Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Time for the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. We've got lots and lots of things
[00:00:06] Speaker B: to talk about and to do today
[00:00:08] Speaker A: covering the territories from the 1940s to the 1990s. It's the best thing going today, interviewing wrestlers, referees, authors and other media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. The cream, yeah, the cream of the crop. And now, here's your host, Tony Richards.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Hello, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. I'm your host, Tony Richards, and proprietor and curator of all content here at the Time Tunnel from the Richards ranch in Western Kentucky. Thank you so much for joining me again this week. And we are coming to the culmination.
We're coming to the grand finale, the final episode in our 1985 Territory Review series.
And today I have a couple of fellows here on the show that I'm sure you're familiar with for the Portland, Oregon wrestling territory.
Mike Rogers and Frank Culberson. And I'll be introducing them in just a sec here on the show. Hey, I want to remind you that I got a note just a few days ago because last week I talked about where all our listeners and viewers were around the United States and around the world.
And I got a note from someone who said, hey, Tony, don't forget you got watchers and listeners down in Puerto Rico.
Hey, I would never, never, never mean to on purpose forget you guys. So hello to all our friends down in Puerto Rico who listen to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. Thank you so much for your support. We appreciate that so very much. And the fact that you come in and you spend some time with us here every single week and everyone else, wherever you may be today and enjoying the Time Tunnel, we appreciate all the nice.
I always joke sometimes when I say and keep those cards and letters, I kind of leave the comment off the end of it. Right. And don't forget to keep those cards and letters. But no, I appreciate all the cards and all the letters that come in here at the Time Tunnel. Let us know that you're out there and you're enjoying what we do. And we can see that because our numbers continue to rise every single week. Our Facebook community continues to grow. My ex followers continue to grow.
The listener metrics of the show continue to grow. And I'm getting new subscribers for the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Daily Chronicle and the other research that I publish on our substack channel. And I want to thank you for that. As a matter of fact, I think we're only about seven.
We're seven subscribers away from having 500 subscribers in just less than a year.
So thank you so much for that. That's incredible growth.
We only need about seven or eight of you to sign up to put us over that 500 mark. So come on by. And that's, that's to put us over the, the free subscriber number.
And we just got a few new paid subscribers in the last couple of days, like three or four. Bam, bam, bam came in, like all in one day.
And I just want you to know how much we appreciate that too, because Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel is a wrestling history enthusiast supported entity.
We, we do this for all our people out there that love pro wrestling history.
And I would just ask you to support the work that we do here by taking out a free subscription, or if you really want to support us, then you can take out a paid subscription, just $5 a month, even less if you sign up for a year. It's $50 for a year. So you can save 10 bucks if you go ahead and commit to a year's support.
And most of our paid subscribers do that.
And so we would appreciate you joining in there. We'd love to have you and we'd love to love to have you in here in partnership with us. We call that our premium investors, the people who will support us at that low rate of 5 bucks a month and appreciate you being a wrestling history enthusiast just like I am and just like the rest of our people here at the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. All right, today we've got Mike Rogers and Frank Culbertson. Mike's name is on all the books. He's got several books on Portland and one book on Hawaii wrestling history.
And Frank is involved in a lot of the back, back room stuff, A lot of the research and a lot of the putting together of the material and the editing and looking the books over and all of that. And Micah has been gathering data for years and years and years. And I have almost one half of one of my shelves are Mike Rogers books from Portland.
And he has done such a great job of giving us the history of that territory all the way back to its beginnings. And so today they're here and we're going to talk about the year 1985 when the WWF is encroaching upon the Portland territory with their national expansion.
And Crockett is booking some shows with them, sending them some talent up for their spectacular shows. And we're going to talk about it all, man. We're going to cover the whole year of 1985 in Portland Wrestling. And it's going to be a fantastic finale for our 1985 Territory Review Series. Let's get to it now as I welcome these fine fellas to the Richard's Ranch and the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show.
Hello again, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Podcast. I'm Tony Richards coming to you live from the Bluegrass State here at the Richards Ranch. And today I have two of my favorite wrestling enthusiasts, Frank Culbertson and Mike Rogers. And they are all things Portland wrestling. And that's what we're going to talk about today, because in January, we're going through the existing territories that are still around in 1985, and we're talking about that in the context of the national expansion that most territories have on their mind at this time period.
So I'm excited to have these two guys here today. Hey, guys, welcome.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: Hey, thanks for having me.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: So in the long and storied history. So by 1985, this Portland Wrestling has been around for quite some time, right?
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been around for 60 years. In fact, 1985, they have a special extravaganza show celebrating the 60 years of Owens promotion.
And wrestling had been around in Portland before the Owens came on, but that's the most recognizable time period is, is when Don Owen was the promoter.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: And so, so let's talk just a little bit about 84.
So closing out. What, what was the condition of the territory as 84 was closing out?
[00:07:49] Speaker A: You know, it's still, it's still compelling. Bobby Jaggers, although not one of the best workers ever, he's an exciting wrestler. They've got him pegged as a baby face, which he, he probably would have done better as a heel. And he, and he turns heel later on.
But Jaggers is here. He's the top, top baby face. You've got a right at this time period. Buddy Rose isn't in the area. Rip Oliver is not in the area. So you've got Ed Waskowski, who takes a really interesting new character and we can talk about that.
And he's managing Kendo Nagasaki.
So those are, those two are on top as far as heels. You have Mike Miller, he's been in the preliminaries. He's kind of emerging into moving up the cards.
Mr. Ebony, who's Tom Jones. So you have not one top heel that really stands out, but Bobby Jaggers is definitely the top baby face. You have Tom Pritchard, who's solid as can be. He's. He's on the Undercards.
So it still has an interesting mix of. Of wrestlers right here at this. At this moment.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I want to talk about Ed Wiskowski and this new character because he, you know, I'm always interested in him. I've. I have Jerry Oates and Mike George on from time to time here, who both spend a lot of time in the Kansas City territory. And I. I lived in Missouri for over 30 years before moving back here to Kentucky. So I'm pretty familiar with Missouri wrestling history. And Ed, of course, is from St. Joseph, and I think a lot of people would recognize him as Colonel De Beers. But what's he doing here in Portland in January of 85?
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Go ahead, Frank. You set the background.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: So, and he had been a star in Portland before, right?
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, quite a bit.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: Yeah. He was involved in some of the famous angles with Buddy Rose turning face and all. So he had been here for quite a while and always on top, whether as. As Ed Wiskowski or in this case, Mega Maharishi Ahmed.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Oh, my.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: Because there was this group that had come in and they'd actually bought a town in kind of central Oregon, not too far from Portland, up by the Dalles, which is about, what, 90 minutes from Portland? Something like that.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: And they were a recognized cult that came in. They bought the town, the Rajneesh Mega, the Rajni leader, he. The bag one would drive through in his Rolls Royce every day and his followers would stand on the side of the road and wave at him. All their money and everything went to the Boguan.
And eventually the cult started doing things like bugging politicians. They did a. They poisoned some salad bars in the Dalles, including one of a company that I was working in the office for. They did a lot of bad things, we shall say, and eventually got deported and the cult got closed down. But Ed was really smart and he became Mega Maharishi Ahmed.
And he would kind of wink at the crowds because everybody knew it was Ed Wiskowski. But he dressed in the colors, the red and orange of the Raj Nishis that they always wore. And it was a great gimmick that it was kind of. He was playing with the crowd. But it was a great way for him to get he. In a new way because nobody liked the Rajneeshis from what they were doing to be in the criminal activities.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing. I have never heard this before.
That's kind of cool.
[00:11:47] Speaker C: It was. It's a big deal in the history of Portland and Oregon in that area, but it was it was quite a thing.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: What was the town they bought. I'm sorry if I missed that. What was.
[00:11:59] Speaker C: I don't know the exact name of the town.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: It was. It was Antelope.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: Antelope, that's correct, yeah. Antelope. Yeah. So I didn't know you could just go in and buy a town, but I guess if you have enough money,
[00:12:11] Speaker B: I guess if you can buy an island, you can buy a town.
How long did Ed do this gimmick?
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Probably up to six months when Kendo Nagasaki left.
They were the perfect foil together, you know, because Kendo didn't talk really and do do interviews. And Wowski, they. They played off each other very, very well.
One of the things that Ed would do to further the gimmick, he'd be wrestling and then maybe. Maybe his match goes to a draw.
And you know, you know, the. Where the crowd would say like, five more minutes, five more minutes, you know, and he would say, well, I'm not wrestling unless you put up some more money. And then he. The hat would be passed around the crowd, you know, $100. And then he'll go, five more minutes.
And they did that way, way too much.
I would always go see wrestling in Gresham.
And they did it one month and then the next month they switched it a little bit. And Waskowski said, well, I won't wrestle you unless you put up the money for the extra time.
And so now the baby face is walking around soliciting the extra money. But the moment that happened, you could. It was audible how the whole crowd of the arena arena just realized what was happening to them. They were just. They one time was fine, but two months in a row, they. Everybody realized they were being fleeced.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Wow.
Wow.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: That's wrestling.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: That's it, man. That's this. That's the thing we all love.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Hey, so, you know, let me throw in one other.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah, go ahead, Frank.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: Group that was here at the end of 84 and that was Billy Two Eagles and Don Running Bear. And they were the tag team champions and a little different from some of the other tag teams that we had in that time. Billy Two Eagles would stick around and actually homestead here and work for me when I did Portland wrestling. And then Don Running Bear, of course, had some family issues and chose to leave the profession and leave in 1985. But they were on top at the end of 1984.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: What. So Saturday nights at the sports arena in Portland, what. What were the crowds like at. In beginning of 85?
[00:14:53] Speaker A: I think they were still decent it was just such an interesting mix. Even. Even though they weren't. You didn't have Billy Jack at that moment and Buddy Rose. It was still an interesting mix. You know, as I look down into January and February, the Cuban Assassin and that version from Calgary was here also. Phil Laflan. Phil Laflan wrestled here as Rocky Venturo and he was recognized as, you know, a very, very good worker. He injured his knee and really had to cut his stay short here. But you know, it was at one point Ric Flair was coming in and they were having a tournament in one of the towns, Salem or Eugene, and they had given him the tournament wind to face Flair because I think that everybody realized that would have been one of the best possible matchups. And then he hurt his knee and wasn't able to. To get the match with Flair.
So yeah, it's. I think the crowds are still, still good. The, the ma. The matches. This is interesting. I touched on this with Frank.
Portland was such a unique area because for so many years there was not a booker. Whoever was on top just talked a little bit with dawn, talked amongst themselves
[00:16:22] Speaker C: and decided worked out their own programs, right?
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. And then when Rose was around, Rose had such a great mind for the business and booking and was not selfish to himself. You know, he really put the idea of earning money. You know, Frank and I talk about this. He had a loser leave town match scheduled with Adrian Adonis on a Tuesday night special. And prior to that he wrestles Adonis on TV in the main event and loses to Adonis. Two straight falls, which never happens. Two straight falls. It's always one wrestler wins one fall, the other one wins the second fall.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: We're going all three, right?
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: All three falls.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And Rose loses both falls of the match. Brilliant booking. Now you're set up for a loser leave town, you know, and Buddy just had a really good mind, you know, for. For what would be good business.
So at any rate, nobody here who is prior booked Portland is here. So I expect Bobby Jaggers is doing some. In fact, in my interview I touched on who was doing the booking and he mentioned that Barry Owen was doing some of the booking. But Bobby Jaggers then stepped in and, and he said helped. But I would be surprised that if Jaggers wasn't the. The main force behind the booking, I
[00:17:53] Speaker B: was going to ask too. You mentioned Flair in. In going into 85. Crockett is manipulating and taking the title for the majority of the dates. Did Portland get the champion as much as they had in prior years?
[00:18:12] Speaker A: They did, but they kind of scheduled him for the extravaganzas. Now Portland in May starts having an extravaganza, and they come back in September and have another extravaganza. So in May, Flair wrestles Billy Jack. In September, he wrestles Magnum Ta. But prior to that May show, and I'm looking here, I believe Flair comes in at the beginning of the year. I'm not finding it at the moment.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Would. Would Don have still been the guy who was talking to Jimmy Crockett about that, or is that how that would have still gone?
I don't think that the NWA didn't have that separate secretary anymore. I think that. I think Jimmy Jr. Was pretty much booking Crockett or a book and Flair by that time.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: Yeah, it would have been dawn to make the connections for sure. And here I do see Ric Flair comes in in early April. He wrestles Bobby Jaggers, he wrestles Kurt Henning, and he wrestles Jaggers again.
Several, in fact. Most of the time he also goes to a draw with Carl Steiner, which is a head scratcher when he's beating Jaggers and Kurt Henning.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: And I actually came across that name several months ago. And I asked Frank about. I said, who is Carl Steiner?
Because I just wasn't familiar with him, you know?
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Yeah, Carl Steiner had wrestled mainly in Montreal, and his real name is Bob Della Serra, and he has a brother, Rocky De La Serra, who wrestles.
He had also wrestled as a mass gimmick, the ufo, who was also around in the Montreal area. He also wrestled in Florida as a relation to.
In a team with the Kangaroos, and he wrestled as one of the Heffernans.
A relation to the original.
[00:20:22] Speaker C: How.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: How many years had the extravaganzas, when did that originate?
[00:20:26] Speaker A: It originates in May of 85. That was the first.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Was the first year.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Okay, that was the first one. Yeah. And then they went through and had, I'm guessing, about five or six more, and each.
Each one did progressively worse in drawing.
It was a novelty. It was so exciting, the first one. And they still were quality. As they went along, they just tended to lose their luster.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Now, who would have been the person who would have come up with that?
Because I would imagine that was. I mean, I don't know who. I guess Starrcade happened and then Star wars down in Dallas, and everybody was having a super.
Was that kind of the deal that they just kind of looked around and said, we need one of those?
[00:21:15] Speaker A: What's really interesting, because just knowing Don Owen, as far as his style of Promoting.
It's not something that Don Owen would take upon himself. It wouldn't be his idea. It would be too much.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: That's why I asked. It doesn't seem like a Don Owen idea.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: It doesn't. And, and Ed Waskowski came up with the thought or the, or the revelation that it was actually Channel 12, whose Portland Wrestling was on the channel that they were on. It was their idea, recognizing that Owen's family had been promoting for 60 years. And it was their suggestion to, you know, take it, take it to the Portland Coliseum and have a, a big, big show. Now, I don't know if that's.
That sounds very accurate over, over the idea that Don Owen would just say, hey, let's have a big, big show.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: Right when I was wondering, as it relates to kptv, because the month before the Extravaganza, the WWF bought Friday night at midnight the time slot on kptv. So it was running the day before. And of course with the big stars now at this time in May, Portland wrestling was still on top of the TV ratings. And you know how important TV ratings are. It's on top of the TV ratings in Portland on Saturday.
But I think Channel 12 probably understood that the program that they were getting from the WWF compared to the program they were getting from Portland, which had, you know, a stationary two camera shot, and Piper had come in and tried to jazz it up a little bit, but not too much.
So I think they knew that it was different. They knew that the times were changing.
The WWF actually had tried to come in to the Coliseum in June. So right after the first extravaganza got rebuffed until they would come in, in, I believe, October for their first.
October 7th for their first show. So I think Channel 12 probably understood also that this is going to be a good way to keep interest in Portland wrestling to show that they have the stars or that they can book big shows.
But actually, as Mike mentioned, once they started changing the mixture of wrestlers from the first extravaganza, where the Portland wrestlers actually did really well against the national stars, pretty soon it was the national stars that were here in the main events in the Portland wrestling guys were relegated farther down the cards and you just knew the big stars that you saw on TV were not in Portland anymore.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: So how, how did, how do you remember the build up to the extravaganza? Did it look like it was just another weekly week in Portland wrestling, or did it look like they were actually building to a big show? Like were they doing things different or Was it pretty much the same, built around a big show.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: My memory is, you knew this was going to be special.
You know, they. They really hyped it up.
Would announce a certain match, probably. They started promoting it probably about three weeks out, but they didn't release all the matches the first week. You know, they would let, you know, a match or two each week. And each, each match that they announced, you know, it was exciting. It was like, wow, this is really going to be a big card.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: And this looks similar to the. The extravaganza itself. Looks a little similar to what they tried to do at the Battle of the Belts in Florida, where they had both AWA and NWA World Champions. Except Martel didn't show up for the Florida card. But he does show up for this card. So run down the card for that 60th anniversary extravaganza.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Sure.
We'll go from. From opening match. Yeah, we have Cowboy Lang beating Little Tokyo in a midget match.
Ed Waskowski beats Billy Two Eagles.
Jerry Gray goes to a draw.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: That was the Mega Maharishi though, wasn't it?
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, he would have been wrestling as Mega Maharishi.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: I had to throw that in. I couldn't help myself.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Jerry Gray goes to a draw with Rocky Venturo, who is Phil Lafon.
Bobby Jaggers and Ricky Vaughn beat Tim Flowers and Chris Colt.
Carl Steiner beats Steve Simpson.
And then you have the first. First of you start getting into the main events. And we have Sergeant Slaughter beating Kendo Nagasaki.
Roddy Piper goes to or beats Buddy Rose.
And this is, you know, just the latest chapter in their feud from the late 70s. And the match really stole the card.
It was. It was short, only about 11 minutes, but they both worked really, really hard and had a great match.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Did they have much on the television leading up to the extravaganza, or did they. They have enough in the bank to sort of sell that match already? Like, did people know enough about that feud that they didn't have to do a lot of stuff?
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Yeah, and Buddy Rose was in the territory prior.
Prior to that. And so that buildup between them was natural. And yeah, the.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: It.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: It hadn't been that long, fans would know that, that, that was a natural feud and their feud had a lot of history.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I love this tag team match.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Here we have Curtain, Larry Henning and beating the Road warriors on disqualification.
And you know, when. When you're looking at having a big, big card like this, Don's inclination is to bring back wrestlers who he's used before and who have Obviously stepped up their profile. So Kurt Henning fits that perfectly. You know, he had, he had wrestled in Portland for two separate runs and you know, for him to bring back his dad and. And they'd been facing the Road warriors in the awa, so that was a natural match.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Were you guys getting AWA in Portland at this time?
What? Were you getting any of their television? Because, I mean, these guys had something going on television in the awa. The father son Henigs against the Road Warriors.
I was just curious if that.
[00:28:20] Speaker C: I don't recall any awa.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: They weren't on ESPN yet.
[00:28:25] Speaker C: No.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: So I was just curious if they were. Had any Portland penetration.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: But I feel like, well, fans would have seen the Road warriors on TBS prior to this because when their music hits, you know, and I've told Frank this before, it was, it was probably the single biggest pop of the night when their music hit.
And I remember Goose, I had goosebumps, you know, and I literally looked down at my arm goosebumps when that. When their first chord, first note of their music hit.
[00:29:08] Speaker C: So can I just ask you, Mike, is. Do you think that's where CM Punk got his little arm slaps? Because that's what you were doing, right? When, when the goosebumps happen, CM Punk owes you money.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, you were in the second row. I was in the front row. I just, you know, goosebumps might not have reached the second row.
[00:29:30] Speaker C: Thanks, Mike.
And then the main event.
No, well, we had, we had Rick
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Martel, Marcel and Mike Miller. Yeah. Which is pretty cool because Mike is in the local Portland.
He's in your loop. Right. And he's taken on the AWA champion. Did they do an angle for him to get that shot or how did they lead up to that match? Do you remember?
[00:29:55] Speaker C: Well, he was the, he was the Northwest champion at the time, so he
[00:29:59] Speaker B: was the regional title holder. That's how he got the match.
[00:30:02] Speaker C: And he had come in in 82 and he was really green at that time. But he had worked, as Mike mentioned in the preliminaries, he had worked his way up and it had really progressed both in his interviews and his work in the ring to where, you know, he. Nobody thought he was going to beat Rick Martel for the title, but he was decent enough to be able to carry the match because Martel an excellent worker, you know, he was going to. It was going to be hard for him to have a bad match with anybody, but people enjoyed Mike Miller. He was a heel at the time
[00:30:32] Speaker B: and they were probably Forgiving.
I've seen this happen before where fans would be forgiving of a match that might not be perfectly worked, but it was unique and they knew that wasn't something they would probably ever see again. Like Rick Martell and Mike Miller is not.
I mean, I don't know how many times that match took place, but I don't. I bet not many times. You know, it's like when Flair would go around, anytime the NWA champion would go around the towns, it's like, okay, this is not a match we're going to see all the time, you know.
Right.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think Mike Miller was a good choice because obviously Martel's gonna go over. The loss isn't going to hurt Miller and locally at all.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: And, and Miller, Miller is such a unique story in Portland because it's so rare for a wrestler to start out in preliminaries in the territory and work his way up to the main events.
And, and to his credit, Mike Miller did that. He had charisma, you know, and, and that really helped him as well.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: And then we've got the main event, which is Flair and Billy Jack, right?
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Yes. And they went 45 minutes to a draw.
Excellent match.
Billy sometimes gets knocked that he wasn't a good worker.
He really worked hard in this match. And you know, obviously Flair carried him, but Billy held his own as, as far as my memory, and I think he was a better wrestler than people gave him credit for.
[00:32:15] Speaker C: And if it had gone five more minutes, he had him in the full nelson, it was going to be over. And that bell rang.
You mentioned about wrestlers that go around the circuit and wrestle each other.
Well, this was actually Billy Jackson, Flair's 17th time wrestling, whether it was in Florida or in Portland or wherever. And they would end up having 21 matches in their feud over the years. So they were able to work together. And Flair at this time was still a really good worker.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And Billy, like Mike mentioned, Billy was, when he was motivated, he, he could work.
So this, this extravaganza draws well over five digits, right?
[00:32:59] Speaker A: So, yeah, they, they Portland Trailblazers had this building and there was a consistent sellout string for the Blazers and they always advertised that they would have 12,666 fans.
And, you know, a wrestling setup, you should be able to get a few more people in there as opposed to a basketball court setting. So yeah, there was, there was at least 12,000 in there because it was absolutely packed.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: That's awesome. That's great.
[00:33:34] Speaker C: And there was a lot of newspaper buildup in the week prior to it. But it's really interesting because almost all of it focused on Roddy Piper coming back because he had been in WrestleMania and they talked about the WWF a whole bunch instead of the Portland Gu. And not even Rose or Billy Jack and Flair. Those were kind of separate and really small compared to Piper's return in the wwf. So a lot of coverage of him. And then there was one ad that was run and that featured Sergeant Slaughter as his picture was. Was in it. And you know, Sergeant Slaughter had been here years before as Bob Remus and so. But most people would not have ever put that together unless they're wrestling fans like Mike and I. Yeah. So it was really interesting that the Portland didn't get, I don't think, the rub in the paper that they wanted. But the focus was on Piper. And of course Piper was saying all the right things about Don Owen.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
So what happened immediately after this? So they draw this big, big crowd for the. I mean, a lot of times what you see is a drop off after. Right. You have a big explosion and then it, it, you got to reset things and take another running go.
What happened after the big card?
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah. As I look here on the results we have, the next Portland show is a battle Royal. And Bobby Jaggers wins the Battle Royal.
Buddy Rose, Billy Two Eagles, Carl Steiner, Steve Simpson.
It is a real vacuum.
You know, when you've been.
When you've been that high and then you come back to, to this.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: That sounds like a typical territory. Booker would say, I don't know what we're doing next. Let's do a battle royal.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:35:27] Speaker C: And Billy Jack took off right after, right after this too. And so that really hurt because he was, you know, when he, he had some momentum going to the draw with flair, he had just come back to the territory. But as Mike and I discussed in the Ring around the Rose City podcast that we just did on the Mount Rushmore Portland Rustlers, Billy, one of the things that really hurt him was his inconsistency. He'd be here, he'd start a really good program. And then as Billy did, Billy would leave and be motivated by whatever he was being motivated by in Florida or WWF or wherever. Texas.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: I was so excited because I'd seen Billy Jack in magazines, but I'd never seen him live. And he showed up on TBS once. I think he and Wahoo were the tag champions or something in Florida. And they showed up on tbs. I'm like, wow, there's Billy Jack Haynes. And he just looked so huge to me, you know, as a fan, just those arms were just so, so big.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah, he looked great. You know, as I look at the results here, that extravaganza was on May 21, and Billy Jack was not on any of the cards up to June 1 and June 1, he wrestles Buddy Rose in a main event. So that's a. That's a more compelling main event than what we'd seen immediately after the extravaganza. And then they both appear to leave right after that match.
So once again you have that buildup. And then a little actually, as I look down, Rose stays, but Billy. Billy is gone.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: What, what were. What were the seasons like in Portland Wrestling?
How. What was the summer like versus the fall and the spring? When were the hot times?
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Usually I feel like the hot times would have been right as school comes back into session in the. Right as. Yeah, right as school gets out for the, for the summer, Portland has a. A Rose Festival. And you always would hear Don Owen kind of complain, that was probably the worst time in Portland. So you're talking about the first week in June.
That's, you know, he lets his frustrations known. Be known on tv.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: The.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: That doggone Rose Festival is going on. It's cutting into his crowds.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
You also mentioned earlier, I didn't get a chance to ask you then, but you said the WWF had tried to come in, but they were rebuffed. What. What. What happened there?
[00:38:19] Speaker C: So not sure what happened. The commission at that time was drug testing. This was the first time they were ever coming. They were coming into Portland and they ran for a while. And then famously, years later, because of some problems with the commission and guys being able to pass tests or not pass tests as it would be, they didn't come in for 10 years until what, 2002 or three, when there was a commission problem that I caused and got the rules in the legislature changed to become entertainment wrestling. And then they could come in because they weren't being tested, but they came in.
They got quite a bit of publicity in articles, but most of it was Don Owen talking about New York because he would not say Vince McMahon. He would not say the WWF. He only called it New York. And he made it known he hated New York.
And Mike and I have talked about the guys that came in on the shows had all. A lot of them had ties to Portland.
And so Don probably understood that those guys were going to go off and make money and that's how the territories work. But he really was irritated with some of the guys in particular he was very upset with and called him people that were rude and irresponsible in the paper to Jesse Ventura, the Iron Chic in particular.
And Jesse had been to Jesse Ventura had been in the paper and said he wrestled in Portland and Portland was always just a minor league team like in baseball and would never be top. And that didn't set well. Red Bestine was in the paper because he was working for the WWF at the time and he talked about Portland fans were loyal, but Portland fans like wrestling and so they would come to the show.
So there was some animosity from Don for sure because he said in May that the last six months had been the worst six months in his. In the last 20 years.
So.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: But.
[00:40:32] Speaker C: But Don wasn't going to just give up, right? That, that was Dawn. He was. I'm gonna, we're gonna make this. And I got my. He had paid off his building in 1984 and so he owned the building outright, which is good, but still it, it wasn't enough.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: Well, I, I can empathize with where he's coming from. I mean, he's been around for over 50 years and been promoting and he's been part of. He's been part of the cooperative that basically ran wrestling in the United States and kept company competition out and all of that now has sort of started to crumble and fall apart. And that's difficult to process and deal with when you're in that situation.
And the first. And especially if you feel like you've nurtured, you know, I mean, he probably felt like Jesse got his first big run there and he nurtured him and they mentored him and brought him along. And now all of a sudden he's, he's one of the faces of this invading force that has no business in, in his state. You know, probably how he thought about it.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: And you know, Roddy Piper demonstrated his loyalty to Don, you know, by coming back while he's under contracted WWF to work for Don and to not work on the WWF shows against Don in Portland.
So Don probably had hoped that, you know, these other wrestlers who, who wrestled on, on the 85 cards, like iron Cheek, Matt Bourne wrestled, Lanny Poffo wrestled, you know, some of the guys that, that he had used in the past. I'm sure he's hoping that they'll, you know, he, he probably felt a little betrayal by those guys, you know, and, and looking at the second show there was headlined by Gregg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake beating Ivan Putzky and Mike Rotundo. Matt Bourne's on there again.
Gibbs, who'd wrestled In Portland, Scott McGee, you know, and you. So you have those wrestlers. But that's, you know, it's just not reasonable for wrestlers not to wrestle in territories that they participated, you know, as WWF makes their loop.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:42:57] Speaker C: And interesting. I think the attendance for the first WWF card was anywhere between 3,500 to 4,000, so not a lot. But the second one dropped down to about 1800.
And then it wasn't until Hogan came in, in, I believe, April of the next year that they popped a big crowd. But they. For the first couple of shows, they had what I considered stars. But without Hogan, it didn't pop the
[00:43:27] Speaker B: crowd and curiosity on that first show.
Something novel and different coming in. You can see why the crowd might be up for that. But then once the.
I'm sure they sent the B or C show until they brought Hogan in. You know, I was curious about.
I know Salem was still running at this time. Were some of the other towns in Oregon that had been Don Owen towns. Were they still running or.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, there was a full. Full slate in 85.
Pretty much a full slate all the way through 91. But you had Salem on Thursday, Eugene always on Friday.
Seattle probably every other Wednesday.
Medford every other Wednesday. They just alternate. And then Sunday, Monday, Tuesday were usually
[00:44:16] Speaker C: spot shows or a Tuesday special.
[00:44:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: And so then we start building. We mentioned that fall coming back to school is a good strong.
So they decide to have a second extravaganza in what, September.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: September 23rd. Yeah.
So running that card, we have Rip Oliver beating Chris Colt.
Alexis Smirnoff had come into the area and he beats Scott Doring.
A very interesting match that was not advertised or promoted at all.
Bruiser Brody went to a draw with Jesse Barr.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Liz Chase drew with Debbie Coombs.
Ricky Vaughn beats Moondog Moretti.
Then we get into the. To the. Oh, well, we have Steve Simpson and Joe Civoldi beating Mike Miller and Carl Steiner.
And then we get into.
We have Ivan Kohl off and crush your Khrushchev beating Bobby Jaggers and Steve Pardee.
And then the two main events, we have the Road warriors beating Sergeant Slaughter and Billy Jack by disqualification.
And then Ric Flair goes to a draw with Magnum. Ta.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: So. And this is around the time that Crockett is starting to send some of their people out to other cards. So I noticed the Russians are on this card. And then they send you their basic main event that they're sending around the non Mid Atlantic loop, Ric Flair and Magnum TA Because Flair's interesting thing about hits in 85, Flair's still a baby face and at Mid Atlantic and he's a heel everywhere else.
So they've got him against Magnum TA around most of the other cities and they've got him against Buddy Landell in the Carolinas because Flair's the baby face.
But here they send you the Magnum TA match, which would have been a pretty hot match for this particular time.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, you know, excellent work in that main event from my memory. And it really had to be sweet for Magnum TA because he was here around 1980, 1981.
And Buzz Sawyer, who had supposedly trained, trained him, but took his money and came back up here. And Magnum actually followed him up here to try to get complete his training. Sandy Barr did some training for him.
So Magnum started wrestling. But there were times where Magnum would be the referee on spot shows, you know, not fully integrated into the crew.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: So five years later had to be bittersweet for him. He's on the top of an extravaganza back in Portland.
[00:47:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And you mentioned about this time Buzz Sawyer gets let go to Rocket, so. Go ahead, Frank.
[00:47:24] Speaker C: Well, you mentioned Bruiser Brody against Jesse Barr. What was really interesting is nobody really knew who. Unless you were picking up the wrestling magazines, you didn't really know who Bruiser Brody was because he wasn't on tbs.
Portland didn't get world class or any of those other places. So Brody comes in and Jesse Barr hadn't been here for an extended period. And so it was an odd pairing to put him in.
You know, for people that knew who Brody was, that's pretty exciting. But for the general population, they had no idea who he was.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: They had. Had they ever seen Debbie Combs before?
[00:48:04] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, Debbie had wrestled here in the south for 10 years. You know, her mom, her mom Cora had been a big star for decades.
But when you mentioned her name, I thought Debbie Combs in Portland doesn't sound like it kind of goes together.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: No, not at all. In fact, I'm not sure if you're aware of this. Lady wrestlers were banned in Oregon for years and years and years.
And they.
That ban was finally lifted in about 1976.
But lady wrestlers were not used very frequently. In fact, I would, I would bet this was, you know, one of the few times of 1985 that any ladies appeared in in Oregon.
[00:48:50] Speaker B: How was the match?
[00:48:55] Speaker C: I don't know. I was sitting second row to Mike's first row. Again, in this.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: Well, from your not as good view, we won't ask you then.
[00:49:05] Speaker C: Thank you.
Go ahead.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: I was a big Debbie Coombs fan because I had met her actually earlier that year in 1985 in Kansas City.
So, yeah, I was disappointed that she didn't. She went to a draw. She didn't win the match.
[00:49:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it's interesting, Rip Oliver coming in against Chris Cole, really a nothing match. Oliver had, you know, was a star here. In fact, he's the person that held the Northwest title the most out of anybody and defended it the more than anybody else. He defended it 45 times and nobody except Rose had even eclipsed 40. So he was a really good champion, but he had just come back. And so with Chris Colt, it just kind of was a nothing. But Alexis Smirnoff. I'll let Mike tell it because he tells it so well. Mike, what happened with Alexis Smirnoff right after this?
[00:49:58] Speaker A: Well, Alexis Smirnoff is. Is getting that build up because he's a prototypical Portland wrestling heel. Big, burly, you know, the size.
He and Billy Jack get into a disagreement in the locker room that Billy thinks Alexis Smirnoff is a spy for the wwf. And I mean, I'm not sure what pertinent information Alexis Smirnoff could be relating about the inner workings of Portland wrestling, but after that disagreement, evidently it turned physical and Smoff left and then coincidentally, immediately started working for the wwf.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: It's interesting. You know, I was just thinking I had a career. Well, I've had a couple of careers, but I had one career in the broadcasting business.
And anytime there's a semi competition between two entities, that kind of stuff gets started. Like, that person is feeding info to those people and it's like, what could they possibly be telling them that would be all that dangerous to be out there, you know what I mean? So it's a paranoia that starts in among the participants that they think some secret information that's going to give the other team the advantage is leaking out. That's. That's pretty common, you know, in those kind of situations.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:34] Speaker C: And on this card, Bobby Jaggers turned heel, which was.
Which is what he should have been in the first place in Portland, truthfully, because he had that forehead that really made him look like a heel in Portland.
But that's.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: Who does he work with then, as a heel? Who does. Who's his program going to be with?
[00:51:54] Speaker A: Ricky Vaughn, primarily because Ricky Vaughn is now on top, which speaks volumes about the talent that is left.
But Turning Jaggers helps, you know, helps lead Ricky Vaughn through those matches.
[00:52:18] Speaker B: So is there just a lack of strong baby faces at this point then, on the talent roster?
[00:52:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we've got Billy Jack in and out.
Steve Simpson is here, Joel, so Volti there. They've formed a tag team.
Scott Doring gets into the tag matches, you know, and it's, it's really bad at this, at this point as far as babyface.
[00:52:43] Speaker C: And then Tom Zink shows up, right.
[00:52:46] Speaker A: And that's, and that's an improvement.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: But, but we should mention that that September Show, I've got 8,000 here. Is that about what it drew, right, for the extravaganza? I mean, just drawing 8,000 people to a show in a regional territory in 1985 is still really good, I think.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, just looking at the, the next two nights where some of the stars stayed on is really notable. Seattle ends up having a little bit better lineup. Flair goes to a draw with Billy Jack.
Sergeant Slaughter beats Carl Steiner because he has to face a, a foreign enemy. The Road warriors wrestle the Koloffs, which is, which is compelling. Jesse Barr again goes to a draw with Bruiser Brody. Magnum Ta is, is the odd person out. He wrestles Moondog Moretti.
So kind of a interesting mix, you know, with the talent that they had, just a different look. But then we have to talk about the next night, September 26, in Boise, and everybody's well, let me look at this card. The Coal officer gone, flare is gone.
We do have Bruiser Brody goes to a double count out with Bobby Jaggers, and that would have been interesting.
But the main event is the Road warriors going to a double count out.
And I can't. Frank and I have talked about this. I can't even imagine what this match looked like.
Their opponents were Jesse and Sandy Bar.
Now, 1985, Sandy has to be 50 years old, right?
And, and Jesse's a good talent, but for that result. And I'm sure that Sandy Barr had a role as a promoter on this, on this card, I'm sure he would have been the person in charge. And Sandy never had a history of putting himself into the spotlight as a promoter.
So to have this as a main event is absolutely bizarre.
[00:55:12] Speaker B: Does a Boise part of the territory on a consistent basis, or is this kind of a new thing?
[00:55:19] Speaker A: This is a one off. Yeah, yeah.
[00:55:22] Speaker B: I mean, it seems like a fairly prominent town that no one really was taking ownership over. So, I mean, it was probably a good move to run a show there.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:55:35] Speaker B: I mean, if you have the talent we're talking about here.
[00:55:38] Speaker A: Right, right. No, the idea of going to the town is. Is a good idea. Just that main event is just a head scratcher.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:55:49] Speaker C: To get to Boise from Portland most of the year is okay. It's a long drive.
But if you're talking about winter time, trying to go up the gorge to Boise, that's going to be a real challenge. It's closed fairly often because of snow. So it wasn't a territory or an area that Portland regularly ran at all.
[00:56:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, several hundred miles to Boise, right?
[00:56:13] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Because, well, Boise is least on the western side of Idaho, but Portland's on the eastern side or the western side of Oregon, but they're both on the western sides of their states. Right. So you got a lot of ground
[00:56:26] Speaker C: to cover there and not much. No real cities in between that you're going to be running a lot. Portland used to run the Dallas because it was close, and sometimes they'd all go all the way over to Pendleton, but all the way to Boise is an. Is another trip in itself.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: So how do we head toward the. The apex in the end of 1985 here? How do. How do we end up the year in. In Portland wrestling for this year?
[00:56:53] Speaker A: Mike Miller turns baby face, and that was really, really big for him. A good move for him.
So he feuds with his tag partner, Carl Steiner.
We have Tom Zink here.
He kind of takes over the main events. He starts feuding with Bobby Jaggers.
Miller and Jaggers again start feuding a little bit.
They feuded earlier, and now their roles are both reversed.
Wakowski comes back in November. The end of November.
Yeah. And the. The month, the year finishes out really with. With Mike Miller and the Carl Steiner feud.
[00:57:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Seems like the real strong names that you continue to hear are all heels, but go ahead, Frank.
[00:57:49] Speaker C: I was gonna say. And also this Santa Rip angle, correct?
[00:57:53] Speaker A: Yes. So that one of the biggest angles ever in Portland wrestling with Billy Jack is in the ring, and Santa Claus is coming around the ring passing out candy to kids.
And lo and behold, Santa reaches into his bag and pulls out a tire iron and hits Billy Jack in the head with it. And Santa is actually Rip Oliver.
[00:58:23] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:58:25] Speaker C: And nobody knew because other than the extravaganza, Rip had almost not been here at all for like, a little over a year. So no one knew that Rip was around. It wasn't like he had it. He was on the card earlier or the week before, so that was a big deal. And. And Billy If Billy's going to do something, he's going to do it big. And so to say that he juiced good would be an understatement.
[00:58:51] Speaker B: And no one knew Santa's sleigh had tires.
[00:58:57] Speaker C: Well, and at the end of the year, we also had some besides Tom Zinc, who in his interview that Mike did in Excitement in the Air, he talked about Don Owen, just told him, just go beat everybody. And Tom said, well, how do you want me to do it? And he said he didn't care. Just go beat him. So that's what Tom did. He would have a match, and at the end, just roll them up, pin him. And wherever he went, Tom Zinc was on top of.
So we had some young talent. Scott Doring is. Was not a great wrestler, but he had come from Robbinsdale High School as well, a bodybuilder. And he knew Tom Zinc. Brady Boone was here, who we said was related to Billy Jack, and then Nick Kaninsky, who.
Who had the last name of Gene Kaninsky, but did not have the talent of Gene Kaninsky. But he was here and tried to, you know, make a career out of it. Didn't last long. And eventually opened up a very successful restaurant on the sound up in the Washington area.
[00:59:55] Speaker B: Wow. Going back to the Santa Rip angle, how much of that made television?
[01:00:03] Speaker A: I believe it all made television. I don't know if the cameras were clued in immediately to follow Santa. At the moment, there may. May have been a little bit of disconnect on the. On that, but my memory is that.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: Because I've never seen the angle. So I was just kind of curious how violent it was, how bloody it was. You know, after he hits the guy with the tire iron. It's got a. It's. I mean, you almost got a juice after that, right?
[01:00:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:00:34] Speaker C: Well, not in wrestling today you don't.
[01:00:36] Speaker B: No. But I mean, back in the. In 1985, you did.
[01:00:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:00:40] Speaker C: And. Yeah. And then Rip comes up to the crow's nest and is doing an interview and, you know, revealing that he's Santa. And Billy is bleeding in the ring and wrestlers are out there trying to help him to it, but Billy is selling it really well. So it was probably in the top five angles in Portland wrestling history. Wow.
[01:00:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:00] Speaker B: Very cool.
[01:01:01] Speaker C: And one of the top feuds in Portland wrestling history, you know, Lonnie Maine, Tony Bourne, Savage Ramos, Rose and Flair or Rose and. Excuse me, Piper and Oliver and Billy Jack.
[01:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
Well, wonderful. Well, what else should we mention about 1985 before we wrap up the year
[01:01:20] Speaker A: here, you know, 1, 1, this isn't a great wrap up comment, but we have Gary Royal in the, in the coming in also. And Gary Royal, I really have some interesting thoughts. I had a chance to see Gary Royal wrestle in Kansas City, wrestled Denny Brown and he wrestled right before a Harley race Ric Flair match and which
[01:01:49] Speaker B: one of them were, was the world Junior champion because that was the feud, right, between Danny Brown and Gary Royal, right?
[01:01:57] Speaker A: Denny Brown was the champion and the Flair race match was obviously good.
The Gary Royal, Denny Brown, as uncompelling as that sounds, was the better match. And I had a chance to interview Gary Royal and told him that I had seen that match and you know, he appreciated that. And then he, he, he, even though he said it, he said it humbly, that Ric Flair came up to him and said, how are we supposed to follow that?
You know, and it's like here we are, two undercard guys essentially.
And then the main event, who you know is going to be an exceptional match, you know, our acknowledging what a good match they had put on.
[01:02:54] Speaker B: I'd seen Gary Royal in, gosh, countless National Guard armories here in the ICW promotion when he was a tag team partner with Rip Rogers as a convertible blonde, right? And yeah, the guy could work. I mean he was a good worker.
[01:03:14] Speaker A: And then the other interesting thing, so I had seen him in that, in that summer of 85, um, and he comes here and you know, he's not, he, he, I did an interview with him and he, he was promised X amount of dollars a week. He claimed that Don Owen didn't live up to whatever he was promised.
And I didn't know Gary Royal had a prominent role in Kansas City.
I think that Don Owen was figuring him in a little more prominently. I don't know if his size affected negatively or if Portland had seen that type of heel, blonde hair, smaller.
So Gary Royal was not happy here and he, in an interesting thing because so many wrestlers you find very few talk negatively about Don Don Owen and Gary Royal just did not have a good time and he left without giving his notice. Which is extremely interesting because you wouldn't think that Don Owen would care at the, at the, you know, Gary Royal slotted in as the number 11 or 12 man on the 12 man roster.
But Gary Royal revealed that he was essentially blackballed for about a year.
And when you, you look at wrestle data and you're following Gary Royal's matches, it's the truth. He did not wrestle at all in 1986.
And you know, you find him wrestling under one of his masks, gimmicks a match or two. But, you know, in hindsight, he said what a horrible mistake he made.
[01:05:01] Speaker B: I. I could be wrong, but something in the back of my mind tells me that Rip Rogers, who I was mentioning as his tag team partner, I think he was the booker in Kansas City City when Royal was there, which would have made sense.
[01:05:15] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:05:15] Speaker B: For him to have a prominent role there.
[01:05:18] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:05:19] Speaker C: So my take on 1985 is, I compare it to, you have a favorite restaurant, and it's a locally owned small mom and Pop, and you've been going there forever and the food's good and sometimes the burgers burnt, but it's mom and Pop, and so you're going to just, you're just going to eat it anyway. You're not sending it back because it's mom and Pop and it's always good. It's. It's comfortable.
And then the big national chains coming in and you might go try it, but it's just got that corporate feel to it. It's not mom and Pop, the diner that you're used to. And that's how Portland wrestling was for me. Yeah, 85 was not a very good year. There was some really low parts, and then the end of 85 picked up a bit, and the extravaganzas were fun and exciting to go to.
But at the end of 85, mom and Pop is still here and the corporate, corporate restaurant is only coming in with specials every so often. And so I'm going to stick with what's comfortable. What I know. I'm going to hear Don Koss on because he had taken over for Frank Bonham, who had passed away, I'm going to hear him all the time.
And even though Billy Jack isn't here regularly or Rip Oliver, they're here often enough.
Plus, it's Portland wrestling. It's. It's who I watch since 1965 when I first saw Don Leo Jonathan versus Stan Stasiak, who as everybody knows, is the greatest wrestler of all time, in my opinion, because he said hi to me in 1965.
So it. Portland can come and go. And the wrestling, really, towards the end, there was some great talent in 90 and 91.
Crowds were way down. The excitement was not there, but I still watched because Portland Rustling was in my blood. Like Mike, it's in his blood. And that's why Don Owen didn't give up, because that's who Donald was.
[01:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I've always said comparison is the killer of contentment.
You know, you'd be happy as you can be with what you have until you see something else to compare it to.
Right. And so when did. When did wrestling fans in the Portland area start to see other stuff besides what they could see on Portland television?
[01:07:41] Speaker C: So the first cable license was issued by the city of Portland in 1978. And so then the first cable televisions really didn't come in until 1979. And it was pretty a low impact at first. And then 1980, it really had an explosion. And there were several companies that you could get cable from. And so then we started seeing WTBs, and then the WWF, as I mentioned, bought the Friday night. So we started seeing that all the time. But you already had cables. So you were seeing mtv, you were seeing Saturday night's main event on NBC.
And so there was that all in Cindy Lauper and all that. So there was that idea that, oh, there's this new thing out there and it's different.
So really in early 80s when it really started, I can remember seeing the Road warriors for the first time and watching WTBS for the first time and watching Andre for the first time on WWF with my grandfather and who was a big Portland wrestling fan. But he was enamored with this new wrestling that he could see.
[01:08:47] Speaker B: And was the WWF the only wrestling company that had a syndicated television show in the market?
[01:08:53] Speaker C: Correct. Up until, you know, ESPN and the AWA came on. We had the UWF for like two and a half weeks,
[01:09:04] Speaker B: you mean?
[01:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:09:06] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah, yeah.
And that was. I enjoyed that a whole bunch because they had some, you know, Dr. Death and all those guys were great, but other than that, there wasn't. Portland was still a hotbed until, you know, Vince bought the time. And even though the ratings were good, the amount of money that Vince would pay KPTV to take over that time slot was more than what Don was paying to buy the time.
And, you know, in TV ratings are one thing, but ratings without ad revenue is completely different. So Vince could come in and pay, and that was the. That was the killer.
[01:09:45] Speaker B: Well, Frank, when did Don have to start paying for his time? Do you remember?
I mean, didn't he get the television show just for producing the programming at first?
[01:09:55] Speaker C: Yeah, that's how he was. That's how he was doing it. And so I should not necessarily say pay, but there was no rev. Ad revenue.
[01:10:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Did he end up having to pay for his time?
[01:10:06] Speaker C: I don't know that I couldn't say that he actually had to pay for his time. But there was not the ability for KPTV to sell ads in his program.
[01:10:15] Speaker B: But. But we do know Vince was paying because he was doing that in a lot of markets. He was paying for the delta.
[01:10:21] Speaker C: Absolutely. And in that's, you know, having revenue is much better than not having revenue. I don't know if you know that.
[01:10:29] Speaker B: I've been in that situation.
Been in that situation. All right, guys, well, listen, thanks a lot. It's been a great trip back to 1985. Before we go though, you guys only got like 15 different podcasts, so I'm gonna let you run them down because I can't remember them all. I remember Ringside and Roads, Rose City and I can't remember the name of the other one, so. Go ahead, Frank.
[01:10:52] Speaker C: Well, so we have Ringside in Rose City, which new episodes drop every Thursday on Spotify and Apple Podcast, wherever you get your wrestling fix. And that's an hour to an hour and a half of us going over a topic. We don't know what the topic is. We have a producer, Lisa, who spins the wheel. I've written a bunch of envelopes with names on it, put them on the wheel and she pulls one off. Whatever it is, that's what we're going to talk about. So, you know, Mike and I a little bit up there in the ages, in the 60s, so it tests our memory a whole bunch.
[01:11:24] Speaker B: I love to settle down in my easy chair at night and I, I got my earbuds in and I turn on Ringside to Rose City and I listen to you guys spin the wheel. So I love.
[01:11:35] Speaker C: Well, thank you.
[01:11:36] Speaker B: Love that you guys are doing great job on, on that. I love that show.
[01:11:40] Speaker C: And then we have a. Every Friday we drop a five to six minute podcast which is. And now it's on the Northwest favorites. Guys who weren't the top, top. The cream of the crop, but these were the guys that were just underneath that, that really impacted those top story lines. And then we've done some that were on One Hit Wonder. So there's a whole bunch of five minute podcast out there on Spotify.
So those are the, those are the podcasts. But you know, Mike, do you have. I just want to mention that Mike has some books. I don't know if Mike can. Can mention those books.
[01:12:13] Speaker B: They're out of my reach. But they're all on my shelf over here.
[01:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I have Katie Bar the Door, the History of Portland Wrestling.
That's been the. Probably the most popular one.
Just kind of goes over especially if the from starts about 1960. We we look at what happens before. Just a glimpse. But from 1960 on to the end of Portland Wrestling, it's, it's pretty comprehensive.
There is the Encyclopedia of Portland Wrestlers and it's a big phone book size.
We have every wrestler except two that ever wrestled in the Portland Sports Arena. We, we discovered one right away. Woody Farmer had a one match and then we were looking up some specifics on lady wrestlers and we realized that we didn't have Joyce Williams in. And even though we were, we were, she was the focus of who we were talking about and we, we glanced and realized that she was not in there.
[01:13:22] Speaker C: There is also, let me say, besides, besides the bios of everybody, there's also all the results of every match at the Portland Sports Arena. So if you want to know what happened from week to week, you don't have to go searching through the microfiche at your library like we did. You can find it in the encyclopedia.
[01:13:41] Speaker B: And if you're wondering why it's so big, that's why, because it's got all that in it.
[01:13:48] Speaker A: Also we, I have a series of books called Excitement in the Air, the Voices of Northwest Wrestling. And these are interviews that I had in my bulletin ring around the Northwest over the years.
And there was enough interviews where there is three volumes and I was fortunate enough to interview such people like Luthes and Don Leo, Jonathan Dutch Savage, Bull Ramis, Tony Bourne, the Grappler. I mean it fortunate enough, it goes on and on and on and each, each book has some real top notch interviews.
I'm really happy with how the wrestlers received, you know, the chance to do an interview. A lot of them really opened up and told some great, great stories and, and yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun to, to do these interviews.
[01:14:51] Speaker C: Now those are Portland Wrestling books, if you have just a minute here. Because you know, one of the things that I really love is that people overlook a territory called Hawaii and Hawaii Wrestling in we cover it from 1930, from what happened with Pearl harbor and how they recovered to the end of the promotion and how Francis and Maya Villa and all of that took place.
But Mike, what is the name of that book? Because Hawaii Wrestling is Amazing.
[01:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's called, oh yeah, the History of Hawaiian Wrestling and we featured Pompa Ropo on the COVID and yeah, such an interesting territory because you know, you, you look at the results and it's like dream matches every week, especially in the 60s and the 70s.
And the reasoning is wrestlers were coming to and from Japan and they would stop off in Hawaii and had a chance. There's an interview with Ed Francis, there's an interview with Lord Blairs and really tried to dive in with Lord Blairs of what it was like to book these, these cards.
And you know, he, he kept reiterating to me, well, it was the guys who were local, the guys who were on TV who drew the houses. And it didn't matter if Bruno was stopping by or Wilbur Snyder was stopping by. That was just extra, extra. Yeah. And he really reiterated that it was King Curtis and Johnny Brand and Ripper Collins and those guys who were drawing the houses.
[01:16:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And I, I totally blew it. I should have asked you what was going on in Hawaii in 1985.
[01:16:38] Speaker C: Not much.
[01:16:41] Speaker B: But I will bring up too for those of you who you should get this book because there's a little wrestling war that goes on in Hawaii in the mid-60s too that I think is very interesting that you will learn about if you get that book by, by Mike.
[01:16:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it was, it was.
A lot went on in Hawaii and, and I really found it interesting. Just the culture too. Al Karasak was the promoter way back in, in Pearl harbor and how Pearl harbor obviously affected Hawaii. There was a curfew and, and he's hustling to try to, to make ends meet and, and he has dances and he has vaudeville act and it had a special name that I've lost right now.
[01:17:28] Speaker B: Had a very.
As a lot of promoters did back then. I always find it fascinating the things that he would get printed in the newspaper.
He had a great relationship with whoever the sports people were at the newspaper because I mean, if he went out of town to an NWA meeting, it was almost like a rock star was going on tour or something. You know, they blew it up big time.
[01:17:51] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. And, oh, I wish I could remember what, what they called those vaudeville. But they, he would double book, you know, he'd have this vaudeville entertainment show in the afternoon and then in the later afternoon they'd have a dance.
So, you know, with the, with the servicemen on the, on the barracks and stuff. So he's hustling, he's working hard. All the wrestlers left the island. He's training some of the servicemen. You know, when, when it, he gets green lighted to have wrestling again, he'll have somebody to wrestle and it's just really, really interesting. Look at his role of being in Hawaii at this certain time.
[01:18:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. A lot of great, a lot of great wrestling history there for sure. And it's all in. Oh yeah. The history. Hawaiian wrestling by Mike Rogers, I thought
[01:18:44] Speaker C: that was right there.
[01:18:46] Speaker B: Oh, man, I tell you. And I don't even do impressions.
Hey, thank you guys for coming by. Frank Culberson, Mike Rogers, great trip back in Portland Wrestling, 1980.
You guys are welcome here anytime. I hope you come back soon.
[01:19:01] Speaker C: Awesome. Thanks, Tony.
[01:19:02] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
[01:19:03] Speaker B: Well, I hope you enjoyed that wonderful look back at 1985 Portland Wrestling. And the two guys couldn't have performed better. Mike Rogers and Frank Culbertson, a couple of really good friends of mine, and they stopped by today to talk about Portland Wrestling. And that wraps up our 1985 Territory Review Series. We covered the WWF, we covered Jim Crockett Promotions, we covered Florida, we covered Memphis, we covered.
What else did we cover? We covered Mid South Wrestling, we covered the awa, we covered Continental, we covered them all pretty much, except one.
I didn't cover Kansas City, but they were only going to be around a little bit longer before Jim Crockett sort of just went in and took them over from a management standpoint. But I think we covered them all pretty much in 1985.
And so that wraps that up. And coming up here, we're going to have the first ever surprised podcast party.
The first ever surprise podcast party is coming up here next week on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel, and I'm going to invite a friend over to the Richards Ranch to celebrate.
I'll go ahead and tell you who it is now, but don't, don't, don't say anything because I want him to be surprised.
But Brian R. Solomon has been invited to come over next week here on the podcast.
And I've also arranged for three other fellows who are very good friends of his without his knowledge coming over to celebrate and surprise him for his Wrestling Observer Book of the Year award, the second one that he's won for Irresistible Force, the Life and Times of Guerrilla Monsoon. He won the first time for the Blood and Fire Chic book, and then he's won again now for this book on Gorilla Monsoon. And I've invited three of his friends over. He doesn't know, so mum's the word. But next week here on the show, I'm going to have Brian come in, we're going to visit for a little while, and then these other three fellows are going to pop into the podcast as a surprise to help celebrate this wonderful award that Brian has so richly deserved. So it's the first ever podcast surprise party coming up here next week on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. Also, I want to do another Q and A session, so send in your Q and A, you send in all your questions. You can post them in the Facebook group, you can post them on X to me at Tony Richards 4, you can post them in the Substack channel.
You send those in. Or you can DM them to me if you want. If you don't want to post them publicly, if you want to send me a DM with your questions, I'd love to have them, but get those in. So in two weeks we can have another Q and A episode of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. This would be our third one that we've done in the history of the show, and I'd like to invite somebody on to help ask me the questions. That would be kind of cool. So we'll see if we can't do that. But our third Q&A episode is coming up in two weeks, and then in three weeks we're going to start our 1976 series. I think there might be another show in there, but we'll see. We'll see what happens.
Well, I want to congratulate Demolition, the tag team Demolitions, Smash and Axe, Barry Darceau and Bill Edie for being inducted into the WWE hall of Fame this year at WrestleMania. Also, AJ Styles is going in, so they've announced two performers so far for their hall of Fame. We will be tracking that for you and we'll perhaps have a show on that as well as they begin to reveal people who are going to be inducted in this year's WWE hall of Fame. But get your questions in for Q and A and then the 1976 Territory Review Series is coming up.
Man, we're going to have a great, great host of people, a great, great bunch of episodes to cover 1976. And it's all going to start here either in two weeks or three weeks. We'll see. But at least by the first part of April, we're going to be kicked off and really into it and hope you'll stick around for that. Thanks everybody for joining me today. Always appreciate you coming along for the ride. We had a great show on Portland Wrestling today. You can follow me on X I mentioned at Tony Richards 4 come on by. Our YouTube channel is growing by leaps and bounds. We're up to almost 700 subscribers on YouTube. Come by, subscribe to our channel, like our videos and enjoy those. We post the podcast in there every single week and we post clips in there almost every day. The Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel YouTube channel.
Join our Facebook group Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. We are growing there. We put in at least 20 or 25 people every single week. And we do a post that welcomes all of them on Saturday night. Saturday night's party night in the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Facebook group. So come on by and join us.
So also subscribe to the newsletter. I mentioned that at the top of the show at the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel substack where you get wrestling history sent to you every single day by email in the Daily Chronicle.
This week we continued our 31 great announcers series where I did a series entry, a profile on Marty o', Neal, the great AWA announcer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. We did an Evolution of Wrestling for our paid subscribers Evolution of Wrestling series entry on the history of the two out of three falls match.
And also coming up this Saturday we're going to release another Tracking the World Champions on the Sixes.
So that's the world champions in 26, 36, 46, 56, 66, 76 and 86 for the month of February. And all those years in one fail swoop. So you can look and analyze that. That's for our paid subscribers Tracking the World Champion on the Sixes for February for the month of February.
Thanks everybody. Thanks for joining us here today.
I told you at the top of the show and I'll tell you again, really appreciate your support. It's a production of me, Tony Richards, and you, the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel history enthusiast. If you come on back and join us again next week for the first ever podcast surprise party. Till then, I'm your host and your friend Tony Richards, reminding you that if you want better neighbors and you got to be a better neighbor man, we got to support each other where we can. Thanks everybody from the Richards Ranch in Western Kentucky. So long from the Bluegrass State,
[01:26:36] Speaker C: thanks
[01:26:36] Speaker A: 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 a professional wrestler. Wrestling Great. We'll release a new episode soon. Don't you dare miss it.
