April 24 in the Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Lou Thesz 1916
Alejandro Moreno\Blue Demon 1922
Happy Birthday:
Kevin Vaughn\Lance Von Erich (65)
Yugi Nagata (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.
Johnny Valentine. 4-24-2001 at the age of 72
Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling Match Flashbacks:
50-Year Flashback 4-24-1975: Red Bastien defeated Terry Funk at the Sports Arena in Amarillo, Texas
*Tony Note: Red Bastien was the booker for the Dallas office at this time, and Dallas and Amarillo were doing a lot of talent trades during 1975, especially with The Funks. Dory Dunk Sr had been gone for around two years at this time, but he taught his boys and Herman Gust, Dory Sr's brother, who also worked in the Amarillo office, a lot of political lessons he himself had learned from Doc Sarpolis. Fritz Von Erich who owned the Dallas office, always had a longstanding good relationship with the Funks, and he was going to be President of the NWA later this year. Terry wanted to be NWA World Champion, and the Amarillo office knew to make that happen, they needed to be close to Fritz, so both Funks worked hard in 1975 to help Fritz out. Earlier in 1975, in February, Terry & Dory Jr, who held the NWA International Tag Team Championships, dropped those titles to Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta in San Antonio, another big Dallas office town. Bastien, not only had a great booking mind, but also was a master of the ring, and Terry, who had been in the business for 10 years at this point, had developed into a master ring technician as well. Even though we don't have any video of this match, I'm certain we can assume it was a great one in Amarillo on this night.
50-Year Flashback 4-24-1975: Bob Remus vs Dutch Savage ended as a 15 min time limit draw at the Grand Theater in Salem, Oregon
*Tony Note: Dutch Savage was one of the most over babyfaces in Portland Wrestling at this time, and he had been absent from the market for a stretch. Bob Remus, who later would become the famous Sgt Slaughter, was a big, burly dude who could work even this early in his career due to being trained by Verne Gagne and Billy Robinson. Salem was the regular Thursday night town and I'm sure this match delighted the fans to see Remus get some beating from Savage. These are the kinds of matches I like to highlight in this newsletter that fans of historical wrestling may not have noticed or even knew existed.
50-Year Flashback 4-24-1975: Guy Mitchell & Ormand Malumba defeated Buck Ramstead & Dale Lewis at the Memorial Arena in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
*Tony Note: Malumba worked a lot in the UK and Europe and was most prominent in North America here in the Vancouver Territory. Ge and Mitchell were the tag team champions during this run at one point. I heard a story about Malumba that he carried a voodoo doll with him in his bag backstage. Moondog Moretti would get the doll out if his bag, while Malumba wasn't around, and he would put bandages and band-aids on the doll's forehead and put tape and a blade on his fingers. When Malumba would come back to the locker room and. found the doll he was suspected Moretti but could never prove it was him that did it.
42-Year Flashback: 4-24-1983 Super Sunday Show in St Paul, Minnesota, it appeared Hulk Hogan had beaten Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship.
*Tony Note: This decision was later reversed due to Bockwinkel being thrown over the top rope. Being denied the championship led to Hogan leaving for the WWF. The fans went wild when they believed Hogan won the title, Hogan was over huge from the Rocky III movie appearance. On the following week's AWA television, Gene Okerlund announced that Stanley Blackburn, AWA President, had made the decision to give the title back to Bockwinkel. This angle led to Hogan being receptive to Vince McMahon's offers to defect to the WWF and the rest is history, and so was the AWA. Most historians agree it's decline started here or soon hereafter. Coming soon on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast, my guest will be Brian Ferguson, the author of the Verne Gagne biography, and we discuss this match and angle at length and speculate on what Verne was thinking at this time when this decision was made. When you watch this match on video, the huge St, Paul crowd was popping huge for the match and the finish, thinking Hulkamania had begun in the AWA, only to be disappointed a few days later. This booking also really hurt Jim Crockett promotions later this year as well. The pro wrestling landscape was changing fast, especially from a technology point and things that had worked for promoters and bookers to manipulate the emotions of the fans that had worked in the 1960s and 1970s were becoming dangerously outdated and ineffective in the mid-1980s.
40-Year Flashback 4-24-1985: Jim Brunzell, Greg Gagne & Jerry Blackwell defeated The Road Warriors & Paul Ellering at the Arena in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
*Tony Note: When you think about the Road Warriors and how big of an attraction they became, it's hard to believe it was fifty years ago, because in my mind, it all seems like yesterday. Brunzell and Gagne had been a tag team on top in the AWA for over ten years at this point, Blackwell had about ten year’s experience working in bigger wrestling operations. He had been over in Southern territories, but he was really over as a babyface here. It's a little crazy to realize they beat the Warriors here, but I'm sure it was Ellering who took the pin for the team. For the next four years, Hawk and Animal would be the biggest, most over tag team in the world. The Russian team of Ivan and Nikita, both the Express teams, the Fantastics, the Von Erichs, the Freebirds, they would all be huge in the 80s, but none had a worldwide impact like the Warriors.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History:
Dutch Savage was involved in real estate for many years after he retired from professional wrestling. He also did some play-by-play sports announcer work for a wrestling promotion in the early 1990s, but he eventually retired from that as well. He ran his own website that featured the history of his career (ducthsavage.com). He also hosted a television program called "Dutch's Corner", where he taught the bible on a public-access television channel in Portland, Oregon. He suffered a stroke on April 13th, 2013, and died later that year on August 3rd.
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 Pro Wrestling events, matches 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.