HOT STATESVILLE SUMMER NIGHT OF WRESTLING

 July 14, 1967

STATESVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

The Card (and a good one)...

The COMMUNITY BASEBALL CLUB of Statesville (who gave the area citizens AA Baseball) sponsored their second wrestling card of the summer, and it was a great one.

The card's two top matches were both main event matches, with four of JIM CROCKETT PROMOTIONS' top tag teams at the time. And considering GEORGE BECKER & JOHNNY WEAVER were there, it included THE top tag team of the decade.

Specific memories I have of this show:

(1) Prior to the evening matches, Statesville was victim of a horrific summer thunderstorm, which threatened to cancel the show. Fortunately, the storm passed, and the skies cleared. On the down side, the ring had already been set up before Mother Nature struck with a passion, thus soaking the ring mat. As a result, all of the wrestlers had to work a bit slower than usual, to prevent a loss of footing during their matches.

(2) One of the mat stars wasn't entirely successful in keeping his balance. During the ROGER KIRBY / MUMMY bout, Roger gave THE MUMMY a hip toss, and the masked man's momentum (on the slick mat) took him under the bottom rope out onto the normally dirt infield (the ring was set up in the home plate area). This night the dirt was nothing but mud, an aftermath of the storm. The off-white outfit was from that point on, a soaked, slimy brown.

(3) At the point of the "BULLIES" match when THE INFERNOS won the second fall by kicking SWEDE HANSON with the loaded boot, SWEDE juiced. I freaked out because SWEDE would "bleed" for us in our little bitty town.

And to clarify the clipping where it says BECKER took a karate chop to the throat to drop the second fall of the main event - BECKER and SASAKI were the legal men in the ring. SASAKI applied a "stomach claw" hold on GEORGE. WEAVER entered the ring to help his partner, and CHUNG gave JOHNNY a karate thrust to the throat, preventing the save. BECKER submitted to the "stomach claw" hold.

A most memorable evening for me, certainly worth more than the $2.00 I paid for my ringside seat.

GEORGE, JOHNNY, RIP, SWEDE, and J.C. and THE INFERNOS in one night.

Great night.