Episode 44:The Year of 1985 Territory Review of Memphis Wrestling

Episode 44 • January 28, 2026 • 01:48:38
Episode 44:The Year of 1985 Territory Review of Memphis Wrestling
Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Territory History Show
Episode 44:The Year of 1985 Territory Review of Memphis Wrestling

Jan 28 2026 | 01:48:38

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Show Notes

We are kicking off the month of January with a weekly review of the territories in the year of 1985. Here is my historical “Stages of Growth of the Territory Era”:

My framework for understanding and analyzing the history and growth of Professional Wrestling are the 7 Stages of The Territory Era:

Stage One: Conception (1925 to 1935)

Stage Two: Formation (1935 to 1945)

Stage Three: Innovation and Expansion (1945 to 1955)

Stage Four: Investigation (1955 to 1965)

Stage Five: Re-Consolidation (1965-1975)

Stage Six: Fragmentation (1975-1985)

Stage Seven: Disintegration (1985-1995)

1985 is the first year in the last stage of the territory era, and we will review what is remaining of tbe system. The Memphis Wrestling Territory was an offshoot of the original Tennessee Territory, possibly the largest geographic territory in the United States founded by Roy Welch. The town of Memphis was purchased by Gulas-Welch Wrestling in 1957. The town got really hot from 1959 to 1961, then carried forward to the 1970s when it was under the supervision of Jerry Jarrett. Jarrett broke away from Gulas in 1977 and ran the town as a hub from the Memphis television show, recorded on Saturday mornings and cycled through the towns the next week.

In 1985, Jarrett and his partner Jerry Lawler are in their 8th year of running the territory and coming off some fantastic years from 1982 through 1984. As in all the territories 1985 kicked off the “Disintegration Stage” which would eventually end with the death of every territory but one, the WWF.. I’m joing by my Tennessee Co-Host and Historian , Tim Dills for a look back at the still-strong and excellently booked, 1985 in Memphis Wrestling!

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[00:00:02] Speaker A: Time for the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Podcast. [00:00:05] Speaker B: We've got lots and lots of things to talk about and to do today. [00:00:08] Speaker A: Covering the territories from the 1940s to the 1990s. [00:00:13] Speaker B: It's the best thing going today. [00:00:18] Speaker A: Interviewing wrestlers, referees, authors and other media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. [00:00:27] Speaker B: The cream. Yeah, the cream of the crop. And now, here's your host, Tony Richards. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Hello again, everybody. Welcome to another Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel history podcast. I'm your host, coming to you live from Western Kentucky in the frozy, frozen, snowy. I was gonna say snowy and frozen at the same time. It came out frozy. It's the frozen, snowy tundra of western Kentucky. And man, have we had snow and ice and got up this morning and it was 9 degrees and it felt like minus 4 below zero. And I don't know what that feels like because I'm not going outside. As I looked out today is actually garbage day. And I looked out at. I've got a fairly long little road here up from the road to my home here, the bunkhouse at the Richards ranch. My mom lives in the ranch house on the other side of the ranch, and I live in the bunk house. And I've got a nice little road up here to my house. And on garbage day, I have to take my garbage roll cart down to the side of the road for the garbage man to pick up. That ain't going down there today. I have not shoveled out my long stretch there, and I'm probably going to try to wait until the temperature warms up to melt some of that ice and snow. And the garbage man's gonna get an extra bag of garbage next week. Man, we got a great show in line for you today. I want to tell you about some of the things that have been going on with the Time Tunnel community here. I hope your year is off to a great start. And if you live in the western part of the United States and you're listening to our show, unless you live in the Rocky Mountains or something like that, you really don't know about these freezing temperatures that we've been talking about, because the western side of the United States, nice warm and toasty for January. But thank you. Thank you for listening and we really appreciate you being here. And I want to mention some of the things have been going on here in the community. And I've been doing the series with Briscoe and Bradshaw on the Welch family legacy. And we wrapped that up last week with part 10 with Ron Fuller as our special guest. He was our special guest on episodes nine and ten. And just great to have him on and to interact with him. And someone asked me not long ago if I was trying to go for like a Ken Burns documentary style. And actually that's, that's true. Back when I first did the Jim Barnett series, that I knew it was going to be a multi part series. And when I sat down to lay it out, I just thought to myself, if Ken Burns was going to do a documentary on the life and career of Jim Barnett, how many episodes would it be? What would each one of those episodes cover? And that kind of thing. And then when I did the Welch family, it turned out to be eight episodes. And honestly I could have done 50, but we, you know, we kept it to eight, plus the two that Ron did with us. And, and that was a very exciting and very fulfilling episode series to do. And during that time, Jerry Briscoe announced that the Welch family would be inducted into the Trago Steve hall of Fame this July in Waterloo, Iowa. And then on episode 10, on the very last episode, I got surprised with a special announcement. And I'm still speechless and overwhelmed about it, even now. So John Bradshaw Layfield started calling me a Hall of Famer. And if you watch the episode, you can see there's kind of a puzzled look on my face like there's three hall of Famers on this show. I'm not one of them. You know, Jerry, John and Ron are all on there. And he's calling me a Hall of Famer. And then he says, well, you will be in July because you're the 2026 Jim Melby Award winner for journalism and the preservation of wrestling history. And I wipe a little tear from my eye in the show, you can probably see because it's just an amazing honor to win that award. Jim Melby was such a trailblazer and such a pioneer in the field of covering professional wrestling like a journalist would. And for me to follow my, my dear, dear friend who won the award last year, Tim Hornbaker, is just, it's overwhelming and I'm so, so humbled and honored by it. And I just want you to also know that there is no way that I could have won something like that without the friendship and the collaboration and the cooperation of so many people. And maybe I'll start naming some of them as we get closer to the event in July. But I just don't want to leave anybody out. And there's just been so many people. Everybody you see on this program or here on this program that I collaborate with on these, these shows. Today we've got somebody who has been an enormous collaborator and very effective collaborator and partner with me. And there's just been so many of those people that have helped me and steered me in directions and given me access to their files and all kinds of great, wonderful gestures that have been extended toward me that I'm just overwhelmed and honored that I would be the winner of this award. But it's only because of great people that you hear and see on this show every week. And you see when I credit them in my work or when I talk about them, they're all just wonderful, fabulous people. And they are the reason that I am getting this award as well as you. You subscribe here to the podcast, you subscribe to the Daily Chronicle, you read my work on our Substack channel and watch our videos on YouTube and listen to our show where you download the podcast. And all of that is the reason why I would win such a prestigious award this year at the Trago hall of Fame. So I just want to thank you for your support of me and all the wonderful people that do what we do here at the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. And we'll talk more about that as we get closer to July in Waterloo. Got a great show for you today. And like I said, I got a great collaborator here. He's my co host for our Tennessee Wrestling History shows, Tim Deals. It's back here on episode 44 and we're taking a trip back to Tennessee. We're talking about all the existing territories that are remaining in 1985. Vince McMahon is on the march in the United States with his national expansion underway. Jim Crockett Promotions has started to get outside their borders in the Carolinas and Virginia. And one of the places they are getting outside their borders with their acquisition of WTBS that year is in the Memphis territory. And they came in here in the Tennessee territory with the Great American Bash in a couple of places. We're going to talk about all that today. Memphis wrestling, the Tennessee territory in the year 1985. Let's get to that with Tim Deals here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast history Show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. This is Tony Richards coming to you live from the Bluegrass State here on the Richards Ranch. And today my special guest is back. Everybody loves it when he comes on the show because we're going to talk Tennessee wrestling. My good friend, Tim Deals. Hey, Tim. Hey, Tim. [00:08:57] Speaker B: Yep. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Can you hear me? I can now. Yeah. [00:09:00] Speaker B: Okay. Sorry about that. [00:09:01] Speaker A: That's a little hiccup there. Oh, so good friend Tim Deals, take two. Yes. [00:09:08] Speaker B: Hey, what's going on, everybody? [00:09:09] Speaker A: Good to see you, man. Hey, listen, I want to tell everybody that I've been getting all this great feedback from people on the series I've done on Briscoe and Bradshaw about the Welch family. And I just want to say all of the stuff that I was talking about, where the Tennessee Athletic Commission was involved, that all directly because of this man right here. He's the one that did all the work and did all the digging for all that information. So all that good stuff that I was talking about with Buddy Fuller and all of that stuff that went on in 1961 is all because of this guy's research, and you need to buy his book. The Wrestling and the Tennessee Athletic Commission. I appreciate that because there's all kind of stuff in there that's. I could. I could stay in there for days, but that. That was an interesting time in Tennessee wrestling when all that was going on. And, you know, it actually took me a couple days of processing that to kind of figure out kind of what was going on there. But that, for those who haven't heard it. So in 1961, in Memphis, the Tennessee Athletic Commission suspended Buddy Fuller's license to promote. And there were basically three entities, kind of even Buddy's father, Roy Welch, and Nick Goulis were a triangular power struggle over promoting in Memphis. And American Legion post number one was in there as well. And what was interesting to me, that I didn't dawn on me till a little bit later, Tim, was that John Rigas came out with the promotion. He was part of the promotion after that. And he was the guy at American Legion post number one, right? [00:10:47] Speaker B: Yeah. He was a longtime member of the Legion in Memphis, and he became, you know, the third partner or the. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:56] Speaker B: You know, he was the local face, really, for. For Memphis wrestling for a number of years. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And a lot of you've. People who like the wrestling from Tennessee may not even know who John Rigas is, because he was the guy during the 60s, and we don't have hardly much of that television at all. And then in the late 60s, I kind of feel like he got pushed out. Burt Bates. Yeah. Bates came in, and he. He was the guy who was on. If you ever look at any advertisements for wrestling cards from 1967-77, Bert Bates, his name is in there with Roy Welch, Nick Gulas, and Bert Bates present. [00:11:39] Speaker B: And so, you know, this whole thing with. This whole thing with the Legion in the state of Tennessee. American Legion goes back to the 30s, you know, back to when there was a first Tennessee athletic commission. And, and the, the American Legion wanted to run pro wrestling in the state of Tennessee. I mean, that was really their goal. And Burt Bates was back. He was around back then. [00:12:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. He was a local. Involved in local politics back to the 20s, I think. [00:12:08] Speaker B: Yes. Huge. Yeah. Boss Crump, the old. There's a name to look up if you're unfamiliar with it and you'll find a lot about Boss Crump. [00:12:18] Speaker A: And he's the guy that established the commission. Didn't he, didn't he have a hand in there? [00:12:23] Speaker B: He had a hand in it, yeah. [00:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I'm just dying to talk about this, but I guess we better go on and talk about what we're supposed to talk about. [00:12:31] Speaker B: So let's move forward a few years, I guess. [00:12:33] Speaker A: Yeah, we're talking about 1985 in review. During the month of January here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. We're having our special analysts talk about all the existing territories that are still around in 1985, and business is still pretty decent here in 85. When you think about the national expansion of the WWF, you kind of think Vince went on the offense and everybody rolled over. But that's not exactly what happened. Florida was still drawing Texas world class was still drawing good crowds. And so the awa, he. And Verne. Verne was still out drawing him in his home base. And so I like to do these shows just to remind everybody what the progression was like and what was going on at the time that this was all happening. And so we're here to talk about Tennessee, or as a lot of fans call it, the Memphis Territory and 1985. So Tim's going to take us through the year and I guess we ought to start with what was going on sort of as 1984 was coming to an end and we were going into 85. Tim. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Well, you know, if you're talking Memphis and you're talking anytime in the 70s or 80s and into the 90s, you talk about Jerry Lawler. And of course, Jerry was the star during this time frame, as he always was. And, and we're kind of, you know, the, the long running theme or feud in the area is Jerry Lawler against Jimmy Hart in some form or fashion, even though, you know, Jimmy didn't get in the ring that much. Jimmy had proxies, he had folks coming in and stepping in there against Lawler. And it's amazing when you Think that feud started in 1980. Here it is, 1984, going into 1985, and they're still drawing. [00:14:26] Speaker A: It's a revolving, revolving cast of characters around Jimmy Hart's first family. [00:14:31] Speaker B: Yes. [00:14:32] Speaker A: And it took. It took a lot of face changes over the years. It got big and it got small. You know, he sometimes would have two guys and sometimes he'd have 15 guys in the first. Yeah, there's that famous picture. I use it when we welcome new people into the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. Facebook group of the first family. And good gosh, it looks like a family reunion. I know in that photo there's three mass tag teams in there. Just about. [00:15:02] Speaker B: You wonder about the payroll being made that week, don't you? [00:15:05] Speaker A: I mean, well, that was probably Lawler booking. Lawler was probably booking then because Jared kept it slim. But yeah, Jerry would have 40 guys on the roster. [00:15:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And at least two of them would have a horror movie gimmick or something of that nature. But, you know, we talk about the Lawler and heart. And so that's going to continue into 85. And it's going to begin with one of my favorite guys. And we'll talk about him maybe a little bit. That's Eddie Gilbert, kind of a local guy. But, you know, in 84 also, there was. Rick Rude came to prominence. Rick Rude had come up from the Mid south territory when they did the famous talent swap at the end of 83 and into 84. And you know, you look at that now and you go, man, Mid south got the best end of the deal. And maybe they did talent wise, but Rick Rudin was around for a whole year and he became. He really honed his talent in Memphis, I believe, in 1984, because he hadn't been given a chance to really shine. And Jerry Jarrett comes in and says, you're a bad guy. And it, it fit Rick Root's Persona. And Rick Rood's career was off and running from that point forward. And it happened because of his run in Memphis in 84. Now he's going to leave in 85. He's not going to be around in 85. But that was something that happened in 84. And of course you had somebody else hanging around who came in in 83 and was big in 84, and that's Randy Savage. [00:16:35] Speaker A: Yeah, of course, you know, I'm an old ICW guy. I go back to. I was a sophomore in high school when they came in to Kentucky. And that was our. My little group of friends. That was our regular Friday Night thing was to go to the National Guard Armory and see icw and then we'd go all around the state, you know, if a hot program. I remember Bob Roop and Bob Orton Jr. They did a program over the TV title and we, gosh, we went almost everywhere they had that match, you know, just to see that match and looking back on it, I didn't really know then I was really seeing some really good wrestling because it would either be Bob Roop and Bob Orton Jr. Or it'd be Randy Savage and Ronnie Garvin on top, you know, and Pez Whatley against hustler Rip Rogers. You know, I mean, so Angelo working under a mask as the Miser. But by the 83, that promotion had kind of played out and I guess there was a deal. Tim, did you ever hear that story that Lanny was down working for Watts and that Randy was gonna go down there, but then he changed his mind and came to work for Jarrett? Is that. [00:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I've heard that. And you know, in 83, in Atlanta, the big Thanksgiving Day tag tournament, Randy works the Atlanta show, teaming with maybe Magnum TA maybe was. [00:18:00] Speaker A: I think that's right. Yeah, I think it's kind of a. [00:18:03] Speaker B: Little bit of an odd team at that. And that kind of makes sense because I believe TA was working Mid south at that time and that kind of matches, you know, what you just said. And of course Lanny worked Mid south for a little bit at that time and. But Randy shows up in December of 83 in Memphis and of course everybody in Kentucky is probably going what? You know. Yeah. Because there had been a lot of challenges back in. Well, back and forth from Randy. [00:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah, but, but, but by that time, Tim, thinking back on it, by that time, if you watch the ICW television, at least 50 to 60% of it was Memphis because they were switching. They were kind of merging, it looked like to us, you know, on television, because you'd have some of the studio show, you'd have some. That match that they just found there the other day that came out, that was taped in Cape Girardeau with Savage and Crusher Boomfield, the one man gang. That was actually on a Memphis tape that was bicycled. So it kind of. We were a little confused, but we could also kind of see that they were going to start working together. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And they did some big money in Kentucky, for sure. [00:19:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:22] Speaker B: During the year. And, and of course this really brings a lot of attention to Randy Savage. I mean, he, you know, he worked the ICW for years and I. And I do think that when you watch those ICW shows, you really see how talented he is. But it was a small window that he was working in. Not a lot of people got to see him outside of. Of that area. Memphis gets a little bit bigger, and, of course, he begins to draw some attention from some outside folks. In 1985, he really goes. You know, he goes to WWF at some point, but what a year he had. [00:20:04] Speaker A: If you think about it, the first eight years. Well, seven years. First seven years of his career were either working for Nick Gulas, where he had the program with Dutch Mantel, or he was working in icw. And so those first seven years, where he was probably his most. Most athletic version of himself, most people didn't see. [00:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Except us who were at the shows. [00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And, you know, you see him in the WWF and you see him doing some amazing stuff. Right. But like you said, hey, you should have seen him back in 81. You should have seen him back in 79, because he was really incredible. He seemed to have. Everybody talks about Cactus Jack and Mick Foley, you know, no regard for his body. But, man, Savage seemed to be that way sometimes, too. Climb that top rope and jump to the floor. [00:20:56] Speaker A: And I'd never heard this before about Randy, but I was talking to George Weingroft last week, and he told me something I had never heard. He said, and I've listened to Rip Rogers show a lot about his. He had a close relationship with Randy. But George said Randy's goal every night was to have that guy's best match. [00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:17] Speaker A: That he would go in the ring no matter who he's working with. And you can kind of see that in that Crusher Broomfield match, you know, George is still real green, but it's pretty good match because of all the activity. Randy's flying all over the ring for him, you know, And George said Randy's goal was to go in the ring and have that. Whoever he was working with, that was going to be their best match. Which I thought that's. That's a real. That must come from Angelo. I mean, that's a real worker's mentality. [00:21:46] Speaker B: Yes. It's a real professional. [00:21:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Attitude. And, you know, when he. And we may talk about this a little bit, in case we don't. I'll. I'll throw it in here. Yeah. When he did get ready to leave and go to the wwf, you know, after he left, Jerry Jarrett always had good things to say about Randy Savage. And part of that was because when Randy said, I'm leaving. Randy stayed and did the job when he didn't have to. He did what was good for Jerry's business on the way out the door. And that speaks highly of their relationship that Randy would do that, but it made him speak more. Randy would have probably done that for anybody. Probably. [00:22:29] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. Because when he was working as Jim Pride and, and Lanny and Angelo were somewhere between mid card and semi main event, he was traveling with them and in the opening match and doing jobs for guys. He met people and learned how the business worked in the territory system that you didn't burn your bridges, you know, and you did the right things when you left and all that. So he was, he was raised correctly in the business, I think. Yeah, I, I agree. [00:23:03] Speaker B: And very professional, but, but still very exciting. [00:23:09] Speaker A: So also we, we're kind of talking about Memphis in relation to what's going on nationally also. But there's a television taping in Memphis for Pro Wrestling usa. What, what, how did that work? [00:23:24] Speaker B: It didn't work well, you know, so. [00:23:28] Speaker A: With a lot, a lot of cooks in the kitchen there. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Too many cooks in the kitchen, too many chiefs and all that other, all that other stunning head coaches or whatever you had, you know, we see it happening with the infamous Black Saturday. That's when so many people know, hey, something's going on in the business behind the scenes. But it'd been going on for months and months with Vince McMahon gaining more and more control and wanting whatever's he could get his hands on. [00:23:59] Speaker A: Well, it started at the 1983 NWA Convention when Vince Seniors and Vince had been coming for almost eight years at that point. But Vince Senior told the delegates there, the members, that my son's taken over my business and he's got plans and he's probably going to do things a little bit different than I've always done them. And he did. [00:24:25] Speaker B: And, and, you know, I thought about this a lot because. Professional wrestling promoters back in the day, how honorable were they really? You know, I mean, you know, they, they were as honorable as the handshake going on right then. You know, any of these guys would have, you know, done whatever they needed to do to make their business better. Borders didn't mean a whole lot, really, when you really didn't want them to. [00:24:56] Speaker A: And when you don't. Tim, to your point too, and I don't mean to cut you off, they were not. They didn't. They had good business acumen as long as they were the biggest dog in the yard. Yeah, but they didn't. When they got Serious competition. They. They made some terrible, terrible mistakes that you wouldn't normally make. So as long as the. Everything was going along as it has always been, they were fine. But everything in the business is changing. Everything about the business is changing. And so much of it is. You know, when. When they were a member of the National Wrestling alliance, that put a lot of control in their hands. But now these are things that even the National Wrestling alliance can't control. Like the changes in technology. Yeah. You know, the fact that wrestling fans now have more than three channels on their television, and there are more wrestling programs out there that they have access to, and that freaked them out a little bit. [00:26:01] Speaker B: Yeah, they couldn't. They couldn't keep up with it, I don't think. [00:26:05] Speaker A: Well, they couldn't control it, you know, they couldn't control. They couldn't control. You know, they had spent their whole lives controlling what the fans saw and heard. [00:26:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:14] Speaker A: And that's over. [00:26:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:17] Speaker B: And somebody else is going to control somebody else. A little savvier with, you know, with everything going on. But, you know, they do get together, this group of folks who. Who do not like what Vince McMahon's doing. And you had folks like Bill Watts and Vern Ganya and Jim Crockett and Jerry Jarrett. There were probably maybe a few others involved in this. And they decided, hey, we're gonna. We're gonna do our own TV show. And Jerry says, come to Memphis. We'll do the first one here. And that happened, I believe, in September. And, you know, there's some. Some interesting matches there if you go back and watch those. Unfortunately for those of us who enjoyed Memphis wrestling, most of the guys who were working regularly on top in Memphis ended up doing jobs. [00:27:02] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:02] Speaker B: Or some of the bigger talent, which I kind of question and wonder about that, but, you know, Jerry's. Somebody had to take the bullet. And Jerry, I think, decided to take the bullet for the better of the team. And it did not end well. [00:27:15] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, I agree. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Because everything falls apart pretty much after this, and we really end up having mostly Vernon and Jim Crockett working together, at least for a little while, and they can't get along either. Well. [00:27:27] Speaker A: And honestly, Tim, if I'm sending. If. If you're having a television taping in my home base, my big money town, and my guys are going to do the majority of the jobs on it, that probably should be a sign that says, you can't trust these guys. [00:27:42] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So should have been. [00:27:47] Speaker A: As we move on. What's this? We got Randy's on the roster, Rick Rude's on the roster. What about the. The Fabulous Ones? [00:27:55] Speaker B: The Fabs are around. You know, of all. Of all the things that Memphis did right, And Memphis did good. One of those, in my opinion, is the creation of the Fabulous Ones, Steve and Stan. And the reason they were so good, you know, they had a. An appeal across the board because the young ladies love them. You married that in with rock and roll music and they did the videos. But when you stuck them in, you know, against a team like the Sheep Herders, who were really tough and came across as tough and brawling, they could ha. They could, you know, hang in there with those guys. And part of that was because they had been associated with Jackie Fargo from the very beginning. It's a great idea to associate a veteran, a legend with this group. And from that day forward, they were over. I mean, they were over right then. Now in the beginning of 84, they're looking for greener pastures and they don't like, maybe some of the pay that's going on and they leave. And this is also one of those baffling things that happens to me is the promotion buries them. You know, they badmouth them on the way out and. And, you know, I don't know if they were really just that angry with them because like you said, burning those bridges, hard to get back across when you need to get over, back to the other side. And the Fabs come back in a few months, you know, they. They eventually do come back, but in the interim, here's another horrible choice, right? The New Fabulous Ones. [00:29:32] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:29:33] Speaker B: Which. Which, on its face, Tommy Rich and Eddie Gilbert should work, but it was a real cheap imitation of Stephen Stan. And, you know, maybe they could have packaged them differently. I don't know. [00:29:47] Speaker A: Well, you know this, Tim, from your broadcasting experience. But to try to explain it to the people listening who don't, back in the analog days, when you basically had music or you had movies or whatever on tape, and if you're an old tape trader, you should know this as well. Every time you copy that thing, it doesn't look as good as it did before. So it was almost like that. It was almost like we had a bad generation copy what the Fabulous One was. And also, and I go, steve Kern has said he wants to come on the show sometimes. I want him to come on. But I'm curious about. Did they not know that that gimmick was not going to work as well outside of Tennessee? I mean, because that connection with Jackie Fargo was a really big reason why they were over. And you don't have that outside Tennessee because Jackie didn't mean very much outside Tennessee. [00:30:43] Speaker B: Right. That's a good point. Very good point. [00:30:45] Speaker A: So I would have almost been thinking, well, we can't really go too much of anyplace else because we're not going to be as if we go somewhere else. We're gonna have to change our gimmick because we're not going to be as over as we are here. [00:30:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:30:58] Speaker A: And it wasn't long before they wanted to come back, you know. [00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was by the summer they were back and, and so then what do you do with Tommy and Eddie? You know, where does. And you split them up and feud him with one another and Eddie becomes a heel. Yeah. [00:31:14] Speaker A: Which is a typical Memphis angle. Right. Where do you put Eddie Gilbert in the whole Tennessee wrestling pecking order? I mean, he's got a great story. I mean, his dad was tag team partners with Eddie Marlin. They were really over as a babyface tag team. And Eddie's this kid who comes to the. He and Ricky Morton are almost like kind of two peas in a pod. They come to these matches from the time they can know even anything that's going on and, and Eddie spends his teenage years in a notebook writing down ideas and looking cards and it's no wonder he was good at what he did once he got old enough to do it because he practiced it his whole life. But what's your thoughts about Eddie? [00:32:01] Speaker B: Personal level. One of my all time favorites. I just love, I love watching, I love watching his interviews. I love, I love watching the expressions on his face, you know, in ring he was okay, he was small and, and, and he also had some injuries early in his career. The car accident. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:23] Speaker B: You know, and, and as time moved on the. If Eddie had. Eddie could have maybe played his cards better, obviously and, and meant a whole lot more to Memphis wrestling in the 90s as, as Lawler slowed and Dundee slowed down. But you know, he got that taste of being on the national level too. And by that point, you know, coming back to Memphis, you know. Yeah. [00:32:53] Speaker A: I don't know if it was, I don't know if it was, was Somehow or another he always got derailed, you know, I mean he always got on a track somewhere and he either got pushed out or he self sabotaged or something. It just never, you know, working for Watts or working for WCW or even working for Paul Heyman, something always happened that, you know, caused him to derail the situation. [00:33:21] Speaker B: And that's a shame because so many of those places where he worked, he would have been such a great benefit, too, and was at times, you know, you look at what he did in Alabama in. In 19. What year was it? 80. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah. 88, 89, something like that. [00:33:40] Speaker B: He really. He had some. Some great booking there and. And some other places where he had his hand in there. But, yeah, I mean, he was kind. [00:33:50] Speaker A: Of the first guy that really saw Rick Steiner and Sting as being future stars. You know, he. [00:33:55] Speaker B: He was probably his own worst enemy in that regard. But I think. I think so many of the. If you want to call us smart fans, I think part of the reason so many of us liked Eddie Gilbert was he really felt like one of us, even though he was in the business. [00:34:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:12] Speaker B: You know, you know, you could see him in an interview, say something. It was almost like a wink and a nod. You know, I know some of you guys out there really understand what I'm saying here. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:34:21] Speaker B: You know, I didn't see that. He was one of the. Maybe the first shoot interview. I don't know if you remember that. Bob Barnett, I did an interview with him in 93 or 94. That was. That was amazing to watch. [00:34:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I might have. Looking for Mr. Gilbert was the name of it, and you might find that on YouTube, I guess. [00:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. [00:34:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty cool. And. And when you see him in that light, you know, you do see him as a fan, and I think you kind of. You can kind of endure, endear yourself to him and him to you in that regard, because he really seems like just a big fan of the business. [00:34:59] Speaker A: You know, on our regular stuff that we do here on the show. We're in the 70s, and so last year we were doing most of the 75. And it's the. It's the year that Lawler's out of place. You know, he's not in Tennessee, he's in Georgia, and he's in Florida. And starting out here in 85, it's another quirky deal where he's in a place you don't normally think of when you think of Jerry Lawler. He's in Japan. [00:35:24] Speaker B: Yeah. He spent a week in Japan with, of all people, Jimmy Valiant. [00:35:29] Speaker A: I don't see Jimmy Valiant in Japan either. [00:35:32] Speaker B: No, I don't know how they finagled that. I believe it was with all Japan, if I'm not mistaken. And, you know, all Japan, you know, you can debate whether you liked all Japan or new Japan. Better. But at some point all Japan really was more physical and you don't necessarily think of that with Jerry Lawler and Jimmy Valiant. [00:35:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:54] Speaker B: But yeah, they spent a week in Japan. This enabled Eddie Gilbert to kind of go wild on some of the TV shows. And you know, Eddie had a. Eddie's best month in Memphis was February because he did the infamous Jerry Lawler this is your life segment which was very creative, very different. It wasn't in the ring, but it was a very creative segment that, you know, got. Got the fans a little bit riled up. And then later on in the. Probably actually in early February they had a snowstorm and not many people were on hand at the TV studio, could get to the TV studio. And so he does a two out of three falls match with David Haskins, also later known as Davey Rich. And you know, Eddie takes him out and throws him in the snow and you know, Eddie's having. [00:36:47] Speaker A: Whatever you, whatever you got to do to fill the hour. [00:36:49] Speaker B: That's right. Hour and a half in Memphis, you know, that hour and a half. [00:36:53] Speaker A: Another thing happens too in February that you did not see on television very often at all. I think the Dream Machine had a segment where he was kind of became famous for it. But you didn't put your hands or do anything to Lance Russell. But they, they did something to him here on television, which I remember watching this and just my mouth was hanging open. [00:37:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And let's not gloss over Troy Graham in a minute because he does something a little bit later on in this timeframe as well with the Fabulous Ones. But. Yes. So nobody at this point really of significance had left Memphis for the wwf. But the first casualty was Jimmy Hart. And so on this TV episode, Jimmy is, is managing one of those tag teams, right, the Terminators. And they're feuding with a tag team of the Dirty White Boys, which Jimmy had managed a few weeks earlier. And that's Tony Anthony and Lynn Denton. Pretty good tag team, you know, and they're the, they're the good guys and Hart's managing the Terminators. And so they're coming up on a match where they're going to put. And this is Memphis too, right? Only in Memphis, where you put out a pole in the corner of the ring that's five or ten feet high and put a five pound bag of flour on top of it. And if you get up there, whoever gets up there can use the flower to, you know, as a weapon on the other team. And so Jimmy's promoting this match and of course him and Lance Russell had had verbal battle after verbal battle over the years. And Jimmy opens up the bag and he. He flicks a little bit of flour on Lance and of course, aggravated Lance Russell is absolutely great. Right? Come on, Jimmy, you gotta. What are you doing here? And Jimmy, it just, you know, eggs Jimmy on. And finally Jimmy just dumps the whole bag on Lance. And Lance just has it, you know, he's. He's over it. [00:39:00] Speaker A: What in the sam hell have you done here? [00:39:03] Speaker B: What is going on? And the, the great thing about this is how they used what was going on that day, right? Because there's so few people there that Eddie Marlin, who would have been in charge of the TV show, right, was not there. And so Lance turns to Jimmy Hart goes, you're suspended. And Jimmy Hart goes, you can't do that. Eddie Marlin is the only person who can do that. And Lance goes, eddie's not here. I'm in charge. You're suspended. And that's Jimmy Hart. Yeah, you know, gone from Memphis, Right. For doing this act. [00:39:36] Speaker A: And I don't think anybody realized at the time that he was going to be gone. [00:39:40] Speaker B: No, because that, you know, Jimmy did a taped interview later on to promote the match where he actually was, you know, lose or leave town type event that took place a couple of weeks later, you know, and that happened in mid February where it was Lawler and Eddie Gilbert and I believe. Oh, can I find my notes here? Who was the Southern champ? Eddie was the Southern champion at the time. Lawler was chasing the title. And if Eddie won, Jimmy Hart is reinstated. If Lawler won, he gets the title and Jimmy Hart leaves. [00:40:18] Speaker A: And just to kind of put this all in context here in February 1985, Crockett is not on WTBS yet. And so the only national television any fans are getting is wwf. They're on USA Television, they're on tbs, and they got a syndicated show. And even to this point about Jimmy Hart, the Wrestling observer isn't really the Wrestling observer yet. So, I mean, he was coming out with the Wrestling observer maybe once a month and even was thinking about quitting there somewhere around this time. So it's not like the smarter fans of us were getting the Wrestling observer where it said, Jimmy Hart met with Vince McMahon three weeks ago and he's headed to the WWF. We didn't have that. [00:41:06] Speaker B: We didn't know. [00:41:06] Speaker A: So when we saw the flower on Lance's head and Lance suspended him, we thought, oh, this is just leading to the next hot story. You know, we didn't know he was going to be gone forever. Right now what do you think about was it time for Jimmy to leave? [00:41:23] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, I think they could have still played it out. [00:41:26] Speaker A: I mean, Lawler stayed into the 90s, you know. [00:41:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:30] Speaker A: And like you said, their program had been going on five years at the this point, you know. [00:41:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And it wasn't like it was con. Continuous 52 weeks a year. I mean there were little breaks in there that, that would, that would refresh it. You know, they. They did something that maybe a year earlier where JJ Dylan came in and Jimmy kind of sided. Sided with Lawler for a little bit. Even though they, I think even turn that around Now. [00:41:55] Speaker A: I will say as a fan at this point, and I've been watching since 72 and you've been watching since 70 something and that we had different managers in the Tennessee territory, but after he dumps the flower and Jimmy leaves, it just seems like there is an endless parade of guys that they are trying to recreate that with from now to the end of the promotion, you know? [00:42:23] Speaker B: Yes. Agree. [00:42:24] Speaker A: Seem like that to you where it's just like. [00:42:26] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I don't know that they ever did. I mean, to that, you know, definitely not to that level. And there were some guys who were good and you know, here they are. [00:42:36] Speaker A: A year and they've already sent Cornette out. So he's not coming back. [00:42:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And he's, you know, he's at this point see him. Was he with Crockett at this point or about. [00:42:47] Speaker A: No, no, no. First part of 85. He's in Dallas. They're in world class. They don't go to Crockett till the summer, you know. [00:42:55] Speaker B: And think about this. A year removed from the fabs leaving in the new Fabs debuting. What do they do? They bring in a guy named to who looks and dresses just like Jimmy Hart and talks like Jimmy Hart to try to get him over. And God bless the guy, you know, he tried and who wouldn't in that position, you know, do you know, try to try to fill that slot? But. [00:43:16] Speaker A: But it's a little bit like Jerry Jarrett coming out there as a Hawaiian flash. Like. Yeah, we know what this is, right? [00:43:22] Speaker B: This is. Yeah. All right. [00:43:25] Speaker A: So moving into March, the pafos turn heel. [00:43:29] Speaker B: They do. [00:43:29] Speaker A: And here comes Tex Newman into the mix. [00:43:33] Speaker B: You know, I have a. An Olympic Auditorium T shirt and I started to wear it today in honor of Tux Newman. Because Tux Newman in reality is a. Is A man named Jeff Walton who had worked for years with the Los Angeles promotion and publicity and all these years later, I think he worked for the WWF some in the. In their early days. [00:43:54] Speaker A: I think he worked with their magazine and. [00:43:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And here he is showing up in. In Memphis as a manager. [00:44:00] Speaker A: And, you know, and he might have been one of the better ones that they tried. [00:44:05] Speaker B: I enjoyed him. And you know, the thing about, About Tux Newman or Jeff Walton in this. Been around the business a long time, so he knew how the business functioned and operated. And I think that was kind of a step up for him, but as if, you know, one of the things they do early on, I think it's the first interview and it's almost a throwaway line. As he's leaving, he goes, oh, by the way, I want you guys to know that I'm here to avenge my good friend Andy Kaufman, you know, who had the feud with Lawler and who had passed away a year earlier. [00:44:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:44:37] Speaker B: And fans, you know, have. Have at least a long enough memory to remember Andy Kaufman in the territory. [00:44:43] Speaker A: The only down thing for Jeff here is. Or Tech Tux, the only down thing for him is you never want to be the guy who replaces the guy. [00:44:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:44:51] Speaker A: You know, if they had brought in another manager, like the endless parade of guys that they brought in and then they brought Jeff in, I think he could have done better. [00:45:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:01] Speaker A: But after, I mean, you're the guy that's coming in as the lead heel manager after Jimmy Hart in. In Tennessee. That's. That's a tough deal there. But he does a great job. I mean, I really like. [00:45:14] Speaker B: I do too. I enjoy watching him and, and, you know, you think about a Randy Savage. Does he need a manager? He's a great interviewer on his own, but, you know, Tuck's held his own there with. With him as a manager. And, you know, a manager is not always the mouthpiece for somebody. You got to have somebody sometimes at ringside to do some distraction. All the Tux did a good job of that. And they eventually, a few months down the road, Tux ends up having to step in the ring with Jackie Fargo. [00:45:40] Speaker A: And I do like the way they book Savage from the end of 84 through the. He eventually leaves here in the middle of 85. I like this whole series of booking with him because they came in as heels, then he became baby faces, and now they're going to turn back heel again. And the one thing, if you're a fan of wrestling in Tennessee, that you know, above all else is that the pile driver is a. No, no, that's right. The pile driver is the hole that's been outlawed going all the way back to Wild Bill Longson, I guess. But. [00:46:19] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, somewhere in some of my notes it seems like I have a clip or something. It might be with the Tennessee Athletic Commission or something where they talk about the pile driver, you know and how. How bad it really is and is probably some newspaper article. But yes. I mean and. And we're talking back probably into the 40s when they were talking this. So you know this isn't just something they came up with. No, because we're going to use this on the May 4 card. You know, this was something that you knew as a fan. It's just a. No, no. [00:46:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Outlawed as a hold is so dangerous that you can't use it. And then they would do a special match with it. And it meant something because of that. You know, because of that. But. But Savage puts it on Lawler here and, and puts him out for three weeks. [00:47:10] Speaker B: And that of course gets Savage over. Back over is a even bigger heel. And you know anticipating that return match with Lawler. And when. When it happens it does big business. Probably the biggest business of the year I would think with the exception maybe of some of the co promotion cards with Crockett because. But those had elevated prices probably. [00:47:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:35] Speaker B: But just on a week to week basis. Probably the biggest money making matches of the year were Lawler Savage at this point. [00:47:43] Speaker A: And then in the spring we get a guy who everybody knows but is not associated with wrestling in Tennessee at all. You might not even remember that he worked there. But Bruiser Brody comes in. [00:47:56] Speaker B: Yes. [00:47:57] Speaker A: And teams up with Jerry Lawler as a babyface tag team against a Savage and a long time Tennessee heel, Dr. D. [00:48:07] Speaker B: And of course Shorts earlier in the year had garnered some publicity for slapping John stossel on the 2020 expose. That's something that we really hadn't mentioned yet either is right. The business was. Was more prominent than ever. More mainstream than had ever been in. In years. But it also brought some bad publicity in the 2020 expose where you had Eddie Mansfield and Jim Wilson and all these other guys talking about the secrets professional wrestling. And then you have John Stossel asking that. That eternal question that just has to be asked. Is this stuff fake? And David Schultz showing them well, is this fake? And so. And David was fired. You know, for whatever reason. Whether it was that or some other things. There's some debate on exactly why he was fired. But this is One of the few places that you see David work in the States so soon after all that happened. [00:49:01] Speaker A: And if you haven't listened to the Welch series I referenced earlier, David was trained by Herb Welch, Roy Welch's brother. He was one of the Welch brothers. And the one thing that you learned as you were broken into the business by the Welches was you protect Kayfabe at all costs. You cannot allow anybody to disrespect the business. So when Vince. So you might not think that was. You might think that David just went off on a tangent. But actually, Vince McMahon had said, Jerry Briscoe told me this. Somebody ought to do something about that guy that's exposing our business. Well, David's been trained that you don't. You know, the guy is going to leave here believing that this is real and that's. He slapped a taste out of his mouth. [00:49:51] Speaker B: So. And you would know more so than the other. Herb was probably the saltiest of the Welch, bro. [00:49:56] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:49:56] Speaker B: Probably the toughest. I mean, he, he was probably really. You're. If you, if you escape training with him, you. You did well. [00:50:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And he trained a bunch of guys, you know, in, In Tennessee. But David had written in his book that he had to take a mineral bath every night when he got home. His. His wife had to come out to his car and help him into the house and. Yeah. Help him get in the bathtub. And he would sit in the bathtub for 45 minutes a night after going through that with Herb. [00:50:28] Speaker B: And this is David Schultz, who is known as one of the legit tough guys. [00:50:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I met him in St. Louis. I met him in St. Louis last year, and I was nervous. [00:50:38] Speaker B: He's. He's still intimidating. [00:50:40] Speaker A: Yeah, he's got an aura about him. There's no doubt. [00:50:44] Speaker B: So. So the other flip of this, as you mentioned earlier, is Bruiser Brody, where in the world he come in with. And that's. That might have also been a Japan connection that Jerry Law made then. But what's interesting about it is, is if you do know Bruiser Brody, you do know that pretty much everywhere he went, he made money. He, He. He was gold. I mean, he, he made money. He was huge in Japan. And I believe at this time, he was maybe in between the two promotions. If you look at the timeline, I think that's what's going on. But he made appearances in the States. He was, he was a true independent contractor. That's a phrase that likes to be thrown around about professional wrestling. But he made his shots. He made his own deals. And I remember asking Jerry Jarrett about Bruiser Brody. And I said, how hard, how difficult was he to work with? And Jerry had one word. He goes, difficult. And, you know, but Lawler beats him. [00:51:43] Speaker A: That knee in Memphis, I don't know. [00:51:46] Speaker B: That he gets a pinfall over him. And that was the point I was going to make because Brody protected his image in the States because he was concerned about how that would be viewed in Japan. And that's where he made his money. I think he worked 16 or 20 weeks a year at this point and made huge money there. And he needed to be seen as strong wherever he went. And if those tapes, at this point, there's tapes that could go back to Japan. He didn't need to be seen losing, particularly to somebody like a Jerry Lawler that was not known or barely known in Japan. The flip to that is the interesting part is you're working Jerry Jarrett, who's the king of Memphis. And guess who needs to win at. [00:52:27] Speaker A: The end of the feud, right? [00:52:28] Speaker B: Jerry Lawler needs to win at the end of the feud. And you got Bruiser Brody going. You're not going to win at the end of this year. [00:52:34] Speaker A: And our mutual friend Mr. Jarrett was very good at creative editing, so I'm surprised we didn't get a tape of a three count with the Bruiser Brody. [00:52:45] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, before we were, before you and I went on air, we were talking about this particular year of 85. And. And one of the things I said about it was when, when I, when I go back and look at the year and look at it from a kind of a bird's eye perspective, when I look at it from, from a binge watching tape where I can watch episode after episode, you see how layered these stories are from one week to the other. And you can see this Lawler Brody feud play out over a few weeks. And you, you know, as I'm watching it and I, the first time I watched it, not knowing how it was going to end, really, I'm like, how are they going to get out of this? Because Brody's not gonna, you know, Brody's not going to do a fall here, right? But you see them insert a heel referee and the heel referee ends up causing a mat, you know, causing Law or some, some. A match or. Or irritating him. And that's how they kind of get out of it. So Brody doesn't have to do the final job. And it sags into this feud with the heel referee, Tom Branch, and his becomes a manager to a guy named Boda the Witch Doctor, typical Memphis heel. [00:54:08] Speaker A: But to your point, if you're a fan like we were at the time and you're watching the television every week, it makes sense to you. But if you get a comp, you're like, what does Bruiser Brody come in at? Like, because you just watched a world class match and then you watch something else and you watch something else and then it's like, this doesn't seem like it makes any sense. But to your point, if you're watching the ongoing story, it does. [00:54:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:54:34] Speaker A: Because they were very good at intricate connections of things. Right. They without what we would consider today to be a continuity director for a show or something, they were still pretty good at keeping up with things that had been gone on years ago. That as long term fans, you would. [00:54:52] Speaker B: Know and you know, wouldn't. I was, I was homesick a few years ago, several years ago now, and I was able to spend the week, or week and a half I was out of sick and out of work watching Memphis Wrestling 1980. And I watched it beginning to end in 1980 is one of those years. You think, you know, Lawler's not there. [00:55:18] Speaker A: But when all Ellering is a champion. [00:55:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you watch that though, and you see not necessarily the work, but how the story's told, how the psychology plays out. And I think you can see that in the 1985 too. So if you've never watched the 1985 Memphis stuff, try to watch it chronologically and you see how these things fold together. [00:55:42] Speaker A: That's good. [00:55:43] Speaker B: And when something comes up and you go, how are they going to get out of this? You find out, oh, that's why they did this two weeks ago or three weeks ago. Because it leads to this. And they do this all year long. [00:55:54] Speaker A: Yes. And this starts to get a little sad for me because we get as we get into June, it's. They're starting to. Because after Jimmy Hart dumped the flower on Lance and goes to New York, he tells Vic, man, the best wrestler in the country is in Memphis. [00:56:11] Speaker B: Yes. [00:56:12] Speaker A: So Savage gets an offer and tells Jarrett, hey, I think I'm going to take this, but I'll do whatever you want me to do on the way out and I'll give you a couple weeks notice. And so they go into the what's going to end up being a loser leave town angle for Randy here. [00:56:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think I watched part of the match in Memphis where they, I think it was like a 30 minute match, great match. [00:56:38] Speaker A: And they did it a couple places. [00:56:39] Speaker B: Yeah, they Did. [00:56:41] Speaker A: I went to Lexington to see it. Loser leaves Town match and probably to a packed house. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yes. [00:56:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, they did huge business with it. And. And like you said, Savage was, you know, when folks saw him in the wwf, they had to go, where did this guy come from? [00:57:00] Speaker A: Right. [00:57:00] Speaker B: You know, if they want to. If they didn't know anything. Memphis and so many of the WWF fans at that time were more casual and would not have known. But what a unique. What a unique character he was from everybody else. [00:57:14] Speaker A: And I wrote a complete article on this that, again, we didn't get. I was an observer subscriber, but it wasn't coming quick enough to know like. Like you do now. You. He would send out the observer at the time they had the Loser lease Town match in June. He'd send it out, telling you things that happened in February. Right, right. And when I went to that match in Lexington in June, which was a Loser leaves town, it was Randy's last match in the territory. Nobody in that RUP arena that night thought he was leaving. [00:57:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:51] Speaker A: I mean, we did not think, okay, well, this loser leaves town match. Randy can't lose because he's not leaving. Lawler can't lose. He not. But we were used to Lawler leaving. Right. He'd lost a couple of things. He lost the Dundee. He had lost different people to go to Japan. I think one time he went to Hawaii for three weeks. [00:58:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:11] Speaker A: So it was more likely to us at the time because Lexington was the place where they had based their promotion, and those guys were over in Lexington, you know, And I just remember that night so vividly going to that match and not even having a clue that he was going to be leaving. [00:58:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And stepped onto a big stage and within, you know, a few years is one of the major attractions in the business. And that's one of the great things that I think about, you know, when I was working on the book about Knoxville, you know, Randy and some of those guys, some of those ICW guys before it was ICW, back in 79, when that all Star Championship group, when they first broke off from Ron Fuller. [00:59:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:08] Speaker B: In Southeastern, and I looked at some of the. Some of the gates for the Tennessee Athletic Commission records, and, you know, they were drawing 5, 600 people in Knoxville. And seven or eight years later, Randy's coming back maybe as the WWF champion. I can't recall, but he's working Thompson Bowling arena in Knoxville, which is like 20 or 22,000 seats now. I don't know that they sold that many. But you're thinking a few years ago they were, they were hoping for 500. [00:59:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:59:41] Speaker B: And here they are in front of thousands. And it's the same guy. [00:59:46] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. In 1982, I was going to National Guard armories watching him in front of 250 people. And by 1987, he's going to have probably the most influential WrestleMania match of all time under some Hogan match, you might name Hogan and Andre or something. But, but you know, him and Steamboat, probably the business is influenced today by that match more than any other match. [01:00:11] Speaker B: Yes, yes, great. Two great workers that we would have never seen without and most, more than likely never seen. [01:00:19] Speaker A: Most of the creative guys that are booking matches today grew up as kids on that match. [01:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's a good thing. It's a great match. [01:00:29] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So Lawler beats Savage, Savage has to leave. And they did that in a couple of the towns. Like I said, they did it in Memphis, they did it in Lexington. And Brody and Lawler have their blow off match too, with the heel referee. [01:00:49] Speaker B: Right, right, right. And so that moves into a few weeks with this Boda the Witch Doctor character who has a stick that throws fire. For those of you that are going, which, which guy was that? He had the stick that threw fire. And of course, Jerry Lawler threw fire. But this is also one of the, you know, you think about some of these guys that are working here, Brody and David Schultz, they weren't going to make all the other towns. Usually they were going to make Memphis maybe, but they might not go to Evansville, they might not make it to Nashville. So you had to have somebody underneath to work those towns. And that was what, that was the purpose of Boda the Witch Doctor. Right. You're going to see Lawler and Boda the Witch Doctor headline the fairgrounds in Nashville. [01:01:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:36] Speaker B: And until something else came along and, and then you bring in one of the most well known tag teams of the 80s, the free birds. And you bring, you bring in first Michael Hayes. And Michael comes in as a fan favorite and I believe has a match with Tom Branch and Boda interferes and they're getting ready to, you know, double team him. And who comes in to save him but Jerry Lawler. And then in the skirmish that follows, Jerry throws fire because, hey, Boda can throw fire. Jerry throws fire and it hits Michael Hayes. And suddenly now we have Jerry Lawler against Michael Hayes and in turn against the Free Birds. [01:02:22] Speaker A: And I'll be honest with you, Tim, I didn't buy boda that much? [01:02:25] Speaker B: No, but. [01:02:26] Speaker A: But I loved the Free Birds being here. [01:02:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:02:29] Speaker A: They hadn't been here before. Well, no, I take that back. They were here briefly, right? Yes, they were briefly here with Nick and he didn't understand the Freebird gimmick and it didn't work. And then they were here for just a little bit because Gordy pulls the towel off Michael Hayes head. But they weren't. They just weren't here very long. But. But I got into this Freebird deal. [01:02:51] Speaker B: Well, and even though they weren't here long because of the changing nature of professional wrestling, because they had been on TBS national television, you knew who they were, right. And maybe even, you know, they spent what, two or three weeks in wwe, you know. But you probably also knew them, at least in some markets from World Class Wrestling as well at this point. I don't know that. They may be Mid south, but I don't think they've gone. The big one in Mid south later. [01:03:20] Speaker A: On was coming up, I think World Class. We got the World Class show up here because they, they were big in syndication. And we also got the Fort Worth station on satellite. [01:03:32] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:03:35] Speaker A: TVT channel 11. So that. But I had known the Free Birds from way back in Atlanta days, you know, so I was excited for them be here. And I like the program and I love Phil Hickerson to death. I think him and Dennis Condrier are some of the. One of the best tag teams of all time, actually. But Phil's kind of long in the tooth here against the Free Birds. [01:04:00] Speaker B: So it's interesting because Lawler always had those tag partners he turned to right. Bill Dundee and Austin Idol when he wasn't feuding with them. And so that's, that's kind of what takes place here. I think Dundee comes in. Dundee may have come in and worked Brody, I don't remember. But I know Idol came in and worked the Free Birds. And for those with longer history of with, with the Georgia promotion, you remember Idol and the Free Birds had a. [01:04:28] Speaker A: Feud and four flat tire angle. [01:04:30] Speaker B: The flat, flat tire. Four flat tires. How did you know that? That angle. But suddenly, one week, Jerry can't find a partner and he's got to face Hayes and Gordy and Phil Hickerson has come back and he's the international champion and feels a little full of himself. Hey, you know, here I am. I'm. I'm somebody here. Come on, King, you know, you know me and you can handle these guys. And. And so it ends up with Hickerson and, and Lawler teaming up to take on the Free Birds. [01:05:04] Speaker A: Now I might have asked, I might have asked you this before, but you lived in Jackson for a while. Did you meet, do you ever meet Phil? [01:05:10] Speaker B: I did a time or two. Not, you know, Phil was just getting back in the business in 88. I think he'd been out of it for a little bit and came back. [01:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:24] Speaker B: And, and met him then. Nice guy, even. Even though he was supposed to be a heel. [01:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean I met him a few times. I, I think he owned a bar in Jackson. [01:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Get the post. [01:05:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I had been dating a girl down there and that she was friends with her sister actually was friends with Phil and her boyfriend and all. And so I liked him a lot. Of course, I liked him as a wrestler anyway. But he wasn't that much different in person than he was on. [01:05:54] Speaker B: No, he wasn't. I loved him as a heel though, because he always, he always came across as a small town bully, you know, when he was really in his, his heel mode or I think of a cousin that I had who married a guy who was just a complete jerk. And I, you know, I go, that's, that's Phil, you know, in this regard, you know, but he was really good at that. And here they are turning him into a face. And maybe that's by attrition, you know, because you're losing some of these guys. Savage is gone and heart's gone and, and in the rosters are tightening all across the business because WWF cherry picking people up. [01:06:42] Speaker A: Promoters are going out of business. [01:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:45] Speaker A: Now just a little bit of history here as we go into this next part. But Chattanooga was very prosperous as a wrestling town, especially under Gulas and Welch. Yes. After Nick kind of went out, it struggled. And Georgia, because it's right close to the Georgia border and the Georgia office, tried to go in there and run in 83 and only did it for seven or eight weeks. But now in April of 85, Crockett goes on TBS. So now they've got the time slot and I'm sure Chattanooga was someplace that was desirable for them and they make a deal with Jarrett to co promote. Now I know one of the deals that Jim Crockett Jr. Was putting out there in 85 to the other NWA members. That's another thing. Jarrett had a checkered history with the nwa. Sometimes he was in, sometimes he was out. He left and he went to the AWA because he wanted to try to get law to some title shots. But then he Brought Flair in on television in 82, and that famous angle that we've all seen. And, and so they, they. He. Jarrett bounced back and forth with the NWA at times, but Crockett Jr. Was offering the NWA members Ric Flair title matches because he's pretty much controlling the world title at this point. Yes, he was. He would send Ric Flair out and some Crockett wrestlers for 50% of the house. So I don't know if that was the deal that happened here or not, but at any rate, they decided to work together here in September, which I thought was great, because here's my home territory that I love, and here's Crockett, who I really hadn't watched very much except through tape trading. But they're now on tbs. And I like that wrestling a whole lot more than wwf. [01:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:41] Speaker A: So for me, I was excited when this happened. [01:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, as a fan, as a, you know, we look back now and talk about it, and maybe in different terms, but as a fan, you were mad that the WWF was going into these places and. Right. And changing things. [01:09:02] Speaker A: Right. [01:09:03] Speaker B: What you knew. And so the. The next greatest hope was Crockett. And. And Crockett had a great product. I mean, less cartoony, more athletic, more gritty than. Than the wwf. So if that appealed to you, you gravitated toward Crockett. [01:09:24] Speaker A: Well, it was basically, Tim, the way I tell people, and maybe I oversimplify, but it was almost like Crockett was Southern wrestling and that was Northern stuff. And. And we didn't. We didn't. We didn't buy into that as much. [01:09:41] Speaker B: Right. [01:09:41] Speaker A: But we. But we had guys like Jimmy Hart and we had guys like Savage that were going up there. And it was almost like, hey, this is our chance to fortify the. The home base here. You know, I mean, that's how I felt because I wanted it stopped. [01:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I did, too. One of the saddest days in the world, me, was Black Saturday. When I turned, you know, tuned in, what is this? But, and I think part of it for a long longer time, fans, longtime fans, was when somebody showed up in the wwf. Nobody knew anything about their past. [01:10:18] Speaker A: Right. [01:10:18] Speaker B: You know, their past was never acknowledged or rarely. Maybe a few times it was acknowledged, but rarely acknowledged. And so you're going, hey, I know all about the string of feuds this guy had, but they're teaming or, you know. Yeah. [01:10:34] Speaker A: It's like Savage just turned pro when he went to the wwf. And that's the way. That's the way they booked him too. Because all These managers were fighting over him. There's like, this is this guy that's come out of being an amateur and now he's a professional and all these. They want his server. He's rookie of the year, you know, And I'm like, oh, my gosh, he's had seven years of history, you know, at least. [01:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. In a lifetime in the business. And, you know, we. We're not going to acknowledge that. And I. I think as a longtime fan, that's one of the things that the WWF never reconciled for me, that I. That I never wanted to really root for them. And that to me, deep seated all the way into the 90s when I watched it. [01:11:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And not to veer off on this too much, but this is why I'm doing this series is because to try to record what was actually happening at this time. And people in our area of the country did not want that product. We wanted. We wanted what we thought was our product. [01:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:39] Speaker A: And Crockett was a continuation of the next generation of what we loved. Yeah. Even if we didn't grow up with the Crockett product, it was the best next thing. Yeah. Right. For a Tennessee fan or a Georgia fan or somebody who grew up with one of the southern territories. [01:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And it had some of the, you know, some of those guys that we saw before that we saw before, and they hadn't been changed, you know, for the most part. Yeah. You had Wahoo McDaniel and who was still Wahoo McDaniel. He wasn't, you know, some other character or what have you. Yeah. [01:12:16] Speaker A: But we got Lawler and Flair. Yeah. There in September. We got the Stomper back. [01:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:24] Speaker A: Which was awesome. And. [01:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So how many times does Jerry Lawler team with the Mongolian Stomper and not realize he's going to get turned on? [01:12:33] Speaker A: You know, it's almost like Dusty. It's like, Dusty, it's your best friend. You're gonna, you know, he gonna turn on you. [01:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Here comes Dick Slater again. Oh, yeah. Dick's not gonna turn on me. [01:12:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Ron Bass. [01:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, the interesting thing about the Crockett promotion and the Cross promotion here, as you said, Flair coming in because he's the NWA champion. And that was. That was where they first started pushing Lawler as a contender all those years ago. [01:13:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:10] Speaker B: And so here comes the NWA champion again. And it's kind of that idea of Lawler chasing that goal again. And they do some interesting things throughout the fall because at some point it's going to Be whoever's the Southern champion is going to be the guy who gets the title shot against Ric Flair. [01:13:30] Speaker A: Right. [01:13:31] Speaker B: And this sets up one of my favorite parts of the whole year, and that's the Tom Ernesto heel turn. And so you go back, and this is stuff that you can look at through the course of the year. One of the things that happened earlier in the year is Jerry Jarrett returned to the wrestling ring and teamed with Tojo Yamamoto. Whoo. Tag team of the year, 1973. Right. [01:13:52] Speaker A: Right. [01:13:52] Speaker B: And here they are, 10, 12 years later, teaming, and, you know, who knows exactly why they did that? Did you know, did they need to be on the card to fill the car? I don't know. [01:14:02] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:14:03] Speaker B: You know, but so in. In the storyline or in. In watching it week to week, the fans know that Jerry runs the company, Right. But now he's in the ring, so let's separate that. And Jerry has signed the company over, Eddie Marlin. And so Eddie Marlin's the guy who runs the thing. And so in storyline, Eddie Marlin hires Tom Ernesto to be the matchmaker. [01:14:29] Speaker A: Right. [01:14:30] Speaker B: And so. And you see Tom throughout the summer, you know, in pieces. [01:14:35] Speaker A: And they got on screen, too. Sorry to interrupt him, but the on screen, they don't always get along. [01:14:41] Speaker B: Right. [01:14:41] Speaker A: They have. They have disputes and arguments on television, which are fantastic interview segments if you, you know, and. And at one point, they even called Jerry out there. [01:14:51] Speaker B: Yes. [01:14:52] Speaker A: And Jerry comes out and he goes, I have turned it over to you guys, and I know what I'd do, but I can't do it because I. I'm not the guy anymore. [01:15:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's one of my favorite lines for Jerry goes, I know what I do. [01:15:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I love that. [01:15:06] Speaker B: And we all know what would. You know what that means, you know, but let me throw this in about Tom Renesto. Tom. Tom was one of the assassins with Jody Hamilton, one of the great match tag teams of all time. They were always great interviews. You know, Jody, you know, worked under the mask for many years after they split and was always a fascinating interview, but Tom was pretty good interview in his own right. [01:15:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:15:32] Speaker B: And Tom was married at one point to Kathy Branch, who was a pro wrestler. And so that's where we get Tom Branch. So Tom Branch, the heel, referees Tom Es son and Speedy Tall Tree, who works some as well, is also Tom's son as well. So they. They get in on this as well some during. During this year. But as you said, after Lawler wins the world title or the Southern title, there's this push that he's going to get a title shot with Ric Flair. And so the, this, the scenario you're talking about is Tom Eso comes out and says, lawler will not sign this match against the Stomper for the Southern title. And Lawler makes his case. You know, I'd be crazy to take on the Stomper and lose the Southern title, maybe lose the World champ, you know, the world title match. And the great thing to me about it is it all makes logical sense when you listen to it. And they are so good at their parts. And as you said, it plays out over, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes. Not all at one time. It's broken up. [01:16:41] Speaker A: It's like the television show's been hijacked. It's. It's awesome. It's like, wait a minute. I'd rather watch this than the wrestling match. [01:16:48] Speaker B: You know, other things go on. But you're. This thing's not resolved yet. [01:16:52] Speaker A: Right. [01:16:53] Speaker B: You said finally, you know, Eddie Martin, after Jerry Jarrett says, I know what I do, they take a break and they come back out. And Eddie says, well, I'm here to tell you, Tom Ernesto don't work for us anymore. Tom Ernesto goes, no, you're not firing me. I quit. And I'm going to be the Stompers manager. And it's a great heel turn. And Tom Ernesto is so good at never losing his cool. [01:17:16] Speaker A: And, Tim, it's. When you watch that angle and all of that, it's easier to believe it than it is to think of it as a work. [01:17:26] Speaker B: Yes. [01:17:27] Speaker A: When you, when you try to. When you try to get back to knowing it's a work, it's hard to do. I mean, because it's so good, you're pulled. You're pulled into it like it's a real argument and conflict between five people. [01:17:42] Speaker B: From a business perspective. On top of that, you know, I mean, how does the business, the. The pro wrestling business work? Well, it works this way. They're showing us how it works, you know, even though it really didn't. Right. But that's what, as fans, we're. We're buying into. [01:17:57] Speaker A: That's so. But that's so reflective of Jerry Jarrett's book at philosophy. The best work is 90% true. [01:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:18:06] Speaker A: It's the 10% that you are working, but 90% of it is. Jarrett did own the company. Eddie Marlin did. Was one of our very important people behind the scenes. And, and people knew that Tom Ernesto, longtime fans, knew Tom Ernesto worked for Nick Goulas and all of that played into this. You know, it was. There were a lot of callbacks in there that fans knew it meant something, you know. [01:18:34] Speaker B: You know, you and I, whenever we get to the Tom Ernesto years in Nick. Goodness. Yeah. After the split, Tom's work is as booker matchmaker. There was probably Nick's finest hour after the split because, you know, he had the free birds in there and had Savage in there and he had some very interesting angles and storylines that, that he worked and, and I just love this one. You know, this is maybe the first heel promoter type deal. [01:19:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:04] Speaker B: You know that, that's played out in here, but it's all set in the backdrop of the world title. And so here we think it's going to be Lawler and Stomper and ends up being Bill Dundee. Right. [01:19:15] Speaker A: Which then leads to something that Ric Flair still talks about to this day. [01:19:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:20] Speaker A: It still makes him mad to this day that he got off the airplane in Memphis and he thinks he's going to be working with either Lawler or Dundee and he finds out he's working Cocoa where. [01:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a swerve. [01:19:34] Speaker A: Right? Which, which always bothers me because Flair doesn't know. We thought Coco was pretty good. [01:19:41] Speaker B: He was pretty good. [01:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think after Flair worked with him, he too thought he's pretty good. But he's, he's held that grudge about thinking that they were ribbing him and switching the title on him at the last minute. But it was, it was, it added to the believability that anybody could win at any time. And this, whoever with the Southern champion was, was going to get the title match. [01:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, what happens is Dundee comes back and Dundee gets that Southern title match and he's going to be the guy, as you said, that's going to go against flare and he's, you know, him and Dutch Mantel team up, they beat the Fabs for the Southern tag titles. And you know, Dundee is just on top of the world, you know, and Lawler can't get touch him. And I, you know, I'll even take your Midamerica title, Coco. And, and, and that doesn't happen. And if you can watch these episodes consecutively because there's so many little things that happen that lead up to Coco winning that title match. I mean, there are things that happen with Jerry Jarrett getting his haircut and Hickerson losing the international title and, and all these things that come back to hot Dundee in this match that just come together. Domino's falling. That gets Coco the win. And I can't describe it. I can remember, you know, I wrote a series of articles years ago for a website called KFA Memories. And I can remember coming to this year and gathering all this information and going, how am I going to write this? Because there's no way to explain it in order, in a. In a. In a way for you to understand. You just almost have to watch it to really appreciate it and understand it. [01:21:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And they even do little things that are going to show up more prominently later on like that. On November 18, Coco and Flair have their NWA match in Memphis, which Flair gets out of town with the title, of course. But then the next week, they have a Battle Royal, and the first guy that gets thrown out is Tony Falk. [01:21:52] Speaker B: Yes. [01:21:52] Speaker A: That's going to lead to a year's worth of stories. [01:21:55] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Tony Faulk, the perennial loser. Right. And if I'm not mistaken, you know, should I. Do I need to go ahead and spoil what happens on the last. Last card of the year? [01:22:08] Speaker A: Oh, sure, go ahead. [01:22:09] Speaker B: Okay. So it comes down to typical Bill Dundee, Jerry Lawler matches leading up to this. You know, somebody puts up their hair, somebody puts up their wife's hair, the title's on the line, and it comes down to the final show of the year. And of course, Tony Falk had been humiliated by Jerry Lawler in that Battle Royal. Was it a die put him in. [01:22:33] Speaker A: A diaper or something like that? [01:22:35] Speaker B: Might have been a tar and feather thing, a turkey, you know, that type of a turkey Battle Royal type deal they do. Anyway, he's. He's humiliated. And in that card, on that card, Lawler gets involved with some skirmish in the show, and Falk throws ink into Jerry's eyes and. Right. And so when it comes time for Lawler Dundee, with all the things on at stake, including Lawler, to leaving town, you know, he comes to the rings, got a patch over his eye, you know, and they handicap him all this way. And it's like you said, it's those little things that lead up to these moments where you go, oh, that's why that happened. Great storytelling. [01:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And Tony Falk, by the way, is from right down the road here in Paducah, Kentucky. [01:23:23] Speaker B: Good guy. Yeah, he is. [01:23:26] Speaker A: All right, so we're kind of at the end of 85. There's probably a couple other things you probably want to mention before we wrap up, but I just want to say they're still drawing fans. [01:23:38] Speaker B: They. [01:23:39] Speaker A: I mean, here in 1985, they're still drawing A really nice crowd. They're not drawing 11, 12,000 anymore, but they're not drawing 3,000 either. I mean they're drawing 6, 7,000. And like you say, the storytelling is really, really good. The, as far as I know, the Louisville and Evansville, they're still drawing as well as Evansville could draw. And so they're not feeling the, they're not feeling the effects of other wrestling yet. Plus they've co promoted a couple shows. [01:24:12] Speaker B: With Crockett and there's a risk in that too because you end up, your fans end up seeing talent. Maybe some that they've seen before, maybe they miss, but maybe some that they've never seen before that they really like and where are they going to see them? You know, they're not going to come back and work the loop. They're going to do these special shows. That's the risk you take. [01:24:35] Speaker A: And is that, that that November show, Dusty and Dusty and Lawler and somebody against the Andersons and something like. Anyway, that, that, that was a really good unusual match for Memphis. I remember. [01:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And you know, I have somewhere in my notes and I don't know, they ran, they ran a co promotion in Nashville too and I know there was. [01:25:07] Speaker A: One in Lexington, there was one in Memphis and I think you're right, I think there was one in Nashville for sure. [01:25:14] Speaker B: Well, I don't see it right off the bat but I do know that in, in his Midnight Express book, Jim Cornette talks about that show drew the most money in Nashville that had ever been made before on a wrestling show. I'm sure that's been eclipsed since then, but I think it was like $48,000, you know, in Nashville, but when you run the fairgrounds arena, you know, you don't draw $48,000. I think they ran this one at the. [01:25:42] Speaker A: Yeah, they went to some. [01:25:43] Speaker B: Another bigger auditorium maybe. Yeah, I thought I had that in my notes but I don't see it. Then again, I can't read my notes half the time anyway. [01:25:49] Speaker A: But, but there are some other kind of cool things that happened during 85 too. Well, I see you got it under other things. You've got Lexington on September 5th and 17th, Memphis on September 30th, and Nashville on November or October 12th. 41,000gate largest ever in the city. [01:26:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, that's interesting because Nashville's home base, you know, and it also speaks to the fact that the WWF had been trying to come into some of these cities and had not been drawing, you know, and as you know, we talk about coming in there and you seeing people different people that you haven't seen before. But sometimes the people you bring in, you don't want to see again. [01:26:41] Speaker A: Right. [01:26:42] Speaker B: And maybe that's what some. Was going on with some of the wwf. These, you know, you. You have to bring people in that you want to see and, you know, we'll look at that maybe some. When you and I are talking about the split in Memphis when Nick Goolis brings in a crew from Detroit and nobody knew who are these guys? You know? Right. And he wasn't growing well at that point anyway, but that didn't help. [01:27:02] Speaker A: So the national exposure amplifies in 85 because Crockett gets on TBS in April, AWA goes on ESPN in August. Yes, we mentioned Troy Graham. I said the Dream Machine. Troy Graham. He's managing the most often appeared different personality guys in the territory. [01:27:24] Speaker B: Yes. [01:27:25] Speaker A: Don Bass and Dirty Roads. They're under the mask as interns. [01:27:30] Speaker B: They ran an angle where Steve and Stan's fathers were in the audience. [01:27:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:35] Speaker B: And they were attacked by the interns. And. And of course you had Troy Graham, who had legitimately been injured, but one of the great interviews and microphone men of all time. Definitely out of Memphis. Just. I could just listen to him all day and how he said what he said, how quickly he said it, I don't know. But here he is as a manager, which is a great role for him to be a manager of a tag. A mass tag team. And he's in a wheelchair. [01:28:06] Speaker A: Two of my favorite people in the wrestling business, especially in Tennessee, Buddy Wayne. I love Buddy Wayne. He was there this year doing some stuff. And I was in love with Sherry Martell. I just thought she was here. I just thought she was fantastic. And I was so glad she did get a break later on. [01:28:25] Speaker B: And yes, one of the hardest working people in the professional wrestling. When she was at ringside, she gave it her all, no matter who she was working with. Phenomenal talent. And I think she managed Pat Rose, Tom Pritchard here, who were called the Heavenly Bodies, which is a throwback to Don and Al Green. [01:28:46] Speaker A: At that point, I had to con. I had a conversation with George shire about the AWA in 1985. And I told him I could watch a Sherry Martell and Candy Divine or a Sherry Martell and Debbie Combs match any day of the week. I mean, I just, I just. I liked all three of those girls. [01:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah, very talented. And like you said, I'm glad Sherry got a break later on. She was. She Was tougher than some of the guys in the ring for sure. [01:29:12] Speaker A: So Memphis is being Memphis here. Tennessee's being Tennessee. WWF is going on MTV and we have the first WrestleMania this year and all those kinds of things. So what's the state of wrestling in Tennessee in 1985, you think, Tim? [01:29:29] Speaker B: Well, you know, I think it's probably pretty good at the end of the year, you know, not as strong as it had been. But you do have Bill Dundee who's come back after being gone pretty much for two years. Dundee had proven in Mid south his booking chops, and I think he's given that here. But it goes down quick in 86 because of Lawler being gone. And I think some of that is talent is being drained and man Lawlers draw. [01:30:08] Speaker A: Do you think. Do you think Jerry Jarrett is. Is engaged as he once was? I mean, guy's been booking since 1970. [01:30:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:19] Speaker A: You know, and here it is 15 years down the road and he's had a great 1980 to 1985. I mean, just, just amazing. Yeah, I don't know where his head's at. I mean, I know there were periods of time where he wanted to go do other stuff. You know, he, yeah, he wanted to be in real estate and he wanted to do. And he did those things successfully. Yeah, I just think Jerry was so talented. I think he got bored after a while, you know. [01:30:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's probably a good, good analogy. I, I have wondered that too about Jerry. How at times engaged was he and when you traded it off with Jerry Lawler, you did see booking. You, you did say, see the changes in the booking. And, and I, you know, I'm not knocking Lawler's booking style. I enjoyed it too. But it was different enough that I think it made a difference. I think fans probably gravitated to Jerry Jarrett's style of booking a little bit more than they did the Lawlers. [01:31:20] Speaker A: I think Jarrett knew when to come back. Like, I think he. I think he could take his hand off of it for a while and Lawler could do it and it'd be fine. But I think there would get to be a point where I think he. Okay, Jerry, time for me to take back over, you know, Jerry Jarrett. [01:31:37] Speaker B: My dealings with Jerry over the years, always super nice, always very open. Yet I always felt like there was a little bit back there he. More that he could have told me. [01:31:52] Speaker A: Sure. [01:31:53] Speaker B: And that's, that's the, the poker player in him. I guess even for, you know, somebody like me, it's not going to matter, you know, he knew more than what he let on, I think, and that's probably the way he did business. [01:32:06] Speaker A: I think Jerry was just like most people. I think he. He had a story for everything, you might ask. [01:32:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:14] Speaker A: But if you asked him something a little bit different or a little bit different way, that kind of disrupted that automatic story, you know, and then that was uncharted water, you know? [01:32:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I. I agree with that assessment. [01:32:30] Speaker A: Yeah. But I love Jerry, Jared. It's a great guy. I enjoyed our conversations, and he was really, really nice to me, for sure. [01:32:38] Speaker B: And, you know, one of the things I've wondered, too, he's back in the ring some this year, and we see him not as the promoter, the head of the company. His son's going to get in the business in the next year, too, and. And I wonder how much of him stepping back in the ring at the point that he did was because of Jeff getting in the ring and maybe getting the Jarrett name back out there. He's teaming with Tojo Yamamoto, who's going to train Jeff Jarrett and turn on Jeff Jarrett at the right time. Right. To set up that. That feud again. And. [01:33:20] Speaker A: And you got to remember, Jerry's in his mid-40s at this point, you know, so getting back in the ring was probably not super easy at this. [01:33:29] Speaker B: No. [01:33:30] Speaker A: You know, no. [01:33:31] Speaker B: But. [01:33:31] Speaker A: But we'll get into that next year when we come and do the 1986 recap. But even when they did that with Jeff, I thought that came off really well. [01:33:41] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, in, you know, looking head into 86 a little bit, there were some tough times in the winter months, but again, they told some great stories. That's one of the great characteristics about the Memphis territory throughout most of its history, is the stories that they told made sense within the framework of professional wrestling as much as professional wrestling can make sense. Right. [01:34:12] Speaker A: Well, that's one of the things that bothers me when someone who didn't grow up here and wasn't watching it, they always say, oh, that Memphis wrestling, that you never knew what was going to happen, which was true. But when they say it, they're almost saying it. From the violence standpoint, it's a brawl or something bloody or something like that. But I like the way you're talking about it, where it was just really good, compelling storylines. It all made sense to you when you watched it, you know, within the. [01:34:43] Speaker B: Framework of what was being done, which was crazy. Right. [01:34:46] Speaker A: Which was the crazy stuff, you know. [01:34:48] Speaker B: Squaring off the fighting each other, but it made Sense within that framework. [01:34:51] Speaker A: And those fabulous ones and Sheep Herders matches, you might think, well, it was the fabulous. Man, they were battles. [01:35:00] Speaker B: They were. And that's part of the reason, I think the fabs were so over with so many people, including guys, because those were brawls and, and, you know, the nature of going into the ring with any version of the Sheep Herders, not the Bushwhackers, but the Sheep Herders, where it was going to be bloody. [01:35:18] Speaker A: I have to give. [01:35:19] Speaker B: Wow. [01:35:19] Speaker A: I have to give Stan and Steve credit for that. And the, the way they stood toe to toe with the Road Warriors. I mean, they did not back down from any tag team, which. [01:35:31] Speaker B: And that was another one of those things you thought about when that happened. Who's going to go over here? [01:35:36] Speaker A: But I mean, they just, you know, they looked pretty. Yeah, but they were tough dudes. That was. [01:35:43] Speaker B: And that was the appeal. That was kind of Fargo. Right? I mean, that was Jackie Fargo personified in a tag team. Let me. Can I say something about. About, you know, what you do, you know, you're preserving pro wrestling history. And with these podcasts and so much else of what you're doing. And the way we do that, when we talk about the 70s and we talk about the older days was we. We spend so much time looking at newspaper archives and old programs and that have been preserved and, and that's great. And that's wonderful. I love doing it. I love digging through, trying to find stuff that I want to find out. But as we get into the 1980s, that begins to change, in my opinion. And because so many of these, you know, we're talking about wrestling changing and it's becoming national, it's becoming, you know, it's all. You think of, a territory that's regional, but it's becoming less territorial, it's more homogenized. Yeah. More regional and more national in its scope. And I think losing you and I talk about the local promoters, the, you know, the Kazana Brothers in Knoxville, Hot Gillum up in Paducah, and all these guys, you know, they had that local connection not just with the fans, but they had it with the media, too. And the media was mostly newspapers. And so that's why we have, that's why we can gather so much information from newspapers about professional wrestling up until the 80s. And it begins to taper off as much. [01:37:23] Speaker A: And I think more television driven. [01:37:26] Speaker B: There's more television, the, the pro sports, basketball, football, baseball get more prominence. But I also think it's probably in some degree the people who are running the sports pages are retiring and dying off. Yeah, because I can think of. Of Tom Anderson in Knoxville, Knoxville Journal, retired in the 70s. I think he died in maybe 77 or 78. But he didn't like professional wrestling. But he gave it coverage because he knew his readers enjoyed it. [01:37:57] Speaker A: That's right. [01:37:58] Speaker B: And in, in Chattanooga you had work Gammon and you had Alan Morris and, you know, they knew Harry Thornton. And I could, I can only imagine Harry calling up Alan Morris, you know, on a Tuesday afternoon and saying, hey, I need a little blurb about Nick Goulis, you know, celebrating his 55th birthday. Or, you know, and it would be in the paper. And that local connection begins to, to get lost, I think. And that's part of it. But every time there is a void, almost always something fills that void. And we've kind of hinted around at it and in, in several different ways in, in the 80s, we begin to see VHS states and we begin to see newsletters, and these things become more and more prominent for us to gather pro wrestling history verbatim, really. Right. You watch that tape and it's exactly as it happened. And we don't have to guess so much as like we do in the newspapers, but from the 80s forward, we get a more clear picture of professional wrestling history as opposed to behind that. I just find, I find that fascinating. [01:39:13] Speaker A: George Shire and I mentioned earlier, we were talking just the other day about this very thing, and I almost made him sad because I said, george, when our generation is gone, that's the last generation that did have the newspaper stuff and the local flavor and all of that, you're going to have the videotape generation after us. And that's one of my motivating factors in doing this, Tim, is that because we were alive at the time, we have a better chance of interpreting the newspaper stuff than someone who wasn't because they don't know the context of everything that was going on around it. But now it doesn't matter if you're in, you know, 1995 or if you're in 2025, the videotape is the same. [01:40:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:09] Speaker A: You know, you can put that videotape. Now, you wouldn't put it in the VH vcr. You, you'd put the disk in or you'd watch the hard drive or whatever. But it looks the things that happened are exactly the same as they were when they happened. And I wish so many times that we had that going back, you know, but. But we don't. So. [01:40:32] Speaker B: And, and I, you know, I enjoy Knowing about the things from the 80s forward. But I really do enjoy digging through those old newspapers. Oh, yeah, that's just the geek in me, I guess. [01:40:46] Speaker A: But I like to know the beginnings of things, you know. [01:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:50] Speaker A: Like somebody on the people on Twitter always make me laugh and there's no reason why they would know this, but I posted something from the Gulf coast territory the other day from 75 at the end of the year. And they're like, the British Bulldogs that don't look like Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid. I'm like, well, there was a team of the British Bulldogs before that. Oh. And I thought, man, I'm glad I do what I do. But just yesterday somebody goes, frank Goodish, he wasn't Bruiser Brody the whole time. I'm like, no, he didn't become Bruiser Brody till 76. Like, he'll be Bruiser Brody later this year. Yeah. And that's the fun thing about. I'm so glad I decided to be date driven and do most of my posting and stuff based on where we were in a certain point in time going forward, because it helps people understand the progression. [01:41:49] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. That's the way I've always gathered my stuff. I. I know some people are more interested in gathering a territory, you know, you know everything about a territory. But I want it all if I can get it, and I want it in order, if I can get it in order, as much in order as I can, because I have to see it in context. I have to look at it. And, and when I first begin to look at, at looking into results. [01:42:16] Speaker A: I. [01:42:16] Speaker B: Was looking, I had some results that I had just written down, you know, that I had of stuff I had seen through the years in Chattanooga and. Or on television. Chattanooga and some of the cards that were promoted there. And I had some gaps in those, you know, and I wanted to go in and find the gaps. And then when I found the gaps, I was like, well, this is where I started. I wonder what happened here. [01:42:40] Speaker A: Right then you're here. [01:42:42] Speaker B: And then suddenly I'm in 1950. [01:42:43] Speaker A: Yep. You keep pulling that string. You keep pulling that string. [01:42:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's the true Scheherazade. Right. You know, you're always coming back for more. Yeah, yeah. And. And I'm like, you, I like that date driven way of looking at things to try to put it in perspective. You. You do see things in a different way, I believe by doing that. [01:43:05] Speaker A: And if you go in with the mindset, at least I do that. I don't know Anything like, I'm. I'm going in just like, I don't know anything. I learned so much. Than if I go under assumption, you know, that, you know, that Jerry Lawler invented the pile driver, you know, then you find out, no, he didn't. Like, you know, because if you started watching in 1984, that you would have thought that, you know. Well, Tim, it's been a lot of fun. This has been great. Thank you so much for joining us again. And we're going to have. When we go back to our regular scheduled stuff, and we're back in 1976. That's going to be a fun year. [01:43:46] Speaker B: Bicentennial year, right? [01:43:48] Speaker A: Yep. The Bicentennial Kings are going to be crazy on our podcast. So, yeah, I look forward to it, man. Thank you. [01:43:56] Speaker B: Yes, sir. Thank you, Tony. [01:43:58] Speaker A: Well, I hope you enjoyed our show today. Fantastic visit here at the Richards Ranch with the one, the only fantastic researcher, Tim Deals. As we looked at the Tennessee territory and Miss Memphis Wrestling in 1985, and Memphis and the Tennessee Territory is the last surviving territory in 1997. They. They outlasted everybody. They were the last ones to shut down from the original territory era. And they hung in there right up through the attitude era. And I think it was amazing that that wrestling is actually what shut down the wrestling territory of Memphis. It was the Monday Night Wars. Memphis was their Monday night town. It was their big money town in the territory. And so many people were watching television with Monday Night Raw and with Nitro on Monday nights. They were no longer coming to the Mid south arena in the Mid South Coliseum. And that's what eventually shut the Tennessee territory down. So still strong in 1985. And I hope you enjoyed our trip back in the time tunnel to 85 with Tim today. We'll be back with another exciting show next week. George Shire will be here. And we will be looking at another territory that's still really strong in 1985, the American Wrestling association, the AWA. And we'll take a trip around the AWA and talk about the matches, the angles, the goings on and the happenings, especially the war with Vince McMahon, because Vince and the WWF really concentrated on Verne in that year of 1985 and national expansion. They moved into those specific areas. And as George will tell us, Verne held his own for a while, especially in 85. And we'll review all that in next week's episode here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. I hope you enjoyed today's show. Sign up for my substack newsletter. The Daily Chronicle. It's free and it's the only daily history newsletter for pro wrestling that I know about that covers the Territory era. There are a lot of newsletters out there that cover the history of wrestling. We only cover the territory era from 1926 to 1996 in my seven stages of growth of the Territory Era framework. And you can read about that and find out more about that. Plus get daily birthdays, daily rest in Peace salutes for days in history where people who worked in the Territory era passed away. And we also feature title changes and matches and angles and we do. I write some mini biographies in there in the Chronicle from time to time. And you can also support my work there at substack at $5 a month. Or if you want to save $10 for the year, you can do a $50 donation and you can get a subscription that will get you all of my content, both the Daily Chronicle and the Evolution of Wrestling and the other paid articles that I publish. That's all at the Substack Channel, the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. We also have a YouTube channel where we post clips and also every episode of this podcast. And we also have a Facebook group, the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Facebook Group, that you can sign up for and come join us. Almost 3,000 members strong and it's growing every single day. Thank you all for listening and watching. Really appreciate it. Tune in next week for George shire and the AWA. We will have that for you here on episode 45. Until next week here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show, I'm your friend and your host, Tony Richards, reminding you that if you want better neighbors, be a better neighbor. Let's support each other where we can. What do you say? Thanks everybody from the Richards Ranch in Western Kentucky. So long from the Bluegrass State. Thanks for tuning in to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. Tune in for another great episode next week, interviewing wrestlers, referees and media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. [01:48:28] Speaker B: We'll release a new episode soon. Don't you dare miss it.
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