Episode Transcript
[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 C: covering the territories from the 1940s to the 1990s.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: It's the best thing going today.
[00:00:18] Speaker D: Interviewing wrestlers, referees, authors and other media
[00:00:22] Speaker C: personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: The cream. Yeah, the cream of the crop.
[00:00:30] Speaker D: And now, here's your host, Tony Richards.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. I'm your host, Tony Richards, coming to you live from Western Kentucky and the Richards Ranch, you know, where people talk about you live in the sticks.
I live past that. Right. So you go through the stick, keep on going when you get to the sticks, just, just keep on going because I'm out beyond the sticks out here in Lola, Kentucky, where the Richards Ranch is located, and saying hello to our listeners around the United States and around the world. Thank you so much for joining us. Again this week we're up to episode 80 of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History show.
And this week talking about worldwide influence and worldwide listeners. We're going to be international to a certain degree again this week because we're going to All Japan Pro Wrestling in 1976, and there's a particular reason I'm going to do this. Anyway, I was going to review both the promotions in Japan on various shows, but I picked All Japan wrestling in 76 to be on this particular episode because we're also going to be paying tribute to my dear friend and member of our Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel family, Jerry Oates, who passed away the previous weekend and in All Japan Pro Wrestling in the fall of that year. 76, Jerry and Ted Oates won the All Asian Tag Team Championships there in Giant Baba's promotion.
So I thought it would be apropos to have Fumi Saito, my dear friend and Japanese wrestling historian, to be on here today to talk about the All Japan promotion in 1976, including the Oates brothers winning that championship.
Also coming up today, two of Jerry's closest friends and former hosts of the Internet radio show that they used to do.
Bobby Simmons, who does Georgia for us on this show, and Michael Norris, who does the Gulf coast wrestling shows on this show, are both going to be joining me today.
Jerry's funeral would have been last Saturday by the time you watched this or listened to this show.
And Bobby did the funeral. And so he talks about that and some really funny moments and also some great stories and some really, really wonderful stories shared by Bobby and by Michael about our friend Jerry Oates. And then to wrap up the show, I had recorded a conversation with Jerry a few weeks back about his career in 1976 that I've now put on the show.
And I really kind of struggled with whether or not I wanted to do it or not. And I finally decided that I was very proud of Jerry and I was very proud of his career. And I know he was very happy and satisfied with his accomplishments in wrestling. And there were so many things beyond 76 that I was really looking forward to talking with him about, you know, his whole run in Leroy McGurk and Bill Watts Tri State Wrestling, which would eventually become Mid South.
But Jerry had an entire run there. And he talks a little bit about it in this interview today because he went there in late 76 and got started for Bill Watts, who was the booker partner in the territory. And gosh, I was so looking forward to 77 because Jerry really, really went to the head of the line, carried the North American title, had so many great programs and feuds.
And I've had so much difficulty finding someone who could analyze and discuss and talk about that territory. I don't really have a Tri State, Oklahoma, Louisiana analyst. And if you know anybody who would be willing to do that or would be good for that, let me know.
So I was looking forward to Jerry being on so we could go into, you know, that was what was great about him talking about central states in Kansas City in 1975 and this year of 76. We talk about Georgia, we talk about Japan, and we talk about him going to Watts, his territory. And that's all going to be on the show today. Because I decided to put the interview on my last conversation with Jerry Oates, which will be the last segment of the show today.
Well, I need to call Jim Cornett because he was recently talking about catfish on his show.
And I was driving to Paducah the other morning and I was listening to his show. I think it was the drive through where they were talking about it and Jim was talking about taking out his family for, I think it was his.
His father in law's birthday maybe, and talking about catfish. And Jim's co host was not a fan of hearing about the catfish. And Jim was talking about how good it is and it is fantastic. And the reason I know that is because western Kentucky, about 200 miles southwest Louisville, where Jim lives, catfish is one of the main staples of our diet down here. We've got a fantastic catfish restaurant down here named Willow Pond. If you want Cajun catfish, we got Brossard's it's just a, you know, you don't have to go to the South. I mean, Jimmy said you had to go to the south to get great catfish. Heck, we're in the same state. Just come down here to western Kentucky where Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, two of the largest man made lakes in the world, where the world's best catfish come from.
And man, let me tell you something. Well, first of all, if you live down here, and which I consider this the South, Cornmeal is its own food group, man.
I mean we put everything, we fry everything with corn meal, everything you can imagine. I mean, fried squash out of the garden, oh my God. With a little bit of pepper mixed in with it.
Fried. I moved to Missouri in 1992 and one of my biggest concerns, because I didn't know anything about Missouri, I just didn't know what the food was going to be like, you know, because I traveled there a little bit. Missouri wasn't really in our geography of the group that I was running at the time. So when I went over there to be a part of this broadcasting group, you know, I was just kind of interested at what the people would be like, what the food would be like. And it really wasn't that much different than here.
And I went down to this restaurant downtown. It's not there anymore, but it was this place where we always, all the radio managers and people used to go for happy hour named Griffin's was the name of this little place.
And I go down there, I've only been working there for a few days. And I asked people like, where, where do people go? Or whatever. They said, well, about 4 o' clock we all start gravitating down to Griffin's. I was like, okay. So I went down to Griffin's and part of it was to meet everybody, part of it was to have a beer.
But when I looked on the menu and I saw fried pickles, I thought, man, this is going to work out great. Like this is not going to be that much different than home because man, we will put us some pickles in some cornmeal and fry them up and have some fried pickles.
Everything you could imagine which hush puppies are just big fried balls of cornmeal. I can remember my grandmother and God rest her soul, she was my favorite. And I kind of look like her, I've got her facial features.
But we used to have these fish fries at my grandmother's house and she had this huge iron kettle that all the men would build a fire under. This iron kettle and get that water boiling, and they'd put those catfish filets in there, wrapped in cornmeal and rubbed up with cornmeal, and they'd put those hush puppies in there. And those things would cook in that bubbling oil and water and everything. And they put some spices in there. And it being that big old iron kettle, I can remember the smell of that just like it was yesterday.
And of course that, you know, my mom and all, you know, she'll make some catfish from time to time. But, you know, we don't do it in the old iron kettle anymore. But, man, was that really something. I mean, it was good. We put onions and our hush puppies down here, slap it, slice up some onion slices and put them in there and fry up those hush puppies. Jimmy, I'm gonna tell you something, man. You need to come down to Western Kentucky and get you some catfish. Because you were just talking about catfish and how much you loved it. But I just want you to know you don't have to leave the state to get great catfish. We got it down here, Kentucky Lake, in the good old Western Kentucky part of the state.
Of course, also, we've got our Wrestling observer hall of Fame show, our annual show coming up. I'll have Greg Klein here, I'll have Steve Giannarelli, and I'll have Brian Solomon. We'll have our panel to each advocate for people that we want to get in the Wrestling observer hall of Fame. I will once again this year resume my campaign for Roy Welch to be put into the Wrestling observer hall of Fame. And I want to remind you that if you're a Hall of Fame voter or if you know someone who's a voter in the observer hall of Fame, steer them to my website, pro wrestlingtimetunnel.com and there's an entire section of my website dedicated to the Welch family Legacy and all 11 episodes of Briscoe and Bradshaw where we went through the entire history of the Roy Welch family and their contributions and achievements in professional wrestling. And if those 20 some odd hours recorded of wrestling history do not convince you that you need to vote for Roy Welch to be in the observer hall of Fame, I don't know what else I can do.
Also, the Welch family was put into the Tragos thes Hall of Fame this past summer in Waterloo, Iowa. And I'm so proud of that. And I want to finish off this year strong, finish off this year strong and get the Welch, Roy Welch into the Wrestling observer hall of Fame. And so this is My big pitch to you, if you're one of the voters of that I will be voting again this year and I'll be voting for Roy and I don't know why he hasn't been put in yet, but we'll try to get him in again this year. And I hope that my series that I did that's out there is enough scientific and research based data to convince you that you need to vote for Roy Welch. Because I know it's been a long time.
You know, Roy hadn't been actively involved in the business since the early 70s.
And you know the Welch promotions been gone now for over almost 50 years.
But around here in this area, in the west, Tennessee, west Kentucky, southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, northwest Arkansas, northeast Arkansas, part of the states, man, the Welch name still carries a lot of gravitas. And so let's get Roy Welch in the observer hall of Fame. Okay, let's get on with the show today.
Got a lot to cover and let's start by going to Tokyo, Japan where my guest on this episode to kick things off, Fumi Seido is here and we're going to talk about All Japan Pro Wrestling. That's the Giant Baba Group and the year of 1976. Come on in here to the Richards Ranch. Fumi, welcome back to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel territory history show. This is Tony Richards and tonight I'm joined at the Richards Ranch by my good friend Fumi Saito from Japan. Hey Fumi.
[00:13:19] Speaker D: Hello from Tokyo.
[00:13:22] Speaker C: How you doing my friend?
[00:13:24] Speaker D: Good, good.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: We're going back to 1976. We're going back 50 years. Fumi joined us last year, we talked about 1975 and so this, this time we're going back 76 and we're going to talk about All Japan Pro Wrestling. And we just recently lost one of the very pillars of All Japan Pro wrestling, Dori Funk Jr. So why don't we start out with just your thoughts about us losing the former NWA champion.
[00:13:52] Speaker D: Not, not so much as a NWA world champion of course. That too, but yes, most, more like the most influential American wrestling superstar in Japan because Dory Funk help helped build new in old Japan pro wrestling right from the beginning.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: Yeah, his father was involved with the Giant Baba and they had made a deal to supply American talent to All Japan Pro Wrestling. And then of course when the father passed away in 1973, well, Dory Jr. And Terry kept that going and that, that's where they're. Dory came over earlier. Right, in 19 what, 69 or 70.
[00:14:36] Speaker D: 69. And 1970 twice. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that too. Yeah, yeah. And 70. 71 too.
[00:14:44] Speaker C: And then of course was a regular performer for All Japan Pro Wrestling. So just.
[00:14:49] Speaker D: Yeah, give me some. Was that, you know, when you NW World Heavyweight Champion, you would only come in probably one week out of the year or even three days out of the year, you know. And it was very special. But it was this 1973 on Dory Funk Jr. And Terry Funk would come to Japan three or four times a year now. Oh my gosh. You know, and it was the very first American complete baby face in Japan. One of the. One of the, you know, like total baby face. And you said supplying talent for all Japan was one thing, but the, the bigger thing was that that they trained wrestlers. You know, Jumbo, Young Tommy, you know, Tomomi Jumbo truda. Went to 1972 Munich Olympic. Then they go right to professional wrestling and signed with Old Japan Pro Wrestling. And Giant Baba did not debut Jumbo in Japan. Instead he was sent to Amarillo, Texas and trained under the Funks.
You know.
[00:15:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember when
[00:15:55] Speaker E: Food.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: What was it? Fuchi and
[00:16:00] Speaker D: Onita.
[00:16:01] Speaker C: Onita came over and were in Amarillo and then they came to Tennessee when Terry.
[00:16:07] Speaker D: They won't be coming until like 1980.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: Yeah, 1980. 81, something like that. Yeah, yeah, I was a fan.
I was a fan.
Yeah.
[00:16:15] Speaker D: Okay. And then the Jumbo was trained and debuted in Amarillo, Texas. And also he like a rookie. Jumbo. Not Jumbo. Yeah, it's Tommy. Tommy Tsuruta, rookie to the challenge. Then NWA champion Dori Funk Jr in Japan, all the photo came in. In Tokyo Sports that, you know, Monthly Wrestling magazine later become Weekly Pro Wrestling and Gang magazine, all these magazines covered it.
And also the 1976 that we could talk about, talk about that today that when the former Sumo superstar Tenrou Gang, Ichiro Tenrou debuts. Baba didn't debut him in Japan. He was again sent to Amarillo, Texas to be trained under the Funks. He debuted in Amarillo, Texas.
[00:17:03] Speaker C: That's a couple of big stars.
[00:17:05] Speaker D: Both the Saruta and not just big Star, but the main guy in old Japan for next two decades. Yeah.
[00:17:13] Speaker C: So in 1976, Baba and Saruta are the central tag team, right?
[00:17:18] Speaker D: For all Japan International tag team champions.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Yeah, they had beaten the funks actually in 75 for those titles.
[00:17:25] Speaker F: Right.
[00:17:26] Speaker D: But he was not a total baby face heel match, but he was more like a very respected international tag team champion. The backstory was though, that when Dory and Terry won the international tag Team championship ship, initially it was Back In December of 1971, they beat Jan Bava and Antonio Inoki combination before the big split up, you know. And it was like a. Something not un, unheard of. Some of the guys like Danny Hodge and W Bus Neider tag team, they beat Baba Inoki in Japan. But by the time that the big long tour was over, the tag team championship will be back to Baba Inoki. Same thing with Dick the Bruiser and the Crusher. First week they come in and they beat Inoki. Baba Inoki combination. But by the end of the tour, Baba and Inoki will get it right back. Yeah, but that time in December of 1971 actually Dory Funk Jr. And Terry Funk took the belt back to Texas.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Yes, and, and, and Saruda and Baba beat them in San Antonio, right?
[00:18:32] Speaker D: Yeah, but it took another three years or so. Yeah, but they, so it was really, really big.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: They ended up swapping the titles back over here in the United States.
[00:18:41] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And what was very, you know, important was that Dory Funk Jr. Was so, you know, so special that we get to 1976, but we got to cover 1969, 1970, that.
[00:18:53] Speaker C: Yeah, sure.
[00:18:55] Speaker D: Dory Funk Jr. Was very special.
NWA world champion. Not be. Not just being like a 28 year old world champion, but it was world champion. Traveling to Japan, both John Baba and Antoninoki challenged, challenged Dory Funko Jr's title. That get, you know, that gave Japanese fans the idea that there must be something above Japanese wrestling.
You know, Giant Baba International Heavyweight Champion. Antoninoki at the time number two guy, but the Star and JWA Nippon Pro Wrestling had two different network channels. One company, but channel four, Nippon TV, channel 10 net, TV Asahi.
Monday and Friday, twice a week with two different network.
So it was as if there was two different wrestling programs.
Giant Baba challenging Dorian Falcon Jr. Wasn't his champion. Right. But Baba actually challenging NWA world titles challenger Inoki challenging 26, you know, 2030, you know, 27 year old, you know, Anthony Noki challenging Dory Funk Jr. And neither of them won, you know what I'm saying?
[00:20:17] Speaker C: So the Japanese, your Japanese fan lived in this bubble where they only thought about wrestling in Japan until this title, these title matches, right?
[00:20:29] Speaker D: Anyway, yeah, but the world champion history, you know, that starts in Japan from Ricky Dose and Luther Sing, you know. But he was never announced he was NWA world champion. But 1969, the first, very first trip of Dory Funk Jr. That was the first step they really announced NWA world title acknowledging. You know, see, you have to know Bruno San Martino, WWF Champ world champion.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: You know, why was that for me? Why, why did they not?
[00:21:01] Speaker D: Well, 1976, you know, JWA Nippon Pro Wrestling became official member of NWA, you know. And Yoshino Sato became the second vice president of the organization.
Yeah. And the initial NWA really start, you know, get noticed and acknowledged as. As. As if I should say that the biggest governing body of professional wrestling world. How's that?
[00:21:30] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so where does that take us then?
[00:21:35] Speaker D: NWA membership as initial. You know, when Jan Baba started all his old Japan Pro wrestling In summer of 1972, by January, January of 73, he was the official member of NWA, you know, organization kind of thing.
[00:21:53] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:21:54] Speaker D: So it was like a sanction the championship. What was, what was interesting that Baba, you know, was recognized, you know, at the beginning of All Japan Pro Wrestling. PWF Pacific Wrestling Federation World Champion. Right. As. As upon signing and you know, be part of nwa they took this world away from PWF title and recognizing NWA World Heavyweight Title and PWF Champion Championship became Pacific Wrestling Federation Champion instead of world.
[00:22:27] Speaker C: Because I mean Baba was bringing in both. He was bringing in Briscoe and. And he was also bringing in Sammartino as well.
[00:22:37] Speaker D: Yeah. And a little bit in 1976. We talk about ver too.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right.
[00:22:42] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:22:43] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:22:43] Speaker D: So all the famous superstar always, you know, came to old Japan.
Yeah. Inoki didn't have strong connection or actually let's not make funk heal about it. But it's a territorial things, you know, that, that Baba and Dory Funk and the Funks combination pretty much blocked all the territorial superstar from, you know, going to Enoki. Does that make sense?
[00:23:11] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:23:11] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: Okay. And so next, what do you want to. Where do you want to do?
[00:23:19] Speaker D: No, no. You ask me.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: Oh, okay. Well, are you ready to go into 76 then?
[00:23:24] Speaker D: Or of course we already are because we just talked about this Jumbo tutor becoming a single superstar.
And 1976 that they had this 10 match series for Jambo Tsuruta, you know. 10 match series was that that 10 big superstar from America come in and have a very important single match against Jumbosura one at a time.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Is that the 10 match series? Is that the one that culminates in Terry Funk?
[00:23:56] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, that too. Yeah. Yeah, we'll get to that.
[00:23:59] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:24:00] Speaker D: The Fritz Von Eric a little bit later on the bubble Brazil. That. Yeah. One by one that to make.
To make Jumbo young Jumbo suit a single superstar.
He was young enough that rookie enough that he almost didn't have to win. But they had to have this even matchup with all these current at the time, superstars from America. It was very important. The first match was that young Jumbo against Vern Ganya.
Yeah, but yes, you just mentioned Terry Funk that the June, June.
I believe it was June 11th at the Old Sumo Palace NWA Award Heavyweight Champion Terry Fung came over and Jumbo Sudo challenge for that title.
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:51] Speaker D: And you expected that to be a big thing, right?
[00:24:54] Speaker C: Yeah, they, they.
[00:24:55] Speaker D: Well actually this Terry NW championship in a match Terry champion Terry Funk against Jumbo Suda was and still is the least popular Terry Funk match in Japan.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: Oh my least.
[00:25:11] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:25:12] Speaker C: Explain that to me Fumi. Why was that?
[00:25:14] Speaker D: Well, because, you know, it's about more reading oriented wrestling fan or like a thinking wrestling fans or more type. Type of. Type of wrestling fan that studies things. You know, the NW World title is kind of a you, you know, and I know that it's a championship Japanese wrestler won't win.
You know, kind of let down. Yeah, the match sounds great. You know, the champion Terry Funk coming in and Jumbo challenging it. But nobody, you don't talk about it, but nobody expects Jumbo to win.
[00:25:57] Speaker C: So even though Giant Baba had won it from Briscoe, they didn't think.
[00:26:01] Speaker D: Yeah, but another let down too though.
You win the title first week and probably like five, six days later at the end of the tour, Baba will drop it. You know, he did that with Harley Race twice, you know. And so NW Awards is almost, almost like a double edged sword that it's a big thing, it's a big world championship coming from America. But. And the match itself happening is great. But you don't expect.
I didn't expect wrestling fans didn't expect this Japanese fund to actually, you know, Japanese wrestling wrestler, Japanese wrestler to actually win this world title from America.
It doesn't belong here.
[00:26:47] Speaker C: So let's, let's talk about the buildings that you. That they ran in back in 76 was 2000 to 4000 capacity. In a lot of these buildings. If I. 2000, which I understand is about.
Or actually was it 12,000 that showed up for the Funk and ceruta or.
[00:27:11] Speaker D: Yeah, 12,000. 10,000. Yeah, yeah. Sumo Palace. Not this Sumo palace, but the Kurama Sumo Palace.
[00:27:18] Speaker C: Yeah, about. About a large Mid South Coliseum in Memphis type amount.
[00:27:23] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that one probably 12,000. Yeah, but around that. Yeah.
[00:27:30] Speaker C: Some of the other Americans that were on that same tour, I just want to get your impressions of them.
I just can't imagine the Valiant brothers getting over that Great in Japan. How did they do?
[00:27:43] Speaker D: Not great at all.
[00:27:45] Speaker C: Yeah, that just doesn't seem Giant Baba,
[00:27:48] Speaker D: you know, Jumbo team, you got two out of three, two straight halt, you know, 2, 0.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: But one wrestler I would think would get over well in Japan was Lord Alfred Hayes.
[00:28:01] Speaker D: Probably they didn't do much for him. No, I mean you're thinking that he wrestled like a Billy Robinson, is that it?
[00:28:08] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I would think so. Yeah.
[00:28:10] Speaker D: Yeah. British, British style wasn't placed in the top cluster, you know. Yeah. It's not what you do in the ring, how he was placed and laid out, you know, in the top of the card or mid card. Right.
[00:28:24] Speaker C: But another, other, another guy who did get over really well in Japan, had a lot of great matches there. It was Dick Murdoch.
[00:28:32] Speaker D: Yeah, of course, of course. He, you, Dick M. Was in that in Japan that year.
[00:28:40] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I've got on my notes here.
[00:28:43] Speaker D: Okay. Yes, that's the NWA Champion series.
Who's Hoffman Valiant brothers Lo Hayes Young KO Dick Murdoch and Bob Geo. As a. But not, not so much as a wrestler. I don't think he was NWA guy.
[00:29:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:06] Speaker D: But yes, yeah, that, that tour had. Yeah, those people. Yeah. Dick Murdoch was always a hit, you know, ever since he. His first trip, 1968. You know, that tall, really agile, you know. And then you don't have to have bodybuilder body like what American fans expect. That this is sumo wrestling oriented, you know, wrestling fans that he can move. And also this non verbal communication type thing that almost Dick Murdoch's pan miming things. That is a. You actually speaking to audience without talking to audience, you know, just gestures at this mannerism. All these things is just.
He was like the master of the craft from the beginning. Yeah. And Dick Murdoch, very convincing. He can fly, he can wrestle, he can be funny, he can be serious. You know what I'm saying?
[00:30:05] Speaker C: Yes, yeah.
[00:30:07] Speaker D: A lot of mileage out of that, you know, the rest of it.
[00:30:10] Speaker C: Yeah. The, the year.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: I'm.
[00:30:13] Speaker C: I'm looking the. Through my notes here. The year started out with what was called the New Year Giant series.
[00:30:18] Speaker D: Giant series, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:20] Speaker C: And was that a regular tradition in all Japan?
[00:30:23] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the spring Giant series every year. Every year.
[00:30:29] Speaker C: Followed by the Excite Series, Excise series, then Champion Carnival. Yes.
[00:30:36] Speaker D: NWA Championships then always have summer action series, then fall Giant series.
Then they didn't have this, that the tag team, you know, league, you know, the, the real world Tag team championship don't start until 77, you know. So this Year that the end of the year was a Superpower series. Later on the Superpower series was moved to like February, you know, usually have seven tours a year. Yeah. You know, seven or eight tours a year. That during 1976 they had, they had seven different tours.
We have to probably explain what the hell is the tour. Tour thing.
[00:31:17] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:18] Speaker C: Why don't you do that for our American?
[00:31:19] Speaker D: Yeah, that, that's Japanese tradition, you know, that the group of American or European wrestler come in and have this tour, like a 30 show tour, 25 short tour, 4 weeks tour, 45 weeks tour, 6 weeks tour and sometimes 3 weeks tour. You have group like you said, giant series. You had the Lord Jonathan Boyd, the Norman Frederick Charles, the Royal Kangaroos Mill maskers, Ray Stevens, Dick the Bruiser, you know, and the Crusher. They, they weren't in at their prime, you know, but 1976 version of Dick the Bruiser and in the Crusher they come in for one week, you know, but Ray Stevens, Ray Minimum Oscars, that they just.
All the superstars, huh? Don't you think?
[00:32:08] Speaker E: Yes.
[00:32:08] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:09] Speaker D: That they have this. Yeah. Tour.
Then when the tour is over, that group of, you know, foreign talent will come, you know, will be gone. But when next, you know, like two week, two weeks or three weeks off.
Next store starts that year was an excite series. You know, you have this, you know, the Wahoo McDaniels, the, the, the Mark Le Blue Shark as Dan Miller, you know, Blue Shark as a, you know, destroyer opponent, you know, and the, the, you know, other. Other wrestler and then in Vera for, you know, final week. So that's a package. So seven tour in old Japan had like a 200 shows that year.
Yeah, that's a serious thing, you know. Not just old Japan, but the coming from this J. Old J.W.A. that the Nippon Pro Wrestling Ricky doen tradition, you know, four week tour here, couple weeks off, another four week tour, couple weeks off, sometimes eight week tour and couple weeks off. And that's like we never. Japanese wrestling never had this TV taping thing, you know, at the studios, you know, for like a. You take three weeks worth of show at the studio was name talent and enhanced talent. We don't do that.
[00:33:30] Speaker C: Yeah, all the television, television was taped at the show, right?
[00:33:35] Speaker D: At the show. Yeah. Actual matches, name guy against name guy. Yeah.
And the title match on TV too.
[00:33:43] Speaker C: Kojika and Okuma were the all Asian tag team champions that year.
[00:33:48] Speaker D: Yeah, they revived it. That, that was Ricky Dozen Ty on the bori belt from 1950s, you know, and Okuma was.
[00:33:55] Speaker C: Okuma was a key player with Amarillo as well, actually.
[00:34:00] Speaker D: Mashio Kuma was.
[00:34:01] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. He. He helped with the coordination of the talent.
[00:34:09] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:34:10] Speaker C: I was just gonna say Terry said that Okuma never got the proper credit for that.
[00:34:15] Speaker D: Right. Because the Mashio Coma was. But it was more like Baba was too. You know, like a samurai had like two stooges, but stooges, not very good connotation, but like two sidekicks, Okuma and Coma. You know, when.
When John Baba started his old Japan, you know, Okuma and Coma was just side by side. It was always standing right next to John Baba, you know, so he was Baba being king. Right, right. And yeah, and two guys that was always right next to him, Okuma and Coma. So Coma unfortunately passed away that year, 1976. Young.
[00:34:52] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:53] Speaker C: So the BABA started all Japan in 72, I think you said. So this is four. This is four years in 76.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: How.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: How's the company doing?
[00:35:05] Speaker D: Very steady by then. That 73, like I said, he was official member of NWA and 73 was. That was the year that they started Champion Carnivore Tournament, you know, inaugural 1973 and PWF title matches. NWA champions and just bop bop. Baba had this NTV Nippon television deal. Saturday night, eight o'. Clock. Deal. Right from the beginning, the very good start. Of course, JWA went down, you know, and Inoki started actually six months before Baba that the March of 1972, the new Japan started. Started without television, you know, he survived about a year and the Seiji Sakaguchi came in and got the TV Asahi deal. Then New Japan started rolling, really rolling as of 73.
[00:35:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
In this.
This is the fourth champion carnival tournament in the All Japan come. And Abdullah the Butcher wins it the first.
[00:36:09] Speaker D: First time it's not international superstar. Yeah. Beating Baba ask. Actually it was DQ finish. But they. The match was long enough that they didn't complain about DQ ending. And what was, you know, important was that Abdullah the Butcher actually won the champion or the Carnival tournament with this big huge trophy. Yeah.
[00:36:29] Speaker C: And was. Was Ab. Was Abdullah the top foreign heel at the time?
[00:36:34] Speaker D: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Right from the beginning. Yeah, yeah.
And actually we're talking about old Japan now. But when I was really young kid, yes.
New Japan had this Antonio Inoki against Tiger.
It seemed like the whole year, right. And the Channel 4 had giant Baba and Abdullah the Butcher the entire year, it seemed, you know. So it was like Inoki against Tiger, Jeep Singh on one channel. Baba against, you know, Abdullah the Butcher on the other. Other channel. It's like you got this fixed, bad guys.
You know, you're Batman and you're Superman.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: And Baba always has been heralded as a great booker for booking these champion carnivals. So Abdullah the Butcher and Giant Baba were both at the. At the end of the tournament. They both had 18 points.
[00:37:31] Speaker D: Okay, I forgot those points.
[00:37:33] Speaker C: Yeah, 18 points. Barracuda, often listed as Mario Milano.
[00:37:38] Speaker D: Yeah, yep.
[00:37:39] Speaker C: Saruta and Kentaro Oki were close behind with 7. 17 points.
[00:37:44] Speaker D: Still working in Japan at the time.
[00:37:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yep, 17 points. And then Destroyer and King Curtis had 16 points.
Also in the tournament was the Beast, who I suppose was Leo Burke.
Samson Kutsawada.
[00:37:59] Speaker D: The Beast wasn't Leo Bark.
[00:38:01] Speaker C: Oh, no, it wasn't. Okay.
[00:38:03] Speaker D: He was a shorter guy.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: Oh, all right.
[00:38:07] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:38:08] Speaker C: A couple of different beasts running around.
[00:38:10] Speaker D: Okay. Okay.
He was a really tall guy.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:14] Speaker D: This Beast was short little guy.
[00:38:16] Speaker C: Okay, I'll look up that in a minute. Samson Kutsuwada, great Kojika Buddy Wolf was on the. On the tour. And Okuma and a guy who was just on my Dory Funk Jr. Tribute show, the Red Dog, Larry Lane was there. His first Japanese tour, which he, I'm sure, got through the Funks because the Funks got him in the business.
And Larry Sharp was also on the tour. Abdullah the Butcher.
[00:38:46] Speaker D: Yeah, Larry Sharp.
[00:38:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Abdullah the Butcher wins the tournament on the DQ finish, as we talked about. And he was the top foreign heel.
[00:38:55] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:38:56] Speaker C: Then we go into the NWA Champions Series mid to late May.
[00:39:01] Speaker D: I'm not turning the light on.
Is it better?
It's. It's better for me. I'm sorry. Sorry.
[00:39:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, no, it's better.
[00:39:10] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:39:11] Speaker C: Good. Good job.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:13] Speaker C: So then mid to late May and going into June, we have the NWA Champion series. Did the NWA Champion always come to the NWA Champion series?
[00:39:22] Speaker D: NWA Champions Series was not a regular tour.
[00:39:25] Speaker C: Okay, so it was only when the Champion.
[00:39:27] Speaker D: Yeah. So NW Champion Series was. Wasn't the. Usually have Summer Action Series one and Summer Action Series two.
[00:39:34] Speaker F: Okay.
[00:39:35] Speaker D: You know, from that point on, Summer Action Series 1 usually have Mel Muscaries or his and his brother. And some more Action Series 2 at. By the end of summer, Dorian Terry will come in. You know, the summer vacation kids, a lot of kids, you want to, you know, have male maskers. One tour and next door you have your most, you know, best favorite guy, Dorian, Terry Funk, you know, they're so popular. So popular. That's why I said this, you know, NWA champion coming in. Well, Terry Funk was NWA world champion. Just one year, right.
[00:40:06] Speaker C: At 14 months.
[00:40:07] Speaker D: And it wasn't the Terry Funk we wanted, you know. And that will happen the following year, 1977. That the inaugural open, you know, open tag team tournament that eventually becomes real tag team tournament. The Funks Dorian Terry against Abdul the Butcher and the Chicago the legendary match will happen in the following year. But this NWA Champion like I said was almost people not. You're not supposed to talk about it because NWA Champion coming in and you be grateful. Right.
[00:40:41] Speaker C: So Fumi tell explain to me the difference. It wasn't the Terry Funk you wanted.
He worked different because he was the champion.
[00:40:50] Speaker D: NW Champion only comes in about one week or even less and. And have one or two title match and leaves, you know, he was never there. And this NWA Champion version of Terry Funk was not this exciting. Terry Funk.
[00:41:07] Speaker C: So obviously Ceruta had been to Amarillo and had worked over there. He'd been to a couple other territories in the U.S. but the funks had worked with him and trained him. And so Terry and, and Saruta know each other very well. But Ceruta is obviously the guy right behind Baba. So how did, how did fans react?
Maybe they didn't think he was not. Not going to win the the title but how did they react to him actually losing to Terry Funk?
[00:41:34] Speaker D: It was, it was okay to lose to Champion. He was young enough. You know it's like you watch Terry that the Jumbo Tsuru every day, every week of, you know, every week on television that we kind of witnessed the all the like evolution of Jumbo Sura. You know the from young guy to your, you know, Terry Funk trunks that you know the blue and red with couple stars on it, you know and work like American and like Japanese wrestler working like the Funks. You know that the European uppercut, double hook under double arm suplex side suplex. You know the terra of you know that will be translated into Kashi thing later on. But it was like Jumbo was always like Japanese Funks looking wrestler. Yeah. And it was okay for him to lose to your mentor. Yeah.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: So we have clear number two.
[00:42:38] Speaker D: Fine. But he was still young, you know and lighter. 230, 240 pound version of Jumbo.
Later on he turns this into black tights and black shoes. Serious company know Champion beating Nick B and go to become AW champion and pretty soon you'll have international title and PAWF title and you United national title three belt combined to be the triple crown. That's a drama for, for later on. This version of Jumbo can Lose at that point in time, I see to Terry Fung, it's okay.
Yeah, it's a 10 match series that you being tested by all the real superstars from the world.
[00:43:25] Speaker C: Billy Robinson, they had a two out of three fall draw match, 60 minute
[00:43:32] Speaker D: and they went extended five more minutes and still, you know, not no winner in 1976. Yeah, before we forget, that was the year that the Billy Robinson came in for the first time in December, December of 1975 like seven months earlier, Antonio Inoki and Billy Robinson had historical 60 minute match with New Japan's very historical match. I mean Inoki against Billy Robinson, you know, and two out of, you know, two, of course people expected 60 minute draw kind of thing, but the content of the match, Enoki's best, best match and Billy Robinson's best match and Coral Gotcha and Luther and as a witness sitting on the table, you know and then just they made it so historical and you know, he didn't beat him, but Billy Robinson didn't beat him. And he was a great wrestling match and they expected that the round two sometimes right then Jan Baba took Billy Robinson away from him. And what was interesting was that in the July tour of, you know, this, you know, Giant Baba's initial title match that the Billy Robinson Challenge. Baba's pwf. Baba beat Billy Robinson clean in the middle of the ring.
[00:44:53] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:44:53] Speaker D: So people go, you know, he didn't beat Robinson but Baba beat Billy Robinson clean. That that's the way the Baba would show that. Who do you think is better kind of thing.
[00:45:07] Speaker C: So did they, they promoted on television and throughout the magazines as a test series.
[00:45:13] Speaker D: Did they call it that the Janabob, I mean series? Yeah, company promoted it. Yeah. Stem that series that year. Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:25] Speaker C: So they go 70 minutes extended as Fumi mentioned from the 60 minute draw. And then Baba and Saruta, they, they dominated most of the tag team matches of course in the summer action series. Also on that series were Scott Casey, the former NWA World Junior champion hero Matsuda.
A young Al Madrill was on that tour from Texas.
[00:45:52] Speaker D: Terry Briscoe too.
[00:45:53] Speaker C: And I was going to say my good friend Jerry Briscoe was on that tour as well. And I think Jerry tells the story about he and Terry with the jet skis in the, in the in the lake that, that tour. They always had a great time together. They were always getting in trouble.
The August brought the Black Power series and so that culminated August was it
[00:46:20] Speaker D: Black Power Series that year?
[00:46:22] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I've got in my notes here. With also the first tour for Ted DiBiase, his first tour to Japan.
Bobo Brazil on that. The Wolfman, Tank Patton and Don Jardine Super Destroyer. And Jack Briscoe was in that as well. Yeah. So the, the big moment there. On August 28th at the Nippon University Public hall with about 7,000 plus, Jumbo Ceruta defeated Jack Briscoe 2 out of
[00:46:53] Speaker D: 3 falls match to win reviving United national title.
[00:46:56] Speaker C: That's it. Yeah, you're right.
[00:46:58] Speaker D: Yeah. So like former NWA champion, image is very important. Yeah, yeah. And that was a summer thing. Yeah, End of the summer. Yeah. I remember Jumbo winning his singles title for the first time. Yes. Like initiation. Baba PWF title. But UN United national title is kind of a secondary almost. But it's important to have your intercontinental title. Right.
Kind of thing.
[00:47:27] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:47:28] Speaker C: So they brought. Did they bring that belt back specifically for.
[00:47:31] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, for Jumbo. And very physical belt, too.
That Very physical bell. Antonio Inoki was away in 1971.
[00:47:44] Speaker C: Coming in September, the Black Power Series rolls on and. And winds down. And it also starts in the Giant Series.
[00:47:51] Speaker D: Giant series. Yeah.
[00:47:52] Speaker C: Yeah. We got Waldo again.
[00:47:56] Speaker D: Waldo won there. Yes.
[00:47:57] Speaker C: And my good friend Jerry Oates and his.
[00:48:01] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:48:02] Speaker C: Who are going to win the titles. The tag team titles.
[00:48:05] Speaker D: Asian tag team title. Yep.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Kim duck. And so September 24, the All Asia heavyweight title was held up after a chaotic match between Kentaro Okie and Waldo Von Erich.
Standard house show structure combined with 2 out of 3 fall tag team matches with Baba Ceruda Destroyer and others.
So as the Giant series goes into October, on October the second, that's the day that the Oats brothers win the All Asian tag Team titles. And evidently the Oats brothers really got over, didn't they?
[00:48:46] Speaker D: Yeah, but then they. They drop it to Takachiho and Kutsuada.
Yeah.
[00:48:52] Speaker C: Jerry always tells a story that they wanted them to go to Korea and. But. But Ted. Ted backed out, so they. They never got to go.
[00:49:02] Speaker D: Ted backed out. Oh, okay. Because at the time, Kintaro Oki's, you know, Korean group, it wasn't North Korea. It's a South Korea, though. They got scared. I don't know. But the. Kintaro Oki was running his own group in, In. In Korea at the time.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:49:19] Speaker C: Jerry always says that Ted had a girlfriend in Hawaii, so they. They had to leave.
[00:49:23] Speaker D: He wanted to stop in Hawaii.
[00:49:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
Jerry said it cost him a lot of money.
It's.
[00:49:33] Speaker D: Well, like you can cast something that you didn't make, you know?
[00:49:37] Speaker C: October 10, PWF United States heavyweight titles held up after the Destroyer and Abdullah the butcher match.
October, October 21, Kentaro Okie defeated Waldo Von Erich to win the vacant held up All Asia heavyweight.
[00:49:52] Speaker D: That was going to be the belt to be used in Korea. Yeah.
[00:49:56] Speaker C: Oh, it was.
[00:49:57] Speaker D: The Asian heavyweight title goes all the way back to Ricky dozen too, in 1955. So history is very important in Japan.
[00:50:05] Speaker C: Yes, I think it's very important to me for sure. That's why I want to have you on the show. You're the man.
[00:50:13] Speaker E: Superpower.
[00:50:14] Speaker D: Because you did so much homework and I had to remember it.
[00:50:17] Speaker C: Yeah, well, that's okay. You're doing great. Samson. Cuts of water.
[00:50:21] Speaker D: Billy Robinson came back for the second tour of that year. See, July was the very first, you know, Billy Robinson's old Japan tour. But in the end of November, he was brought back again already that time Billy Robinson brought young Chris Taylor, you know.
[00:50:39] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, Big Chris Taylor.
[00:50:41] Speaker D: Yeah, he was going to be a big star, you know.
[00:50:44] Speaker E: Was.
[00:50:44] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[00:50:45] Speaker C: Oh, they. Every town and territory he went into in the United States that first year. 75, the newspapers were just full of Chris Taylor stories. He was going to be a huge star.
[00:50:59] Speaker D: And Jumbo had a single match against him too.
[00:51:02] Speaker C: You mentioned Kutsuwara and Takachi. Oh, is that how you say that?
[00:51:06] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:07] Speaker C: They won the all Asian tag team titles from Jerry and Ted.
[00:51:10] Speaker D: Yeah, Old sprouts. Yes, I remember that.
[00:51:13] Speaker C: And then a big card on October 28th in Tokyo. The Destroyer beat Abdullah the Butcher in a disqualification to reclaim the PWF US Heavyweight title. And Destroyer had that US Title forever.
[00:51:26] Speaker F: Right.
[00:51:27] Speaker D: Until it was forgotten.
[00:51:30] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. He was the major holder of that. That belt. Kim Duck and Kitaro Oki defeated Giant Baba and Jumbo Saruta for the NWA International tag team titles. That's an interesting decision to do that.
[00:51:46] Speaker D: Well, it made Kim Duck the main event level.
Yeah.
[00:51:52] Speaker C: And evidently there was a lot of emotion to that match and a lot of crowd heat and.
[00:51:59] Speaker D: Yeah, because you saw John Baba against Kintaro Okie again in the ring situation.
[00:52:06] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:52:10] Speaker D: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:52:11] Speaker C: I was just gonna say, for Baba and Saruta to even appear to be losing would have caused a big reaction. Go ahead. Fi.
[00:52:18] Speaker D: Yeah. But it made Kintaro Oin Kim Duck tag team that much special though, you know. Baba and protege Jambutura, Kintaro Oki and his protege Kim Duck. And Kim Duck just as tall, just as good if he wanted to, just as good as Jumbo. And that made that tag team very special and also made Kim Dak very special singles wrestler.
And later on, Kim Duck will be challenging Jumbo's UN title.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:52:52] Speaker C: December 9th, we get into the Superpower series. So the guy I mentioned a few minutes ago, Leo Burke, you mentioned Chris Taylor.
Steve. Steve Strong, Mr.
The Spirit, Dick Murdoch. Yeah, A lot of great stars coming in here. December 9th in Tokyo, Baba and Saruta regained the NWA International Tag Team titles.
[00:53:17] Speaker D: The Mask, you know, Black mask wrestler. The Spirit was very interesting, you know, because who is this guy? Who is this guy? And this Spirit came in twice. This was his initial tour, probably that he didn't get the Ms. People wonder because on television they were saying that the Spirit under mask is very big name superstar, you know, and they teased him.
[00:53:46] Speaker C: So how's the, how's the competition between all Japan and New Japan here in 76? What kind of year is this for all Japan?
[00:53:56] Speaker D: I almost think that I was watching both shows. It was like a two different TV show, you know, it's wrestling. But so were most Japanese strong, strong Inoki follower Inoki fans, you know.
[00:54:13] Speaker C: Were most Japanese fans wrestling fans or were they a fan of one or the other?
[00:54:19] Speaker D: Actually, when you own network channel, you're almost dealing with general public, you know, more so than, you know, like an American wrestling company running, you know, your one hour TV show on Saturday morning, you have to get up to watch it, right?
But Monday night, 8 o', clock, no inok. Friday night, 8 o', clock, channel 10. Baba. Saturday night, 8 o', clock, Channel 4. When you have prime time, one hour network show every week, you are really dealing with general public, like TV viewers. Of course every single wrestling fans will watch it, but public, much like a general audience will be watching it. So it's like Baba show and Enoki show. We're watching two different TV shows. Does that make sense?
[00:55:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And you, you educated me last time we talked that Enoki was more like very early on kind of mma, you know, with all these different types of fighters coming in with.
[00:55:26] Speaker D: That doesn't start until 76. We gotta get to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When I was a little kid, when I was a little kid, Inoki was real and Bubba was fake.
You know, it's most wrestling, you know, as you grow older, but you, you know, you argue at school, you know, n seventh grade, eighth grade kids arguing at school. Enoki's better, Baba's better, Enoki's better. Baba beat all the American superstars. But Enoki's, you know, like so much like more real and all these things. And in what was interesting was that Inoki tried to have this image, his wrestling is real.
And Baba was like adult and more mature enough that he didn't arg.
You know that he is the major. John, Baba's old Japan was a major league company. Who's major league product. I mean, I don't argue that, you know, and all the real superstars from all over the world keep coming, you know, and you sign dick by a destroyer that, you know, superstar in Japan since Ricky Dawson era.
[00:56:36] Speaker F: Right.
[00:56:37] Speaker D: He actually moved his family himself and his family to Japan and destroyers made home in Japan because all Japan is so huge. Right.
The story goes, and now that now you have Abdulloh the butcher, you have male maskers, you have, you know, Dorian, Terry Funks that the Hardy rest coming in the male mask. I said mascaras twice. The Billy Robinson. Billy Robinson was huge, huge superstar in Japan. It was Iwe.
[00:57:06] Speaker C: What I wanted to ask was Anton Giesink who is a.
[00:57:10] Speaker D: A judica Olympic gold medal. Olympic gold medal. Yeah, yeah.
[00:57:15] Speaker C: He's in all Japan. I would have thought he would have fit better over in New Japan, but
[00:57:20] Speaker D: nah, he was actually not under contracts all Japan. He was under contracts ntv. He was signed by television station network tv.
[00:57:29] Speaker F: Oh wow.
[00:57:30] Speaker D: It's almost like Baba had to use him.
[00:57:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:57:34] Speaker D: So again, Anton Gaysink was sent to Amoledo before he, you know, Baba didn't debut him in Japan. He was sent straight to.
[00:57:42] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:57:43] Speaker D: Amarilo to learn wrestling. Yeah. So it was like the image of Amarillo, Texas with the. With the population of 200,000. Just about that.
[00:57:53] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:57:53] Speaker D: Yeah. But when you hear Texas in Japan, it's not Dallas, it's not Houston, it's. It's not San Antonio, Texas.
[00:58:02] Speaker C: You.
[00:58:05] Speaker D: It's like, I'm not lying. When you hear Texas in Japan, not just wrestling fan, but a lot of people automatically think Amarillo, Texas, Amarello, Texas like that.
That's how popular and how famous the funk Funks were.
[00:58:21] Speaker C: Yeah. So.
So thinking about all Japan in 1976, what's your overall assessment of that year?
[00:58:31] Speaker D: They had this very steady calendar, like you said, you know, Giant series, the champion Carnival, the, you know, summer action series, the Black power series, the Superpower series. It's like what. What's happening in spring champion Carnival, what's happening in summer, Summer action series when the fall comes into the Giant series again. And this is like variety of superstars all year long. And you have this. Even Kintaro ok was pretty popular in Japan was always Inoki Baba. Inoki Kintaro ok, like a number three guy who's JWA and he was also superstar from Korea and this variety of talent in the steady calendar and title matches that you really watch this show all year long. John Baba and I Baba didn't really argue because he's always never with his cigar. He doesn't answer questions right. It's like almost old fashioned. NWA promoter with mom and you know, mom and dad company type.
[00:59:37] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:59:37] Speaker D: Whereas Antoninoki was more, more like.
Like Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan all in one.
[00:59:47] Speaker C: Well, yeah, at the top of this, when we first started talking tonight, we talked about Dory Funk Jr. Recently passing away and the strong connection with All Japan Pro Wrestling. What, what are your best memories? I mean what was your initial reaction when you found out that that Dory had passed?
[01:00:09] Speaker D: Yeah, we kind of learned that, that he was not, you know. Well, you know, like a couple weeks, you know, before that, you know. Well, obviously he went into hospice care and yeah, he came back, you know, a couple years ago and you know he even got in the ring, you know. And yeah, he was here just about every year even after he was retired. You know, it was good to have him and, and Dory Funk and Terry Funk, you know, didn't really come, you know, coming together anymore. You know, Dory had his thing in Japan and Terry had his thing in Japan and But Dory was the one who really had this image. The theory probably the theory is more popular, you know what I'm saying?
[01:01:04] Speaker C: Yeah, sure.
[01:01:05] Speaker D: But the four male oriented, more reading oriented wrestling fans. Dory had more like. I wouldn't say more but the different meaning to wrestling in Japan. Yeah, so serious, you know. And he was a friend, an ally of Giant Baba and was a part of this, you know, just in like initial building of this creating old Japan brand.
And the former NWA champion almost made home in Japan.
And after 90s you know Dory Funk was start, you know he started giving interviews in Japanese, he studied Japanese language and yeah, just you know Dory Funk had this, his special place in Japanese wrestling. Really, really did friends with Baba. That's good. Trained Jambotsura, trained 10 Rue and trained so many others in Japan and in America. It was also.
Yeah just he made America closer, you know what I'm saying?
Felt like he's coming all the way from Texas. Well, well he lived in Florida but you know flying in from America three or four times a year. Yeah do is in town and just. And what was interesting like in in 70s so many kids fans will find their, you know, hotel they're staying and like hundreds, hundreds of wrestling fan is always waiting for the Funks, you know. To just walk through the door and come out of the door, you know, like or some, some kids sneak into hotel lobby to find them and Dorian Terry were the ones that they would sign autograph until the last one. You know, it doesn't matter if there's a 50 wrestling fans or 100 wrestling fans and Dorian Terry always smile and sign the autograph and until the last kid.
[01:03:10] Speaker C: That's special.
[01:03:11] Speaker D: Yeah, it's very special.
[01:03:13] Speaker C: Thank you for joining me tonight to talk about all Japan in 1976 and we'll be back soon with Fumi and talk about New Japan.
[01:03:22] Speaker D: New Japan.
[01:03:23] Speaker C: Yep. So thank, thanks for taking a tour of 76 with me tonight, Fumi.
Thank you so much. Fumi Saito from Tokyo, Japan. As we reviewed All Japan Pro Wrestling 1976 here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History show. And of course our mission is to cover every territory that we possibly can that was active in the year 1976 in professional wrestling. And I know that there's a lot of areas we still have to cover around the world, but I'm proud of the fact we can offer up these Mexico segments like we did last week. And of course again this year we're going to do Japan and this year I busted it up last year I just did one Japan episode, but I did two recordings with Fumi here on the show. One for all Japan that you saw today. And coming up on a future episode, we will do New Japan together here from 1976. Hey, if you're interested in more professional wrestling and a lot of history and you're interested in some quick hits and short quick history drops, you will want to join me on X on the X platform where my handle is at Tony Richards 4. I give you those quick history hits. I do an rip salute to wrestlers from the territory era that have passed away on that date in history and other things throughout the day where I will share old cards and old lineups and any particular title changes and anything else interesting that I can possibly think of to share, I will share it with you at Tony Richards 4.
And also if you would you share this episode with someone who's a fellow territory era pro wrestling fan. It's the best way to grow our little corner of wrestling history. Plus, please hit the subscribe button or the follow button or with whatever button is there to help make sure you get every episode of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History show when it drops Wednesday mornings at 5am Central and 6am Eastern Time every single Wednesday.
All right. And by the way, if you're On Apple Podcasts there is a review box and please give us a five star review and submit that that helps other people find us in searches when they're looking for quality history podcasts to watch or to listen to. We only talk about pro wrestling history in the territory era here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. And you know what great guests that we have and fantastic experts that help us go back in the time tunnel and do that history. Speaking of great guests, I've got two guys now coming up who are fantastic friends of mine and who also contribute to this show. Some very valuable, valuable history.
Bobby Simmons, who was a referee and office manager and ticket manager for the shows at the Atlanta City Auditorium and at the Omni in the Georgia territory for years.
And so he's got so much Georgia. We talk and Bobby's coming up in an episode coming up soon. Here to talk about Georgia 76. But today it's a kind of a sad occasion, but it's also a day for us to help process the loss of our friend Jerry Oates.
So Bobby's here to tell some stories about Jerry and so is Michael Norris. Michael's a former wrestler in the Gulf coast territory and I think he worked briefly in a couple of others. But he's just been a fantastic and fabulous historian for the Gulf coast championship wrestling territory run by the Fields family, which is connected to the Welch family.
And so Michael did a show with Bobby and Jerry for years on the Georgia wrestling history website. It was back in the days before podcasting was all the rage and everybody had one and they had some fantastic guests. I am fortunate enough to have downloaded every episode that they did before that website was taken down and that content was lost.
And so I love to dig those out and listen to them sometimes, especially if I'm doing research for something, because so many of the guests that they had on their show back in the day have gone on now and passed away. We're losing territory, guys, much too soon. And so much history is lost because we haven't talked with them or had it recorded. You know, we recently just lost Bill Dundee, who, you know, fortunately had written a book and had put a lot of his history down. And I'm so thankful that he did that with Mark James and Jerry. We were using this show to record, you know, Jerry stories and things like that. So these two guys are fabulous historians, they're fabulous storytellers, and I'm excited to have them on today. So let's go to that. Now, my two guests that are coming up on the show here, Bobby Simmons, Michael Norris, and memories of Jerry Oates.
[01:08:46] Speaker F: Well, my next two guests are here today to talk about a mutual friend of ours, and they knew Jerry a lot longer than I did. As a matter of fact, they did a radio show years ago before podcasting. Really, really took off. These guys had a show on the Georgia wrestling history website and did a lot of shows together, 10 years of episodes. And when I found out that that website was going to be going away, I spent an entire Christmas weekend a couple years ago downloading every episode of their particular show because they had so many great guys on and so many people that are no longer with us anymore. Just a lot of great material and gold. And I'm talking about Bobby Simmons and Michael Norris.
Welcome, guys. It's good to have you here.
[01:09:37] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:09:38] Speaker F: Great to be here.
[01:09:39] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:09:40] Speaker B: Well, it's not a good occasion, but it's a good. Good to be here.
[01:09:43] Speaker F: No, and I kicking myself in the butt because I'd always planned to have the three of you on a show together and have a little reunion of your show. And I never quite got around to it. And it's just one of those things that when after something like this happens, you just kind of beat yourself up, because I would have loved to have had that.
I.
Jerry, of course, was on the show a lot. And you guys have been on talking about Georgia and the gulf coast territory, and it's good to have you. Bobby, I'll ask you, when did you first meet Jerry?
[01:10:19] Speaker A: First met him? 1972, when the he.
[01:10:25] Speaker B: The split.
[01:10:26] Speaker A: The big war started there.
Ted worked for Ann for almost the whole run. But Jerry was initially going to come over, and I think that's the first time I was ever introduced to him. And I was just a casual thing. I was just working on the ring crew and doing other stuff, but actually in the ring with him the first time, 1975, and been friends ever since.
Just a long time. Over 50 years.
[01:11:01] Speaker F: Yeah, Geigel, he said. He told me that Geigel called him and said, we don't want you involved in that down there, so we're going to bring you to Kansas City.
[01:11:11] Speaker A: Well, Jerry worked here for a while.
He worked here before he went to Kansas City.
And when they were getting ready to cycle him out, that's when he went to Kansas City.
And they also Geigel. Well, Harley Race is the one that got Ted out of Atlanta, out of the gunkle employ and got him to Kansas City because he kind of gave him a heads up about the Demise of Gunkle was on the horizon and he wanted him out of here before it went down. So, you know, they. They both had good runs at Kansas City.
[01:11:49] Speaker F: Well, that, that. That program that Ted and. And Wayne Cowan back then. But Dutchman tell the program they were doing really worked well, didn't it?
[01:11:59] Speaker A: Oh, the thing here in Atlanta. Oh, yeah, that was. The cops believe that was a shoot. I mean, it was a.
I don't know how many matches I was in the ring with those two guys, but it was, it just. It was one of those things that was. That clicked.
They don't happen very often, I don't guess. But this one was.
I mean, they did every kind of conceivable match you could think of. And that program probably ran nine months to a year.
[01:12:26] Speaker F: Yeah, well, Dutch is often talked about riding with Ernesto and that's. He got his PhD in the business. Riding to the pounds with Tom.
[01:12:38] Speaker A: Yep, he was. Yeah, Tom was. Tom kind of took Wayne under his wing there.
Wayne was a young man, hadn't been in the business very long, and he was.
Yeah, Tom and him spent a lot of time together.
[01:12:51] Speaker F: Michael, go ahead.
[01:12:53] Speaker A: I was just going to say the history of thinking of these things. The first match I ever actually wrestled was against Wayne Cowan in a little town called Thomason, Georgia. Somebody didn't show up or something. And there was two referees there that night. And, and I worked. I got to work. The first match I ever had was with him.
And then I actually got to work one match with Ted. Wrestling Ted. So just so many memories, man. I just.
Thanks for letting me share a little bit.
[01:13:28] Speaker F: Yeah, sure. Michael. You know, we got so many people that watch and listen to our show and they only know national TV wrestling. You know, they.
They've become fans in the last 40 years and Jerry was never part of the national television scene. But for our fans that don't know, how should they understand who Jerry Oates was in the territory here?
[01:13:52] Speaker B: Jerry was one of those guys. And I think Bob Geigel told Bobby this spoke the highest of him. If he had a dressing room full of Jerry Oates, he'd have been, you know, the happiest man in the world. Jerry was. Jerry was one of those guys that. That pretty much he handled the business like a business.
He came to work, did what he was asked to do and went home.
He didn't. He didn't, you know, chase after anybody or go out drinking, and he was no trouble whatsoever. He never argued with anybody as far as, oh, I'm not going to do that. And. And, you know, Jerry was just. He was as professional as a professional could be, and that's why he. He, you know, everywhere he worked, the promoters always loved him and wanted him back. The first time I, you know, it's funny, I.
It's hard to believe that you can feel about somebody the way I felt about Jerry is. Be as close to Jerry as I was and only met him twice.
I met him the first time he and his son Bo came down to the Gulf Coast Reunion.
I met him there. And then one time, Rich Tate and I went to one of his shows when he. He was running in Columbus. It's the only two times I ever met him, but I felt like he was a brother after spending 10 years talking to him on the radio and then off the radio and, you know, private conversations between us. But I looked up this morning. The first time I actually ever saw Jerry oates was on June 28, 1972, in Mobile, Alabama. He came in, they brought him into Mobile. He and Ted were both working for Bill golden in Montgomery, and Ted went on to Atlanta.
And Jerry came through and stayed four, six weeks down in Mobile.
But I saw him. He was. He was originally scheduled to wrestle the wrestling pro on a card Mobile, but the pros in the middle of a hot program with Jerry. I mean, with Ken Lucas.
So they switched out that night and put Baxter against Lucas. But Leon Baxter was the wrestling pro, put him against Lucas. And then Jerry took his place, Lucas's place in a tag team match teaming with Frank Dalton against a guy that I saw once.
Never heard of him, never heard of him again. And never. He. I never saw where he ever worked anywhere else. Guy by the name of Walt Fayed, F A Y A D who teamed with Rick Ronaldo, who was Rick, had just come in from working for golden too.
So.
But I told Kelly years later, I said, and watching Jerry work that night, as a fan, I was only 13 years old, watching him as a. As a fan, watching him work that night, number one, he was a foot taller ahead, taller than everybody else who worked in the territory.
And. But he was so smooth. I mean, Jerry had only been in the business a year, year and a half at that time. He. I think he started in 71 in Florida after Dickie trained him.
But he was smooth as silk.
And just, you know, I told Kelly years later, I said, you missed a chance there. You should have kept him.
[01:17:26] Speaker F: Yeah.
[01:17:27] Speaker B: And kept him in the territory because he was.
I knew he was going to be some. But everybody ever that ever booked Jerry Ever worked with Jerry. Ever had anything to do with Jerry. The first thing out of their mouth was, you know, talk about how he was a professional.
I mean I'm, I'm glad that he got. He did get one.
Just make slight correction what you said. He did get one little showcase on the national scene with. He and Ronnie Garvin went over the road warriors for the national tag belts. That was, you know, during holy do
[01:18:03] Speaker F: that in Columbus as. As well.
[01:18:05] Speaker B: Yep.
Well, that made up for. That made up for the.
When he, he left Mobile, went. Went to.
Went back to Atlanta which was right around the time the split happened. And he stayed, I think his first card in.
Back in Columbus. They teamed him with the McGuire twins and put him in against all three of the garlands. That was actually his first, that was
[01:18:38] Speaker A: actually his first appearance in Columbus was.
[01:18:41] Speaker F: Yep.
[01:18:42] Speaker A: It was the first time he had ever wrestled at home. He come out of Florida, they booked him in Columbus and he, he telled the story of having this great visions of grandeur coming home conquering hero. He had went to the matches at the auditorium his whole life. He's coming home, he's going to wrestle there, he's excited, he's, you know, they're going to. And he got home and he was in a six man tag with the McGuire Twins against the Garbins.
[01:19:08] Speaker F: It's funny that you say that Michael, about only meeting him twice. You know, we never met in person but we, we talked on video a lot and we talked on the phone a lot. We probably talked every two weeks. We probably talked every two weeks on Monday nights usually. And we might talk 20 minutes or we might talk two hours. I mean, if Jerry felt like talking, he just opened up and told me so many, so many things about the business and so many stories about the business and so, so many times he talked about you guys and doing the show and how that much that meant to him. And he knew just about everybody or had worked with a lot of people in the business. So he had an opinion about just about everybody. Bobby, what, what stands out in your mind as a time where you were in the ring with him as a referee?
[01:20:04] Speaker A: Well, the funny thing is is there's really not one specific moment because every night was that I was ever in the ring with him was the same. There was never.
He was just. Michael's already said he was smooth as glass. He just.
His timing was impeccable.
He was taught. Well, you know, I've made this statement. I made it to him, made it on our show many times. I think Dick Steinborn would have been a great NWA champion. He was the greatest baby face, I guess I was ever in a ring with as far as the total package was concerned. But he was taught well by Dick and he just.
It was just always a pleasure to be there. I mean, my job was stay out of the way. And I was very happy to be able to work with him as many times as I did.
Mentioning Bob Geigel earlier and the things that we were. I was in at the Cauliflower Alley Club in Las Vegas and I can't tell you, this is. I don't know how long Bob's been gone. This is years ago. But we were sitting, talking and working for Barnett. I had dealt with Geigel when he was president of the nwa I never, never had worked for him. But we were sitting there talking one night and Jerry's name came up and Geigel made this statement. He said if we had more people in the wrestling business like Jerry Oates, he said our business would be far greater than what it is.
And I got Jerry on the phone and I said, I guess Bob wants to talk to you. And I put him on. It's the first time he had talked to Bob in years. And they had a conversation there at the table. And then I later related to Jerry what Bob had said. So, yeah, he's just.
He was a class act altogether.
[01:22:01] Speaker F: He said that. He said he always felt like he never really did as well in Georgia after Barnett got there because of his family connections. You know, his father in law was the promoter in Savannah and he was kind of close to Fred Ward growing up in Columbus and.
[01:22:20] Speaker E: Right.
[01:22:21] Speaker F: He just never felt like his relationship with Barnett was all that good. Do you remember much about that?
[01:22:28] Speaker A: I don't think there was any.
I don't believe there was any animosity between Jim and Jerry as far as from what I could see or what I was around. But it was just, you know, there again Jerry had. Aaron Newman, the promoter in Savannah was Jerry's father in law.
I do know when the split came there was a little bit of underhanded ploy. They were going to try to take the town away from Aaron because Aaron had initially went with Ann when the split came.
And then after a short time he backed out.
But I think there was a little. They kind of held that against Aaron and they were going to try to steal the town. And Jerry was right in the middle of that. And Jerry voiced his opinion one night to Eddie Graham and auditorium and you know, I just.
It Was that could have had something. Could have been something there because of that. I don't believe it was anything personal there again, too, Jerry. I don't think Jerry ever got a real big push here in Georgia because he was from Georgia.
[01:23:27] Speaker F: Yeah, he said that Barnett. Barnett had told him that when he got back from Japan, when he and Ted went over there and won the tag titles for Baba, that when he got back that he was going to get a big run. But he got back and there really wasn't that much for him. And he ended up going to work for Bill Watts.
[01:23:43] Speaker E: Right.
[01:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. It was just. That was just one of those things.
[01:23:47] Speaker B: And a lot of it may be also that Barnett was, you know, you know, from the old school of promotion and back in the day, home down boys never got a push in the. And where they were from in front. In fact, the. The Oath bros were probably an exception with the way Fred Ward pushed him in Columbus.
The only other exception I can think of is, is Bob Armstrong, who, being from Marietta, he got a decent push.
Well, he had to during the split because he was one of the few around. But. But he. Before that, you know, he was pushed by Fred as well. But. Yeah, back in the day, if you grew up in a town or you were from a certain territory, they booked you out of that territory. You didn't. You didn't start there, you didn't go over well there until years down the road.
[01:24:40] Speaker F: Well, I'm glad you brought that up because before we went on the air here, we were talking about Joe and Paul Leduc, who were a kayfabe brother team, but Ted and Jerry were a real brother team. They were really brothers, and there were some issues between them from time to time. They won the world tag titles in Kansas City. They won the all Asia tag titles for Baba. They won the Georgia titles there for a little while in 76.
How good were they, Michael? Where would you put them in Georgia tag team teams?
[01:25:15] Speaker B: They were, I tell you what, because. Because Dicky trained them both. And their style was patterned after a.
A tag team that Dickie Steinborn had been a part of in the AWA in either the late 50s or early 60s with Doug Gilbert, who later became a big name here in Georgia as well. But they were called Mr. High and Mr. Low. And you see pictures of them, one of them sitting on the bottom turnbuckle, the other one sitting on the top turnbuckle.
[01:25:51] Speaker F: Original Doug Gilbert.
Yeah, yeah.
[01:25:55] Speaker B: Doug Lindsay. Yeah. And so you. If you look hard enough, you'll find publicity Photos of Ted and Jerry in that same pose as Mr. High and Mr. Low.
Jerry was a high flyer and Ted was the mat worker, just like Steinburn was a high flyer and Gilbert was the mat worker in Minneapolis.
But that's what they were like as a team.
I never really got to see much of them.
I've seen the clip of them against the Free Birds, but that's a good indication of what they were like.
I would have loved to seen tape of them either in, you know, their, their, their time as a mid card team in, in the Carolinas or them in Kansas City.
But Jerry talked about how, how they went mid card around the Horn and Carolinas for months with teams like Renee Goulet and Gene Anderson and Mr. X1 and Mr. X2, which was Gordon Nelson and Jeff Ports.
He said they made more money doing mid card work than they ever did. Main event here.
Yeah.
[01:27:18] Speaker F: One of the things I love Bobby about talking to Jerry was he was around when so many guys broke in.
You know, he would talk about being in Kansas City where they weren't making that great of money. So obviously the new guys weren't making much at all. But he was talking about Roddy Piper was there for several weeks.
Jesse Ventura was there when he first broke in coming out of Minnesota and Tank Patton and so many different people.
It was just fun to hear Jerry's stories from the backseat of the car. You know, with those guys when they first got in the business.
He was just a real mentoring giving kind of guy, wasn't he?
[01:28:01] Speaker A: Yeah, Jerry traveled a lot by himself.
There were very few people he would ride with because he was number one. He always wanted to be on time. He never wanted any issues. He never wanted to be around guys that might get inebriated or high on some other substance.
He was very careful and he picked and chose who he rode with and what he.
He traveled with and who he associated with. But one thing about all those people you had in common, they remained friends throughout all the years. They stayed in contact with him because you're right, he was a mentor.
He was a person that tried to teach them the right way, things to do, things not to do.
One of the funny story, that's one of the things that Jerry told us. One time he worked one night when he was first starting with a guy named Frank Hickey, the spaceman.
Frank was, you know, he was a weird character, but he was all, I mean, you know, Frank was a heck of a guy because, you know, he trained Tom, Ernesto. A lot of people don't know that. But that's who trained Dom.
But Frank. Frank, Jerry worked very snug.
You know, most people lock up and
[01:29:24] Speaker B: they don't want to.
[01:29:25] Speaker A: They want guys to light. You can't feel him. Well, Jerry locked up. He was very snug when he locked up. And then he loosened up and you know the reason. And that's the way it should be done. You don't want to give away. You don't want to look like you're dancing. You want to look like you're locking up. So he locked up with Frank Hickey. And Frank Hickey. First thing Hickey asked you was, says, son, are you smart?
So, you know, he was just. Yeah, Jerry was. He was a very private person.
He was very protective of our business. And he.
But, man, he just.
I gotta agree with Geigel. If there'd been more like him, it had been a much better business.
[01:30:10] Speaker F: Well, looking back at that. Looking back at that 1975 year in Kansas City, I mean, here's what Geigel did. He put the. The Central States title on him, which was their top singles. And he put the world title on him with Mike George.
So he had him in the tag title, championship matches, and the singles championship. I mean, he put everything on Jerry there for, gosh, two or three months, I guess.
And, you know, then Jerry connected me with so many different people, like Mike George and other people, and I'm just so grateful for having been connected with him. What do you guys know about his relationship with Marty Janetti?
[01:30:54] Speaker A: Well, as far as I know, it was good.
[01:30:57] Speaker B: He trained him.
[01:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah, Janetti was just a young kid, a little Interesting sideline to Jannetti. Jannetti's very first match in front of a crowd outside of the gym was in Athens, Georgia, on a card promoted by Charlie Smith.
And he wrestled a guy named the Executioner, who happened to be a guy named Bobby Simmons under a mask.
So I had Jannetti's very first match.
Oh, my.
[01:31:29] Speaker F: Know that.
[01:31:30] Speaker A: Yeah. First it was in Athens, Georgia. I haven't seen Marty in years. I'm hoping to. Hoping to see him tomorrow. But I. Yeah, it was. That was his. But, yeah, as far as I know, it was good.
I don't really know.
I know Jerry was frustrated that I say frustrated. Jerry was. He was aggravated that, you know, Marty had the problems he had over the years and. And because he got that huge push up in Minneapolis.
But, you know, hey. Yeah, I think he. I think he was proud of Marty because Marty was successful.
[01:32:08] Speaker F: Yeah, very.
[01:32:10] Speaker B: I don't Know, that's one thing that Jerry is overlooked as far as his careers, the number of guys he trained.
Unfortunately, most of the guys that he trained got into the business at the time. The business was changing.
Bobby and I have talked to. And Jerry always said that two guys that he trained that worked independence around Georgia and he got them both booked in Japan. Jerry did. But that would have been big names had the business not changed the way it did was Greg Brown and what was Thomas's last name? Bobby Thomas.
[01:32:50] Speaker A: Ivy.
[01:32:51] Speaker B: Thomas Ivy, yeah.
[01:32:52] Speaker F: Yeah, I heard he was on your show. I heard Ivy on your show.
[01:32:58] Speaker A: Don. Don Sanders.
We. We lovingly call him Donut Don would have been a good hand.
[01:33:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:33:08] Speaker A: Just. Again, they. They were trained. They came at the wrong time. Now, for every. Every success, there has to be a failure.
[01:33:17] Speaker B: He also. I know where you're going.
[01:33:19] Speaker A: He also trained Otis Sistruck.
[01:33:22] Speaker F: Otis.
[01:33:23] Speaker A: And we,
[01:33:26] Speaker B: you know, you know, a
[01:33:29] Speaker A: lot of people looked at Mike Sharp, Iron Mike Sharp, big guy, had some quirky ways and.
[01:33:39] Speaker B: Cleanest man in the wrestling. Yeah, everybody.
[01:33:42] Speaker A: Everybody looked at Mike Sharp like he was. Like he was real dumb. I found out one night he was not dumb.
I got.
I went down. Somebody couldn't work that night, and I went down under a mask to one of Mr. Ward's towns. And when I got down there, I was in a tag match and Mike Sharp was my partner and our opponents that night, and it's funny you mentioned him earlier, and I didn't know he had passed either was against George Wells and Otis Sistrunk.
[01:34:11] Speaker F: Oh, my.
[01:34:12] Speaker A: And I'll tell you how smart Mike Sharp was. I realized after about 10 minutes, every time Otis was in the ring, I was in the ring. And every time George came in, Mike was in the ring.
[01:34:23] Speaker B: So it was.
[01:34:26] Speaker A: Yeah, but. Yeah, yeah, that was. That was probably one of the failures. And I don't give. I don't blame him for that.
Ole sent Otis down there and told Jerry to train him, and he didn't have long to work because Ole had a plan and he wanted to get him in the ring and he got in there way too quick. But, yeah, that was always a source of a rib with Jerry about his training Otis Sistrunk.
[01:34:50] Speaker B: Correct me if I'm wrong, Bobby, but didn't Jerry also train Dale Veazy?
[01:34:54] Speaker A: And Bob Brown could very well have.
[01:34:58] Speaker B: I think he. I'm almost positive he trained at least Dale Veasy, who went on to have a decent career. Dale worked. He and Bob Brown. Not Bulldog Bob Brown, but Bob Brown. It was from Carrollton Georgia. And I think that's where Dale was from.
They had a decent run in the waning days of Continental Fuller's promotion or might, might have been Dave woods by that time.
And a decent run in Puerto Rico as the, the Alaskan Hunters.
And Dale worked at least a couple years for WCW as part of the the State Patrol with Buddy Lee Parker. Was that the guy's name? That was.
[01:35:43] Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep.
[01:35:45] Speaker B: So they, and I'm, I'm almost positive, I think Jerry said that he trained Dale. At least trained Dale Veasy, maybe Bob Brown as well.
[01:35:57] Speaker F: You know, going back, I've listened to so many of you guys shows that you know, when you listen to a bunch of them in a row, you start picking up on things that were recurring.
But one of the funniest things that I thought was a recurring running thing that you guys would do is one of you two would bring up Moose Cholak.
[01:36:17] Speaker A: Oh my gosh,
[01:36:20] Speaker F: that, that would get Jerry going talking about his matches with Moose, which I think some of them were in St. Louis.
[01:36:27] Speaker A: Yeah, Moose Sherlock. Another one you could get him up fired up about was Han Schmidt.
[01:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah,
[01:36:35] Speaker A: Han Schmidt took advantage of him when he first started and just beat the tar out of him in the ring one night. And I think Jerry really wanted to work with the guy again because it wouldn't have happened happened a second time. But, but yeah, that Han Schmidt Sherlock, that was, you know, those were, those were some of his things.
[01:36:55] Speaker B: Ox Baker was Ox Baker.
[01:36:58] Speaker A: Yeah, Ox Baker. You could be Ox's tag partner and he'd hurt you standing on apron.
One of the, one of the funniest things. And if you've listened to these shows, you've heard this story. But Jerry when he was in Kansas City came up with the idea and this is before it was a fad to do some T shirts and he, he's gonna, I forget what he was gonna sell them for. $5 a piece or $3. I don't know, it wasn't much back then.
But he had it figured up that if he sold all these shirts he was gonna make two or three hundred dollar profit.
And he took them to. I forget what town he took them to. I don't remember. It was Kansas City or Wichita or wherever he took them.
Now I heard this, Jerry told the story and Jerry didn't know this but Harley Race told me.
He's the one that set the rib up. There was some guy in the town, wherever it was. He was an ex boxer and he was punch drunk.
But Geigel Used him to sell programs and gimmicks and things.
And he hooked Jerry up with this guy.
Jerry told the guy what he wanted to sell the shirts for. Harley got to the guy and told him, said Jerry changed his mind and he wants to sell them for a dollar apiece.
And Jerry said, when he went to the ring that night, he said everybody in the building had a shirt on.
[01:38:26] Speaker B: And he said.
[01:38:28] Speaker A: He said he was counting the money. He thought, boy, I've really done good tonight. And then when he checked out with the guy, the guy gave him the money.
Jerry lost.
[01:38:36] Speaker B: He went. He sold.
[01:38:38] Speaker A: I think he sold every shirt he had, but he lost. He lost like a hundred dollars.
[01:38:43] Speaker B: So he never.
[01:38:45] Speaker A: That was. That was the beginning and the end of his T shirt business.
[01:38:49] Speaker B: Jerry said that whatever town it was, he said that was Ted's town. He said Ted was over Wichita. He said Ted was over like crazy. He told Ted, you know, he was. Look, when they got into the ring, he looked out over the crowd. Everybody had on notes, brothers, T shirt. He said, son, we're gonna make some money.
Old punch drunk said, sold him for a dog.
[01:39:16] Speaker F: Yeah. Jerry told me that they were in a program with Ron Bass and Dutch Mantell for the world tag titles. And Jerry went to Geigel and said, hey, you ought to bust this off into singles with Ted and Dutch.
Like, this is Ted's town here in Wichita. Like that. They could really. They could really do something here. And he said they did. They. They drew some money in Wichita. Just going back to that singles deal with Ted and Dutch.
[01:39:49] Speaker A: Those guys work so much, they didn't even need to talk to each other. They just knew what each other was going to do.
[01:39:55] Speaker F: Well, yeah, you know, what's cool is Jerry had, I think, had eight tours of Japan, and then 75, he got to wrestle Bruno over there in Japan in a singles match. Of course, he, you know, had the Central States title in Kansas City, so he got to wrestle the champion. And he wrestled Briscoe a couple of times in Kansas City territory. And then we talked about this on our Christmas show last year, because we were talking about Terry Funk winning the title. Yep. And Jerry. Jerry's in the dressing room in Wichita, just so happens. And he's waiting because his matches with Funk or with Briscoe.
And the referee comes in, he said, well, is Briscoe here? And the referee goes, no, Briscoe's not here. Terry Funk's here. He said, what's Terry Funk doing here? He said, well, he won the title last night in Miami.
And he said, oh, my gosh. And I said, well, when did you and Terry get to talk? He goes, not till the referee was checking us. That's. That's. That's when we talked and said, well, Terry, what are you doing here?
And he said, well, they decided to do this for me in Miami, so that was kind of cool. He got to have Terry Funk's first NWA World title match.
[01:41:09] Speaker B: And somebody else that Jerry worked with in his early days in Florida, His. Like, his second or third match, he wrestled Lou Fez.
[01:41:19] Speaker F: Oh, yeah.
[01:41:20] Speaker B: He said Lou Fez put him in that double wrist lock. And he said that that was no joke.
[01:41:28] Speaker F: That was not at work. Huh.
He got to work in St. Louis. He always talked about how hard the rings were in St. Louis.
[01:41:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:41:40] Speaker A: So Worf ring in the business.
[01:41:42] Speaker F: One of the top guys in Kansas City.
Go ahead, Bobby.
[01:41:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Jerry said, that's the worst ring in the. In the.
Probably the most famous wrestling venue in the United States. And he said they had the worst ring.
[01:41:55] Speaker B: He said.
[01:41:56] Speaker A: He said it was like wrestling on the street.
[01:42:00] Speaker F: Yeah, that was an old boxing ring that they still used for wrestling.
I really understand.
[01:42:07] Speaker A: Mine and Mike's friend Joe Turner talked about the first time he worked there. He said he took a backdrop. He said whoever he was working with said, are you going to get up?
[01:42:16] Speaker B: He said, no, I think I'm dead.
[01:42:21] Speaker F: You know, he always talked about Pat O', Connor, who was booking St. Louis during that time. And he always thought a lot of Pat o'. Connor. He thought he was a good guy and always did a lot of really good things for Jerry. Did he ever talk about Pat to you guys?
[01:42:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. He told the story the one time they were in Kansas City.
The city, not the territory, but.
And he and Pat were out for dinner, and some guy was smarting off to a woman. It might have even been Pat's wife. And Pat got up and handled the guy, and the owner of the restaurant they were in came over and said, you. You need to get out of here. So that guy's. That guy's connected. He's. He's part of the mob.
And Pat said, we'll go. Go get the rest of the mob. We'll see what they can do.
Yeah. Jerry said, Pat o' Connor was not afraid of a snake. He was not afraid of anything.
[01:43:25] Speaker F: Yeah. Oh, man, I love to hear those stories. You know, another thing he would talk about for hours to me, about Milo Steinborn.
[01:43:34] Speaker B: Oh, he loved Milo. Oh, my God. The absolute world of Milo.
[01:43:39] Speaker F: And I think that was kind of his inspiration to open a gym in Columbus was because Milo had one in Orlando. And he always talked about what an excellent, excellent gym it was. And Milo had high standards and he only took like 20 guys who could be members of his gym. Gym at a time.
[01:43:57] Speaker B: And
[01:44:00] Speaker F: he loved talking about Milo.
[01:44:03] Speaker A: Well, Jerry and Ted's. The gym was sort of an accident in Columbus.
They originally went in business as a car cleanup shop.
They started advertising. They were opening a cleanup shop. Him and Ted, they're going in business together.
And the.
[01:44:31] Speaker B: That's what it was.
[01:44:31] Speaker A: I mean, matter of fact, I. I had a pickup truck at the time, and I took it down there and left it with them. I said, here, just clean it up and let me know when it's ready and whatever. And I mean, they, they did all sorts of extra things to it and took it. I mean, you know, and. And I think they charged me like $75 or something. But they did a lot more. More work than that. But, you know, they had a great little thing going and then just kind of faded away. And then I'm not real sure exactly what happened to get the gym started, but the gym suddenly appeared where the car cleanup shop was.
And.
They never bought like Nautilus equipment or any of the fancy stuff. As a matter of fact, Rock Hunter made a lot of the weightlifting equipment they had.
[01:45:24] Speaker B: Jerry made a lot of. Made a lot of that stuff.
[01:45:27] Speaker A: Jerry made of it too. Yeah, they, you know, they came to. They told me they were interested in a ring. And I had a ring here in Atlanta that was on the.
It was the old. It was the original Atlanta TV ring that was. We was on Live Atlanta Wrestling and the original channel 17 ring until they swapped. But I had it laying on the backyard, wasn't using it. And I went to Barnett and said, hey, these guys want a ring. You know, they want to set it up, you know, in the gym, blah, blah, blah. And Barnett actually let me give it to him. We didn't even. They. I don't even. They didn't pay for it. We gave it to them.
And so that's how they got their ring in the gym.
[01:46:01] Speaker B: And
[01:46:04] Speaker A: it turned into the premier workout spot in Columbus, Georgia for people that were serious about working out.
You know, they had the fancy gyms that were run by corporations and had all the glass and the mirrors. I mean, but Jerry and him had a hardcore gym. And it was. I mean, when those, when you went down there, those guys in there working out, they were serious about what do to.
[01:46:33] Speaker B: They were doing.
[01:46:34] Speaker F: Yeah, he told me he got those standards and things like that from Milo, that Milo was like that. He was very. You know, you had to be a serious dude to be a part of Milo's Gym. Yeah, 1979-2002 was the first time they had the gym.
Go ahead, Michael.
[01:46:57] Speaker B: When Jerry was working for Watts.
I don't know if he was working for Watts or if it was still McGurk's territory. The first time he went down into they. They were still working Louisiana.
[01:47:10] Speaker F: Yeah, McGurk and Oates were still. Or McGurk.
[01:47:12] Speaker B: But there was a.
There was an old guy down. One old guy. He was. He was probably Jerry's age or younger, but he was a guy that had been around the business a long time.
The name was Rick Ferrero Ferrara.
He was from Canada. I think he was from Windsor. But he. He broke into business doing jobs for Chic and.
[01:47:36] Speaker A: And
[01:47:38] Speaker B: burned ganya and places like that. But he worked on a ton of different gimmicks. He.
He worked for McGurk at one time as Igor Putzky, Ivan Putsky's cousin.
And they were both doing the. The mighty Igor ripoff gimmick, you know, with the cut off long johns and all that stuff.
And then he did something similar to that in Florida under the name Beeple Bonet.
But he just.
He worked all over the place. And the last time he was actually active in the business, he was a referee for Mid south in the early 80s for Watts. But he had a gym in Bossier City, which Jim Starr, the interns, also had a gym in Bossier City. But Jerry helped build a lot of that equipment that Rick had in his gym down there.
But.
And he said, you know, Rick's gym was a lot like the Oaks gym, was just like Bobby said, hardcore, which was he got from Milo.
[01:48:47] Speaker F: I just looked up Rick Ferrara. He was originally from France.
[01:48:52] Speaker B: He was built that way. I don't know if he was actually from there. He may have been born there, but he grew up in Canada.
[01:48:58] Speaker F: Yeah, yeah. Just born there. Was born there.
Yeah. Finisher was a sunset flip.
[01:49:06] Speaker B: He was a good little worker, but he was just. He was a lot like another old name.
A guy by the name of Tony Russo, who was four foot, nothing but. But built like a fire plug.
Rick was the same way.
[01:49:21] Speaker F: You know, Jerry passed away the night before his birthday.
And a year ago, I was so, so happy about this.
You know, in my Facebook group and then on different places on the Internet or whatever, I will publish a birthday list and I will put the People who've passed on and. But the people who are still having birthdays today.
And somebody at his work, he was the security guy at the courthouse and somebody saw that list and saw that it was his birthday.
And when he got to work that day, they threw him a party and it was a surprise party, had a big cake for him and everything. And he was so touched by that.
And he called me that night and he said, listen, he goes, nobody's ever done anything like that for me before. I don't particularly care that people do that or whatever, but I tell you, Tony, it was really nice. It really, it really was special to me. It was nice. I'm so glad that they did that for him.
[01:50:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
You know, Jerry was one of those kind of people.
It was kind of, you know, ribs were a standing thing in our business
[01:50:35] Speaker B: and it was hard to do it
[01:50:37] Speaker A: with Jerry because Jerry was so straight laced and he was so private and conservative. It was just hard to, you know.
When he told the story on, on the, on the show that night about the McGuire thing, my buddy Bo James, that lives up in Kingsport, Tennessee, we were on the phone talking and he said, we're going to do something for a rib on Jerry. And I said, well, what in the world we going to do? He said, let me work on it. So he worked on a. He Photoshopped for two weeks to get this thing right.
He managed to get a picture of the McGuire twins and Jerry standing between them and it looks legit.
He sent it to me and I sent it out to a company I was doing business with through the, for the T shirts called Wire Alley Club at the time.
And I had them make me 20 T shirts with a picture of Jerry and the McGuire twins on it. And underneath I had the caption put Oates and McGuire World 6 man tag team Champions.
So I took and only had 20 made, and I think I had 20, maybe 15. But I FedExed one to him
[01:51:54] Speaker B: and
[01:51:54] Speaker A: I didn't put any. No return address, no nothing. I just, I fedexed it to him and he calls me about 10 o' clock one night and he goes, you know, you really sorry individual. And I said, well, you know, I'm
[01:52:08] Speaker B: just, just trying to be nice.
[01:52:10] Speaker A: He said that when he got home, he said, Kathy said. He said his wife was mad at him. He said, what have you ordered and not told me? He said, I, I ain't ordered nothing. She said, you got a FedEx package here.
And he said, he opened that thing up and he said, he Laughed until he cried.
And he. And he. It was hanging in his office. I don't know if he framed it
[01:52:31] Speaker B: or what he did, but he hung
[01:52:32] Speaker A: it in his office. Well, that worked so well. I got to thinking I had all these shirts. So Scott Teal, who used to throw a wrestling reunion at his home in Tennessee, for the Tennessee. Anyway, we were invited up and we went up there and I took them shirts and he had a. He had a ring set up in the backyard.
And it was just a prop, you know, you didn't want people taking bumps or anything. It was just prop, but it was a complete wrestling ring. I got. I got the people that knew him. Charlie Smith, myself, Scrappy McGowan, Scott Teal. There were three or four. I mean, there was 10 of us. Gene Bennett, there was 10 of us in front of the ring. And we all had these Oates and McGuire T shirts on and had a picture made.
And then I got the picture when it was forwarded to me, I printed it out, I framed it here again, I FedExed it to him. And this time I put a note in there. We wanted you to have this. This is from the Oates and McGuire Fan Club.
So he had that hanging in his office. So I was there again. I was happy I was able to do that, but. And I was scared. You know, you worry if he's going to get mad about it. But he was. He was so tickled. And he made the comment to me, he said, this shows you how much you love me because you took the
[01:53:57] Speaker B: time to do it. Yeah, right. And he.
[01:54:02] Speaker A: God knows I did love him.
[01:54:05] Speaker B: He told a story about you talking about ribs. His little brief time in the Mobile territory.
He. His first night in, he worked Pensacola and he met Ken Lucas for the first time. Lucas was a lot like Jerry. He very low key, very quiet.
You know, you never think he was up to something. But he had one of the most devious minds as far as ribs go.
But he told Jerry, he said, look, my wife's a great cook.
Won't you stay with me tonight? My. Her specialty, spaghetti. She's gonna make spaghetti. You come home with me and we'll have a nice spaghetti dinner. Jerry jumped at that chance.
He said they went home. He went home to Ken's house. And he said, they're sitting there talking and. And nothing's happening. And nothing's happening. He said it got to be about 12 o' clock, midnight or 12:30. And he's looking around and thinking once the spaghetti come.
And he said. He said, he waited till it was obvious that, you know, he was hungry, his stomach growling or something. Ken said, oh, are you hungry?
[01:55:15] Speaker F: Yeah, it was like three in the morning, wasn't it? Or something like that.
[01:55:18] Speaker B: Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
[01:55:23] Speaker F: I, I'm gonna have to get in touch with Bo because I'd love to have. If he still got one of those pictures. I, I'd love to have one of those for my office with Jerry and the McGuires, the six months.
[01:55:34] Speaker A: Oh, I, Listen, I, I, I, I, I'll make sure you get one.
I may have it on my computer. I'll have to find it, as a matter of fact. Of course, you probably. I am. I'm a. Yet I'm delivering a eulogy to Mark Jerry.
[01:55:51] Speaker B: Service.
[01:55:51] Speaker F: Yeah.
[01:55:52] Speaker A: And I'm trying to figure out if I should wear this Oats McGuire T shirt or.
[01:55:59] Speaker F: He would love that.
[01:56:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, he, he's. It was so funny.
But, yeah, I'll make sure. I mean it. I'll figure out. I mean, I've got it somewhere.
[01:56:09] Speaker B: We'll figure out.
[01:56:10] Speaker F: I'd frame it and put it here in the, in the podcast office. I'd love to have it.
You know, I could tell, of course, I met Jerry after Kathy had passed, and we talked quite a bit about her, and he, he certainly was married to her for a long time, and she was a wonderful, wonderful lady. I could just tell by the way Jerry talked about her. And that's another thing, listening to your shows.
Y' all often talked about her, you know, when she was sick.
And that was, that was kind of emotional for me because I knew she had past. But he would be, you know, real hopeful, you know, sometimes on the show. But then other times he'd be, you know, really worried. You could just tell in his voice. And it was a terrible loss for him. And he, you know, he had Helen in his life, and I never got to meet Helen like I never got to meet Jerry. But we talked all the time because he, Helen, Jerry would say his producer, you know, because she said, is iPad up for him and get him on video and get it all straightened out then for the show and everything. And I'd always thank her, you know, for doing that and everything. And she's a sweet lady also.
[01:57:20] Speaker A: Well, I'm hoping to meet her tomorrow. I never met her, but I know she brought a lot of joy into Jerry's life.
[01:57:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:57:28] Speaker A: It's funny, you know, things, you just never know how things are going to connect. And Kathy was, you know, Kathy was a professional ice skater.
[01:57:40] Speaker F: Yes.
[01:57:41] Speaker A: And she worked for Holiday on Ice.
And when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I mean, I said I was 15, 16, 17, 18 for about five years. When I was in high school, when Holiday on Ice came to Atlanta, I just went down there one day to see if I could find a job, something to do to make a few bucks, you know. And I met a guy named Paul Andre. Paul was in charge of the cotton candy and the snow cones. And he hired me, and I hawked snow cones for the first year. And then after that, I hawked the cotton candy, you know, And I did it for about five years. And we. And she. When I mentioned that one night, some way it came up and she knew Paul Andre. They were big friends when they were skating because Paul was the comedian in the show and he was a skater. He was a comedian, but he also had the concession.
[01:58:34] Speaker E: And.
[01:58:35] Speaker A: And it was.
It made a connection with me and her.
And it's just so. You never know. Oh, you know, you never know. And I mean, Tony, look at it.
[01:58:46] Speaker B: We would.
[01:58:46] Speaker A: If without this crazy business, we would have never met. And though I've never been in the same room with you, I'm like, you would. I feel like I know you.
[01:58:54] Speaker B: You.
[01:58:55] Speaker A: And it's just. It's crazy. It's just.
[01:58:57] Speaker F: Jerry would always talk about how fit and how Kathy was always healthy and physically fit.
One of the more difficult things of dealing with her sickness was that she was always.
She was an athlete, you know, and she kept herself as an athlete all those years.
[01:59:16] Speaker A: I give you another story. And Jerry. Jerry probably never told this. And this came.
I had Rocket Monroe, who was one of the dearest friends I've ever had. I met him when I was 14. We were friends till he died. But Rocket told this story. They were in Statesboro, Georgia, one night when Kathy and Jerry started dating.
Well, Mr. Newman never wanted his daughter to date a wrestler.
And under the bleachers there one night, Mr. Newman confronted Jerry about dating his daughter, going out with his daughter. Mr. Newman was. He was up in years then. And Mr. Newman smoked a pipe. And Rocket said they were standing there when this happened. And he said Mr. Newman wanted to fight Jerry because he was messing with his daughter. And he took the pipe out of his mouth and put it in his shirt pocket.
And he's balled up his fist, and Jerry's going, now, look, we don't need to do. And anyway, Mr. Newman's pocket caught on fire.
[02:00:24] Speaker F: Oh, no.
[02:00:26] Speaker B: So Jerry.
[02:00:27] Speaker A: So Jerry's. Jerry's helping him get the fire out, you know, on his shirt.
And that was the end of it. That was the end of the confrontation. But, yeah, you know, one of those comedic moments that here's a guy wanting to fight a guy and then sets his pocket on fire.
[02:00:45] Speaker F: Unbelievable. Well, you know, I, I've.
I've got some regrets with my relationship with Jerry, and one of them is I, along with a lot of other people, I mean, I didn't. It wasn't something just that I did alone, but we, we. We finally got the Welch family in the hall of Fame in Waterloo this year. And I had decided that once we got that accomplished, I was really going to work on Jerry and Mike George because they were the tag team champions up there. Jerry was a singles champion in that territory. And every time I've been to Waterloo when fans are there, they, they still talk about them and still mention them. And I, I thought, man, I won't get Jerry and Mike up here to Waterloo and do a, do a panel with them or something and try to maybe get them in the hall of Fame.
And I thought it's going to take me a year to talk Jerry into
[02:01:38] Speaker B: it, you know, if you, if you were able to even do that.
[02:01:42] Speaker F: Yeah, yeah, I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I, I like challenges, and I was really try.
[02:01:50] Speaker A: You know, he came one time to Mobile and he never, to the best of my knowledge, he never attended another reunion.
[02:01:57] Speaker B: He.
[02:01:58] Speaker A: We try, you know, we get together here. We used to do it more often. Now we only do it about once a year. But we have a little get together at my church in a fellowship hall.
The guys and widows of the guys that are alive and a few of the independents that we've got to know, we get together normally the first Saturday in December and have lunch together and just tell stories we wish were lies. You know, can't make this stuff up. But I would try to get Jerry to come up. I would try to get him to come up. Even offered to go pick him up and drive him up, and he wouldn't come. And he finally told us one time, he said, I don't want to see people like this. He said, I want to remember them the way I knew him.
[02:02:39] Speaker F: Yeah. So I was also was going to get him on Briscoe and Bradshaw, and I'd already talked to JBL and Jerry about it, and they were all excited.
And about the time I got ready to start talking to him about coming on, he got his face got in trouble, and he didn't want anybody to see him like that he didn't even want to do my show, you know?
[02:03:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:03:03] Speaker F: And then he got over that.
And I think I even told you, Bobby, one time we were talking, I said, you know, I don't think Jerry's doing too good. Like he. Yeah, that last time. And I'm. I'm gonna put. The last time we had a. I haven't put it on yet, the interview where we're talking about his career in 1976. But I could just tell when we were talking that he. He was not doing good. And I. I just didn't address it or tell him because if I did, I might not talk to him again for weeks because he, you know, he didn't like talking about stuff like that.
[02:03:37] Speaker B: He.
[02:03:38] Speaker A: He was. He was. He would. Well, you know, and I've said, he's very private. He didn't. He didn't want people to know about a lot of things. And I found out. He called me. I knew about the. I knew about the initial diagnosis. I knew about things that were going on.
[02:03:54] Speaker B: And.
[02:03:55] Speaker A: And he told me. He says, please. He said, don't tell anybody. He said, I'm calling you because I know you will pray for me. And I said, yeah, you know, I will.
And he.
Bo reached out to me, told me some things were going on, and as it progressed. And then he got better.
[02:04:14] Speaker F: Yeah,
[02:04:16] Speaker A: when Bo first called me, it was like he was kind of letting me know, this is it. And then I didn't hear from Bo for three or four days, and I reached out again, and he said, well, Bo's words. It was a false finish.
He's better. He's doing better. And he even started going back to the gym.
[02:04:35] Speaker F: Yes.
[02:04:36] Speaker A: And he wasn't lifting weights, but he was riding bike, and he was doing things.
[02:04:40] Speaker F: He went back to work, too.
[02:04:42] Speaker A: Yeah, he was. He was. Yeah, he was doing. He was doing better. And then he kind of took a turn again, and things began to progress the other way. And it just.
[02:04:55] Speaker F: Yeah, I could tell he wasn't, you know, he wasn't doing his Facebook as much. He wasn't coming to my group as much. He wasn't, you know, doing as much. And a lot of times he would, like.
He would accidentally call me, like, if. If we had just talked a little bit ago.
He carried his phone in such a way that he would just. My phone would ring, and it'd say, jerry Oates. And I'd answer, and he goes, oh, Tony, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call you.
[02:05:21] Speaker B: And.
[02:05:22] Speaker F: But I could just tell. And A couple times when I talked to him, he said, well, I'm just really, Tony, to be honest with you. I'm just not interested in much of anything.
[02:05:29] Speaker A: Yeah, he got.
[02:05:30] Speaker F: I thought, oh, boy.
[02:05:31] Speaker A: Yeah, he got.
[02:05:32] Speaker B: You know, it was just.
[02:05:34] Speaker A: He was tired.
[02:05:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:05:36] Speaker B: You know, last summer, he had.
He'd gone through.
He had a heart attack.
And he and I were talking from the last time I talked to him and. Or next. Last time I talked to him, he said. He said he went to the doctor and doctor told him he had a heart attack. He said he nearly wanted to clean that plate, the doctor's office out. He said I was going to whoop that man.
He said, I've been in shape my whole life, and I do this and I. I do this and I do this. And I was in the gym yesterday, and the man telling me I had a heart. He said, mike, I was going to tear that place down.
And. But it turned out that he did have one. And once he got over, that was probably the last time I talked to him. And it was last summer.
And I told Jerry then I said, you know, you and I don't talk as often as we should.
I said, because I know how private you are. And. And Bobby and I talked about this one. When we found out he was having this latest scare thing, he was so private, he would be embarrassed for us to come visit him or. Or call him or any like that.
[02:06:50] Speaker F: But I'm.
[02:06:51] Speaker B: I am so glad to say that the last words I said to Jerry O's last summer was, I love you, man.
[02:06:58] Speaker F: Yeah. Good.
[02:06:58] Speaker B: And, you know, because again, somebody I love like a brother and only met twice, you know, it's just. That's how rare human being he was, and I'm proud to say that he was my friend.
[02:07:14] Speaker F: I certainly want to get you guys final thoughts on Jerry, but before we go, Bill Dundee just passed. The day after Jerry passed, it was. It was the weekend where I. I got up on Saturday morning, found out Jerry passed. And then I got up on Sunday morning. I got a text that real early Sunday morning that Bill had passed just a couple hours before. I almost didn't want to get up Monday morning. I thought, God, yeah, it was. It was awful. What are you guys memories of Bill Dundee?
[02:07:48] Speaker B: Who.
Who was it said he was the world's biggest midget?
I think it was Steinborn. Called him Steinborn.
[02:07:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And then, you know, I'll let Mike talk about Bill more than me.
[02:07:59] Speaker B: But Bill.
[02:08:01] Speaker A: Bill was. He was funny and, you know, he was me and Gene Bennett Was talking the other night, and I'll just say this about him. Bill Dundee was the greatest self promoter that's ever drew a breath.
[02:08:13] Speaker B: Well, absolutely.
[02:08:14] Speaker A: He just, he, he had a Lincoln Continental Town Car and he had a friend that was going in business there in Jackson, Tennessee and he was going in to do these car wraps. If you see a car out on the road and it looks like a big lemon or it looks like an advertisement for a bank, they actually wrapped the car in some. I don't even know what material they use, but they wrapped the car. Well, this guy went to Bill and he goes, bill, can I wrap your car up? So it was just starting. He said, can I wrap your car so people can see what I can
[02:08:44] Speaker B: do and maybe they will.
[02:08:45] Speaker A: So Bill said, yeah, go ahead. So the guy wrapped the car and it had Bill's picture on the side and in big letters it said superstar Bill Dundee.
So everywhere he went, Bill said, I couldn't even go to the grocery store. I couldn't go nowhere, he said, because
[02:09:01] Speaker B: everybody seen my car, knew I was
[02:09:03] Speaker A: so, yeah, greatest self promoters ever lived. Because he was not a big guy.
I remember the story where when him and his partner George Burns were in Australia, they were starving to death. They were working full time jobs, wrestling once or twice a week, making 25, 30 bucks. And Barnett seen them and they were good and he knew they were good and he made them full time wrestlers and they started, I think he put them on a 300 or $350 a week guarantee. And he said he thought he had died and gone to heaven.
So he just, he came here, had a great, great career and, and he was superstar Bill Dundee in Memphis.
[02:09:43] Speaker F: So that connection was Bobby Shane told him, told him to go, go to Tennessee, but he said, go, go work for Jarrett, don't go to work for Nick and Bobby. Were you still there when they tried to do the Chattanooga thing?
[02:10:00] Speaker A: No, no, no, I, I had been gone for a while.
I was still refereeing a little bit around different places, but I had quit full time and wasn't around. Barnett was gone by then and it was there again. That thing could have been successful if they'd have done it the right way.
[02:10:20] Speaker F: That was Bill's first little booking deal outside of Tennessee.
[02:10:27] Speaker A: Bill, when, when, when Bill went to, when he booked for Watts, you know, he created, I think he's the one that created Rock and Roll Express.
[02:10:37] Speaker F: Well, the Midnight Express he's created.
[02:10:39] Speaker A: Yeah, but he didn't, he didn't, he put Gibson and, and I think that
[02:10:43] Speaker F: was A Jarrett and Lawler deal. They were already together.
[02:10:46] Speaker A: Okay, well, he brought him in down there and gave him a push. And you know, it's funny, a lot of people when. When you get a booker in there, they don't want to buy to be more successful than they are. And I think that's what happened will Bill and Oli here. But that's neither here nor there. They're both gone now. But it's yeah. Great self promoter, great guy and man, pound for pound he could work with anybody.
[02:11:08] Speaker F: So yeah, that 1980. 1984 was the best year Watts ever had in Mid south. And a lot of it was Tennessee stuff, you know. I mean he. Bill worked with what Watts already had, which he already had some really good guy. He already had Steve Williams and Ted DiBiase and those guys, but he brought in Bobby and Dennis and put them together with Cornet and he brought the rock and roll in and put them together and all that. But he, he did a great job there. Michael, what were your thoughts about Bill? I know you guys circus.
[02:11:43] Speaker B: I had. Yeah, I had two connections with Bill. I actually wrestled him in Birmingham one night night.
And then of course we were part of the. The wrestling crew that worked for Co Brothers Circus.
All compliments of. Of Ronnie west who was. Had worked for Cole Brothers for a couple years. And then he. He started bringing in guys from the wrestling business.
At one time, Bill, myself, Ronnie, Randy Hales and Tom Ernesto Jr. All work coal Brothers Circus.
And.
But yeah, the last. In fact the last time I saw Bill was at Ronnie West's funeral because he ended up not working with us that, that that season because he would work a season, then he'd get mad at the office and not work a season. I told him it's just like the wrestling business.
But my first season with the circus, I had this. My first town on my own was this little town in the base of the Catskill Mountains in, in New York.
And I came across a.
There's a camp up there called Camp Simcoe that it. It is strictly for Jewish girls who are dying of terminal cancer.
Somehow these people found out about the circus coming to town. They reached out to me. So I got a hundred, I get tickets and this will. Will lead back to Dundee before I get through winding around.
But the office got mad at me giving away all those tickets. And I said, look, you know, I don't care if you got mad at me or not. The look on the faces of those kids who knew they were dying watching the circus and probably having the Time of their lives for the last time of their lives.
You can get mad at me all you want. This is worth it, you know, the joy I got out of that is worth the chewing out you're giving me right now.
Well, how this leads to Dundee. Dundee had that town the next, next season.
I get this phone call. He says, michael, you know about this camp Simka? I said, yeah.
He said, they want me to give them 100 tickets. I said, we'll give them to them. I'm not going to do that. The office will get mad at me. I said, I don't, Bill, just give them the tickets. I think he ended up giving them 50 tickets. He said, well, maybe we'll make it up on gimmick, you know, because that was the whole thing about, you know, we would give away tickets to the circus because the people would buy the gimmicks at the. Yeah, you know, right on the midway. And I said, no, you're not gonna make any money off them because they're going to bring their own food, number one, because they're on special diets because of their. Of their illness. And they're also the Jewish, so they're going to have to have kosher food. They're not going to eat that junk out of the pie wagon, you know.
So he got mad at me about that. But that, that car you're talking about, he brought that one season to, to the circus and he drove it, all right. I think he had Coal Brothers added on there somewhere. But he was a trip. I told him one time, you may not be able to tell the air this, but I told Bobby this story the other day. I, I told him one time, I said, bill, you know, if you have one more facelift, we're gonna be able to. It put. Promote you in the circus. Is the, is the baby elephant.
[02:15:26] Speaker F: Oh my.
You know, I heard Cornet talking about him here just a few days ago and he said that when Bill stopped dying his hair that he knew that Bill wasn't doing well. And yeah, he had jet black hair, of course, for most of his life, but it's. He started turning gray. And I saw him on a video not long ago. He was with Lawler in Tupelo, Mississippi at something with Jimmy Hart. And they brought him in in a, in a wheelchair. And I thought, boy, Bill is.
Bill isn't looking too good. So
[02:16:05] Speaker B: his black hair.
We had at the circus, we had a. What was called an advanced clown who went ahead. It was a professional clown that, that's what they did year Round, but he would come to a particular town the before the show did and we would, you know, we'd book him on TV or we had. I, I had him on Charlie Platt's morning show in Dothan one year and we had.
He would do radio interviews or, or, you know, newspaper stuff or go to visit daycare centers or what like that. So we were all on Long island my second season and I was in one part of Long island and Dundee was, was on the other part.
And Tom, which was our advanced clown, he and I found a little place, little magic shop on Long island that we went to and he found this black wig and he bought it. He said, I can't wait to get to Dundee's town. He said, he said, I'm gonna wear this wig everywhere I go.
I said, yeah, if you could find you an Elvis outfit to go along with him, that'd be perfect. You know who gave Dundee that Elvis out gimmick?
[02:17:33] Speaker F: Oh, I did know, but I can't think of it.
[02:17:35] Speaker E: Right.
[02:17:35] Speaker B: Seinborne.
[02:17:36] Speaker F: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And it was kind of a, it was kind of a contentious thing, I think because Lawler started out wearing one. Yeah. When he was going to be the king. But then he gravitated to the crown and Dundee, it fit Dundee a little bit better than it did.
[02:17:57] Speaker B: Jerry shows you how all this ties together, how our business was connected.
And the king gimmick that Lawler did, he was working after the split. He, you know, he and Jared were down here in Atlanta and Bobby Shane was on his way to Australia to look for Barnett.
And he said, I'm not going to take the crown when he's the one that gave Jerry the crown and then he's the one that suggested Dundee go to Memphis.
[02:18:32] Speaker F: Yeah, the timing on that was just perfect because Lawlor was like you say he was in Georgia. And so they had a little bit of a hole for some heels because Lawler had been the big heel during 74.
And so when Dundee and Barnes got there, man, they, they were.
Jerry Briscoe was telling me, you know, they were preliminary job guys on television for most of the American guys and all that. But, you know, Jarrett saw something in them. And of course that Tennessee territory was always, it was built on the junior heavyweights. You know, the Welch is pretty much. That's how they got into Nashville was.
[02:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:19:13] Speaker F: Doing junior heavyweights. And so it's always. It was the southern junior title until 75 or 76. So those guys came in and a lot of people had not seen high spots like Barnes and Dundee were doing and they, I remember seeing them for the first time and I'm like, wow, you know, these guys are fantastic.
[02:19:35] Speaker B: And if you remember, it's so funny because as good a talker is as Bill was when they came into Tennessee, Barnes did all the talking.
[02:19:49] Speaker F: Yeah, Bill wasn't very good on the mic at all. I, I don't think until he turned into that Lawler feud in 77, I think is when he really got his chops as far as interviews go.
You know, when he was teamed up with Big Bad John. You know, Big Bad John was the interview.
[02:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:20:10] Speaker F: And Big Bad Judge, the one that gave him the superstar name.
He would call himself, you know, the bicentennial baby and he'd say in my partner partner is Bill Dundee. He's a superstar.
[02:20:22] Speaker E: You know.
[02:20:22] Speaker F: And it stuck on, on Bill and been, been a, was a great gimmick for him for sure.
Well, let's wrap up here on Jerry. Michael, what, what do your final thoughts on Jerry? What lessons did you learn? What are your favorite moments about him? Just anything. What do you think about Jerry?
[02:20:42] Speaker B: You know, I, I, I, I was so blessed all those years to work with, with Gary and Bobby because I was the weak link in the, on the team as far as the business itself went.
You know, my, my career, what little bit of their of it there was, was off and on for basically two, two and a half years. I never, I worked full time for two weeks working for Ron Fuller. Other than that I worked on the weekends and you know, always had a full time job and you know, and, and as far as my ring work, I, I, I told people as far as a professional wrestler goes, I, I make a good historian.
I was too tall, too lanky and I just you know, even though for whatever reason Oli liked me, but which was rare for, for job guys but, and he, he used me a lot. But you know, I just, I never, I was never satisfied with where I was going in the business and I wish I had met Jerry while he was still active and I had come along a couple years earlier because I think I would have learned a lot more from Jerry and you know, gone further in the business.
But the one thing that has come out of my little brief career is I've made a lot of good friends and a lot of people were, were guys that, that I grew up watching and, and one who's on the other end of this phone right now was my, was basically my boss when I would come over to do Georgia tv because whenever I received a check in the mail, his name was signed on it. That's Mr. Simmons.
And never kept them from cash. And they. They would. They would cash him even with his name,
[02:22:46] Speaker A: because it wasn't my personal account.
[02:22:51] Speaker B: But, you know, guys like, you know, Ken Lucas, you know, Rocket Monroe and Jerry and then, you know, Bob Kelly and Bill. Bill Dundee and all the guys that we had on our show. And I. I would tell you that show, I was reluctant to do it, but other than the fact of the time that I was in my worst health crisis, I did that show every week for 10 years. And there were times that it was just Bobby and I, sometimes it was just Jerry and I, sometimes it was just me.
But we accomplished more with that show. And like you said at the beginning, this was long before everybody in their neighbor had a podcast. We were one of the first.
And we had guys on there that most people had never heard of, but the people that. That knew of them had long forgotten them. I mean, we had some Coons, we had Jackie Fargo, we had El Mongo, we had Gorgeous George Jr. These were guys that have. Basically all would disappear.
You know, we managed to find them and. And get them on the show.
Mainly a lot of it due to Steinborn. My favorite because he kept in touch with these guys.
[02:24:17] Speaker F: My favorites were when you had Joe and Bill on.
[02:24:20] Speaker B: Bill and Bill were. They were always my go to them, them and Les Thatcher. If nothing, if somebody else fell through or I couldn't think of a subject to.
To talk about that week, I would. Would give them a call and get them on or give less Thatcher call because he, you know, less likes to talk too.
[02:24:39] Speaker F: Got so much to say.
[02:24:41] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. But.
And. And I. I can't speak for Bobby, but I think the two shows that I'm proudest of were with guys like Charlie Fulton and Jim Lancaster, guys who are never big names in the business, but who worked everywhere.
And, you know, I would have people, you know, contact me and say, well, why don't you have this guy on or this guy owner, this guy.
Because I don't want to be lied to. I don't want to bo one of the boys trying to work me, you know, or work. Work us on our show, our own show. That's the reason I never had Ox Baker or people like that on there because, you know, I. I know the truth, you know, and all the guys that we had on our show, other than the Steinborn, would stretch it a little bit, and we finally had to book him out of town because he was. He was becoming our.
Taking over our show. But.
[02:25:35] Speaker F: But he was entertaining.
[02:25:37] Speaker B: I mean, he was. Because he.
Dick had a ton of stories, but, you know, but Dick knew if he could get in there, he would take over too. But.
[02:25:48] Speaker F: But I could.
[02:25:49] Speaker B: I'm proud of the guys that we had on our show, and I'm proud of. Of being able to. To have friends like Bobby and Jerry, who guided me through all that, who, you know, got the best out of. Of what we were able to do. You know, that show was. Was.
You know, I was. I was the host of it and everything, but, you know, it was. It was those two and their knowledge, especially Jerry, because Jerry worked so many different places and worked with so many different guys. And, I mean, how many other guys in the business can you name that work from Lou Fez to the Road warriors, you know? Right, right.
[02:26:25] Speaker F: And that's another thing I've really got. I'm telling myself I gotta do it, but I'm trying to get Les Thatcher and Tom Burke on a show because they're the last guys who knew Tony Santos. Yeah, I wanna. I wanted to talk to them about that and get that on the show and get that response recorded.
So.
[02:26:45] Speaker A: I love Tom Burke, but something I promise you, you'll never see. You've never seen Tom Burke. Lord Littlebrook, the same room.
That's my running rib with Tom Burke.
[02:26:56] Speaker F: But anyway, Tom did our show.
[02:26:59] Speaker B: Tom did our show.
If you got them all. Dundee did our show.
[02:27:05] Speaker F: Yeah, I. I have that. I've listened to that one.
[02:27:07] Speaker A: I was like, say another guy. Another guy that we had that. I was so proud we was able to get that. That's kind of become a friend. I've never met him in person, but over just. Is McDowell.
[02:27:16] Speaker E: What a.
[02:27:16] Speaker A: What a guy.
[02:27:19] Speaker B: Mickey.
[02:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, Mickey. Mickey do. Yeah. You know, I mean, just, you know, the list goes on.
[02:27:27] Speaker F: Bob. Bobby, you're obviously going to do the. The funeral tomorrow. What?
You have a scripture? You have a scripture that comes to mind about Jerry? Or you have something about Jerry that you can help us up here with?
[02:27:43] Speaker B: You know,
[02:27:46] Speaker A: I've been pastoring for 35 years, and, you know, I've never figured out the right way to do these things. I've thought of a lot of things about Jerry, but one thing I want to share with you is this.
After conversations with Jerry, I have no doubt that he made his peace with God and that I. We have not lost him. I can assure you, by the word of God, I know where he's at.
[02:28:15] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[02:28:16] Speaker A: And I just.
He.
I'll share this story with you and I'll. I'll end with this because I'll get to crying. He called me one night.
[02:28:26] Speaker B: He.
[02:28:27] Speaker A: When he first got diagnosed with the cancer and they sent him to a specialist in Atlanta, to Emory Hospital.
And he called me after he got back home and he said that.
He said he was sitting in that room and he said when the diagnosis had came down and he was sitting in a room, he's by himself.
He said, for the first time in my life, I was scared.
He said I was really scared. He said, I thought I was going to die.
He said, I began my conversation with the good Lord.
He said, I prayed. And he said I prayed sincerely and hard.
And he said a voice spoke to him just as plain as if they had been in the room with him. And I told him, I said they was.
It said, it told him, it said, you're going to die someday, but it ain't going to be from this.
And he said this peace came over him that he just couldn't explain.
And of course by now I'm crying on the phone and laughing. And I said, well, you know, sounds like you got through.
And he said, the doctor came back in the room and he said, he's sitting on one of those little stoves that had wheels on it. And he said, he rolled over right almost in his face and he said, Mr. Oates, he said, you're gonna die one of these days.
He said, but not from this. This ain't gonna kill you.
[02:29:54] Speaker F: Wow.
[02:29:54] Speaker A: And when he said that, it confirmed the voice he had heard. And he said he knew that he was gonna be alright at that point.
And he. He was good.
So if I could just leave a thought with anybody that's gonna listen to this.
If you never had that conversation with the good Lord, it's never too late.
And it's a fact we're all going to die one of these days. One of these days you're going to have a conversation with Michael about me or I'll have a conversation with you about him.
I mean, I was there the night the doctor told me. And Mike's daughter said, go in and tell him bye. He's not going to live through the night.
I mean, I was there. I know what that's like. But I do know this. When you do get to that point or you think about, gives you time to reevaluate your life and to think about what's important.
You know, the things that we treasure and we value and we hold dear to us when we start thinking about it in the scheme of the big picture and our life in whole, sometimes they're not as important as we think they are.
So love one another, care about one another, and make sure your relationship with the masters, where it needs to be.
And Jerry Oates, fly high, my friend. I'll see you again one day.
[02:31:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[02:31:17] Speaker F: Yeah. I, you know, we're sad because Jerry was a good part of our lives and we're going to miss him. We're going to miss talking to him and all. But I'll never forget something somebody told me one time. They said, if we believe there's a heaven, how can we be sad when people go there?
[02:31:34] Speaker A: Yes, sir. God did not punish us. He rewarded him.
[02:31:37] Speaker F: That's correct.
That's a good, that's a good way to wrap this up. Michael Norris and Bobby Simmons, thank you all for coming on today.
[02:31:45] Speaker B: Thank you.
[02:31:46] Speaker A: Thank you, Tony.
[02:31:48] Speaker B: Thank you for remembering our friend.
[02:31:50] Speaker C: I hope you enjoyed that little visit with Bobby Simmons and Michael Norris. I know it, it really helped me to sit and talk with those two guys about our mutual friend Jerry Oates and the wonderful times that we spent with him and the wonderful, wonderful guy that he was.
And I still have the segment coming up with Jerry coming up here in just a few minutes. But boy, what a pleasure and a great opportunity to be able to sit and talk with Bobby and Michael and I appreciate them coming on the show.
I am doing, along with JBL and Jerry Briscoe, a in depth series once again, this time on the history of Texas wrestling. And we're up to episode 14 and that's going to drop this Thursday morning just like always, Early Thursday morning and episode 14 this week we're going to be still in the late 50s to mid 60s in West Texas. And we're going to be talking about these great stories. It's stories with Briscoe and Bradshaw after all. And so the stories we're going to be telling this week are going to revolve around Art Nelson, who was one of the top heels. He was right Under Iron Mike DiBiase as the top heel in the territory. We're going to be talking about Rip Rodgers, who was Eddie Graham's first big run in pro professional wrestling, was positioned as the little brother of Buddy Rogers. Rip Rogers and Eddie had a fantastic run in West Texas. They turned him baby face.
And so much of what happened with Eddie out there transitioned into the Florida territory.
And it's been often said that Eddie was trained and he learned booking and all from Dorie Funk Senior. That's ed inaccurate and not true. He learned from the master Doc Sarpolos and so many things that he learned from Sarpolis about booking the cards and rotating the stories and rotating the wrestlers and using your entire roster up and down those booking opportunities.
And also one of the things that influenced him the most was the babyface turn that they did with him in West Texas, which later would turn up when they turned another heel to a baby face to have a big run, Dusty Rhodes in 1974, almost 20 years after Eddie had turned.
The only thing is we didn't get to see a long babyface run by Rip Rogers because he left for New York City and the Capitol Run Wrestling Corporation and Vince McMahon Sr. Who did not want another Buddy Rogers relative on the card. He wanted to put him with Dr. Jerry Graham and together they became the Golden Grahams. But we will tell all of that story this week on Stories with Briscoe and Bradshaw. We're also going to talk about Lorraine Johnson, who was a Texas women's champion. We're going to talk about her husband to be they would get married in be the promotional people in Lubbock, Texas.
Nick Roberts, who first came into the territory as a heel and then turned into Baby Face and he bought into the Lubbock promotion after the passing and retirement of longtime promoter Sled Allen.
And so they would do that around 1961. We're going to talk about one of the most vicious and and feared heels ever in West Texas, Killer Carl Cox.
We're going to tell the story of the killer Carl. We're going to tell the story of one of the most beloved baby faces who was an outstanding high school athlete in Odessa Midland, Texas, in Midland High School and later became a pro football player and part time wrestler in West Texas and eventually went strictly to wrestling after the 1966 season with the Miami Dolphins. And I'm talking about Wahoo McDaniel and we're going to tell the story of Wahoo and his beginnings in West Texas, his football career going to New York and Madison Square Garden and a whole bunch of other stuff. And one more story. We're going to tell the story of Jolton Joe Blanchard, who also was a professional football player in the CFL back then and came down to West Texas. He was also a champion in Hawaii and some other territories, but he decided to homestead in Texas and particularly in San Antonio. We'll talk about the alliance that formed between he and Fritz von Erich in 1966 and a whole lot more. It's the history of Texas Wrestling. We're at episode number 4 14, and those are all the great stories that we're telling on Stories with Briscoe and Bradshaw. And just a little promote ahead to next week.
Next Week is episode 15, and that'll be our West Texas football episode, and we'll tell stories about the West Texas football team and all the fabulous wrestlers that that school produced and all the fabulous wrestlers that Joe Kerbal, the football program, produced in professional wrestling. So if you haven't checked it out yet, check out the history of Texas wrestling on Stories with Briscoe and Bradshaw. We've done. This week will be our 14th episode. I mean, the state of Texas is big, so it deserves a big series. And you can catch all that on Stories with Briscoe and Bradshaw with me as the special guest, Tony Richards, along with JBL and Jerry Briscoe.
Okay, it's time to do this interview.
I didn't know at the time that we recorded this, this interview just a couple of weeks back that this would be the last time when I take that back. I spoke to Jerry one time between this interview and when he passed away.
And it was, as he would do from time to time, he would accidentally phone call me. And so he accidentally phone called me in between this time and when he passed away, which was the last time we talked. But looking back and watching this now, I can see where Jerry was getting weaker and sicker.
They just probably just didn't want to see it during. During that time.
And, you know, he never liked to talk about it much, so we didn't discuss it a whole lot. There would be times where he would particularly feel close to me, where he would talk about it and just. Just difficult and hard for everybody involved. But let's do this. So here's my last interview, and this will be the last appearance that we will have.
The great Jerry Oates, and we're talking about his career in 1976. And welcome back, everybody, to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. And we roll on. We're talking to my good friend Jerry Oates, who I haven't had on here in a while. Jerry, how you doing, man?
[02:39:17] Speaker E: Doing fine. I'm doing fine. How about you?
[02:39:19] Speaker C: I'm doing good. My brother, I am excited to go back in time with you today and talk about your career in 1976. Last year, in 1975, we spent most of the year in Kansas City with you. And you're still in Kansas City as we start off.76, at least for January, you know, One of the things I wanted to ask you about was Akio Sato, who you worked with in Kansas City that year in May. May. Which you're already gone from the territory by May. But that year he and Betty Nikolai got married. What kind of memories do you have of them?
[02:40:03] Speaker E: I always like Betty. Always liked her. And Sato was a great guy and hard worker. He loved the business like most of us.
Not all of us, but most of us. And I mean, I just enjoyed being around them.
[02:40:23] Speaker C: She worked as a heel, so they didn't wrestle in many matches together.
Sato was a baby face and Betty was a heel. What did you think? What did you think of? And she worked a lot that. With Gene Antone.
They both worked out of that office there.
[02:40:43] Speaker E: They must have had 500 matches.
[02:40:45] Speaker C: Yeah. And they worked together around the country, too.
[02:40:48] Speaker D: Yeah.
[02:40:49] Speaker C: What. What did you think of Betty's work?
[02:40:52] Speaker E: Betty was a good worker.
She was a good worker.
There were two.
Two women that I thought were.
That they worked like guys who was married to Doug Gilbert.
[02:41:10] Speaker C: Oh, shoot.
It'll come to me, but I. I can't think.
What's that?
[02:41:20] Speaker E: He was a wrestling pro.
[02:41:21] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. The professional.
[02:41:24] Speaker D: Yeah.
[02:41:27] Speaker E: Her and Penny Banner, they work like guys.
[02:41:31] Speaker C: Yeah. Betty was a thick, right. I mean, she. She had some weight to her. Gene Antone was a small woman, wasn't she?
[02:41:41] Speaker E: Yes, she was little. She was little.
[02:41:44] Speaker C: So Betty made those matches.
She probably called them most.
What's that?
[02:41:53] Speaker E: K. Noble.
[02:41:54] Speaker C: Okay. Noble. Yep.
[02:41:56] Speaker E: God, she could work. God.
[02:41:58] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[02:41:59] Speaker C: Harley Race always used to say if he was in a fight, he'd just soon have her. Her as anybody.
[02:42:05] Speaker E: She was, I don't know, trained her.
But they did a heck of a job.
[02:42:13] Speaker F: Yeah.
[02:42:13] Speaker C: She ended up staying in Amarillo and I've talked to Mary Nelson, Marie Laverne. I've talked to her many times about Kay's last days and she really suffered a lot when. When she passed away. Yeah. But she was.
She was a fantastic female in the ring for sure.
[02:42:35] Speaker E: She was awesome. Awesome.
[02:42:37] Speaker C: So In January of 76, there's a couple of things I think are interesting. One is that you know Bob Geiger, We've talked about him as a booker in the past and we've talked about how much he thought of you. He.
He put you over as tag team champion with Mike George, and he puts you over with tag team champion with your brother Ted and Bob Brown and Mike George have some matches and you're the special referee.
Did you. You have memories of doing that?
[02:43:14] Speaker E: Yeah, I do.
[02:43:16] Speaker C: I mean, I Mean, so Geigel has, you know, I mean he has been. You were his main guy in 75. So you've got a lot of creatures credibility.
And that's an interesting booking choice to use you as a special referee.
[02:43:29] Speaker D: Was.
[02:43:30] Speaker E: But I went with.
[02:43:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, right. But in the tag teams, you and Ted win back the NWA World Tag Team Championship in January from Dutch Mantel and Ron Bass in Kansas City on January 15th.
And you guys are going to hold those titles through the last day of January. Well, not the last day, but the last Kansas City date in January, January 29th.
Bass and mantel are going to win the tag team titles back from you. And it's a loser leave town match which I'm sure was booked because you guys had already decided to go back to Georgia.
[02:44:13] Speaker E: Right, Right, right.
The last night, the week we left, I hurt my knee.
The morning hour.
[02:44:25] Speaker C: Oh wow.
[02:44:27] Speaker E: And damn.
[02:44:29] Speaker C: That would have been the night before.
[02:44:30] Speaker E: Right, exactly.
So it was bad. And then, you know, we got to drive back to Georgia and
[02:44:41] Speaker C: you guys did those loser leave town matches in Wichita and Des Moines. Des Moines. And then finally in Kansas City.
[02:44:47] Speaker E: So I, I come home and there was three vehicles involved.
My brother had a beautiful van that nobody had ever seen. He ordered it before he went to Japan the first time and it was factory painted.
It was absolutely gorgeous. He had the windows tenant with a mirror look. Which you can't do anymore.
You couldn't see in there when that thing was going down the road. You got. We had the CB radio. They would say, damn, look at that van.
It was like a mirror going down the road.
[02:45:35] Speaker C: But which one, which one of your knees got hurt? Your right or left?
[02:45:39] Speaker E: Left.
[02:45:40] Speaker C: Okay, so it wasn't your accelerator leg.
[02:45:42] Speaker E: I was blessed to the point I never had any ligament or tendon damage.
All mine was cartilage.
[02:45:52] Speaker F: Yeah.
[02:45:53] Speaker E: So I come home and working, working, working, working, working.
I finally told my brother, I said I, I gotta have surgery. I. I can't keep going.
So we did, did a deal on TV in Atlanta, PACs on.
And where he hit me is what where? Dr. Andrews, you heard him.
[02:46:24] Speaker C: Oh yeah, yeah, of course. He put everybody together in the sports world for the last 4:40 some odd years.
[02:46:30] Speaker E: Professional athlete.
[02:46:31] Speaker C: He did, yeah, he's.
[02:46:33] Speaker E: He was in with Dr. Jack Houston. It was just a two. He was handpicked by Jack Houston.
And so I tell my brother, I said, I can't go anymore.
So we did the deal with Pax Song.
Barnett called, he said, I just talked with Dory Funk Jr. They want you and your brother in Japan.
Oh, so we go to Japan.
He said, when you come back, things will be good for you. I said, they're good now, The Japanese, I was the oldest brother.
So they come to me and said, when this tour is over, they want you, your brother, to go to Korea.
Same money. They pay for everything, Food, everything.
In Japan, they pay for everything but food.
And that was understandable. And so I have the surgery.
And he.
He told me, he said, I'll let you know.
I said, what do you mean you're gonna let me know? I said, I've been out of work nine weeks.
Well, I'm gonna let you know. He already made plans to fly his wife to Hawaii. And I don't know.
So he didn't go.
And he never went back.
So.
[02:48:15] Speaker C: And you guys are the. Are you guys the All Asian Tag Champions?
[02:48:18] Speaker E: Yes. Yes.
I got my trophy sitting right here in the living room. It's gorgeous.
[02:48:24] Speaker C: Oh, man.
[02:48:24] Speaker F: Awesome.
[02:48:25] Speaker E: So he don't go.
They never mention me again.
He never went back.
So him and my wife at the time, his wife, meet me at the airport as soon as I get off the plane. He said, we don't have a job.
I said, what do you mean, we don't have a job?
He said, we don't have a job.
I'm thinking, well, what they did, they changed Booker while we were gone.
[02:49:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:49:05] Speaker E: Tom, Ernesto, Oli.
[02:49:07] Speaker B: Right.
[02:49:10] Speaker E: So it was years later.
I only went to one reunion in Dothan and always was there.
I said, only, I'm gonna ask you a question.
I know you don't BS me.
I said, what? What, did you get rid of me and my. Me and my brother? He said, I didn't. He said, you name one on the sheet.
He wouldn't have lied about it.
[02:49:38] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[02:49:40] Speaker E: I said, damn.
So when I get off the plane, my brother said, we don't have a job.
And he said, you're supposed to call Ralph Reed.
Those are my brothers, father in law.
In the morning.
He said, bill Watts wants you. I said, oh, ain't working.
But Bill was good to me when he was here.
[02:50:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, sure.
[02:50:08] Speaker E: Very good to me. I said, that doesn't happen. He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta call Ralph in the morning.
So I called Ralph.
He said, you got to call Bill Watts. He wants you.
So I ain't going out there.
When we started off on a Monday, I lived in shreveport.
It was 350 miles up, 350 miles back, right? That's 100 miles, first day.
So Watts told me, he said, look, here's what I'm going to do. He said, I'm going to send you a round trip ticket.
I just got back on a Tuesday.
He said, I want you to come out here Saturday and just do the taping point, see what you think that's okay.
[02:51:04] Speaker A: I did.
[02:51:05] Speaker E: I flew out there and everything he told me he was going to do for me after I got there, he did.
[02:51:14] Speaker C: Were they taping in Shreveport then?
[02:51:16] Speaker E: Yes.
[02:51:17] Speaker C: At the Irish McNeil or at the television?
[02:51:19] Speaker E: Oh, it was a TV.
[02:51:21] Speaker C: TV station. Yeah.
[02:51:23] Speaker E: Yeah.
So I'm rocking along, rocking along.
I get to TV on a Saturday.
One of the guys said, I just told the sheet, you working with Harley today.
I said, oh, hell, you know, he put me over right in the middle. Oh, man, he's the world champion.
But he's coming back, right? Yeah, all the way around.
[02:51:50] Speaker C: Harley did. Always did things that were good for business.
[02:51:53] Speaker E: Yeah, I think in Dori's day, he had to get permission to do something like that. Yeah, I heard. I, I can't swear to that.
[02:52:04] Speaker A: It.
[02:52:04] Speaker E: But anyhow, Bill took care of me. He did everything he said he was gonna do for me.
[02:52:11] Speaker C: Well, on that note of Harley putting you over and getting permission, you. Your name in St. Louis meant something.
And Pat O' Connor and Sam Mushnick thought a lot of you.
[02:52:20] Speaker E: Yeah, so.
[02:52:22] Speaker C: So they were probably all right with it.
[02:52:24] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, they. I'm sure he's an actual permission.
[02:52:28] Speaker F: Yeah.
[02:52:28] Speaker E: But anyhow, he, he, he was a great guy. Great guy to work with.
[02:52:36] Speaker C: But anyhow, that whole NWA title situation, that, the flying the ointment there was Barnett as far as you were concerned.
[02:52:44] Speaker E: Yeah.
[02:52:44] Speaker C: Which was kind of surprising to me that you left Kansas City to go back to Georgia. Because tell everybody what the situation was with. It was with Barnett and your family connections and Georgia and all of that.
[02:52:57] Speaker E: Well, my father in law at the time, he promoted
[02:53:05] Speaker C: Savannah.
[02:53:07] Speaker E: Savannah. He ran state Sabur, he ran back sleep.
[02:53:13] Speaker C: He.
[02:53:13] Speaker E: He had a lot of spot shows, too.
Here we are connected on Fred ward's side and Mr. Newman in Savannah. So anyhow, we go back and two
[02:53:30] Speaker C: of the biggest promoters in Georgia, Columbus and Savannah, and your. And your hometown boys in Columbus, we've
[02:53:37] Speaker E: two connected, but my brother being married to Fred Ward's granddaughter, he said, I said, where are you going? He said, they hadn't said anything about me going yet.
They was getting rid of me.
So they did.
[02:53:59] Speaker C: Anyhow, your strong connection at that time to Georgia was Tom Ernesto, I mean, Renesto had sent you to Kansas City. Was it Ernesto that sent you to Kansas City.
[02:54:15] Speaker F: He.
[02:54:16] Speaker C: Well, and he took Ted over to Gunkle.
[02:54:19] Speaker E: That was a funny thing about that. We were in Alabama and working for Bill Golden. I told my brother.
I think my brother in law called me.
Yeah, Dickie Steinborn called me. She said that's when the split happened.
[02:54:40] Speaker B: Right.
[02:54:42] Speaker E: So I go to Monk. I mean, I got. I come to Georgia and leaving my brother in Alabama, that split comes and then we hook her back up again in Georgia.
So it was like a roller coaster thing.
And it was like I always. I was always, always caught in the middle. But I handled it right. You know, I knew what I was getting into when I got in the business, so.
[02:55:13] Speaker C: Well, even. Even with the stuff with Barnett and everything. How did you feel about going back home?
[02:55:21] Speaker E: I was ready.
We were out there almost two years in Kansas City, so I was ready.
[02:55:28] Speaker C: I mean, it seemed a little weird to me that the best program they had was you guys and Mantel and Bass.
And then they booked a loser leave town match on the best program they had in the territory.
That just seems strange to me.
[02:55:44] Speaker E: Well, that's where it works out. And
[02:55:49] Speaker C: I mean, were you guys wanting to go back home or was that just giggles idea us? Y' all was ready to go.
[02:55:57] Speaker E: We're ready to go.
[02:55:59] Speaker F: Yeah.
[02:55:59] Speaker E: We've been there that long.
[02:56:00] Speaker B: And
[02:56:03] Speaker E: I thought the world. Bob Geigo, but he had other interest.
He had a. He had a bar there called a Tender Trap.
I don't know if you knew that.
He spent a lot of time there and I heard he did other things there in Kansas City.
That's all I'm gonna say about that. Yeah. I can't verify it or prove it. I don't care.
I only go.
It's like you. I. I only go.
Shouldn't use the word judge.
But I treat you the way you treat me.
[02:56:45] Speaker F: Correct.
[02:56:46] Speaker E: That's all I got to offer.
[02:56:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:56:49] Speaker E: So now we're hooking back up again.
[02:56:53] Speaker C: Bob had.
Bob had been schooled in the wrestling business down in Texas. And you know, I don't. Bob was.
He was an interesting fella for sure,
[02:57:07] Speaker E: to say the least.
Was Funk Senior that smart?
[02:57:14] Speaker C: Sarpolis was.
He mentored both Funk Senior and Bob Geigel. And he mentored Dibiase stepfather. And he mentored so many. Guy mentored Jody Hamilton when he was out there.
[02:57:29] Speaker E: Really?
[02:57:30] Speaker C: Yeah, he was. He was really the innovator and brains. And then Funk Senior learned from him.
And then Funk Senior had a good 7, 8 year run as the promoter out there after Sarpolis had a Time hard, a heart attack and passed away. But Geigo learned most of his stuff and you can see Bob trying to do some of that stuff in the Kansas City territory. But he never really followed through on anything. Like, he never really kept anything going. He would, he would, he would be good at starting stuff, but then he'd, he'd go off and take a left turn, you know.
[02:58:06] Speaker E: Exactly. But I loved him to death.
[02:58:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:58:10] Speaker E: I mean, he treated us good.
[02:58:13] Speaker C: Well, you guys got a whole new crop of guys that you're working with because you're going back to Georgia and you start.
So you left Kansas City on a Thursday night. You probably left the territory that next day, that Friday morning. Yep. And then you started Monday, which was January 2nd, in Augusta and then in Columbus on Wednesday night, you guys wrestled Moondog Maine and Otto Von Heller. And Moondog Maine was kind of the main heel in the territory at the time.
[02:58:46] Speaker E: Right.
[02:58:46] Speaker C: You guys are coming back in. Otto Von Heller was a journeyman who wrestled here and there.
Savannah on Thursday night, you wrestled Rocket Monroe.
And then in Atlanta at the city Auditorium that Friday night, you, you wrestled Mitsuo Hada.
You went over in all of those matches.
And then in Griffin on Saturday night, you wrestled mitsuo Hara and Mr. Hayashi and you ran with them for a little while. And then on August in Augusta. I'm sorry, in Augusta On Monday, on February 9th, you wrestled Tony Charles in a 15 minute time limit draw. While. Was it like being in the ring with Tony Charles?
[02:59:33] Speaker E: Well, I'll tell you, when we were wrestling him and Les th tag match.
[02:59:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[02:59:43] Speaker E: You had your damn hands full, man,
[02:59:46] Speaker C: and you wrestled them three or four times in February.
[02:59:50] Speaker E: It was.
My brother liked it.
I said, well, you're sick anyhow, so you do all that crazy stuff with them.
But yeah, was a ride.
[03:00:06] Speaker C: Bobby Simmons told me that a few times that Tony Charles and Les Thornton just let him as the referee, call the match. Not necessarily with you guys, but in matches they were in.
[03:00:20] Speaker E: Bobby was a fantastic referee and he was at the right place at the right time.
[03:00:30] Speaker C: What, what were the. What, what kind of crazy stuff did they want to do?
[03:00:35] Speaker E: All that European stuff.
[03:00:37] Speaker C: Oh, I see.
[03:00:39] Speaker E: They'd work either side and all that crazy stuff.
You know, they can't be working the left or right side.
[03:00:50] Speaker C: Well, you, you wrestled them through a lot of February and March, either in tag team matches or in singles.
And then you finally in at Atlanta on March 19, you guys beat them for the Georgia tag team titles.
So they're. Ernesto is putting the titles on you
[03:01:09] Speaker E: that was in Columbus.
[03:01:11] Speaker C: That was in Atlanta at the City Auditorium.
[03:01:13] Speaker E: Well, we were.
I think we worked. It might have been on a holiday.
We worked with him in Columbus. Seems like it was afternoon and he tore one of his biceps.
And then I think we were in Atlanta that night. But he worked, you know, but Tony was a good guy. Both of them were. Both of them.
[03:01:40] Speaker C: I mean, you wrestled them everywhere. You wrestled them in Atlanta, Macon, R. Rome, Athens, Augusta.
[03:01:48] Speaker E: You know, at that time when Tom was here, the business was unbelievable.
He had talent to work with.
[03:02:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I've talked about this before, but I mean in Georgia, those fans had seen everything and everybody, you know, I mean, it really was a fantastic territory.
[03:02:14] Speaker E: It.
And guys used to kid me.
They said, we know where you live. I said, I was. Me and my brother was only ones that lived in Columbus home.
They said, well, hey, you got a cut at the sports arena.
[03:02:36] Speaker C: Yeah, because everybody lived in Atlanta.
[03:02:38] Speaker E: Right, right, right. And I made a lot of trips with Ralph Reed.
That was Fred's Ward son in law.
[03:02:53] Speaker C: Right.
[03:02:54] Speaker E: And made a lot of trips over him.
A lot of miles we made together.
[03:02:59] Speaker C: What's your best memory of Ralph Reed?
[03:03:03] Speaker E: Ralph read.
[03:03:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[03:03:08] Speaker E: He was business.
But when the matches were over, I mean, not that he changed, but he was there.
Protect his interest as well. Sure, I thought the world of him.
We made a lot of miles together.
[03:03:29] Speaker C: Now being. I mean, I've heard different stories about Fred Ward, but I mean, you GRE grew up there. I mean, you, you went to matches
[03:03:36] Speaker E: there in Columbus, there, where there was only the sports arena.
[03:03:40] Speaker C: Right.
[03:03:41] Speaker E: I was like five years old. I. I said, what's that?
You. You know who impressed me the most at 5 years old?
Gene Stanley.
[03:03:52] Speaker C: Really?
[03:03:53] Speaker E: I say, God, he was always tan, had the blonde hair.
[03:04:00] Speaker F: Sure.
[03:04:01] Speaker E: I was like, God, he looked like what is advertised, a star.
[03:04:09] Speaker C: So I was just going to say, you know, I've heard different people say they never really got fair payoffs from Fred and things like that. What do you think of Fred Ward?
[03:04:22] Speaker E: You got to remember he had a piece of Atlanta too.
[03:04:27] Speaker C: That's what a lot of guys said. They said the rest of the territory made up for what we didn't get from Fred. So we did. We didn't worry about it.
[03:04:34] Speaker E: The money that was drawn.
I thought he was fair. I mean, everybody thinks they should have got more.
[03:04:41] Speaker F: Of course.
[03:04:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[03:04:43] Speaker E: Be perfectly honest with you.
But.
I tell you what kind of guy Jack Brisco was. I don't know if you've ever heard this story.
We were in Atlanta and Barnett's demand.
And the payoff sucked.
Not just for me. Everybody, they get. We got our check the next week. What?
I thought, that's a. Some kind of numerical air raid.
[03:05:19] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[03:05:21] Speaker E: And Briscoe heard about it.
He made up the difference out of his faith from that night.
[03:05:28] Speaker C: Wow.
And he had points in Atlanta.
[03:05:31] Speaker E: Yeah, he. Him and Jerry both.
[03:05:33] Speaker C: Yeah. Huh. That's pretty cool.
[03:05:38] Speaker E: McMahon, they sold to him.
[03:05:43] Speaker C: Yes.
[03:05:45] Speaker E: That changed everything.
[03:05:46] Speaker C: It did. Yeah, that.
[03:05:48] Speaker E: That was. That was a showstopper there.
[03:05:50] Speaker C: They could. They could see what was happening. I mean, they could see that, you know, wrestling was changing, television was changing,
[03:05:57] Speaker E: and they tried to get him to venture out further. He wouldn't do it.
[03:06:03] Speaker C: Yeah, they did. They. They offered also to sell to Jim Crockett, and he wasn't interested.
They offered it to a couple of different promoters in the south, and Nobody was interested.
McMahon was kind of just an accident, the way it kind of happened. I mean, they called up to the New York office to ask about Roddy Piper, who hurt his finger or thumb or something on a table, caught a nail underneath the table or something, and they called to check on him and just happened to get McMahon on the phone, and he.
And they were actually in Jimmy Crockett's office when they called.
[03:06:44] Speaker E: Really?
[03:06:44] Speaker C: Yeah. And.
But they had offered it to Jimmy, and he wasn't interested, which makes me think that Jim wasn't really thinking about expanding at that time, you know, because he ended up paying more for it when he bought it back from McMahon than he could have bought it from the Briscoes.
[03:07:01] Speaker E: Exactly.
So everybody had decisions to make, you know.
[03:07:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
Well, I've just been waiting to get to this, but at the end of March, March 29 and Augusta, Georgia, you start a new program with Great Goliath and Black Gordman.
[03:07:24] Speaker E: You think that one afraid.
[03:07:26] Speaker C: And I wanted to get your thoughts about it, because I know I've been criticized because I've said that Black Gorman and Great Goliath were great in some parts of the country, but not all.
[03:07:39] Speaker E: So that's pretty well sums it up.
[03:07:43] Speaker C: I mean, they were great in Los Angeles, and they were great in West Texas. And as they moved toward the Midwest and the South.
Tell me why.
[03:07:52] Speaker E: It just wasn't working their style, you know, here. Here in Georgia, Florida, Carolinas, the van. The fans were used to seeing guys do spots up and down, in and out.
There wasn't none of that.
It was just two big guys. That's the only way I can sum it up.
[03:08:23] Speaker C: Jerry, did they work slower than a Lot slower.
[03:08:27] Speaker E: Yeah, it's just.
[03:08:31] Speaker C: Well, Ernesto must have had confidence in you guys because he's got you working with Black Gordman and Great Goliath and Les Thornton and Tony Charles at the same time.
[03:08:40] Speaker E: I know he's trying to kill us.
[03:08:43] Speaker C: I mean, he's got you working time limit draws with Thornton and Charles and trading the belts back and forth.
You guys win the belts back again from Thornton and Charles in your hometown of Columbus on April 21st.
[03:08:58] Speaker E: That's when he tore his bicep.
[03:09:00] Speaker F: Yeah.
[03:09:01] Speaker C: And you've got a couple of singles matches with Greg Valentine.
You guys go to a time limit draw in Augusta on April 26th. And of course, this is early on in Greg's career as he is establishing himself in different territories and has not had the big breakthrough yet that he would have when he gets the Crockett Promotions.
[03:09:27] Speaker E: Right?
[03:09:29] Speaker C: Yeah,
[03:09:32] Speaker E: he lay that stuff in there, boy.
[03:09:36] Speaker C: And then this is a little interesting.
In May of 76, you go back to Kansas City for two or three days. You, you work St. Joseph with Mike York, you work Topeka with Otto Von Heller, and you work Wichita with tank Patton.
So May 7th, 9th and 10th, just out of, out of the blue, like what was going on there? Do you remember what happened?
[03:10:04] Speaker E: My brother went. I don't know if this the same time he went back to Kansas City and I was going different places.
I was going back for Watts three or four days a week. I was going back to Kansas City because of my brother was back out there. Gaga wanted me to come back.
So I, I was kind of getting around. I mean, I had my gym then.
[03:10:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[03:10:36] Speaker E: I learned early on that, you know, we all think we're bulletproof, but when those knees start working on you, it ain't no joke.
[03:10:48] Speaker C: Did you decide to open a gym?
From some of your conversations with Milo,
[03:10:54] Speaker E: I can't believe you said that, but
[03:10:57] Speaker C: it just kind of connected in my head.
[03:11:00] Speaker E: I admired him so much. It was a man that of course he was German. Full blooded German.
World War I broke out. He leaves Germany, he goes to Australia.
They find out he's German, they put him in a concentration camp.
He would talk about it, I'd ask him about it.
[03:11:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[03:11:26] Speaker E: I said, how was it?
In his strong German accent, he says it was like this. Only the strong survive.
That's when he, he became that freak of strength.
[03:11:43] Speaker C: Right. Doing the strongman gimmick in the carnivals.
[03:11:48] Speaker E: But he.
So when he. Of course, you can't make a living being a powerless.
So when he got here, I think he got here in 26.
They heard this strong German man was coming, so they take him to this. Powerless in me.
He's watching them. He use no equipment like that.
He asked him how much that bar weighed.
That's not enough.
Now they handle squat racks or nothing.
He told him he want. They used to put shot in there beads.
He got on the way, he said, I want £500 in that bar.
They say, what in the world is this man gonna do with that?
They asked me some of squat with it. Now he's got to get it on his back.
He told me he got on one end of it, stood it up, laid it across his back, squatted and dumped it.
They never seen nothing like that. Yeah, three world records that day.
[03:13:01] Speaker C: Wow. He was in the first tag team match in Houston. The first tag team match in Texas.
[03:13:07] Speaker E: You're kidding me.
[03:13:08] Speaker C: 1936. 1936.
[03:13:12] Speaker E: You're kidding me.
[03:13:14] Speaker C: No, Doc. And the guy we were just talking about, Doc Sarpolis, he booked it. He was the booker for Morris Siegel in Texas. Whiskers Savage and Milo Steinborn against two Turkish Indian wrestlers. I think Indian from India. The country of India.
[03:13:32] Speaker E: Sarpolis work.
[03:13:35] Speaker C: Yeah. And he refereed the match, too.
[03:13:37] Speaker E: I mean, he wrestled also.
[03:13:39] Speaker C: Yeah, he wrestled for Pfeffer in the 20s and early 30s.
Yep, Jack Pfeffer. And then he went to. Then he went to work in Dallas for Ed McLemore and in Houston for Morris Siegel.
And he booked the first. It was a Tornado match. All four guys in the ring at the same time. It's on YouTube.
[03:14:01] Speaker E: Is it?
[03:14:02] Speaker C: Yeah. Milo Steinborn and Whisker Savage against two Indian wrestlers.
Yeah, he was quite a. I mean, I'm very interested in Milo Steinborn.
On May 21st, you're in a battle royal in Atlanta. Andre the Giant is in there. Of course, he wins the battle royal. You and Jerry or you and Ted beat Gorman and Goliath that night.
Then you start working with Ron Bass and Dutch Mantell. Come to Georgia, Right?
And it's funny. Dutch Mantel works under his real name, Wayne Cowan.
And Renesto, of course. He's the guy that, when you went to Kansas City, your brother went over to Ann Gunkle. Well, Rinesto booked all those matches between Ted and.
And Dutch.
[03:15:01] Speaker E: They had some heck of a matches now. Yeah, they. They.
That's where they both learned to work, working with each other. They had every kind of match you can think of.
[03:15:15] Speaker C: I think Dutch ended up getting his hair cut, maybe, huh? I think Dutch ended up getting his hair cut. I think in the end at the
[03:15:23] Speaker E: end of that feud, because I don't remember that.
But yeah, they, they. That's.
They learned to work together. I mean, they had some unbelievable matches.
[03:15:38] Speaker C: You worked with Les Thornton a lot in singles matches in June, and then you guys are working with Gordman and Goliath.
[03:15:51] Speaker E: I work with Roger Kirby.
Unless Thatcher on TV in Atlanta was somebody. Man, oh, man, I know who that was.
[03:16:04] Speaker C: That would have probably been enjoyable.
[03:16:07] Speaker E: Yeah, I tried to keep Thornton laughing old.
[03:16:13] Speaker C: I mean, there's a guy that I don't think we've ever talked about, Roger Kirby. What do you think about Roger?
[03:16:18] Speaker E: I really like Roger.
He.
He wasn't a big man.
I mean, he was sick, but he.
He was a good worker.
I don't think they looked at him as somebody that would draw series of money.
I suppose that's just my opinion, but I like Roger.
[03:16:46] Speaker C: You were.
At least we don't have any records of it. So. Were you off from July to September? Is that when you had your surgery?
[03:16:59] Speaker E: Yes.
[03:17:00] Speaker C: The last match I have is July 8th. You and Ted worked with the Valiant brothers in Rome, Georgia.
Jimmy and Johnny Valiant.
[03:17:16] Speaker E: Johnny's dead, isn't he?
[03:17:18] Speaker C: I believe so.
[03:17:19] Speaker E: Didn't he get killed?
[03:17:22] Speaker D: I think.
[03:17:22] Speaker E: Did a car hit him?
[03:17:24] Speaker C: Something like that, I think.
[03:17:26] Speaker E: Funny, I was thinking about two of them this week, and I said, I think he's gone.
[03:17:35] Speaker C: Yeah, Jimmy's still kicking. I mean, he's still working, still wrestles a little bit. He's got a wrestling school and up where he lives up there in the Carolinas.
[03:17:45] Speaker E: One of the funniest things about him, no matter where I was, he was always the quietest guy in the dressing room.
But once he went out front, he put on a show.
He was.
He was something else.
[03:18:07] Speaker C: You got a match on television. You work with this guy a couple times. I've interviewed this guy before. He's had an interesting career. Jim Lancaster.
You worked with him on Columbus TV and then in Macon.
[03:18:20] Speaker E: Big guy.
[03:18:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah, he sure was. You worked against Stan Stasiak in Augusta, and then you had that. We started out talking. You had that deal with PAC Song.
[03:18:35] Speaker E: Yeah.
[03:18:36] Speaker C: And you actually beat him in Columbus.
[03:18:39] Speaker E: Yeah. Then the next.
[03:18:48] Speaker C: You had a deal where, when you worked in Atlanta, Joe leduc was a special referee.
And then that turned into tag matches with you and Joe Leduc against Rock Hunter and PAC Song.
[03:19:02] Speaker E: The.
That's when I had my surgery and I was. I was out of work for nine. Nine weeks.
[03:19:14] Speaker C: Yeah. July to September.
[03:19:16] Speaker E: Yeah, that's. That's. That's when I Started back.
[03:19:20] Speaker C: You got a.
I was in Waterloo here a couple of weeks ago for the hall of Fame, and I got to spend a lot of time with Roy Lee Welch, and I wanted to ask him about that place in Griffin, Georgia, where the wrestling took place. Buddy Fuller had built that building and kind of had a horse ranch there in Griffin.
And I'm just fascinated by that whole building and everything.
[03:19:50] Speaker E: On Saturdays back then, Griffin or Carrollton ran. Or both. They both ran, Right.
Usually Saturdays was no joke around here.
Saturday morning, we did Atlanta tv.
You jumped into your car, you beeline it to Columbus.
That was live TV.
[03:20:21] Speaker C: That was like at 4 in the afternoon or something like that.
[03:20:24] Speaker E: 4 o'? Clock, yeah.
And then that night, using Carrollton or
[03:20:29] Speaker C: Griffin, which was a fairly short trip for you, right?
[03:20:34] Speaker E: Yeah. You laced them up four times that day.
[03:20:36] Speaker F: Wow.
[03:20:41] Speaker E: We did not wrestle on Sundays either.
[03:20:43] Speaker F: Right.
[03:20:45] Speaker C: You had a cage match with Rock Hunter there in that building at the Sports palace in Griffin.
You tagged up with.
And I guess this is about the time Ted was leaving, but he tagged up with Roberto Soto.
Had a match in Columbus with Killer Brooks and Scott Irwin.
Scott might have been Scott Irwin's rookie year.
[03:21:09] Speaker E: One of those early ones almost knocked me out. One of those belts in that match.
He hit me in the head so hard with that belt.
Good Lord.
[03:21:22] Speaker C: You have another cage match with Rock Hunter and Macon, and then that's your last date in Georgia. September 21st. Last match is in Macon, Georgia, in a cage match with Rock Hunter. Then you go to All Japan Pro Wrestling.
[03:21:38] Speaker E: Let me tell you about that match. Yeah, that match that.
Those supposed to be the main event, but my brother and I got to get out of there.
We got to catch a plane to LA to go to Japan. We leave the next morning.
So they had us on third, which I didn't care.
And Renesto drove the two of us to Atlanta to the airport. We hopped on the plane and left.
I've done some crazy stuff in this business, like most of us.
[03:22:21] Speaker C: Yeah, you. You finished up there on the 19th, and your first match in Japan is on the. Or you finished up on the 21st, and your first match in Japan is on the 24th.
And there's going to be a time difference on a long plane flight. And your first guy you wrestle is Jumbo Cerule.
[03:22:38] Speaker E: Let me tell you about that.
[03:22:40] Speaker C: And a time limit draw, too.
[03:22:43] Speaker E: It's 30 minutes.
[03:22:44] Speaker C: 30 minutes, yep.
[03:22:45] Speaker E: So we get to Japan and go through customs and all like that. Now, this is before the Internet, phones, anything.
We'll get our Bags, get on the bus.
Joe Iguchi comes up to me and says, how's your knee? I'm going, oh.
Oh, God.
I said, it's good, man. It's good.
[03:23:22] Speaker C: Dr. Andrews fix me up.
[03:23:25] Speaker E: I wouldn't be here if it wasn't good. But he told me, he said, you're not gonna tear anything up.
You may have some soreness and all like that, but that, that's, that's before the scope. He helped me up in the front of my knee and then on the side.
But anyhow, he said, okay, okay, okay.
We get there the next night. This is Jumbo and Jo Oats.
I said, oh, he'd been to the Olympics, right?
You'll never meet a nicer, kinder person.
I mean, he, he didn't like, try to check me out about my knee or.
[03:24:13] Speaker C: Yeah,
[03:24:17] Speaker E: I was so tired, bro. My brother had to carry my bag to the bus.
[03:24:23] Speaker C: And this is, this is when he. Jumbo and Giant Baba were the big tag team Japan.
[03:24:29] Speaker E: Yes, yes, yes.
[03:24:32] Speaker C: They. They just didn't lose.
[03:24:34] Speaker E: And, well, you went over there. We just said, we're gonna be on a bullet train going Osaka somewhere.
People.
Japanese people are small. You imagine him in a crowd.
[03:24:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[03:24:49] Speaker E: Oh, you see is that head.
[03:24:51] Speaker A: Baba.
[03:24:51] Speaker E: Baba.
[03:24:52] Speaker D: Giant Baba.
[03:24:54] Speaker C: Oh, he was an icon.
[03:24:55] Speaker E: He was a star. He's a sir.
[03:24:58] Speaker C: On the second night, you go a little over 10 minutes with Motoshi Akuma and Mr. Okuma in out Amarillo. And he was the liaison contact with the Funks and with Baba, he was the Japanese go between. Higuchi was the go between with almost all the other territories.
You wrestled Dick Buyer on the third night as the Destroyer.
And then you and Ted have your first tag team match on the 27th in the all Japan Pro Wrestling Giant series wrestling. Kim Duck and Kentaro Okie. And you go 30 minutes to a time limit draw. So they're, they're, they're protecting you as their top American tag team in this, in this series.
[03:25:46] Speaker F: Right?
[03:25:46] Speaker E: My brother, he.
He cost us a fortune.
We're real brothers like the Briscoes and the Funks.
[03:26:00] Speaker C: Right?
[03:26:01] Speaker E: They know that they.
We were the youngest team out of three. Not by much, but we were the youngest.
We'd have had a run.
We got in a slot where we would be. We would get 16 weeks a year.
I figured after a couple of years we were making good money then. We'd been making about ten grand a week.
You do the math, right?
That's a. Hanson pretty much did.
[03:26:41] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh, that's amazing money 1976, brother, As you said, a fortune.
[03:26:50] Speaker E: I'm not, I never mentioned that. None of that. Damn. You know, we got along in the ring.
Outside that ring.
Nightmare.
Women, women, women.
That's okay, but don't drag me in it, right?
[03:27:11] Speaker C: Don't let it affect your business.
[03:27:13] Speaker E: But in the ring, we didn't care who won, who lost. We didn't care that that was business, whatever happened there.
[03:27:21] Speaker C: But you're wrestling all the top guys in singles matches to Samson Kutsuada. You beat him. You beat Kazaro Sukaruda, who would later be Kendo Nagasaki. He'd be, he'd do that gimmick later in his career.
And then the series continues through October.
You, you teamed up with Abdullah against Giant Baba and Dick Meyer the Destroyer in a two out three falls match.
That's an interesting pairing that you and Abdullah worked together as a team.
[03:27:59] Speaker E: But I've gotten a right Noah Bush, he started that crap.
But yeah, Bios was a heck of a worker.
[03:28:14] Speaker C: Then the next, the next day, which October 2nd in Cora County, Kieran hall in Tokyo, Jerry Oates and Ted Oates beat the great Kojika and Motoshi Akuma in 28 minutes for the All Asian tag team titles in a 2 out of 3 fall match. Now you guys get the Asian belts.
[03:28:36] Speaker E: That's trophy I got here in my living room.
[03:28:39] Speaker C: What a fantastic accomplishment.
[03:28:43] Speaker E: You know, you can build.
[03:28:47] Speaker C: Mo, where does that rank, winning those All Asian tag team titles? Where does that rank in the moments
[03:28:53] Speaker E: of your career, Jerry, where does it rank?
[03:28:56] Speaker B: Where?
[03:28:56] Speaker C: Where does it rank? As you think about all your accomplishments in your wrestling career, where does that rank in your mind?
Is it in the top five things that you accomplished in the business?
[03:29:10] Speaker E: I'm as proud of that I am anything.
That's especially when you go over and do it with your brother.
The carries a lot of meaning to me. Probably not him, but it does to me.
[03:29:28] Speaker C: That's a lot of trust invested in guys like that.
[03:29:33] Speaker E: You know, I preferred single matches versus tag matches for the simple reason that let's say you and I are drawing money.
Everywhere we go, we drawing money.
People either hate us or they love us.
[03:29:57] Speaker F: Right?
[03:29:59] Speaker E: No matter where we go and they fly. All these different promoters are flying us into their territories to draw money for them too.
And I come to you and say, I think I'm going to go out on my own.
Well, that's not going to sit very well with you.
And it could be the biggest mistake I ever made in my life doing that. Right, but that could happen. To either one of us. Or you could come to me and say, I'm done with this. What?
We never seen so much money.
[03:30:43] Speaker C: Right?
[03:30:44] Speaker B: Right.
[03:30:44] Speaker C: And you're on a roll.
[03:30:46] Speaker E: I'm going to tell you a quick story.
[03:30:48] Speaker C: You're on a roll in a country that is not that doesn't trust the guy jeans very often. And then all of a sudden they put a lot of trust in you two.
[03:30:57] Speaker E: Exactly. We, we, we, we got to the Carolinas.
Dave Jacobs, yeah. Had known George Scott forever.
Forever.
And I, I was in some matches here with George. I know the first night he was here and Columbus, they had him and myself in a tag match.
He was livid.
That's why we went to the Carolinas.
But nobody here knew him.
Even put me and George Scott in the main event with whoever.
Well, that ain't got no meaning, right? Never been here.
So Fred Ward comes in. He was living.
I've been out of wrestling all these years. I come here, my first said, take it easy, you know, this is your first night here, blah, blah, blah.
So I told Abe Jacobs about it.
We were on a trip my first week in Carolinas. So I'm riding with him.
I said, Since your Scott started making all that money, I said, he turned into a prick.
He said, no, you got that wrong.
He said he was always a prick. It took the money to bring it out.
[03:32:35] Speaker F: Oh God. My, my gosh.
[03:32:37] Speaker C: I know we got that Jacobs, just a great guy.
[03:32:41] Speaker E: Oh, he. Good Lord.
[03:32:44] Speaker C: I mean, you talk about a fantastic career that's not well remembered today. But my gosh, he wrestled everywhere.
[03:32:51] Speaker E: You know, he's shoot.
[03:32:53] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
[03:32:55] Speaker F: News.
[03:32:55] Speaker C: He was from New Zealand and he could wrestle.
[03:32:59] Speaker E: He tied you up anytime he got. But he didn't do any of that.
[03:33:03] Speaker C: I mean, right.
Mild mannered kind of guy.
[03:33:09] Speaker E: Prince of principal of all.
[03:33:13] Speaker C: Well, you finally get a match with Baba in on the 13th day of the tour. You guys go about eight minutes.
That's a typical length of a Baba singles match.
[03:33:25] Speaker E: So we were separated by room stressing. Rooms with a.
They're like nylon. You can pull them back and shut it back.
Then you separate it again. That's the way they kept it.
So Joe, Joe, Joe Iguchi says, baba, once you make finish.
I said, me, I said, what's he want to do?
Wait a minute.
So I said, let me think about it. I said, I got it.
Go tell them we're going to go Broadway.
I think it was 25, 30 minute match, whatever it was.
All of a sudden that thing come back.
He gives Me, the finger, Bigfoot. I said, okay, yeah, he ain't going
[03:34:29] Speaker C: no 25 or 30 minutes.
[03:34:31] Speaker E: Hell no.
[03:34:33] Speaker C: But you, you guys, you guys wrestle Baba and Saruta, you and Abdullah on day 20 of the tour, you go, you go 20 and a half minutes. I'm sure we're to going Jumbo went most of that.
[03:34:50] Speaker E: Yeah.
[03:34:51] Speaker C: Two out of three falls.
But you and Jump, you and Abdullah wrestle a lot of tag team matches. You've got Giant Baba and the Destroyer on the 23rd day
[03:35:04] Speaker E: when you said a lot reason that came about my brother Scream. He hurt his ankle.
[03:35:15] Speaker D: Did he?
[03:35:15] Speaker E: I don't know.
[03:35:17] Speaker C: Well, you guys lost the, you guys lost the tag belts on the 25th day in Fukushima to Kutsawada and Takachio.
And in a two out of three falls match.
And then you got a couple of more. I think you have one more tag match and the tour. A lot of the rest of them you're just wrestling singles. So whether it was a legit ankle or not, he didn't wrestle a whole lot more. Is you and you and Abdullah or you in singles for most of the rest.
[03:35:51] Speaker E: Yeah, that's a phantom ankle injury, I guess. I don't know.
I don't know.
[03:36:02] Speaker C: And then you come back to the states in November, you're back in Columbus on November 10th.
You marry, you wrestle Bill Howard and Johnny Ringo, and then you go over to Gulf Coast Wrestling and wrestle in Dothan at the Houston County Farm Center. You wrestled Tarzan Baxter, but he's under the mask as the wrestling pro.
[03:36:32] Speaker A: Right.
[03:36:33] Speaker C: And then you guys wrestle a tag team match in Atlanta against Ricky Steamboat and Dean Ho.
And then you're off to Bill Watts land.
Last days of November. November 29th. November 30th.
November 29th, you're in Tulsa and you wrestle there. And then you wrestle on the 30th against Shreveport. Both matches against Jim Starr,
[03:37:04] Speaker E: Raimi as a manager.
And then you remember him.
[03:37:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Dr. Ken. Yeah.
Lafayette, Louisiana, on the third. You wrestle Sonny Rogers on in Tulsa.
[03:37:25] Speaker E: That. That was Buddy Rollins brother.
[03:37:31] Speaker C: Tulsa on December 6th, you wrestle Pat Barrett.
This is kind of interesting. In Shreveport on December 7, which I wouldn't have put this guy over in the Oklahoma territory, but you wrestled Leon Ogle in Shreveport.
[03:37:51] Speaker E: Leon's special way.
He did, yeah.
It's probably been four.
[03:38:01] Speaker D: Four months.
[03:38:02] Speaker E: Five months.
[03:38:03] Speaker C: Oh, bless his heart.
[03:38:04] Speaker E: Yeah, he was 85.
My son and I went to see him like two days. So he passed away, but he wasn't coherent.
[03:38:13] Speaker C: Yeah, that's all to him, but that's A shame.
Jackson, Mississippi, December 8th. RIP Tyler, Bobby Jaggers against Randy Tyler and Jerry Oates.
And then in Monroe, Louisiana, you wrestled Leon Ogle again.
And then in North Little Rock you wrestled a young Troy Graham, who, that was probably his first year in the business. 76, but him, he became the dream machine in the Tennessee territory.
But you wrestle Bobby Jaggers quite a bit in December there in for Bill Watts.
Bobby Jaggers? Yeah, yeah, a few times.
Quite a storyteller.
[03:39:12] Speaker E: He came in one night when we were in Kansas City and he says, You're not gonna believe what I bought just about. I said, I got no idea.
He said him and Ray Stevens bought a ranch in Kansas.
That was the furthest thing of the truth.
[03:39:43] Speaker C: Yeah,
[03:39:46] Speaker E: you can find out anything if you are interested.
I asked Stevens about it. He said, I think I only told that guy once or twice.
[03:39:58] Speaker C: He was from. Bobby Jaggers was from Kansas, was he? Yeah, he, he got discovered there by Dory Funk Jr.
And they brought him down to Amarillo and that was where he, they kind of developed and worked with him and got him going.
[03:40:13] Speaker E: He wasn't bad.
[03:40:15] Speaker C: Yeah, but Bobby was all right.
[03:40:17] Speaker E: He beat everybody in the business, but here he fell.
[03:40:22] Speaker C: One more guy I want to ask you about here as we close out 76 and then you're gonna, you're gonna have a pretty strong run with Watts here going into 77 for sure. But do you have many memories of Bill Ash?
[03:40:38] Speaker E: Yeah, Good little worker.
He didn't have a body on him, but he could work and he can make boots.
His dad made boots. I, I, I bought a couple of pair from them. But I like the Houston boots better, you know.
[03:41:03] Speaker C: Well, it was quite, it and the 76 was quite a, quite a year for you. I mean, you had a lot of, you started out in Kansas City and then you left that territory after being there and holding every title they had for, for two years and then came back home to Georgia, had a strong run there, won the Georgia tag team titles, worked with Thornton and Charles, worked with Black Gordman and Goliath, and then went to Japan and won the all Asian tag team titles and wrestled every big name in all Japan pro wrestling.
And then you came back just for a couple days in Georgia where you didn't really have a job, where things were supposed to be better for you when you got back.
And then you went on that little trip over to see Bill Watts territory and decided to go ahead and stay there.
[03:41:51] Speaker E: Yeah, I, I don't have, I was going to say maybe I got a Couple of regrets. But I look back, and I always tried to do what I thought was best for me.
You know, I had to look out for me like you do yourself.
[03:42:19] Speaker F: Of course,
[03:42:23] Speaker E: I had thought about when we left Kansas City to go to Minneapolis, and I said, I don't know.
They not screaming our name up there, I'm sure, and that might be the wrong place. And so we didn't go.
I don't know if that was a mistake or.
But I don't think so.
Could have been best thing that ever happened to us. I don't know that.
[03:42:52] Speaker C: It was kind of crowded.
Ganya had his favorites.
[03:42:57] Speaker E: Yeah, you had Go. He wasn't going nowhere.
[03:43:00] Speaker C: And he had Crusher, Bruiser, and he had his son and Jim Brunzell. He had Bock, Winkle and Stevens.
[03:43:06] Speaker B: You.
[03:43:07] Speaker E: So you just imagine where we'd have fit in.
[03:43:09] Speaker C: Yeah, it would have been difficult.
[03:43:14] Speaker E: Now, we sold this story.
They. Oh, this is what I was told. I can't verify nothing.
That St. Louis approached Buck Wigan about taking a NWA title.
He said, I make as much as he does and wrestle half the time.
[03:43:43] Speaker C: That's true.
[03:43:46] Speaker E: That makes sense.
[03:43:48] Speaker C: Well, the awa, Ganya, was more like the Northeast. He was a monthly territory. Like, he ran his towns monthly, whereas the south, we ran weekly, like you were in the same towns every single week.
So Bockwinkle was maybe defending the title seven or eight times a month, whereas the NWA champion was defending it 26 and 28 times a month.
[03:44:17] Speaker E: Every night he put on his boots every night.
[03:44:21] Speaker C: And traveling all over the world.
I mean, the awa, they were traveling Minneapolis. The farthest point at that time in 76 would have been Denver, and the farthest point north would have been Winnipeg, and the farthest point south would have been in Illinois.
So he wasn't traveling as many miles as, you know, Terry Funk, who was in Canada and Japan and all both coasts of the US and all over the south and going from.
All the way from Tokyo, Japan, to Vancouver, British Columbia.
[03:45:00] Speaker E: You know, I don't know if it'd be worth it because I don't know what they made either.
I never asked Skinny. I mean, it was none of my business.
[03:45:10] Speaker C: Well, Terry said he made about a half a million dollars.
I'm sure he said he held it for 14 months and so all of 76, and then into February 77, and he made about 500 grand.
So Bachwinkle's making close to that and only working maybe 25%.
[03:45:36] Speaker E: Exactly.
So it may be true.
[03:45:40] Speaker C: But, you know, one of the things that would have been good, I think. Is Ganya really respected wrestling and you guys could wrestle, so that would have been in your favor.
[03:45:54] Speaker E: So, you know, I don't do well on that. That's just something that.
[03:45:58] Speaker C: Well, he wasn't, he wasn't real big on gimmicks, you know, he, he was, he was more in line with much nick in St. Louis.
[03:46:06] Speaker A: Right,
[03:46:08] Speaker E: right.
[03:46:09] Speaker C: Maganya was an old school wrestler and that was his philosophy.
[03:46:14] Speaker E: Didn't he go to the Olympics?
[03:46:16] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[03:46:18] Speaker E: I thought he's pretty salty.
[03:46:20] Speaker C: But it's kind of, you know how he missed the whole Hulk Hogan thing. You know, he was just, that wasn't in his wheelhouse as far as wrestling was concerned.
So that would have worked in you guys favor. But I don't know if you guys would have liked it in the north.
I don't know if you guys would have liked Duluth, Minnesota in February.
[03:46:45] Speaker F: No.
[03:46:46] Speaker C: You guys like Columbus, Georgia in February?
[03:46:49] Speaker E: Yes.
But I enjoyed the snow when we were out there.
I did.
I think, I think it's pretty coming down.
[03:47:01] Speaker C: So you, you, you must have seen something when you got flown out there to visit with Bill Watts at the end of 76. You must have saw something because you stayed in 77 and he pushed you.
[03:47:14] Speaker E: He, like I told you, when he was doing the book in here, he came to me and he said, you know, you need to go, but my mother in law was sick and he says, you stay as long as you need.
So he took care of me.
I never forgot that.
And if he was interested, can you still see me? Yeah.
[03:47:45] Speaker C: So you're great.
[03:47:46] Speaker E: It says my bear is low.
[03:47:49] Speaker C: Well, we're about finished.
[03:47:50] Speaker E: Okay.
So I really don't have any regrets. It wouldn't do any good if I did.
[03:47:59] Speaker C: Well, Bill Watts, I mean, you've told me privately before, Bill Watts did everything he said he'd do.
[03:48:05] Speaker E: Everything he said he'd do.
As I put that belt on you, I help you with your trans.
[03:48:13] Speaker C: And didn't you, didn't you hook up with Abe Jacobs out there too?
[03:48:18] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah.
That's the first place I met Abe,
[03:48:26] Speaker C: because I think you told me the story about how you were a little nervous because he didn't know at first you were Dicky Steinborn's brother in law.
[03:48:33] Speaker E: Right.
[03:48:35] Speaker C: And they had had a locker room incident before.
[03:48:37] Speaker E: Yeah. So I, we're riding in the car and I, I, of course I heard, I had heard a babe and his reputation, Reputation that he.
Not that I was afraid of him.
So we're going down the road. And I.
I said, hey, let me ask you a question.
He said, ask me anything you want to ask me.
I said, do you know who I am?
He said, yeah, you're Steinborn's brother in law. I got God, my.
I said, I want you to know right now, I'm nothing like that. He said, I know you're not. I know God said, have known you. I. He said, I know that.
I wanted to get that out of the way, you bet.
Because, I mean, I have to wrestle.
[03:49:40] Speaker C: I love that story.
[03:49:42] Speaker E: But it sounded cocky when I said it like that. Do you know you. Do you know who I am? Like I'm some big damn star somewhere. But he said, yeah, I know you are.
[03:49:56] Speaker C: I said, God, I know that when you get to a building and you get in the locker room and you get around the guys and you're talking, and then you go to the ring and you have your match, you don't really think about it all that much because you enjoy what you do and you enjoy the crowd and you enjoy the wrestling and everything. But how long did it take you to kind of get tired of the long trips out there?
[03:50:26] Speaker E: This is going to sound crazy. I know something about it.
[03:50:30] Speaker C: Really.
Because I'll be honest with you. When I drove to Waterloo the other day, I used to think, geez, these guys used to come here a couple times a month. They had drove all the way from Kansas City up to Waterloo, Iowa, do Dubuque Rapids.
[03:50:50] Speaker E: Waterloo, come on, man. I mean.
[03:50:52] Speaker C: And then you drove all the way south to Wichita every Monday night.
[03:51:00] Speaker E: I know we left.
I don't know if it was Dubuque, Kansas City, Waterloo, Waterloo, or we pill pull out that it's a Kansas City 500 miles.
500.
We have some trips out there now in Kansas City, and you do that
[03:51:21] Speaker C: on a Saturday, and then you'd have to go to Wichita on the Monday.
[03:51:25] Speaker E: That happened to us.
My brother called Geigo. He said, there's no way we can drive.
He said, hold on a minute. He said, y' all ride with Bobby Whitlock.
So the three of us went.
[03:51:44] Speaker C: He wasn't up there, which was great that you had that summer in Georgia, because those are really short trip territory.
[03:51:50] Speaker E: Yes, yes.
[03:51:52] Speaker C: And then. But then you went out to the Oklahoma Territory and, you know, you had, you know, you had all those long trips between Arkansas and Louisiana and then over to Oklahoma and.
[03:52:07] Speaker E: Yeah, I don't want. It didn't bother me.
[03:52:10] Speaker C: Well, that's good.
[03:52:11] Speaker E: I knew what I was getting into when I got there.
[03:52:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
Well, Jerry, thank you so much for going through 1976 with me. You had a heck of a year that year.
[03:52:21] Speaker E: Yep.
[03:52:22] Speaker C: And we're out for nine weeks with the knee surgery.
[03:52:25] Speaker E: Yep.
But thank you for having me, man.
[03:52:29] Speaker C: I always enjoy it. I appreciate you, brother.
[03:52:32] Speaker E: I appreciate you having me on very much.
[03:52:35] Speaker C: Well, you, you had a spectacular career and lots of great memories and lots of great stories and you add so much to what we do here. So thank you.
[03:52:43] Speaker E: Thank you. Here talk to you.
[03:52:47] Speaker C: The great Jerry Oates talking about his career in 1976.
Last appearance and last time we spoke.
And glad to.
I think I'm at peace and glad to share that with you here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel history show. Rest in peace, Gerry Oates.
Well, if you're interested in supporting us financially, there's a way to do. There's a way to support us. Just support us and there's a way to support us financially. If you'd like to support, you can subscribe to my daily pro wrestling newsletter that covers the Territory era called the Daily Chronicle. And you can also subscribe to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel.
If you subscribe for free, you'll get the Daily Chronicle every day in your email box. If you give us some financial support and subscribe for $5 a month or $50 a year, you'll get our special features that come out four and five times a month. Tracking the World Champions, where we track a month of the world Champion schedule throughout all of the different decades of the territory era. We just did a great one on Whipper Billy Watson for September 1956 and you'll also get our Family Tradition series coming up this month we are going to be releasing a feature on the Von Erich family and we've already done one on Fritz, so we will be doing David Von Erich. So we'll have a comprehensive and in depth feature written about David Von Erich for our family tradition. And we also did an Evolution of Pro Wrestling series released the other day about the women's title through the various stages of the territory era. We've got another Evolution of Wrestling feature coming very soon about the NWA World tag Team titles and their position and how they were treated through all the territories in the 1960s that's coming out in the Evolution of Wrestling. So you get all these great series tracking the world champion family tradition. You get the evolution of pro wrestling 4, 5 extra features a month for just $5.
Wow, what a deal. And if you want to just pay it once and not have to deal with the monthly charge and you want to save $10? Just put in $50, do an annual subscription, get it over with. You won't have to see that on your bank statement every single month. You'll just do it one time a year and be done.
But if you need to do it on a budget, and I understand that, and if you want to do it for the monthly for $5, we appreciate everything that you do for us, whether you're a free subscriber or a paid subscriber and financially support the work that I do as a pro wrestling historian. I just want you to know I appreciate you and I thank you for your support.
If you also want to support our show, you can buy some soap.
You ever notice how store bought soap smells like a hotel hallway for about eight seconds and then your skin smells like you just wrestled a pine cone?
Well, that's not how Grizzly Up Soap company does it.
This week's shout out that we're going to do for the Grizzly Up Soap company, we're going to talk about them. They're in downtown Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Travis Chastity and the whole Grizzly gang still hand pour small batch goatmeal soaps, body butters, beard oils and that laundry soap people keep sneaking extra scoops of.
Their rule is simple. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly and smell good while you do it.
[03:56:42] Speaker E: Fall.
[03:56:43] Speaker C: Well, I know it's hard to believe it's been so dang hot lately.
I mean hotter than donut grease out there.
But fall is going to be here, folks. This can't keep going on. This heat is going to break soon. Fall is going to be here and before you know it we're going to be complaining about how cold it is.
Well, that means cabin escape laundry soap for the first cool weather laundry loads, a little beard oil for daddy bear headed out to Friday night football games and goat milk soap bars that don't strip you down to rawhide. They are, they got it all, you know. Shop on 24. 7 Grizzly Up Soap Company.
That's Grizzly Up Soapco.com or you can go to the Den of The Bears at 200 East 9th street in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. They're open Wednesday through Saturday.
Feel good, smell good. Grizzly Up Grizzly Up Soap company here on the pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History show. All right, thank you everybody. It's been an emotional day, but a good day.
And thank you all for your wonderful support. Thank you for watching our show and listening to our show. Thank you for all the comments you put on our YouTube channel. Thank you for all the shares and retweets and all the listens that we get. Thank you for all the five star reviews you give us and the subscriptions. We appreciate you all. We're getting new paid subscribers to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel every single week. We're getting free subscriptions are going through the roof.
So thank you all for all your support. It means the world to me and I can't tell you how much I thank of you for doing that. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll be back again next week with another episode. Episode number 81 will be coming down the pike and we will tell you more about that next week here we download on Wednesday morning at 5am Central and 6am Eastern. And that'll do it for this time at the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. I'm your host, Tony Richards, reminding you that if you want better neighbors, be a better neighbor. Thank you everybody for watching and listening the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History show.
So long from the Bluegrass State.
Thanks for tuning in to the Pro
[03:59:08] Speaker A: 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.
[03:59:20] Speaker D: We'll release a new episode soon. Don't you dare miss it.
