June 17th in the Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Mario Galento 1915
John Wilson\Kurt Von Brauner 1918
Luis Martinez\Apache Lou 1923
Happy Birthday:
Herman Stevens, Jr\Clarence Mason (60)
Minoru Suzuki (57)
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.
Reed Detton 6-17-1975 at the age of 69
Joe Murnick 6-17-1985 at the age of 69
Steve Finley\Buddy Wayne 6-17-2017 at the age of 50
Dave Hebner 6-17-2022 at the age of 73
Select Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Match Flashbacks
40-Year Flashback: 1985
6-17-1985: The Fabulous Ones (Lane/Keirn) defeated Ron Sexton & Billy Joe Travis to win the AWA Southern tag Team Championship in a tournament final at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee
This one-night tournament in the Mis-South Coliseum in Memphis included some really great teams. Some of the teams are Jerry Lawler & Nick Bockwinkel, The PYTs (Ware/Austin), The Batten Twins, Tommy Gilbert & Jerry Bryant, there are ten teams in all. The Semi-Finals matches come down to Jerry Lawler & Nick Bockwinkel getting defeated by DQ by Ron Sexton & Billy Travis putting them in the finals and in the other bracket, The Fabulous Ones defeated this version of The Sheepherders, which was Jonathan Boyd & Rip Morgan. How they won the match will be explained on television the following Saturday. When it comes to Memphis in this era, you have so many people contributing booking ideas, it's difficult to attribute something directly to the Booker of record at the time. I suppose since they are the one gathering all the ideas, and they are the ones who are pulling things together and explaining concepts to talent, you still have to give it to them, but who knows where all the ideas are coming from at this time in the Memphis Territory.
Pictured: The Fabulous Ones, AWA Southern Tag Team Champions 1985
Whether it was the official Booker, Tom Renesto or Jerry Jarrett, or Eddie Marlin or one of the boys, the way they set this up was really sharp. Tom Renesto, who had been an original member of one of the greatest tag teams of all time, The Assassins, had hung up his mask and boots in 1972. He became the booker of ABC Booking in Georgia until Ann Gunkel either left or was kicked out, depending on which side of the fence you want to be on, and he went to book the All-South Wrestling Alliance. Once the Alliance folded or was booked out of business, depending on which side of that fence you want to be on, Tom was welcomed back to the NWA office by Jim Barnett to be his booker. He had a very successful run there from 1975 through most of 1976 when he left to come book for Nick Gulas after he and Jerry Jarrett split and became two companies and territories in 1977. Once Gulas closed down in 1980, I am not totally sure what Tom did for that 5-year period between 1980 and 1985, but he came to work in Nashville again, this time for Jarrett. Jerry Jarrett tried very unsuccessfully to step back into only the promoters' shoes several times but most of the time, the people he hired to book for him do not work out.
They don't draw nearly the houses or generate the excitement on the television end of things that Jarrett can do. Whether it was Robert Fuller in 1979 or Tom Renesto here in 1985. Only when Jarrett, or one of his trained protégées such as Jerry Lawler, Ducth Mantell or Bill Dundee was doing the booking, the territory generally fell into disrepair and Jarrett had to return. For instance, Jerry Lawler's big singles opponent here in Bota the Witch Doctor. Bota..well...he didn't last long. And..to be fair..Bota looks like he could suspiciously be a Lawler creation to be honest. I'll have to give Renesto credit for setting up this program between The Fabs and the Sheepherders, cleverly beating Boyd and Morgan in the semi-finals in the Coliseum to set up an angle on television next Saturday. The Fabulous Ones beat Travis and Sexton in the finals to win, believe it or not, their 11th Southern tag reign.
6-22-1985 The Sheepherders (Boyd\Morgan) defeated The Fabulous Ones (Lane\Keirn) (CH) to win the AWA Southern Tag Team Championship at the WMC-TV5 studios in Memphis, Tennessee
The show at WMC opens with Lance and Dave at the desk with Boyd and Morgan coming out to protest Lance announcing that the Fabulous Ones would be on the show today in a non-title match. Boyd then tells the audience that the match at the Coliseum in the tournament was decided by a coin flip not a pin fall. Boyd criticizes the management of the Territory saying this is no way to run a championship sport and the Sheepherders should get a legitimate chance at the titles on TV today.
Pictured: The Sheepherders, Jonathan Boyd & Rip Morgan interviewed at WMC-TV in Memphis, Tennessee by Lance Russell
Lance explains the match on Monday night at the Coliseum that the match had gone to a 60-minute time limit draw and since they didn't want to eliminate both teams, they decided the advancing teams by the coin toss. Before we get to the inevitable match, we get a real treat, Jerry Jarrett and Tojo Yamamoto wrestle in the opening match on the show. For an old long-term Tennessee Territory fan, it was so good to see this legendary, popular tag team together again even if it is against enhancement talent that they goozle pretty quickly. Jerry has always said he missed the ring and how much he enjoyed working from time to time and it's probably good for the boys to see him working sometimes.
Floyd Crteatchman III is a new manager in the territory presenting himself as an attorney and sports agent. People criticize the booking in Tennessee generally as not being sophisticated but in this changing time of player's unions and contracts and salaries in professional sports, I think it's actually pretty progressive presenting a wrestling manager as a sports agent\lawyer. Did you see this anywhere else? The only bad thing is, he is representing Bota the Witch Doctor, which is not long for this show. Creatchman is pretty good here in his role in my opinion. This leads to a confrontation between Lawler and Creatchman for the angle and match with Bota.
After Lance promotes some matches including a title match this coming Monday night against the PYT team of Koko Ware and Norvell Austin, pretty clever swerve by Renesto in itself to not telegraph the coming match and title switch, once Russell finished selling the matches, the Fabulous come out to be interviewed and they proclaim they will put the titles up on television today against the Sheepherders.
The match progresses on television and it's a bloody affair especially for TV. Steve Keirn takes a heck of a beating from Boyd in particular, doing an amazing babyface sell job. Boyd busts Keirn open using the Sheepherders' flagpole. At around the in the finish, Boyd clobbers Keirn in the back of the head by swinging a heavy object of some kind over his head and knocking Keirn out with it, allowing Morgan to pin him for the win and the titles.
Tom Renesto and Eddie Marlin come out and grab the belts out of Boyd and Morgan's hands and tell them they can't have the titles, while Boyd argues the referee's decision is final in every match. This brings Creathman out to present evidence that the Sheepherders should be defended and the rightful titleholders. Al this argument leads to Stan Lane coming out for an interview with Lance Russell saying he has spoken to Jackie Fargo, the Original Fabulous One and he has changed his plans of vacationing in Florida to come back and helps Stan and Steve get revenge on The Sheepherders.
6-17-1985: US Express (Barry Windham & Mike Rotunda) defeated The Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff to win the WWF World Tag Team Championship at the TV Tapings at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, New York
While I wouldn't consider them one of the greater "working" tag teams of the 1980s, Volkoff and Sheik did get plenty of crowd reaction and heat for the time in 1985. If you get a chance to watch this match on YouTube, you can see the consistent crowd buzz and reaction around their various antics, whether it's their national anthem at the start of the match or things they do during the match.
On the other hand, Windham and Rotundo are a very good working tag team and probably should be much more respected as one of the better teams of the 80s. The match lasts just around 5 minutes as Sheik wraps up Rotundo, but Windam comes into the ring while the referee is dealing with Volkoff, and he rolls Rotundo and Sheik over in the hold outing Sheiks shoulders to the mat for the pin as the referee turns in time to make the count. Nice pop by the Poughkeepsie crowd when the US Express wins back the tag titles.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History:
The Dettons were a professional wrestling family from the Idaho and Utah areas. Joseph Detton, known by his middle name "Reed" was the older Detton brother and captained the University of Utah's wrestling team in 1929-1930. In 1931, he trained with Anderson and the Deseret Gymnasium Team, and then turned professional later in the yea, wrestling mainly as a welterweight on the undercard of shows that featured his brother, Dean as the World Champion and Wild Bill Longson. He moved to Hawaii, where he lived for 40 years and wrestled occasionally on shows in Honolulu. A year and a half after returning to the mainland, he was killed in a tractor accident in California. Reed Detton is on my wrestling birthday list today. Reed's brother, Dory Detton was the 3rd "Father of Amarillo Wrestling" and was the one who took the Amarillo Booking Office and organized the 18 towns around Amarillo into what became known as the West Texas Wrestling Territory in 1946.
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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I remember well seeing Volkoff and Sheik as a new fan at WWE house shows for the first time in this time period you covered here. The loud booing from the crowd at the mere sight of them is one of my lasting memories from live events, period, regardless of the year. What year(s) and promotion would you consider the peak of Volkoff's wrestling career in terms of where he was booked on the roster? I had no idea at the time I first saw him that he was already a well-seasoned veteran by 1985 and been around long enough to wrestle Bruno Sammartino.
This is probably the peak for him right here. He did wrestle Bruno but he was still relatively unknown and probably got over as a heel against Sammartino in 1974 due to the fact people thought he was Russian and how big the Ivan Koloff program had been. But think about this, after the Sammartino match in 1974, Volkoff went to the AWA and they didn't even use the Volkoff name. You would think if it were that big of aa deal, they wouldn't have called him Boris Brenikoff. It's on my list of questions to ask George Schire when we do my podcast on AWA 1975.
But during his run in Mid-South his star was rising and it was peaking here then I think his arc was headed back down by the time he faced Hogan a couple more times. When we are kids and we start watching wrestling, it just never occurs to us that anything happened before we started watching unless someone refers to an event in an interview or something, only later on do we take a longer view. It does make me chuckle sometimes at some o the younger podcast hosts who also compare and contrast based on where they started watching then backward...rather than taking the longer view and compare and contrast going forward. Just the other day, one of them was saying they had discovered Haystacks Calhoun and how he was just like Hillbilly Jim.
I was in the car and talking to the dashboard of my car..."No, Hillbilly Jim was just like Haystacks Calhoun, not the other way around!" LOL