June 3rd in the Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Ed Don George 1903
Jack Welch 1905
Ed McLemore 1905
Ivan Rasputin 1912
Tiger Tasker 1913
Happy Birthday:
Steve Olosnoski\Steve O (72)
The Blade\Braxton Sutter 1980 (44)
Jade Cargill (33)
Red Velvet (33)
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.
William Muldoon 6-3-1933 at the age of 88
Dory Funk, Sr 6-3-1973 at the age of 54
Cassius Clay\Muhammad Ali 6-3-2016 at the age of 74
Perro Aguayo 6-3-2019 at the age of 73
Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling Flashback
54-Year Flashback 6-3-1971 Crazy Luke Graham & Tarzan Tyler defeated Dick the Bruiser and The Sheik in the finals of a tournament in New Orleans, Louisiana to become the inaugural WWWF World Tag Team Champions.
Let's have a quick history of tag team championships in the WWWF prior to the World Tag Team Titles.
This is a bit confusing but the primary company that promoted wresting, Capitol Wrestling Corporation was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance in 1957, and it was decided that they would utilize a Northeast version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship as both their primary tag team belts and also a recognition of their NWA affiliation. These tag team titles were deactivated in 1961, when they started promoting the use of the NWA United States Tag Team Championships. They had these titles in the company from 1958 through 1963. The first NWA US Tag Team Champions in the Northeast in 1958 were the fabulous team of Don Curtis and Mark Lewin, they traded two runs each back and forth with The Golden Grahams, Eddie and Dr Jerry in one of the most remembered and revered tag team programs of all time.
Capitol Wrestling seceded from the NWA in 1963, at which time, they formed the World Wide Wrestling Federation, or WWWF and the NWA US Tag Team Titles became the WWWF United States Tag Team Championships. In 1967, WWWF World Champion Bruno Sammartino teamed with Spiros Arion to defeat The Sicilians, aa team comprised of Lou Albano and Tony Altimore, on July 24th, 1967, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I'll never understand this kind of booking, unless the whole point was to get rid of these tag team titles, because the WWWF rules were then invoked of only one championship per wrestler and Bruno was not going to drop the World title, so the tag titles were abandoned. So, again, I am not sure if they booked themselves into a corner, or if this was just a way to kill the tag belts and I have a hard time understanding why you would do either?
There were no tag team titles in the WWWF then for two years until 1969 when The Rising Suns, Professor Toru Tanaka and Mitsu Arakawa arrived wearing the WWF International Tag Team Champions, which they claimed to have won in Tokyo, Japan in what we believe to have been a mythical non-existing tournament, which was supposed to have occurred in June of 1969. These titles then became the primary tag team titles until 1971. Here's an interesting statistic, there were eight different championship reigns over a slightly less than two-year period of 1969 to 1971. There were seven different teams who held the titles, The Mongols (Bepo & Geeto) had them the most times with only two reigns, although Geeto Mongol actually held it three times, once with Johnny DeFazio. Bruno Sammartino & Dominic DeNucci held it the shortest at only two weeks. These WWF International Tag Championships were last held by Geeto & DeFazio on December 18th, 1971, when they defeated Crazy Luke Graham & Tarzan Tyler in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hold that thought right there.
Pictured: Crazy Luke Graham and Tarzan Tyler w/Mgr Lou Albano, first WWWF World Tag Team Champions
That brings us to today's match flashback and event, which was a "kayfabe match and event" designed to provide an opening storyline for the new WWWF World Tag Team Titles, just as they had done for the WWWF International Tag Team Titles when Tanaka & Arakawa showed up in 1969. Although this is the date that has always been established as the origin of this original lineage of the titles, there is no record of this match, or these wrestlers having had this match in reality. One might suppose it’s a bit of a rib by Vince McMahon Sr on both Afflis and Farhat since they were in the beginnings of a wrestling war over Detroit at the time in 1971 and perhaps he thought it would be funny to have them be tag team partners and be defeated by his new tag team champs. Just like the WWF never held a tournament in Brazil for the Intercontinental Title or Women's Tag Team Titles in Cairo, Egypt, this never happened except in storyline on WWWF television.
On November 12th, 1971, Graham & Tyler defeat The Mongols for the WWWF International Tag Team Titles in Pittsburgh. Now, Luke Graham and Tarzan Tyler hold both the WWWF World Tag Team Titles and the WWWF International Tag Team Titles simultaneously. You would have thought the easiest thing to do was then to just retire the International Tag Titles. But no, they lose them to Geeto and Johnny DiFazio on December 18th, just 36 days later. In another weird turn of booking and creative, I can only guess that the belts were being negotiated as part of the property of the Pittsburgh market of the WWF. The shareholders of Capitol Wrestling and the WWF then spun off the Pittsburgh local promotion to the new NWF Wrestling Federation, which was based in Buffalo, New York by Pedro Martinez. The International belts went to the NWF until 1972, when they were deactivated. The National Wrestling Federation (NWF) operated from 1970 until 1974, when it went out of business.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History:
In June of 1939, Bronko Nagurski defeated Lou Thesz to become the National Wrestling Association (NWA) World Heavyweight Champion. He would hold the title until March of 1940.
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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