Dr. Death David Schultz on Morton Downey Jr. Show

[Senser81]

Dr. Death gets upset on Morton Downey's show when Aussie pro wrestler Jim Wilson alleges homosexuality is rampant in pro wrestling. This is from the 1980's, and basically everything Wilson said ended up being proven true.

Thought this was funny, yet interesting.

[EmpireWF]

Wilson was a former football player (University of Georgia and SF 49ers) and was apparently a rising star in pro wrestling until (allegedly) a known homosexual booker named Jim Barnett made advances towards him. Wilson declined and he felt he was blackballed. He tried to form a pro wrestlers union at some point, too.

He helped write a pretty famous book called 'Chokehold' that was negative on pro wrestling.


Here is his Meltzer's write-up on him following his 2009 passing:

 

If you looked at his career inside the ring, Jim Wilson would be considered little more than a trivial name in pro wrestling annals.

A former All-American college football player who had an undistinguished NFL career, he was recruited into the sport and teased with future stardom. But the reality was, Wilson was a poor performer and got a reputation as a complainer or a clubhouse lawyer. If he was a money draw, his reputation would have been as a stand-up guy, as that’s the difference in perception. But since he wasn’t, he was never a major star and ended up being far better known after his career was over for vocally complaining about the system.

Wilson passed away from cancer on 2/2 at the age of 67.

He spent years talking with congressmen trying to get pro wrestling regulated in Georgia, ultimately being blocked at every turn by the wrestling establishment. He lived out his life, believing his chances of success in both wrestling and life were being destroyed at every turn by his arch-nemesis, legendary wrestling promoter Jim Barnett. He blamed Barnett for his career in the ring going south, losing non-wrestling jobs and many of things in his life that went badly. He claimed that by turning down a sexual advance from Barnett, a well- known homosexual promoter, while on a tour of Australia, it took him out of line from winning the NWA world heavyweight championship, a viewpoint almost nobody would agree with. Wilson was definitely looked at when he first started by the NWA’s power brokers, but by the time he toured Australia, he had already garnered a reputation for being a completely forgettable wrestler, and in no way, based on his bookings, by that time, did it appear anyone saw him as superstar material.

He also blamed Barnett for destroying his career with the NWA, and eventually being blacklisted. He blamed Barnett when his own attempts to start a wrestling company in competition with the NWA failed, and certainly Barnett, his competitor, would have been a major factor in screwing with him at every turn on those attempts. And he would blame the power of Barnett and Ted Turner for getting to the state politicians whenever he would get a supporter to introduce a bill to regulate wrestling, which was undoubtedly true.

He was the subject of numerous media stories on problems in the industry, wrestlers being underpaid based on the revenue they drew, not having a union, being told to cut their foreheads with razor blades and being abused and spit out. In Georgia, he had credibility with some in the media, particularly those who remembered him as legendary football coach Vince Dooley’s first All-American at the University of Georgia. He, at times, after nobody in the NWA would use him and between indie runs, would go to matches and make sure people knew he was there, even though he was not part of a show. He would go to NWA shows and pass out fliers in the parking lot for his opposition events to the chagrin of the NWA side. He even, for a time, picketed shows, garnering area publicity for all of those things. He sued the alliance twice, and was well known as a thorn in the side of Barnett.

He co-wrote a book, with Weldon T. Johnson, a Chicago sociologist who taught criminology and sociology at several universities, called “Chokehold,” in 2003. It was part autobiography and part a very important historical look at the formation and power period of the National Wrestling Alliance, complete with previously unpublished finds of a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the industry in the 50s. The autobiography was generally criticized as him overstating his case as a wrestling star, But the book was valuable in publicly revealing previously sealed reports from an investigation of the NWA, plus information learned from discovery in his own lawsuits against Georgia Championship Wrestling. It also contained his personal knowledge of so many behind-closed-doors aspects of the stock maneuverings as well as dirty tactics of the famous Georgia wrestling war of 1972-74.

Wilson had few allies in his fight to do things like starting a union and getting wrestling regulated, and his battles with Barnett and Georgia Championship Wrestling became an obsession. The struggle cost him his home and his family, and later in life in his book he noted one of the reasons he wrote the book, which he never expected to make money with, was to explain to his six children why things wound up as they did.

In some ways, he was on the side of right in an industry where that made you wrong. Whether he understood it or not, the wrestlers of that era for the most part, like today, didn’t want to buck the system and risk their careers by starting a union, even though virtually all wished there was such a thing in place after their careers were over, when they struggled, often with no job skills, while their contemporaries in baseball, football and basketball, while not having it great, did have it substantially better. Wilson, spending several years in the NFL, couldn’t come to grips with the differences, seeing wrestlers as overall underpaid and had seen the positives of the work the NFL players had done in the battle to be unionized, even though the NFL union for years was criticized as being weaker than the baseball union and thus, there was a lower salary structure even though football was the more popular of the two sports.

But, even those who could see the future simply didn’t see Wilson as the guy they wanted to lead their union.

His detractors would note that he overstated his case, and his public story of being blackballed out of the business for refusing sexual relations with Barnett sounded suspicious to many since Barnett did have a business reputation for not mixing business with pleasure. All the wild stories about Barnett’s life that Wilson recounted, which sound exaggerated, were similarly stated in a book about Barnett’s dealings with a college football program in Kentucky when he ran a wrestling promotion out of that state. Privately, Barnett even bragged about them to a far greater degree to his few trusted close friends than even Wilson, his mortal enemy in life, wrote. Barnett denied the stories to everyone else, and was still alive when Wilson and Ole Anderson’s books came out. He claimed to have read neither, but was hurt more by it being written he was gay, than what most would take as far more serious accusations about embezzling money, cheating on payoffs and taxes, swerving, deception, and the underhanded means described of his gaining and maintaining power in the industry.

Barnett was always leery over his being gay getting out, feeling people would look at him differently, even though everyone in wrestling was aware of it.

But in that era, if you could draw money, you could find a place to work. In a business that was, in fact, racist in many places, Wilson claimed the success of Bobo Brazil as the top African-American babyface star was because he was a good “boy” (as much a business term for the workers then the racial implications some may see with the word, although the “N” word was used openly as a business term for African-Americans by many promoters and wrestlers in that era) who went along with the system, and did well but ultimately still was underpaid. Brazil’s stardom in wrestling was not because he didn’t complain, although that did make him more popular with promoters, but because nearly everywhere he went, he was a major drawing card. Ernie Ladd was hard for promoters to deal with, but he was one of the highest paid and most in demand wrestlers in the business during his heyday.

And it worked both ways. Promoters complained about Herb “Bearcat” Wright and Claude “Thunderbolt” Patterson, who both were charismatic and could draw, but often played the race card in battles with the NWA when they were out of the mainstream. Still, both were able to find regular work even after doing things that would have gotten a marginal wrestler tossed out of the business many times over.

Wright was actually the first African-American to win a major world title, capturing the WWA title in Los Angeles from Fred Blassie in 1963, nearly three decades before wrestling history celebrates Ron Simmons with that distinction. Wright was a tremendous drawing card during a hot period for area wrestling. When it came time to drop the title, Wright continued to refuse to do so. Blassie, who considered himself good friends with Wright, talked his way into getting the title that Wright continually refused to drop to Edouard Carpentier, who the office kept asking him to lose to.

On December 13, 1963, Wright agreed to lose the title to Blassie. Blassie was weakened from being hospitalized either with broken ribs or coming off appendicitis, and noticed Wright was forcibly working stiff with him, powering him around and not allowing him much offense. Then, as both men were fighting outside the ring, Wright, who had pro boxing experience, sucker punched Blassie, knocking him out. He climbed back in the ring. Blassie couldn’t get back in even with the ref counting as slow as possible and the ref had no choice but to declare Wright the winner via count out.

The end of the story was that a few days later, a rematch was booked and Wright was in the ring waiting for Blassie. Suddenly, to the ring, came Gene LeBell, the office shooter. Wright knew the score and left the ring, with his belt, grabbed his things, didn’t change, got in his car, and drove out of town. LeBell was declared the winner by forfeit, although on television, it was announced that Carpentier, who the promotion wanted to win the title in the first place, was awarded the title when Wright no-showed a title defense. But the point is, after all that, Wright got regular work all over the world, usually on top, and a few years later, even worked for Mike LeBelle (editor’s note, Mike LeBelle and Gene LeBell are brothers, the sons of long-time boxing and wrestling promoter Aileen Eaton, however Gene dropped the “e” in the spelling of his name), because that was the nature of the business when it came to someone who could draw.

Patterson through the years had similar problems, stemming from claiming he was flat out that because of his skin color, he would never be considered to be NWA world champion. Patterson was charismatic to be sure, but there were others more charismatic, and the NWA in that era always used a great worker who could have classic matches and had the ability to make the local stars look like world beaters as well as carry themselves in the right way as champion. Patterson was never close to being that guy, as he was very limited as a worker, didn’t bump much and had to be carried by a great worker to have a good match. Plus, he was bitter because Rhodes used his shtick and became a far bigger star than he ever was. He had refused to do a job when Terry Funk was world champion on a big show in Atlanta that had a monster house. Later, he went to California, but neither Shire nor Mike LeBelle would hire him.

This led to Patterson, Wright and Ron Pope aka Magnificent Zulu (a poor worker noted for having huge, muscular arms, and who had been working for Shire, but didn’t get over and was poorly paid) joining forces to protest the treatment of African-Americans by the two leading California promoters. They complained to both the NAACP and the California State Athletic Commission, and got some media coverage. Most damaging was that testifying wrestling was fake in the newspapers didn’t help business, but even worse, their pressure caused, for a short period of time, the California State Athletic commission to order an announcement that had to be said at the open of every televised wrestling show.

“The following wrestling exhibitions are for entertainment purposes only, and the winners and losers have been selected in advance by the promoters.”

That incident was so strong that even though Patterson could draw, no promoter would touch him. At that point Patterson was reduced to working as a night watchman and janitor in the offices of the Los Angeles Times. When Patterson returned to Georgia, and couldn’t get work in Barnett’s promotion, he filed a complaint with the EEOC in the state, but the EEOC, after speaking with Barnett, who listed a series of documented complaints against Patterson, including no-showing a world title match before a big house because they wouldn’t give him the title, and was unreliable, caused trouble and then blamed his problems on racism, the EEOC wouldn’t proceed any farther.

Patterson, who was Wilson’s tag team partner in the media, in lawsuits and in protesting, still was brought back over-and-over in Georgia, because he could draw, and to get him to stop his public protesting, well into the mid-80s when he could barely move and his once vaunted interviews had become some of the worst in the profession. And in the end, Patterson was a strong catalyst behind the scenes in the lawsuit against WCW by Sonny Onoo and a number of minority wrestlers that ended up costing Turner Broadcasting millions, making people like Onoo, Hard Body Harrison and Bobby Walker rich men. In that case, it was true racial words were still being spoken by key people in a Turner-owned company. But the Turner side buckled because, on average, white wrestlers were being paid more than African-American wrestlers and Harrison and Walker were never given a shot at being more than jobbers. Then again, few believed they had the ability to be anymore than that, but that was a hard case to win in court when you had enough witnesses giving depositions about the major decision makers using racial slurs, because the wrestling from offices were often decades behind society when it came to those type of subjects.

In the end, that lawsuit led to Booker T getting multiple world title reigns in the dying days of the promotion, and brother Stevie Ray being all over television as a color commentator, with contracts of $750,000 to $900,000 per year at a time when Ric Flair was only earning $500,000. When Wilson was in the media, on television news reports, when he would state his case, he would come across like a wrestler doing a promo, and not necessarily a good one, which may have worked okay on Saturday mornings when he taped his interviews when he was a wrestler, but in the real world, made it hard to take him seriously. And he already had a strike against him trying to talk about conditions of wrestlers, a group of people the media and public didn’t take seriously.

Perhaps he truly believed the Barnett story on why he was never the star that, say, Wahoo McDaniel, who had a similar football background, was, although there were better football players than he was who, for a variety of reasons, also never made it in wrestling. Perhaps he used it as a crutch for the fact his career in wrestling wasn’t successful, even though he was a better athlete than most in the profession at the time. And his reputation for balking at doing jobs, and outright refusal to blade may have really been what killed his NWA career. While big stars in that era got away with both, he acted like he was a big star who should have been put over in main events, but those who saw him in his time frame never saw him as anything but marginal at best talent. Having seen him wrestle numerous times in that era, the best way to describe him was a guy who was totally forgettable, a well below average worker with no special charisma, whose only claim to fame is that he had real football credentials.

Wilson was a first-team All-American as an offensive tackle on legendary coach Vince Dooley’s first year at the helm of the Georgia Bulldogs in 1964. Even though college football had gone to the two-platoon system (players didn’t play on both offense and defense) years earlier, Wilson was a throwback, averaging about 50 minutes a game, starting as both an offensive and defensive tackle. He led the team to a Sun Bowl win over Texas Tech, and was part of the College All-Star team that played the NFL champions Cleveland Browns in what was a traditional game at Soldier Field in Chicago in that era. It was an incredible All-Star team that year, featuring such names as Gale Sayres, Dick Butkus, Roger Staubach, Bob Hayes, Fred Biletnikoff, Ralph Neeley and Ken Willard, all of whom became NFL superstars. Largely due to his play in his senior year, he was voted in 1975 to the University of Georgia’s all-time team, as well as its all-decade team in the 60s, and in 2001, was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. Wilson blamed his being inducted in 2001, instead of 25 years earlier, on making too many enemies by taking on the wrestling establishment.

Dooley once described Wilson as “the strongest player I’ve ever seen,” although Wilson, a running back in high school, admitted using Dianabol to get his size up when the coaching staff at Georgia asked him to convert to the line.

Because he had redshirted in college and the NFL and AFL drafts (the leagues at the time were competitive and somewhat at war) allowed teams to pick players four years after they had entered college, he was eligible for the 1964 draft. Even though he had a year of eligibility in college left, which meant he was less of a sure thing to sign than a player whose eligibility had ended, he was the 43rd player picked in the NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers. He was the 109th player picked in the AFL draft, by the Boston Patriots. If he didn’t sign and went back to college for his senior year, both teams secured what were considered his future rights.

He came back for his senior year, and then signed with the 49ers, making the NFL All-Rookie team in 1965 as a 6-3, 258-pound offensive guard, which was decent size for a lineman in that era. He actually had signed an undated secret contract with the Patriots, and collected a bonus, before his senior year, which would have made him ineligible, but this was kept secret by both sides. It came out when he announced his signing with the 49ers, and then the Patriots came out publicly to protest hours later, which became a national news story at the time, and could have resulted in the Bulldogs having to forfeit all their wins in 1964 for playing an ineligible player. But since he was not the only player to have done so that year, it was the pro teams that took the heat instead of the players, who were making no money as college stars.

He played two seasons with the 49ers, but sitting on the bench most of 1966, he wanted out, and ended up traded to the Atlanta Falcons, who were a lousy team just starting out. Wilson had appeal since he was well known as a college star in the state a few years earlier. He spent 1967 loaded on painkillers and missed half the season with back problems, which stemmed from a spinal deformity he suffered from birth.

After the season, he was recruited by Ray Gunkel, who ran the wrestling office in Atlanta, who offered him $350 to $400 per week to wrestle during the off- season. In those days, NFL players were only paid during the season, and only the biggest stars were really making money. Almost all had off-season jobs, and it wasn’t unusual for an active player to dabble in pro wrestling, as contracts not allowing players to participate in dangerous activities hadn’t even been thought of at the time. Wilson’s NFL contract was for $25,000 per year, and when he got in wrestling, he noted the circuit’s top star at the time, the masked Mr. Wrestling (George Woodin aka Tim Woods) was making double that, which he had a hard time dealing with because his sport was real and wrestling wasn’t. Wilson grew up in Pittsburgh, once playing middle school basketball against a team that included Joe Namath of Beaver Falls, and was a closet wrestling fan, and in particular, a fan of Bruno Sammartino.

Wrestling was different as well. Two days after being stretched in the dressing room by area shooter Johnny Walker (a talented but aging bald journeyman stuck in prelims making $250 a week, who gained fame and superstardom years later as Mr. Wrestling II), with no training at all, he was put in the ring to learn on the job, debuting at the Augusta Civic Center against an established pro, Louie Tillet, who was to carry the football star, billed as “The All- American Kid,” through a 20:00 draw in his debut match. But with the crowd noise, Wilson couldn’t hear Tillet, and wound up holding Tillet in a headlock for almost the entire match while Tillet would flail around and work around the fact that nothing was happening.

Gunkel at first was high on Wilson because wrestling promoters in that era loved having real athletes, thinking it gave credibility to the business. Gunkel himself was a champion amateur wrestler and had a reputation as one of the toughest of a tough breed. He told Walker to train Wilson, and visualized his two big moves as the old standby for football stars, getting in the three-point stance and exploding with a tackle, similar to today’s spear, a move used to football stars in wrestling since Gus Sonnenberg in the late 20s. He also gave him a submission move, a backbreaker over the shoulder, today called the torture rack or Argentinean backbreaker. Gunkel even called Sam Muchnick at one point, telling him about his background as a legitimate NFL player and throwing Wilson’s name in the hat as far as being a future NWA champion.

But Falcons management wasn’t happy about it. Soon Gunkel had moved Wilson to color commentator, working with Ed Capral on Georgia Championship Wrestling. Wilson’s role, as a legitimate athlete, was to put over how legitimate the moves and pain in pro wrestling was. Once, when announcing, he made a remark about how the Falcons didn’t want him wrestling, and on the air, told them if they didn’t like it, to trade him or he’d go play in Canada. Unlike today, in a city like Atlanta, everyone in those days watched the weekly wrestling TV show, and that off the cuff remark led to him being traded to the Los Angeles Rams before the start of the 1968 season.

George Allen coached the Rams at the time and had no problem with his players wrestling, since Don Chuy and Joe Carollo had wrestled for years during the off-season and were considered two-sport stars. Wilson was a second-string offensive tackle on one of the best teams in the league.

After the season, he worked in Florida and Georgia, still largely protected because he was a legitimate NFL player, and Jack Brisco took him under his wing. But things started going badly when Fred Ward, a promoter in several Georgia cities, noted both for being a great promoter who had wrestling hot in his cities, most notably Columbus, and being not so great with payoffs, asked him to get color and he refused, saying he doesn’t do that. The fact was, both Brisco and Lou Thesz were known for refusing to get color, but they were already established superstars and he was a part-timer who wasn’t much of a worker and had little going for him except he was an active NFL player on a great team.

Wilson blew out his knee during a preseason game before the 1969 season, and had surgery, causing him to miss the season. He never played another NFL game.

His knee recovered well enough by January that he went back to wrestling in Georgia, and also toured Florida. By then, the top heel in Georgia was Buddy Colt, who didn’t like Wilson because he felt he was given too much based on being a football player as opposed to being a good wrestler, and also resented his refusal to bleed, telling him, “You gotta see red to get the bread.”

He went back to the Rams for the 1970 season, but suffered another knee injury in the first preseason game. Later that night, he wound up in a fight with some Rams players against some Dallas Cowboys players after the game at a party, where he, on crutches, was knocked to the ground and had his knee stomped by members of the Cowboys. He needed another knee operation and was once again out for the season. After a back injury before the 1971 season, the Rams doctors ordered spinal fusion surgery, which in those days meant his career was over.

In his book, he described the drug mentality in both wrestling and the NFL as similar, noting epidemic use of pain pills, alcohol and marijuana in both businesses. He talked openly of people in both professions swallowing pain pills like nothing to play hurt, as neither sport had truly big money, and nobody wanted to spend time on the bench. In wrestling, if you didn’t play, you most often weren’t paid, and in football, while you did get paid while injured, since everyone was hurt, taking down off for all but the most serious of injuries was heavily frowned upon. While steroids existed, they were not nearly as prevalent as they later would be, and it was before the cocaine era.

After a long time on the mend from the back surgery, he went back to wrestling in 1972, and was given the advice by Jack Brisco that to make his name as a major star, he was going to have to travel to more circuits and get over in more parts of the country, so he went to work for Jim Crockett Sr. in the Carolinas. He had a big scar on his back from the surgery. Crockett Sr. came up with the gimmick of bringing him in as The Masked Avenger. The story was that he was an NFL star, who Crockett Sr.’s top heel tag team, Gene & Ole Anderson, had beaten up in some imaginary match and caused him to have back surgery, thus ending his football career. He was back to get revenge on them.

He wasn’t there long before getting a tour of Japan, where he first-hand saw The Sheik (Ed Farhat), and constant traveling partner and wife Joyce Farhat, getting $5,000 in cash before every match on a one week tour. Later, in 1973, he was sent on a tour to Australia, which is where he claimed Barnett came on to him, and when he rebuffed Barnett, he started doing jobs, even against people who were local Australian jobbers.

When he returned to Georgia, Bill Watts was the booker, and Watts didn’t think highly of Wilson as a performer, and labeled him as clubhouse lawyer. Watts didn’t push Wilson, and the two nearly got into a brawl over it in a Columbus, GA, dressing room. Several weeks later, he refused to do a job on a small show in Milledgeville, GA to a wrestler who was half his size and usually a jobber. A few days later, when booked in Columbus, Fred Ward came up to him and told him, “This is your last night in the wrestling business.”

Wilson later believed Barnett, who was still in Australia, but actually in a series of maneuvers, had already secretly become the controlling partner of the Georgia office, was the reason he was no longer booked strong. Watts, in interviews, as well as in his autobiography notes, contradicted that claim, saying Barnett, who controlled the company but was still living in Australia, didn’t interfere with his booking or make any suggestions regarding Wilson. Watts said he didn’t book Wilson strong because he thought he was the shits, and those close to Watts note that was hardly the person who was going to cover for Jim Barnett.

When Barnett arrived in Georgia, Wilson approached him about work and was turned down, but at the time, there was a promotional war, and he got work with Ann Gunkel’s All South Wrestling, but that promotion folded in 1974. Many years later, after his career ended, he sued the NWA, and Barnett, believing he had been blacklisted, and believing Barnett had destroyed his career and his life. He ended up dropping the suit after a meeting with Barnett about turning the real life problems covered in the media into an angle. As it turned out, he was double-crossed there.

It was filing a second lawsuit when he thought he hit paydirt.

He and his lawyer called up one person after another in wrestling, but naturally, nobody was going to help him, until he found important allies in Roy Shire and Bob Roop.

Shire left the business, bitter, in 1981. He had a very successful run in San Francisco during the 60s and through the mid-70s, but after a falling out with his company’s long-time top star, Pat Patterson, and later losing his prime San Francisco television (KBHK-TV moved the show from its long-time 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon time slot to 10 a.m., and Shire, never an easy person to get along with who had several years earlier lost KTVU, at the time one of the most powerful independent stations in the country because he couldn’t get along with management and spit tobacco juice on their office carpets–demanded KBHK give him a better time slot, and didn’t realize he needed them more than they needed him, and lost the station), his territory fell off. A multi-millionaire from wrestling, and investing his huge 60s profits in real estate, he closed down the territory when the spot shows started drawing poorly and he started losing money. It turned out to be the proverbial snowball running down the hill gaining momentum, as crowds fell, payoffs fell, talent were being paid peanuts except for the Cow Palace shows, and with the quality of talent declining, crowds continued to fall. Shire continued to promote monthly at the Cow Palace, but with less attractive talent, those crowds started to fall. He first made an alliance with Don Owen in Portland, which ended in disaster as Shire and the talent had problems, plus Portland ran its big shows taped for television on Saturday nights, and the Cow Palace was a traditional Saturday night stop from the beginning of time. Shire had to move to Friday, which led to decreasing crowds. After a falling out with the Portland talent after Buddy Rose cut a promo on Shire’s treatment of his talent as a shoot at the Cow Palace. The strange situation saw Shire turn the power off on Rose’s mic after he told fans that pro wrestling was fake. Shire switched to working with Bob Geigel in Kansas City. But their talent and television was terrible, and they were down to a few hundred fans in a 15,000-seat arena. He finally made a deal with Eddie Graham in Florida, key because Graham had Dusty Rhodes, and Georgia Championship Wrestling played on cable in much of the Bay Area, and Rhodes was probably the most charismatic wrestler in the business at the time. But at the same time, Verne Gagne reached a deal with Leo Nomellini, an NFL Hall of Famer who was a cultural icon to at least the older sportswriters in Northern California. Gagne had known Nomellini since the late 40s, as both played football and wrestled at the University of Minnesota before Nomellini became one of the greatest players in the NFL and the area’s biggest wrestling star. Even with his stature and history as a big draw, after Shire ran out Joe Malciewicz, the established NWA promoter, Nomellini, who was Malciewicz’s biggest star, eventually worked for Shire but Shire would never push him, for all the reasons we’ve seen in similar modern situations. A pushed Nomellini working a program in that era against Ray Stevens would have been a license to print money, but Shire wouldn’t let Nomellini get past mid-card, and he eventually retired from wrestling.

It was little known that it was Barnett who actually got Shire started as a promoter. Shire and Carl Ray Stevens, as the Shire Brothers, were Barnett’s top tag team in his promotion, the largest in the country, during the late 50s. A Chevrolet dealer whom Barnett knew wanted to sponsor a wrestling show, and Barnett also knew the station manager of KTVU in San Francisco, which already was having huge success on Sunday nights in prime time with Bay Bombers Roller Derby. They agreed to do a two-hour live program in prime time on Friday nights, using Roller Derby announcer Walt Harris as host.

The television show became an instant sensation. Shire installed his “brother,” Stevens, who some considered the single best performer in the business at the time, as the top heel, who became a huge draw. Barnett already had a full plate, and felt Shire had become something of a wrestling genius as Shire studied promoting and booking while being a wrestler. Barnett set Shire up, in exchange for a piece of the action. In fact, most of Shire’s early stars were talent sent originally from Barnett’s Indianapolis office. Malciewicz was the established NWA promoter since the start of the alliance. Neither Barnett nor Shire were NWA members in the early years. But Shire in 1968, and Barnett in 1969, both ended up joining the alliance and during the 70s, each became major power brokers.

In late 1980, Shire was furious that Gagne, through Nomellini’s name and connections, got TV on KTVU, and started promoting that they would start running in the area, and then, announced a January Battle Royal at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, earlier in the same month as Shire’s traditional biggest show of the year, the January Cow Palace Battle Royal. Worse for him, Gagne featured interviews on his show with Patterson and Stevens regularly, and promoted Shire’s two biggest stars of the prior 20 years in Northern California as being part of the AWA coming into the Bay Area, along constantly promoting one of the area’s all- time sports legends and first huge wrestling draw as the promoter.

Shire called Barnett, who by this point was the real power of the NWA. Barnett was never NWA president, because he was gay, but was given the role as either Secretary Treasurer, or Vice President. In the former, he controlled the money. And, from 1975 to 1982, Barnett booked the world champion after he agreed to do it for free after Sam Muchnick quit as president in 1975. Muchnick was set up to quit, by promoters who didn’t like Muchnick dictating terms of always keeping the champion strong, wanting the champion to ultimately win his programs and limit screwjob finishes, not to mention Muchnick getting 3% of the gate in all title matches as a booking fee.

Shire called Barnett to ask him why Gagne was coming into his territory and to tell him to stay out. Barnett recounted to me years ago how he called Gagne up and nicely asked him to stay out of Shire’s territory. Gagne told him, “No,” and “there was nothing else I could do but tell Roy.” The irony, of course, is that Gagne did nothing different from what Barnett and Shire did 20 years earlier. And it was only a few years later, that Gagne was the one protesting at how Vince McMahon broke the code when he started running in Gagne’s territory.

Shire was furious that the NWA wouldn’t protect his territory. Rather than engage in a fight that would cost him money against a promoter who had a strong stable, including Stevens and Patterson, and a healthy circuit, Shire closed down operations and was bitter at everyone in wrestling. When Wilson’s lawyer called, they found what they were looking for.

Whether true or not, Shire claimed he was told by phone in the 70s that Wilson was on the NWA blacklist. He claimed he got a call from Mike LeBelle,(who by that time Shire hated), who told him Wilson was a troublemaker, refused to lose when asked, was always complaining about his payoffs, and that nobody should use him. Shire testified about how blacklisting worked, and then, under oath, said he had also heard Barnett was miffed because Wilson turned down his homosexual advances, and said specifically that Eddie Graham had wanted to use Wilson but Barnett told him not to and he wouldn’t. Then he claimed that there was a blonde wrestler who went along with Barnett’s advances, and Barnett made him a superstar. Shire was just getting out of the business when Tommy Rich was becoming a national superstar from his exposure on Georgia Championship Wrestling. When asked who, Shire was so disconnected that he didn’t know, saying, “Richy, a blond wrestler, somebody Richy.” In actuality, the young Rich had tremendous charisma and appeal at the time before drugs and alcohol destroyed him. He became a superstar at such a young age on a national basis (although he had already been a star on the Tennessee circuit) that there were the jealous rumors that had started, as there will always be in wrestling involving a good looking pretty boy getting a push from a gay promoter. Sometimes in wrestling those rumors are true, and often they were not. Given Rich’s ability to get over and draw in that time frame because Rich got a one week run as NWA champion in 1981 when he was only 24 years old in the Georgia territory, most in Georgia at the time thought it was most likely just a jealously made up story. But at that point, Rich hadn’t been a star for very long and to get the NWA title, even for a week, was something few wrestlers would ever get close to. Dusty Rhodes got a one-week run, but he was far more established as a superstar. Rich was a superstar in Georgia, but the power of the Superstation made him a name everywhere that a cable company carried the station. His title win paid off a long built up storyline, but unless you lived and followed that circuit, Rich was not someone most in the business would think would even get that small taste of the world title.

Shire was out of the business by that time, but he was bitter of the nature of his exit, and was more than willing to repeat the story under oath. It greatly helped Wilson’s case, since Shire was a former member of the NWA Board of Directors, giving him courtroom credibility. Under oath, Shire even said that the NWA felt it would be bad for its image for Barnett to be NWA President, although privately they all thought he would have made a great president.

At another point, when Wilson and his usual partner at the time, Patterson, were about to promote an Omni show in opposition to Barnett, Bob Roop, a heavyweight on the 1968 U.S. Olympic team in Greco-Roman wrestling, said he was brought to Atlanta. He claimed, shortly after arrival, he was asked in the dressing room by Barnett, in front of all the talent, to put pressure on him, if he thought he could beat up Patterson and put him out of the business. Roop said it was a moot point because he liked Patterson. Roop said two weeks later, Barnett went up to him and said he didn’t even know what he was doing in the territory.

Wilson and Patterson would on occasion attend Georgia shows, sometimes picketing, and always looking to garner attention. Barnett once even told me that as much as he didn’t like Wilson, and he had his own version of Wilson’s problems in Australia having to do with an affair with a stewardess with his airline sponsor that got sordid–a charge Wilson always denied–which meant he didn’t want to risk pushing him, that all the attention Wilson and Patterson had gotten with the fans as opposition could have been big business. Even though Barnett felt Wilson was not particularly charismatic and a boring wrestler, and the last thing he wanted was him picketing at his shows, he felt that an “outsider” angle with Wilson and Harley Race, the world champion at the time, would have drawn a sellout and he at one point was up for doing it. But he said booker Ole Anderson was dead set against it so it never went anywhere.

Roop testified that once at a show in Atlanta, Leon Ogle, the son-in-law of Ward, saw where Wilson was in the crowd getting attention, and wanted Roop to beg Wilson to get in the ring, put him in a position where he couldn’t refuse without looking like a pussy to the crowd, and then to hurt him. Roop said he refused to do it.

Roop, in his younger days worked as a hitman for Eddie Graham (as did Jack Brisco and Hiro Matsuda), but he never had the killer instinct as a fighter and hated doing it. Roop was groomed at one point to be world champion, but promoters having an Olympic wrestler at the time wanted to use him as a shooter, whether to challenge fans, beat up people who wanted to get in the profession, or keep boys in line. But Roop never liked doing it. He was quickly branded as being a talented wrestler, but they started whispering that he had no guts.

Wilson ended up losing the family home after refinancing it to run an opposition promotion, and it wound up costing him his marriage.

After he filed his first lawsuit against the NWA, claiming to be blacklisted, this was before he had the key testimony from Shire, he started picketing in front of the Friday night shows in Atlanta, and got some area news coverage for his gripes about being blacklisted. By this point, he was more than a minor annoyance to Barnett.

This time, Barnett called Wilson up in 1977. Wilson and Barnett talked over the big angle. This was the period Barnett believed Wilson had gotten so much attention, that even with his shortcomings, he could draw him a big house doing the outsider gimmick. Barnett sensed because of all the publicity, that even the majority of people who thought wrestling wasn’t real, would believe Wilson, after all his public protests, would not agree to lose a match to Race and it would have a reality that would result in hot ticket sales.

Race and Wilson had plenty of problems earlier, nearly getting into it in a few parking lot situations when Wilson would go to NWA shows around the state and pass out fliers to his opposition shows. Race had a reputation as a fighter, and as a person, was believed to be fearless. Perhaps Barnett was thinking business, although it is also conceivable he was thinking he could kill two birds with one stick, both get the business for one big show, and then have Wilson humbled, shut up and have the business protected at the same time.

Wilson said Barnett asked him what it would take to drop the lawsuit, and Wilson said he wanted a full-time main event position in the promotion, as well as the ability to promote towns on his own. Then Wilson suggested what Barnett had himself was thinking, only bigger, he wanted a title match with Race at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. Barnett said he really thought Race vs. Wilson for a one shot could have possibly sold out the Omni, but thought the suggestion of running the baseball stadium was too much of a reach. Barnett noted they had only sold out the Omni a few times, and business at the time was down. Barnett agreed to the match at the Omni, but that he would agree to use Wilson on top after the match, and with his credibility in the media as a straight shooter on wrestling problems and his legit background, he thought with his connections, he could get Wilson a weekly column in the Atlanta Constitution covering wrestling, which would give the promotion another key avenue in getting publicity. However, Barnett said he didn’t want to run the angle until early 1978, but he would get him work in other territories until that time, and didn’t want their agreement put in writing because he didn’t want it known that he capitulated to Wilson. Barnett told him to drop the lawsuit, and give him a few months for all the heat to die down, and they’d do the program. Wilson didn’t realize the con. Giving time for the heat to die down would counteract the unique situation the heat had inadvertently created. Wilson at first said he would think about the offer, and did not drop the suit.

At the same time, Wilson was fired from his regular job in a real estate firm, which, like so many of his problems, he believed was the ultra-connected Barnett’s maneuverings. Barnett did claim to have power everywhere, and most certainly had connections, but whether or not this was a reach is impossible to say. With no job, Wilson could no longer pay lawyers to keep his lawsuit going, and felt pressured to accept Barnett’s offer and dropped the suit, even without consulting his own attorney.

When the first of the year came, Wilson called Ole Anderson, Barnett’s booker, and suddenly everything they had talked about had been forgotten, and of course, it wasn’t in writing. Anderson claimed he had the territory booked for the next year and had no openings.

Wilson called Barnett every week until April, when Barnett told Wilson to stop pestering him, and when Wilson talked about their agreement, Barnett told him that if he didn’t like it, “Sue me.” Barnett figured Wilson was at this point broke, had lost his home and his marriage and his job.

In late 1978, Wilson sued Barnett and the NWA for $4 million, claiming $2 million in actual damages and $2 million in punitive damages. His case got credence when, at the same time, the Poffo family, Angelo, Randy (Randy Savage) and Lanny sued nine NWA promotions and 13 promoters, claiming restraint of trade as they tried to block talent from working for the family’s ICW, which was running opposition to the NWA. Ann Gunkel had also sued Georgia Championship Wrestling, claiming illegal monopolistic tactics were used in putting her company out of business.

The Poffos ended up with their own powerful ally, The Sheik, whose own Big Time Wrestling promotion collapsed as Sheik’s once great drawing magic had ended. Sheik killed the territory with advertising huge names, and then often not delivering, burning out the promotion on short, bloody matches and repetitive gimmicks and staying too long on top after, for many years, being one of the two greatest heel draws up to that point in the business.

With nobody running in Michigan and Ohio, Barnett expanded Georgia Championship Wrestling into those markets and was doing big business, and Sheik wasn’t cut in. Later, Sheik worked a show Wilson and Patterson promoted at the Omni billed as world heavyweight champion, dropping the title in the main event to Patterson, who was to be billed as “the first black world champion,” in Atlanta, except the debut show didn’t do well and the promotion was done. At the 1981 NWA convention, The Sheik was kicked out of the alliance for one year for violating rules by participating in a match billed for the world heavyweight title, as promoters were not allowed to bill anyone as “world” heavyweight champion except the NWA champion, nor participate in such matches. Of course, during that same era, the WWF and AWA champions often appeared on NWA shows, violating those bylaws and with no repercussions.

Barnett and Georgia Championship Wrestling settled out of court with Gunkel in 1980 for $200,000. Gunkel then tried to get back into promoting wrestling, trying to run on her own at first, and later worked with Joe Blanchard and even with Ole Anderson, but it was short-lived. The Poffos suit died in 1982, when Roop and Barnes recanted their prior testimony and to nobody’s surprise, got jobs with NWA promotions, ending their outlaw status. The ICW made amends with Jarrett Promotions, and the “shoot” angle from the promotional feud with Jerry Lawler vs. Randy Savage did big short-term business, and while working in Tennessee, someone from WWF discovered Savage’s phenomenal work and he was brought in, and became one of the biggest stars of the 80s for the most mainstream of promotions.

Wilson’s lawsuit finally went to trial in 1985, but by that point in time, Barnett was been kicked out of power in Georgia Championship Wrestling and was broke. Like everyone in wrestling, Barnett was assumed to be a multi-millionaire, and while he was paid handsomely as head of the Georgia promotion, he lived lavishly using his salary and company funds. He always wore expensive suits and ties, ate at the nicest restaurants, bought his influence with lavish gifts to local politicians, TV station managers, arena managers, and almost anyone else who could help him. He would go around Georgia in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, purchased two expensive condos next to each other, and knocked the wall to make one extravagant unit, and had a personal maid, a personal driver and a personal chef. He would fly to New York to catch the plays on Broadway, and when Jimmy Carter, whose family were avid wrestling fans in Georgia, was president, Carter picked Barnett for a position on his National Council for the Arts. In 1972, Barnett attended Richard Nixon’s second term inauguration with a fourth row seat. Seated in the rows behind him were Bob Hope and John Wayne.

That was fine in the 70s when the company was making $2 million per year in profits, leaving all the stockholders with nice dividends even with Barnett’s lavish spending. But in the 80s, when bad booking and market changes led to the company going deeply in the ref, booker Ole Anderson started investigating, and found how much company money Barnett was using to life his lifestyle, which included a monthly phone bill alone that regularly exceeded $2,000. Anderson alerted the other stockholders, and then told Barnett on Christmas Day of 1982 what he found and threatened to charge him with embezzlement unless Barnett agreed to resign. Barnett agreed, but begged that, even in lieu of a salary, he asked if he could keep a paper executive title for his own public appearance. Anderson said you’re out with no concessions or he would go to authorities.

“Jim was taking all the money and wasn’t paying the stockholders,” said Jack Brisco, who owned a percentage of the promotion. “Fred Ward was really upset. It was a revolt from the stockholders, including myself. We all had a meeting and voted amongst ourselves who we wanted to run things. We voted Jim out and voted Ole in. Jim then sold his stock (18% to Jim Oates, who had bankrolled Barnett’s wrestling companies for decades since the two of them met in college working on the school newspaper at the University of Chicago, for $180,000) and got out.”

“We (Jim Oates and Barnett) had the most stock, but we didn’t have 51%, and I wasn’t able to save him,” said Oates.

Barnett got revenge of sorts, as in 1983, he had been hired by the World Wrestling Federation, and at the NWA meeting, he, Vince McMahon Sr., and Vince McMahon Jr. all tendered their resignations from the alliance, the precursor of the biggest wrestling promotional war up to that point in history.

Oates and Barnett both claimed they had nothing to do with the sale of GCW to McMahon in early 1984, and were only stockholders who were part of the majority consortium when Jack and Jerry Brisco orchestrated the deal. Oates at the time owned 26% of the company, Jack & Jerry together owned 19%, and the Briscos had to convince Frances Jones, the wife of long-time Atlanta promoter Paul Jones, who was senile by that time, to pledge her 22% so they had a majority of stock to sell controlling interest in the company to McMahon. The Briscos carried the deal to Barnett, who was McMahon’s No. 2 guy in the company at the time. The Briscos were worried about the future of the company, believing McMahon was going to win the wrestling war at the end, and in return, McMahon and Barnett promised the two would be taken care of for life, although Jack quit the business just a few months later and never looked back.

Anderson, although he was running the company, had no idea there were negotiations going on for a sale, let alone that the sale itself had been completed until after the contracts were signed and McMahon owned the company, giving him, for one year, control of the key wrestling time slots on Saturdays and Sundays on TBS.

At the time of the trial, Georgia Championship Wrestling was owned by McMahon, although essentially no longer in existence. Barnett was a major power player as Director of Operations for WWF, a position he held for several years during the company’s expansion, where his connections with TV people all over the U.S. dating back to the 50s came in handy. He used to brag about giving Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant both $750,000 checks as their payoffs for Wrestlemania III, although as usually happens in wrestling, as the years went on, those figures started to increase significantly. Even if Wilson won the suit, Barnett had no liquid assets, and Georgia Championship Wrestling as a company was all but gone. If the McMahons were made liable for an award against the company they now owned, they would appeal, and Wilson realized he didn’t have the money to fight the McMahons in court.

Shire was there ready to testify. Against the advice of his attorney, Wilson took a relatively small settlement offer. In his book, he only stated he was not allowed to give the amount, but it was less than $100,000. At the time, media reports indicated the settlement was closer to $20,000 to $25,000, described because while in settlement talks before the trial started, they found that Barnett was not the multi-millionaire they believed he was, and was actually almost completely broke. Patterson had ended up settling by being offered a job by Jim Crockett for $100,000 per year to come back as a headline wrestler. Patterson was given a push for the terms of the contract, teaming with and later feuding with Ole Anderson. When the contract expired, it was not renewed and his career was pretty much over.

Wilson appeared on ABC TV’s 20/20 in its expose on pro wrestling in 1985, best known for David Shults slapping reporter John Stossel twice, hard, in the ear, knocking him down in one of the more memorable television moments of the time. Wilson was portrayed as a promising star whose was blacklisted for not accepting the advances of a gay promoter, who was not named. But the piece was weakened because Stossel believed the big impact of the story was “uncovering” that pro wrestling was fake, as opposed to dealing with the very real issues behind the scenes.

Wilson also appeared on a talk show with Eddy Mansfield, trying to use pro wrestling promo style to raise money, hawking “Save the Wrestlers” T-shirts, which came across poorly. Wilson and Mansfield ended up debating, of all people, Lou Thesz. It was a sad display on all parts. Wilson and Mansfield claimed wrestling wasn’t real, and Thesz was there to defend the undefendable. Thesz portrayed both as mediocre talents who hadn’t learned their wrestling, and at one point, the 69-year-old Thesz challenged both to a real wrestling match. Even at that age, Thesz’s reputation was such that both men, in a sense, backed down, with Mansfield talking about he didn’t want to go in there with “shooter Lou Thesz.” But eventually, it was Thesz who stormed off the set in the middle of the show.

A few years later, Wilson was in a sad scene with Patterson, trying to be serious about wrestling’s problems on the embarrassing but at the time highly popular Morton Downey Jr. show. Representing wrestling, among others, was Shults, by that time largely out of wrestling after being fired by WWF for trying to attack Mr. T in Los Angeles for real a few months before Wrestlemania, where T was the key figure in what appeared to be WWF’s make-or-break show. Everyone came off badly in the cartoon like atmosphere, which included Downey Jr., when Wilson told of his career dying after turning down the advance of a gay promoter, saying to Wilson incredulously, “You’re not that good looking.” Shults tried to verbally and physically intimidate Wilson, standing up and challenging him to a fight on the spot. Wilson would not stand up, avoided eye contact from the apparent raging lunatic, giving the impression he was backing down.

Wilson’s name rarely surfaced after that point, doing some interviews when his book came out, and others in 2007 after the death of Chris Benoit, this time pushing in interviews that Congress should investigate a business that led to so many men dying young.

By 1988, the NWA, as it was in the 70s, was largely dead, and almost all the big power brokers of that era were gone. Eddie Graham committed suicide in 1985. Jim Barnett attempted suicide after being fired by McMahon, but ended up working for Crockett and then Turner, on-and-off (Eric Bischoff, who had no use for him, was able to get rid of him at one point), until the death of the company in 2001, but was no longer wielding any significant influence. After WCW folded, with Barnett broke, McMahon hired him as a consultant, a decision more as an act of kindness than business, to a man who did help him build his company, and had worked closely with his father.

Barnett mainly, in phone calls to McMahon, constantly pushed that the company should make John Cena as a big star, because he saw Cena as having something special that he didn’t see in anyone else on the roster. Cena was brought up too early from OVW by Paul Heyman, Smackdown’s booker, who saw in his promos and his look that he could be a superstar, and figured his positives and with protective booking could overcome his limitations in the ring. But after a strong debut angle, Heyman’s idea to immediately break Cena apart from the pack, by coming up with an angle where he would slap Vince McMahon in the face when McMahon would try to humble him, was said to be stupid and not believable by HHH, and nixed. Other angles to do something with him ended up canceled and he politically was unable to be protected. Cena was floundering, working as a jobber on “B” shows, and was on the verge of being fired. Barnett would constantly bring up that Cena should be pushed as a superstar, and also that he needed to get regular ring gear and should ditch the throwback jerseys. There have been those who credit Barnett’s constant bringing up of Cena as a future superstar for saving his job, although that may or may not be true, although Barnett had nothing to do with his getting the push with the rapper gimmick that saved his career. Barnett had wanted to do an autobiography in 2000, noting that with the death of Sam Muchnick, he was the last person left who truly could tell the history, behind-the-scenes, of the growth and ups-and-downs of the industry from its beginnings on television in the late 1940s to the present. But it never happened. He was secretly battling cancer for several years, and passed away on September 17, 2004, at the age of 80.

In his book, Wilson’s thoughts on spending much of his adult life fighting an unwinnable battle of a now completely different business with different issues and a different structure, concluded by saying the most important lesson of the 90s was, “Tell ‘em it’s fake and nobody will care about other deceptions. Tell ‘em it’s not competition and nobody will care about the injuries and deaths. Tell ‘em they’re independent contractors responsible for their own bodies and dead wrestlers get little sympathy, and tell ‘em it’s all sports entertainment and they’ll let anything go.”

[Warner2BruceTD]

That Wilson obit is one of the best things Meltzer has ever written. It contains about a million history lessons and spirals off into a billion different topics that have very little to do with Wilson, such as the dying days of WCW and the John Cena push. Just a fantastic history piece.

[Senser81]

That Wilson obit is one of the best things Meltzer has ever written. It contains about a million history lessons and spirals off into a billion different topics that have very little to do with Wilson, such as the dying days of WCW and the John Cena push. Just a fantastic history piece.

Yeah, it was interesting but kind of all over the place. It seems like pro wrestling was kind of like playing the game of baseball...there were a ton of unwritten rules and gentleman's agreements that were non-binding and could be broken at any time. I liked the bit on the actual Olympic wrestler (Roop?) who was used to beat up the pro wrestlers that the promoters didn't like. Pro wrestlers are probably wimps, but you don't want to mess with real amatuer wrestlers. Also, its scary the Jimmy Carter was the president of the United States, considering he was going to put a wrestling promoter on the National Council of the Arts. I believe Carter also claimed to have seen UFOs, and probably thought pro wrestling was real.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Yeah, it was interesting but kind of all over the place. It seems like pro wrestling was kind of like playing the game of baseball...there were a ton of unwritten rules and gentleman's agreements that were non-binding and could be broken at any time. I liked the bit on the actual Olympic wrestler (Roop?) who was used to beat up the pro wrestlers that the promoters didn't like. Pro wrestlers are probably wimps, but you don't want to mess with real amatuer wrestlers. Also, its scary the Jimmy Carter was the president of the United States, considering he was going to put a wrestling promoter on the National Council of the Arts. I believe Carter also claimed to have seen UFOs, and probably thought pro wrestling was real.

I didn't think the article was "all over the place" like you and W2B suggest. I think Meltzer's piece is considered so good because it shows, especially how in wrestling, the smallest and even most obscure people in and around the business have ripple effects that outlast their stay and scope.

[Senser81]

I didn't think the article was "all over the place" like you and W2B suggest. I think Meltzer's piece is considered so good because it shows, especially how in wrestling, the smallest and even most obscure people in and around the business have ripple effects that outlast their stay and scope.

I thought it read like Tolstoy's War and Peace. Not that I'm complaining.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Thats Meltzer's style.

Once Jim Barnett came up, the piece became a Barnett bio as much as a Wilson bio. That's not a complaint.

I love that old Bearcat Wright story, when he was giving the Los Angeles office a hard time and legit knocked out Fred Blassie instead of dropping the title as planned. So they double cross him on the next show and send Gene LeBell to the ring, prompting Wright to get the fuck out of there and run directly into his car while still in his gear lol.

LeBell is the guy who.legit kicked Steven Segal's ass on the set of a movie when Segal was talking shit to him. LeBell was kn his late 50's and Segal was in his 30's.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

All of the old territories had an old goon or legit tough guy in the locker room for matters such as those.

[Senser81]

I love that old Bearcat Wright story, when he was giving the Los Angeles office a hard time and legit knocked out Fred Blassie instead of dropping the title as planned.

Yeah, and I liked how the ref didn't know what to do, because he had to count Blassie out. I can imagine it was the slowest count in history....

[KINGOFOOTBALL]

Morton Downey Jr had one of the best logos ever.