BAD BOYS! BAD BOYS!

                                                                       July 28, 1969

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

PARK CENTER is a great venue for professional wrestling as proven over the years, but the building may not be able to handle the action tonight when two of the very roughest and brutal tag teams (and constant rule breakers) in the business collide head-on in the evening's headline attraction.

In what has to be billed as a BATTLE OF THE BULLIES, the skin headed duo of BRUTE BERNARD and SKULL MURPHY clash with wrestling's 'BLONDE BOMBERS' RIP HAWK and SWEDE HANSON. Sympathies to whichever referee is assigned the job of officiating this two-out-of-three falls contest. One may describe the match as two locomotives colliding at breakneck speed.

BRUTE BERNARD and SKULL MURPHY

RIP HAWK and SWEDE HANSON

EL LOBO

ABE JACOBS

JOHNNY HEIDEMAN

ROCK HUNTER

LES WOLFE

More tag team action is in store for fans attending tonight when the popular duo of New Zealander ABE JACOBS and his youthful partner LES WOLFE face the rugged ROCK HUNTER and his masked partner EL LOBO. No one seems to know the identity of EL LOBO, and if HUNTER actually does, he isn't talking. This is also a best-of-three falls match.

Two singles matches will open the 8:15 card when JESSE JAMES takes on TOM BRADLEY and the youngster MATTI SUZUKI faces veteran tough guy JOHNNY HEIDEMAN.

HOMER O'DELL

 

MASKED SUPERSTAR vs MR. WRESTLING

 

RED HOT CROCKETT RINGS

 

One of THE MASKED MARVELS * takes down BOBBY KAY. 

'JUNGLE' JIM STARR (one of the un-MASKED MARVELS) gives DANNY MILLER a ride around the ring by dragging him by the hair.

PAUL JONES crushes the skull of THE MASKED SUPERSTAR (BILL EADIE) **

SONNY FARGO clamps his version of a headlock on PEDRO GODOY.

One chop to the noggin' of 'PLAYBOY' GARY HART, courtesy of 'Chief' WAHOO McDANIEL.

JOHNNY WEAVER 'crowns' OLE ANDERSON.

---

* THE MASKED MARVELS did a short stint with JIM CROCKETT PROMOTIONS in the early 1970s. The MARVELS were actually THE INTERNS, who came to the MID-ATLANTIC territory without their manager, DR. KEN RAMEY. RAMEY was not asked to join them due to the abundance of 'heel' managers already in the area.

** Note that PAUL JONES' hair is shorter than he normally wore it during this time. This was due to THE MASKED SUPERSTAR's taking the shears to PAUL's head in a previous match, to set up a long-term program. But, according to BILL EADIE, PAUL didn't want to go around with an ugly butchered-like haircut, so he went to a barber shop and had it all 'evened-up'. It killed the angle. BILL wasn't happy.

 

 

THOSE INFERNAL INFERNOS

 I make no apologies for throwing the spotlight once again on these guys for a number of reasons:

They could really work in the ring.

They really drew heat.

And I just plain liked them!

THE INFERNOS made several passes through JIM CROCKETT PROMOTIONS in the mid-late 1960s, and each time, went straight to the top of the card, feuding with not just the top 'babyface' teams, but also a number of the other 'heel' duos as well.

THE INFERNOS set every wrestling territory they worked in on fire!

Often, J.C. DYKES was forced to join his men in the ring as pictured here in a match against a team headed by EDDIE GRAHAM.

The helpless referee tries to no avail to prevent THE INFERNOS from double-teaming a hapless opponent.

THE INFERNOS
(These are the originals - Manager J.C. DYKES (left), ROCKY SMITH (center), FRANKIE CAIN (right).

Looks like things didn't go well for J.C. on this night.

JOHNNY WEAVER is at the mercy of one of the masked maulers.

One INFERNO memory I have occurred in the late 1960s one summer night at the old semi-pro baseball park in Statesville, North Carolina.

DYKES and his men were making their approach to the ring for their main event match. J.C. was wearing a brown paisley tuxedo jacket. Some idiot, out of nowhere like Ruby on Oswald, threw a large cup of Coca-Cola right in the manager's face and all over the jacket, then like the fool he was, took off running towards the center field fence (where there was no escape - the fence was at least ten feet high). Duh!

Both INFERNOS took off after the goof. Whichever wrestler was wearing the 'loaded boot' actually got to him first, tackled him in the outfield and started slugging him. His masked partner was right behind and began beating the **** out of the poor guy with the metal canteen DYKES always carried to the ring.

Eventually, the local police (60-inch girths and all) made it to the outfield and relieved the wrestlers of what was left of their attacker and escorted him out of the ball park and took him to the local police department, where I'm sure he spent the night at the expense of the citizens of Statesville.

 

 

DEBUTS OF ANDERSONS AND KLONDIKE BILL

                                                                     JULY 9, 1966

LEXINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA

57 Years Ago

Fan favorite JOHNNY WEAVER gets another crack at the SOUTHERN HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP when he meets title holder THE MISSOURI MAULER in tonight's LEXINGTON YMCA pro wrestling two-out-of-three falls main event.

It will be a rematch of a thriller here several weeks ago in which the MAULER was able to hang on to his title only by a thread.

WEAVER employed his famous "sleeper hold" for what would have been the deciding fall, but he was outside the ropes, and the brutal (and fortunate) champ was allowed to retain his belt when the referee was forced to disqualify WEAVER.

JOHNNY has promised a different outcome tonight.

In the evening's tag team battle, the popular duo of ABE JACOBS and RUDY KAYE will meet LARS and GENE ANDERSON, a rugged twosome from Minnesota, who are making their Lexington debut.

This match is also for two-of-three falls.

Another big man of wrestling, Kodiak, Alaska's KLONDIKE BILL, also makes his first appearance here when he faces the tough veteran EL GAUCHO in one of two supporting bouts.

The 8:15 opener will send two bullies, IKE EAKINS and TONY NERO, against one another.

 

 

ROCK HUNTER - HUMAN OR VAMPIRE

   

A vampire is a fictional being...or is it?

MID-ATLANTIC WRESTLING fans might have disagreed back in 1972. Some might have been convinced there was a vampire-like wrestler in JIM CROCKETT PROMOTIONS who got as much pleasure drawing blood from his opponents as Count Dracula himself.

The wrestler was ROCK HUNTER.

MR. HUNTER enjoyed making two men in JCP suffer more than any others...KLONDIKE BILL and NELSON ROYAL.

"KLONDIKE 'FATSO' BILL and 'COWGIRL' NELSON are my two favorite victims," said HUNTER (not me). "Why? Because they're the easiest. They don't have a brain between them. Wrestling them is like having a night off."

Fans (including me) would disagreed. I loved BILL and NELLIE.

ROCK would continue boasting, "I'd wrestle them both in a handicap match, but none of the promoters would allow it...I had to get a partner, so I picked my friend MATTI SUZUKI. We got our match in Asheville, N.C."

NELSON and KLONDIKE before the start of the Asheville, N.C. match.

"SUZUKI took care of the Alaskan goof, so I could concentrate on ROYAL, my victim of the evening. I beat on him until he could no longer stand."...ROCK HUNTER

"Then I applied my 'squeeze' hold on that Texas noggin'. I squeezed and squeezed until..."

"His head popped open like a melon. Oh, it was beautiful. That cowgirl never knew what hit him."

Maybe ROCK HUNTER couldn't count that night, but the referee could. And when ROCK refused to break his 'squeeze' hold at five, he and partner SUZUKI were disqualified, and KLONDIKE BILL and NELSON ROYAL were the winners that Asheville night.

COWBOYS AND BOMBERS

                                                                           May 21, 1966

LEXINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA

57 Years Ago

Wrestling fans will get a chance to witness a rematch between the teams of TEX McKENZIE / NELSON ROYAL and RIP HAWK / SWEDE HANSON at the LEXINGTON YMCA tonight.

Demands for the return came after the popular Texans lost a disputed match to the BLONDE BOMBERS last Saturday night. It has been contended that HAWK used the ropes in an illegal manner to produce the decisive fall when ROYAL was in position to win it all for his team.

The two-out-of-three falls tag match highlights the card which also contains the following other matches:

Newcomer PAUL DEMARCO meets veteran tough guy IKE EAKINS in the semifinal.

KARL GOTCH takes on CORSICA JEAN, while two other newcomers, RAY GARDINI and KEN HOLLIS, clash in the 8:15 opening match of the evening.

LET'S GO TO THE MATCHES

                 Let's go to the MID-ATLANTIC WRESTLING events coming up in your area...

GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA - 1969

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA - 1972 *

* DAVID FINLEY was the name DAVID CROCKETT used when he wrestled.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA - 1969

ROANOKE, VIRGINIA - 1974

ROANOKE, VIRGINIA - 1969

NELSON, SWEDE and ANDRE

 

COWBOYS and DEMONS and GERMANS, Oh My

                                                                   October 29, 1966

LEXINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA

TEX McKENZIE

KURT and HENRY VON STROHEIM

NELSON ROYAL

MASKED RED DEMON

EL GAUCHO

JESSE JAMES

ANGELO MARTINELLI

The torrid Texas team of TEX McKENZIE and NELSON ROYAL will return to the LEXINGTON YMCA tonight after a lengthy absence and will run head-on into the tough German brother duo of KURT and HENRY VON STROHEIM in the evening's main event. The Germans are on a hot streak, and the cowboys will do all they can to put a halt to their opponents' winning ways.

McKENZIE's towering 6 foot 9 inch, 290 pound frame, coupled with ROYAL's 230 pounds, gives the heroes a weight advantage over the brothers, who combine at 504 pounds. But the VON STROHEIMs are rugged, intelligent and down right mean. The best two-out-of-three falls clash should be a great one.

Another dangerous combo, the MASKED RED DEMONS, tangle with two more Texans in the persons of JESSE JAMES and KEN HOLLIS in the best-of-three falls co-feature. JESSE and KEN are fan favorites but will have their hands full as the DEMONS are tearing up all competition, fresh from a victory here last week over RIP HAWK and SWEDE HANSON, and that's no easy feat. The identities of the MASKED RED DEMONS remain an unsolved mystery.

Supporting matches pit a bright newcomer JIM OSBORNE taking on veteran JAN MADRID, and the 8:15 first match will find rugged EL GAUCHO against ANGELO MARTINELLI.

JOHNNY & ART BATTLE THE ROYAL KANGAROOS

 

After nearly a decade as the top tag team in JIM CROCKETT PROMOTIONS, GEORGE BECKER and JOHNNY WEAVER were no more. In the early 1970s, Becker left JCP and soon after started his own wrestling organization, going head-to-head with the company he had led for the past twenty years.

During the 1950s and 1960s, George Becker beat The Great Bolo, Pancho Villa, Bull Ramos, Rip Hawk, Homer O'Dell, Skull Murphy, Bronco Lubich and every other opponent he faced.

But George couldn't beat Jim Crockett, and the Becker wrestling empire never came to be.

Meanwhile, JOHNNY WEAVER remained as Crockett's top babyface, for a while anyway, much to my delight. But he needed a partner to replace Becker.

That partner came as Argentina Apollo. But it didn't last very long, as Apollo wanted to leave the wrestling business to paint (pictures, not kitchens). And he did. He eventually opened an art gallery in my hometown of Statesville, North Carolina.

The Weaver / Apollo team's biggest feud was probably with Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson, who, at the time, were managed by 'Playboy' Gary Hart.

I attended the match in Greensboro in which Hawk and Hansen "injured" Apollo's leg. It was this same night that Weaver's nemesis ART NELSON (Neilson) became Weaver's friend and new tag team partner.

A short time later the man from the Argentine wrestled Rip Hawk on WGHP-TV's CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING program. As Wally Dusek made the ring announcements, I thought to myself that this is going to be a great match. Apollo getting "payback" for Hawk's hurting his leg.

Wrong. A total squash match with Rip using the piledriver on Apollo in the middle of the ring, followed by a clean pin.

Then I realized that Apollo was done. The next time I saw him was at his art gallery, when he made it pretty clear he didn't want to talk wrestling. He was an artist, not a grappler.

So now, JOHNNY WEAVER and ART NELSON were tag partners. This didn't last that long either, but during their time together, J&A had some great feuds with the likes of HAWK & HANSON and the return from Georgia of THE ASSASSINS (Jody Hamilton and Tom Renesto) and a new team to CROCKETT territory, THE ROYAL KANGAROOS (Lord Jonathan Boyd and his cousin Norman Frederick Charles III).

These men from "down under" were as mean, rough and nasty as anyone I had ever seen. They went through opponents like, what was it General Patton said, "crap through a goose," and it seemed no one could beat them.

So it was time to send the Roos against Johnny and Art, who had defeated The Bolos (Assassins) for the Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship.

So I trucked down to Charlotte's Park Center that Monday night to see Johnny and Art put a whoopin' on those big-talking Australians.

I sat in disbelief as The Royal Kangaroos, with the aid of skullduggery and a couple of wooden boomerangs, beat Weaver and Nelson in two STRAIGHT falls. Johnny and Art didn't really get in the groove. In short, they took a whoopin'.

I thought to myself that this was the end of JOHNNY WEAVER as the King of Crockett Promotions, but it wasn't. Looking back, I now see that this match I saw was just getting the Kangaroos over as a real threat to everyone.

Weaver and Nelson would go on to battle these ruffians for months all over the territory, with the Brass Knucks trophy as the prize.

Eventually, Lord Boyd, cousin Norman and even Art left JCP. But Johnny Weaver remained, so all was still right with the wrestling world.