April 21st in the Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam Birthdays Today:
Angelo Savoldi 1914
Pepper Gomez 1927
Axl Rotten 1971
Happy Birthday Today:
Vicki Williams (69)
Brutus Beefcake (68)
Orlando Jordan (51)
Nikki Cross (36)
RIP Memorial: We stop & remember those who passed on this day and gave themselves to the business for us, the fans. We salute you and thank you.
Black Angus Campbell\Rasputin 4-21-2005 at the age of 70
Ron Wright 4-21-2015 at the age of 76
Neff Maiava 4-21-2018 at the age of 93
Adam Windsor 4-21-2023 at the age of 41
Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling Match Flashbacks:
Pictured: Evelyn Stevens body scissored by Barbara Galento
Women's History Spotlight: 4-21-1969: Evelyn Stevens defeated Donna Christianello at the Stadium in Sydney, Australia
*Tony Note: One of the things I want to do with this publication is highlight some of the female wrestlers throughout history, especially for younger generations of fans who may have never ever heard of some of them. Jim Barnett and Johnny Doyle had only been in Australia for around five years at this point as were making tons of money as the promotion was a huge success running nationally in the four or five big towns every week. After Doyle passed away, the promotion got even stronger with Barnett fully in charge for the next five years. These two female workers brought their match to the tour for one week in 1969. Evelyn Stevens born in Tampa, but was raised in Nashville, Tennessee. Her real name was Evelyn Jardine Riegle, she debuted in 1961 at the age of 23, using the working name of Evelyn Stevens. She primarily worked throughout the Midwest and Texas as a heel through the 1960s and this was her first trip for Barnett to Australia. She held the NWA Texas Women's Title five different times. In 1978 in Dallas, she defeated The Fabulous Moolah for the NWA World Women's Title and held it for two days. This was a special angle by then-Dallas booker, Gary Hart. Hart always claimed there were no objections by Moolah to doing the short title-switch. Stevens had a relationship with Wahoo McDaniel at one point as was married to "The Spoiler/Super Destroyer", Don Jardine. After the couple divorced, she married a gym owner named Frank Reigle. In December of 1986, she was arrested for shooting him three times in the chest and face, killing him in their home in San Antonio. She was consequently convicted of murder and given a 20-year sentence but was given a pardon after five years. She made a brief comeback to wrestling in 1982 but retired for good in 1984 before her trouble with her husband began.
53-Year Historical Flashback 4-21-1972: Johnny Valentine won a Texas Death Match over Big Bill Miller at the Kiel Auditorium in St Louis, Missouri
*Tony Note: Johnny Valentine was a huge star by 1972, especially in the St Louis market. The man who could manipulate thousands of people in an arena, Kiel being no exception. The main event on this card was Harley Race vs Jack Brisco, a return match after their April 7th wild match, which was a six-man tag team elimination match that got down to those two wrestlers, but Valentine vs Miller was listed as the "co-feature" main event. Muchnick had a fondness of Valentine, due to his penchant for realism in professional wrestling. Muchnick didn't like the gimmick nature of Dusty Rhodes but preferred the opposite in Johnny Valentine. Valentine was over almost to the same extent in Houston for the same reasons. Valentine was still several months away from moving to Charlotte and with George Scott's innovative booking, blowing the Carolinas wide open. Valentine would have been the babyface in this match as Miller almost always worked as a heel, especially in St Louis rings. Whether or not, this was Pat O'Connor's idea for a Texas Death Match or something Valentine suggested from his feud in Texas with Wahoo McDaniel, it was almost assuredly a rough, tough affair. Pointing out the finer points of Pat O'Connor's booking at this time, he was excellent at booking returns for St Louis's schedule of two cards a month. Besides the Brisco/Race fracas on April 7th, Valentine and Miller had a wild and wooly bout, that ended in disqualification. For newer fans, classic Texas Death Match rules, invented in the Amarillo, Texas office included no time limit, falls do not count, the winner is when one man submits, concedes or in the opinion of the referee, cannot continue the match. The only illegal item is choking, which is not allowed by the referee. Besides the return match involving Valentine and Miller, Brisco and Race, also on this card was Rufus R Jones, another Missouri favorite vs Hans Schmidt, Blackjack Mulligan vs Wilbur Snyder and a tag team match with Bob Roop and Danny Miller taking on Bill Howard and Ronnie Etchison and another tag match with Dick The Bruiser and O'Conner facing Blackjack Lanza and Pak Song. Can you imagine attending a house show like that line up twice a month? Amazing.
50-Year Flashback 4-21-1975: King Curtis Iaukea (CH) vs Dan Kroffat in a Ladder Match for the North American Title at the Exhibition Auditorium in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
*Tony Note: Less than a week before this match, the first ladder match in the Kroffatt\Iaukea feud, which was Kroffat's original idea in 1972 in a match with Tor Kamata, took place in Red Deer, Alberta on Tuesday night, April 15th. The rest of the week, they did Lumberjack matches, but this week, they will do this match around the horn in Regina and Calgary. Mark Lewin, who came into the Stampede Territory with Iaukea, handled almost all their booking ideas and angles, but this was Kroffat’s brainchild, so they inserted this into the feud. Kroffat was more into storytelling than gore, which was what Lewin & Iaukea were into, so he may have wanted to do the ladder matches to give the territory a break from the blood and guts.
50-Year Flashback 4-21-1975: Ken Mantell defeated Scandor Akbar (CH) by DQ for NWA North American Heavyweight Title at the Fairgrounds Pavillion in Tulsa, Oklahoma
*Tony Note: In the video era, the majority of Akbar is his evil Arab manager gimmick in Oklahoma and Texas, but in the 1960s and 1970s, he was a top worker. He was the number one heel in 1974 and this early part of 1975 for LeRoy McGuirk, holding the Tri-States' version of the NWA North American Title almost all of 1974 through early May of '75. Mantell, who was holding the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship and Akbar had a great program going over the whole period, as well as a hot program with Buck Robley, who was the number two heel over the title. Robley had been hot for the last two years here and way being phased down. Akbar was in the last weeks of his title reign, so this match was squeezing the last bit of juice from the orange in the Mantell/Akbar deal and with Watts returning to Oklahoma to take the book, he was already starting to move chess pieces around on the board. Akbar had been the heel who had run Danny Hodge out of the territory in 1973, so when Mantell won the title from Hodge, it made for a good story for Mantell to avenge Oklahoma's hero and have a story with Akbar. As I said that program had run almost a year and a half off and of and was on fumes at this point, but they could get just a little more mileage out of it, especially here in Oklahoma. Mantell has two other guys he's been working with over the World Jr Title, The Wrestling Pro and newcomer, Ronnie Garvin. Much, much more on these feuds coming soon in a future issue of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Newsletter.
40-Year Flashback 4-21-1985: Chris Adams vs Kerry Von Erich at the Extraco Events Center in Waco, Texas
*Tony Note: More than likely, World Class had reached its apex the previous year with the David Von Erich Parade of Champions Memorial Show, when Kerry Von Erich defeated Flair for the NWA World Title. The boom period of the Dallas office was roughly from 1981 to 1986, really hitting rocket ship-type velocity on Christmas night in 1982 during the cage match that launched the Von Erich and Freebirds feud, then hit its peak in 1984, as I said with the David memorial event in Texas Stadium, then the slow, steady descent. Certainly, the crowds were still hot here in 1985, but the Freebirds had moved on to a failed attempt in the WWF, and a short stint in Florida, where they are at this present point in the timeline. Ken Mantell was the booker here now, and he had decided to turn the popular Chris Adams into a heel, and at one point, Fritz Von Erich and Mantell had considered changing Adams' name to coincide with the heel turn. Adams had been in a program with brother Kevin in later 1984, having a huge match with him in late October at the Cotton Bowl, which had a controversial finish with David Manning counting a pin on Adams, when he had lifted his shoulder off the mat, resulting in Adams ranting about collusion between Manning and Fritz, the territory owner. After the Cotton Bowl match, an angle was done with because Fritz felt that too many of the fans were still siding with Adams, so they did an angle where Chris clocked Kevin with a chair. Adams hit Von Erich hard enough to break the chair in half, opening Von Erich hardway and putting him in the hospital for two days. Kevin, of course had to get revenge by smashing a wooden chair over Adams' head, legitimately nearly costing him an eye, when a piece of the chair stuck in his nose, right next to his eye. Both guys complained to the office about both incidents and the wood chair aspect was tossed out of the program any further due to both guys getting hurt so legitimately. All this led to Adams teaming up with Gino Hernandez to form a tag team to feud with Kevin and Kerry culminating at the 1985 Cotton Bowl Spectacular. This house show match was part of the feud to enhance and further the storyline between Adams, Hernandez, Kevin and Kerry. The timing of the feud was such, that it put a ceiling on Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express, who surely could have done big business coming off their run in Mid-South if they had done something similar between Cornette and Fritz, ,as they had done previously with Watts, but there just wasn't enough room for that to happen and the Express was anxious to get on to a previously agreed upon start in Jim Crockett Promotions.
40-Year Flashback 4-21-1985: Dusty Rhodes defeated Abdullah the Butcher by DQ in a Bunkhouse Match at the Eddie Graham Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida
*Tony Note: When Jim Crockett Promotions took over the wrestling slots on WTBS in early April of this year, it gave them better audience penetration throughout the South. Whether Dusty felt guilty after Eddie Graham's death the previous January on Super Bowl Sunday after he had departed in late 1984 for Crockett County, or whether he really wanted to try and help the office in Tampa that made him one of the three biggest ticket selling national attractions of the 1970s or if Jimmy Crockett had ideas of taking the Florida state over, I guess we won't ever know for sure, but early on Dusty brought in guys from other territories and featured them on the new TBS show. In some ways, after Ole last few years and then the WWF, this made it feel a lot like the old Georgia Championship Wrestling show which had more guys coming in and out of the tv. Wrestlers you only saw in magazines could be seen on TV for the first time. Dusty had a feud going with Tully Blanchard over the Mid-Atlantic TV Title in the Crockett loop, while feuding with Abdullah in the Omni and Georgia loop towns, since they had drawn money with that program in Georgia previously. At this time, the territory was in real trouble, it was being co-booked by Dutch Mantell & Michael Hayes, and they were slowly getting the crowds back. Dusty had drawn huge money in Orlando for the previous ten years, so I'm sure with this match on top, this card drew some money for them. This is the recorded match finish, although I'm not sure how you get DQ's in a Bunkhouse Match gimmick, since it's "come as you are and bring whatever you want to the ring" rules in a Bunkhouse Match?
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History:
Burrhead Jones was wrestling Gentleman Ben the Wrestling Bear one night in Anniston, Alabama. The bear was old, sick and on his last legs when the match took place. Burrhead gave the bear a headbutt and the bear staggered back and fell. That got Jones' headbutt over like a million dollars as a high spot and finisher from them on in the Tennessee Territory.1
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 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.
p 106 The Wrestling Archive Project Volume 3: Classic 20th Century Mat Memories, by Scott Teal, Crowbar Press)