June 16th in the Chronicle:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Bonnie Watson 1932
Sweet Daddy Siki 1940
Paul Jones 1942
Dale Hey\Buddy Roberts 1947
Jim Hellwig\The Ultimate Warrior 1959
Happy Birthday:
Ted Arcidi (67)
James Fullington\The Sandman (62)
Gzim Selmani\Rezar (31)
Jack Perry\Jungle Boy (28)
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.
Alberto Torres 6-16-1971 at the age of 37
Select Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Match Flashbacks
54-Year Flashback
The Death of Alberto Torres
6-13-1971: Cowboy Bob Ellis & Alberto Torres (CH) vs Ox Baker & The Claw (Tom Andrews) for the Midwest Tag Team Titles at the High School in Verdigre, Nebraska
Alberto Torres was one of a trio of one of the hottest & biggest drawing babyface teams of the 1960s.
Pictured: Enrique, Ramon and Alberto Torres
The Torres Brothers. That name was spoken of by almost every wrestling fan in the state of Georgia at one point while the Torres Brothers were embroiled in a bitter and hot feud with The Vachon Brothers, Butcher, Stan and Mad Dog that drew packed houses to the City Auditorium in downtown Atlanta, Columbus, Macon, Augusta, Savannah and towns all across the state.
Enrique Torres was already in the business and had been a World Champion when his younger brothers, Alberto and Ramon begged him to help them get into the wrestling business. Enrique was willing to offer a hand as long as the two siblings agreed to put in some serious work by learning to wrestle amateur style, which was a prerequisite among talents who wanted to excel more as a worker than a gimmick performer and Enrique always envisioned his family to be more workers than gimmicks.
After joining the local YMCA in San Francisco and competing as amateurs, Enrique agreed to introduce them to become professionals. Beginning their careers in their home state of California, it didn’t take long for the brothers to get over wrestling up and down the West Coast.
Here is a match with Alberto and Ramon in Los Angeles in 1964.
Video: Alberto & Ramon Torres vs Mike Sharpe & Art Mahalick, Los Angeles 7/8/1964
As does happen in the wrestling business, once the word gets out to bookers and promoters that you can draw money and crowds, the Torres Brothers started receiving bookings throughout the National Wrestling Alliance, including bitter programs in Florida with Duke Keomuka & Hiro Matsuda and the German Nazi team of The Von Brauners.
The Torres Brothers made their debut in Georgia for Ray Gunkel & Buddy Fuller in the Summer of 1966. They got off to a hot start by beating the lead heel tag team and their manager, JC Dykes and The Masked Infernos on June 17th for the Georgia Tag Team Championship. Once that program ran its course, they were on a collision course with the mean and vicious Vachon Brothers. Fans during this time period often said the Torres Brothers were the fastest team they ever saw work in the ring. Their timing and speed were a thing of beauty. After the Georgia run, Enrique retired in 1968 which left Alberto and Ramon in the tag team.
Pictured: September 1969 Wrestling Revue
In late 1969,Ramon and Alberto began going their separate ways, wrestling as singles or in tag team with other performers. Alberto was very successful during this time frame working for various territories.
Alberto Torres debuted for the Omaha booking office on April the 3rd of 1971 at the High School in Hamburg, Iowa in a match against Mark Starr. Alberto has finished up a successful fun in Jim Crockett Promotions, often in a tag team with Tommy Siegler. Torress finished up with Crockett on the last day of March in Asheville, North Carolina, then headed west for Omaha. Transitioning between regions of the country was something Alberto had done since getting into the wrestling business always partial to his home state of California, where he had a primary residence at the time. Working in various wrestling territories, he stayed in motels or apartments during his run, occasionally taking time off to go home to California for a break.
Omaha Owner and Booker Joe Dusek paired Torres up with Cowboy Bob Ellis as a tag team pretty quickly in a program on television against the Midwest tag champions, Ox Baker and Rock Rogowski. Rogowski would later be known as Ole Anderson.
Ellis and Torres won the tag team championship from Baker and Rogowski on the first house show match. The title change happened on April 24th at the Civic Auditorium in Omaha. It was a two out of three-fall bout which lasted almost 26 and a half minutes.
Pictured: 6/12/1971 Omaha, Nebraska World Herald
Omaha was a Saturday night town and on June 12th, the champions defended the titles against Baker and Ali Ben Khan successfully, the same team they would face the next day in Verdigre. Interesting in that most NWA promoters, especially in the Midwest like Omaha and the South didn't run shows on Sundays. In most of those markets, the blue laws were still in effect and most stores were closed on Sundays and people didn't work or go do any kind of entertainment outside of what the local church provided like a revival meeting with music and singing. Only on rare occasions did those promotions have Sunday cards. Nevertheless, the Verdigre, Nebraska spot show was on a Sunday. Vertigre was 173 miles northwest of Omaha and 189 miles due west from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, giving you some idea of how far it was for Torres to be taken back to the hospital in Omaha after the match.
Interestingly enough, while doing research for this piece, I noticed Torres was, in fact, booked to defend the tag titles with Ellis against Ali Ben Khan and Treach Phillips, according to newspaper ads, five days later on Friday, June 18th in Grand Island, Nebraska. As promoters would often do, one or two of the tag match wrestlers would wrestle a single match to open the card. Torres was booked to wrestle Treach Phillips that night in the opening match. This ad gives us the idea that Ellis and Torres weren't losing the tag straps any time soon.
It's not entirely clear how long Alberto had been ill. After the match, Torres was complaining of pain so badly, he was taken back to a hospital in Omaha. Doctors at the time once they had examined him thoroughly, believed his conditions had existed for some time before he finally went to the hospital as a result of the injury he sustained in the match. The pancreas was malfunctioning as was so damaged, Torres condition worsened over the next three days until he finally succumbed to the illness and died.
Pictured: 6/18/1971: Columbus, Georgia Ledger Inquirer
The events that happened before that match and after the match are almost unbelievable.
According to Ox Baker, Joe Dusek told him, "We just put Alberto Torres in the hospital for a cracked pancreas, we want to say you threw the heart punch in Saturday night's match and you knocked him down and hope that dirty Mexican doesn't get out of the hospital." So, Baker cuts a promo, "You know The Mexicans are so out of shape, I didn't even hit him that hard and that put him in the hospital. I hope he don't get out."1
Baker received a call on that Tuesday that Torres' pancreas had split open and he died. The wrestling media, along with bookers, promoters and wrestlers playing the "wrestling telephone game" about the events until the story morphed into "Ox Baker Killed Somebody in The Ring."
The truth is, Ox Baker never even touched Alberto Torres. Tom Andrews, working under a mask as a hated heel, The Claw was actually the one in the ring when Torres first took the shot that accelerated his conditions and made him sicker. So, Dusek used the interview of Baker's and also instructed Andrews as The Claw, to go on television and brag about the punishment and injuries they had inflicted on Alberto Torres. Up until that time, Dusek had been drawing 4,000 to 4,500 people to the cards, but the death of Alberto, the rumors of the devastating effects of Baker's "Heart punch", coupled with the terrible interviews Baker and Andrews were doing on television created enough heat on them in the territory to boost the crowds up over 6,000 and more for the next several weeks of drama following Alberto’s death.
Ramon Torres, not being there when the match happened or around to know Alberto was sick for a period beforehand, was pretty convinced Baker had, in fact injured Alberto and refused to work with him for any more matches in the ring. Dusek broke everyone up into singles programs. Cowboy Bob Ellis stepped up to work with Baker and they had a violent and bloody program for several weeks after with Ellis eventually using boot spurs to open up Baker's head some nights.
Andrews worked as The Claw in a match with Ramon, who beat him and unmasked him as revenge for his brother. Andrews says he felt terrible about participating in the whole thing. The match with Alberto, the interviews and subsequent angle. He knew he didn't really have anything to do with Alberto's death, but what he did and said on television really caused him to do some soul searching about what he was doing for a living.2 After his face was shown under the Claw mask, Andrews moved on to join as one of The Interns team, under a new mask, with Dr Ken Ramey to go on a very successful run once Andrews replaced Billy Garrett in the team.
Baker went on to even more legend after being in a match with Ray Gunkel the very next year in Savannah, Georgia in 1972, after which, Gunkel fell over dead in the dressing room from a deadly heart attack. Again, the wrestler rumor mill kicked in, blaming it on Baker's heart punch, which was never the case in either situation, but it probably added more years to Baker's career.
Ramon Torres went to on a few more years in his career in professional wrestling and in 1972, he won the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship working for LeRoy McGuirk in Tulsa.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History:
Alberto Torres won his first tag team championship with his brother Enrique in March 1958, winning the NWA Texas Tag Team Titles. He and Ramon would win the WWA Tag Team Titles in 1964. He and Enrique won the Hawaiian Tag Belts in 1965. For the first tag team championship he held outside the family, he teamed with Thunderbolt Patterson to win the WWA Tag Titles in LA once again in February 1966.
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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Ox Baker shoot interview, Title Match Network
Tom Andrews, Better Known As An Intern and The Claw, Dies by Greg Oliver, SLAM Wrestling 9/2/2020