn't do. At about the 5 years point, wrestlers that make it that long would have a breakthrough from entry level to a more advanced apprentice level with older veterans' taking an interest after 5 years to help some of the guys to advance. At this point of this championship match, Jerry has had his second breakthrough passing ten years, and Bob hasn't quite reached his first point of 5 years yet, still being 2 years short. Orton Jr does have the advantage many wrestlers do not, however, that he has a well-known and accomplished father in the business as a mentor, Bob Orton Sr. Jerry, on the other hand, has been sitting under the learning tree of one of the greatest World Junior Champions of all time in LeRoy McGuirk and also spending a lot of time in Florida learning from Eddie Graham.
Pictured: Jerry Brisco in 1977 in Florida Territory
Photo credit: Pete Lederberg
Why am I pointing all this out, you might ask?
With no video tape or film to watch, we have to speculate on the quality of this match. I'm attempting to suspend the recency bias we all have when evaluating anything by getting clarity on where these two wrestlers were in their careers in May of 1975. If we don't do that, we will think about them in terms of their ability on when we did see them on video tape, which most likely for most fans would have been the year 1983 in Jim Crockett Promotions when both were there in tag teams in programs for Starrcade and both were at the top of their games. They were not at that level in May of 1975 simply because they had more repetitions and matches by 1983 to sharpen their skillsets, but we can safely say that at this point in both of their careers, this was more than likely an excellent match because the territory was important, the title was over and important, both guys took an enormous amount of pride in their work and Columbus was the second most important town in the Georgia territory after Atlanta.
Jerry Brisco wins the match and the NWA US Junior Title on this Wednesday night in Columbus, Georgia. He will hold the championship for a couple of weeks before Orton Jr regains in in June of 1975.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History:
Greg Peterson's nickname was "Little Iron Man", his big move was the "claw attack" sleeper hold.
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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