Episode 83: Territory Review 1976: Detroit Territory

Episode 83 • October 07, 2026 • 03:26:19
Episode 83: Territory Review 1976: Detroit Territory
Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Territory History Show
Episode 83: Territory Review 1976: Detroit Territory

Oct 07 2026 | 03:26:19

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Show Notes

Promo for Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show – Episode 83
The Detroit Territory, 1976

Hey everyone, Tony Richards here!Episode 83 of The Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show takes a trip to the Detroit territory and Big Time Wrestling in 1976.

We open with a short congratulations to one of our family members and AWA analyst, George Schire. The George Tragos–Lou Thesz Hall of Fame Board announced this past weekend that George will be honored with the James C. Melby Award for 2027 at Hall of Fame weekend in
Waterloo, Iowa. Well deserved.

Segment 1:
I welcome longtime Detroit television announcer Terry Sullivan to discuss the Detroit Territory in 1976.

Segment 2:
A short, heartfelt tribute to Bart Batten, one of the Batten Twins tag team, who passed away on October 1st. I also give a little profile of the in-ring career of Klondike Bill — more than a ring truck driver.

Segment 3:
Brian Solomon, author of Blood and Fire, the biography of The Original Sheik, returns to the show. Brian and I discuss what was happening in the Sheik’s life and territory in 1976. To close, I recap the other territories The Sheik traveled to and wrestled in during 1976.
It’s the Detroit Territory, all in one episode.

Episode 83 is available now on Castos, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all your usual platforms.

Hit play, leave a review, and keep riding with us through the Time Tunnel!

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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 B: It's the best thing going today. [00:00:18] Speaker A: Interviewing wrestlers, referees, authors and other media [00:00:22] Speaker D: 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 A: And now here's your host, Tony Richards. [00:00:34] Speaker C: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. We've got another exciting episode for you this week. We're coming to you live from the Richards ranch in Western Kentucky. And I am your host, Tony Richards. And we're kicking off the show this week with a congratulatory notice. And if you haven't heard by now, which I. If you're on social media and you're in any wrestling groups or have any wrestling connections, you've probably heard by now, but at least we're going to be the first one to welcome the 2027 James Melby Award winner for the Trago says Hall of Fame In Waterloo, Iowa, Mr. George Shire. George, welcome to the show and congratulations, you're going to be going into the hall of Fame. [00:01:19] Speaker A: And then I hear you say it. And honest to God, I, I swear to you, I have clinics that I use a lot lately. Thank you. Tony. Got the, got the official announcement out this morning from the Trago Estez, the museum. And it was, it was a moment. It was a moment. And when you, you. I had to keep this a secret for two weeks. [00:01:44] Speaker C: Yeah, a couple weeks, man. [00:01:48] Speaker A: And, and I want to tell you, I've told Lorraine once or twice. I never realized that keeping a secret could be so hard when you're just bursting. You want to share, you know, you want to share the news. But to be all honest with you, my friend, I would never deny that I haven't thought about this award over the years. [00:02:10] Speaker C: I'm sure you have. [00:02:11] Speaker A: I'd been around the hall of Fame for, from its inception way back in 99. And when this award came about, I believe it was 2006 when the first one. Yes, Jim Melby got the award. It was named after Jim and he was presented with the award. [00:02:31] Speaker C: I had the. I had the distinguished honor of being the 20th award winner. So that's cool. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, so you know the feeling, you know, it's kind of surreal. It's kind of one of those pinch me moments and hope I don't wake up and find out it wasn't real. [00:02:47] Speaker C: Right. [00:02:47] Speaker A: But I do want to say, too that it's one of those things I've had two weeks to think about it and what happens is, is you start thinking, you know, wow, you know, there's so many, many, many others that are deserving and I would like to see everyone have this feeling that deserve it. And then you start to say, well, I didn't plan my life this way. You know, you've been around coaching and professional life all your career and I was in banking and we always had these things where it's always, well, where do you want to be in five years? Or what's your 10 year plan? Or how do you see, you know, when you plan for things? That's the way we do it in the professional world. And I can honestly tell you that from the time I was an 8 year old kid and started on this little wrestling for fun journey, I never thought about stuff like this. I've done it like you. I know I do it because it makes me happy. It's a fun place to be when. And I've. People have heard me say this, Tony, when the world is on my shoulders and I've had tough days or times or things going on, wrestling has always been the place I can go for peace. [00:04:03] Speaker C: Right. [00:04:04] Speaker A: And I have told some wrestlers that I said, you know, you guys don't realize that behind the scenes you don't realize there are some people that you've, you've actually given encouragement to and, and, and happiness to. And unless you're told, you'd never know it. So yeah, it's very special. And like I said a minute ago, I've thought about this. I can't deny that ever since I saw Jim given the award and I thought that was so cool. And Jim, I just can't say how much he was my friend. And you know the story. Jim and I, we went way back to when we were teenage punk kids running around doing things that probably some things we shouldn't have done, you know, like most kids will do. But Jim and I were, we were close friends and I was glad when he got the award and I've been happy for everybody that's gotten it since. And it was about 2017, I was at Waterloo and I not thought about it anymore. I'd kind of just given up on it. I never thought about it, to be honest. And it wasn't a big deal. But 2020 hit 2021. It was two tough years, 20 for everybody with COVID and all that crap that went on and how the world shut down. And I know Waterloo didn't have a reunion that year. [00:05:31] Speaker C: Right. [00:05:32] Speaker A: And I wouldn't have been able to go if they did. And 21, I was still secluding myself because Lorraine and I were going through, as, you know, a personal thing, her. Her cancer at the time, and my world was in a different place, so I wasn't thinking about things like this, and. But I went to the hall of fame in 2023 for the first time after the whole Covid thing. And I remember our buddy Tom Burke was getting it, getting honored, and I talked with him there, and I said. I told him. I said, man, you and I have traveled some roads, too, because I've known Tom since 1969 through WFIA days, and what a historian he is. So it's always fun when you see your friends and people that you love and deserve things. Get it. And I kind of started thinking about it after that, though, that, like, you know, maybe would I ever get it? And then I'd throw it out of my head. And then the last year or so, it's even gotten a little bit stronger. And I had hoped. I won't deny that. [00:06:40] Speaker C: And, well, I've encouraged you to come and be a part of things, and I was very excited when you decided to become a lifetime member. [00:06:53] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that was an easy thing to do. I. I had no problem doing that at all. I'm all about supporting it. I've always supported it. [00:07:04] Speaker C: And I think that's key for. For a lot of historians who may. Would like someday to be honored in this way. I think you've got to be involved in the hall of Fame. You've got to come support it. You've got to come spend the weekend with us and. And get to know people and let other people see you there and pitch in and involve yourself and maybe get involved in doing a panel or a seminar or something, something to contribute to the hall of Fame. I think. I think. I think what people don't realize a lot of times about these kinds of awards is they are a. They're a reciprocal product of things that you have done to put into what's going on. And then you get your reward back from that. You don't. Yeah, you don't take from it and then give. You always give, and then something comes back to you. And I just got to tell the story about calling you. Can I tell that story? [00:08:05] Speaker A: You can tell it. I tell you. That's the backstory to this, that I told you you should get an Academy Award. Go ahead. [00:08:13] Speaker C: Well, a couple weeks ago, I knew that George was going to be getting the award. And so I was elected by the, by the hall of Fame board to be the one to call George. And so I had already talked to him earlier in the week and he said he was going to go to Nashville and he's going to be celebrating his birthday in Nashville and he and Lorraine were going to be there doing things around the city and his birth was going to be that Thursday. Well, I think the board meeting, I think was that Tuesday. And so then I was told to call George. So I called him and I kind of knew in the back of my mind he probably wasn't going to answer because he's in Nashville and he's celebrating his birthday. So I'm thinking, how am I going to get him to call me back? Because he, he's probably going, oh, it's Tony, just wanting to talk wrestling. I'll call him back after Lorraine and I go to the Country Music hall of Fame and do all these other things. So I left a message and I said, george, this is Tony. I really got some things I really need to talk to you about, so if you could please give me a call as soon as you can. I tried to make it as serious as I could so that he would call me back. And then a couple of hours, maybe an hour or so, he calls me back and I said, well, I really needed to talk to you, George, and I just want you to know you've been elected to receive the James Melby Award next year. And I kept that same low key, serious tone and I didn't let on at all about what it was. And to hear your reaction on the other end and to hear Lorraine in the background, your own personal cheering section. It was one of the top moments of my life to be able to tell you about the news [00:10:16] Speaker A: and exactly the way you did it, your message. And I have it on my phone. I played it for my daughters when I told them the other day. And I told him, I said, this was on the morning, my birthday, folks, on September 17th. And it was. The only reason we were in Nashville is Lorraine and I went there, it's my 75th birthday and we decided we were going to. I wanted to see the Johnny Cash Museum. That's. That was the primary thing. And then we had some, we've got some close friends there that we wanted to see. And I never told them I was coming. I wanted to surprise them. And that was my initiative too, to pull off that surprise. I love to surprise people. [00:10:58] Speaker C: Well, Gloria wanted me to call and she said, now, you know, we're going to be announcing it in the newsletter. Do you think you'll call him pretty soon? I'm like, well, actually, Thursday's his birthday. That's when I was thinking about calling him. And they all. Everybody just thought that was the greatest thing, that it was going to be a birthday present for you to find out. [00:11:18] Speaker A: Well, you couldn't have pulled it off better because the tone of your voice. I told Lorraine, when I got the message, I said, listen to this. I said, tony, sounds like something's really wrong. And I said, I got to find a quiet place to call him. So we went back up to our hotel room, and I was sitting on one end of the bed, and Lorraine was sitting next to me. And you come off with this. I didn't want a Bruton. I talk to you. I don't want to ruin your birthday, but I just had to call you. And you heard Lorraine's reaction. I was. I was. Folks, George was quiet for once. I couldn't speak. And Lorraine was in the phone talking to you. So, yeah, it's a special thing. And I totally agree with what you say about all these people. You know, you do need to be recognized. You do need to do things to gain support. I just want to say, too, though, that that should never be the only reason you do something. I do. Anything I've ever done around wrestling, I do it because it's the greatest enjoyment in my life. And if I only wish. I'm really serious. I only wish that Red Bastine and Nick Bockwinkle and Dick Beyer and Stan Kowalski and Larry Hennig and Harley Race and some of these people that were close to me. I wish they could be here to see this. To me, that would mean a lot. [00:12:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Red Bastine, Nick Bockwinkle, Dick Beyer, especially. Oh, my God. They. They were such supporters for me over the years, and they always put me over. It was one of those things that you pinch yourself, you know, the wrestlers want to get over. And they were always putting George over in what they said or did. And that means so much. [00:13:10] Speaker C: I just have to say, you know, I never said a word about the hall of Fame. I never said a word about the award. I never let anybody know I was even interested in getting the award. It was never mentioned. I didn't advocate for it or politic for it or any of that stuff. And neither have you, exactly. Your record of involvement stands on its own. And, you know, it's one of those things where. And I know a lot of people are going to say, well, this should have happened a long time ago. Well, it's sort of like the Roy Welch hall of Fame deal that we're going through right now. I can't worry about what should have happened. All I can do is try to do what's, what's right and support someone who's deserving. And I think that's the case here, George. You're just very deserving. And I'm glad that it's happening this coming July. So. [00:14:03] Speaker A: Well, and I'm excited for another reason. You know, like I said, this was a big birthday. 75. And I'm telling everyone here, live and in person that I have no intention of checking out of the planet anytime in the next 25 years. However. However, you know your mindset when you reach this age, you know that the highway in front of you is a little bit shorter than that rearview mirror. [00:14:27] Speaker C: Well, of course. [00:14:29] Speaker A: And you know, God has all our plans. And whether I'm here another year, 10 years or 20 years or however, I take each day one day at a time. But I realized that, yeah, I wanted my. This is exciting for my kids. My daughter Amy, Carrie, too. But Carrie shows it in a different way. She's a huggy, kissy person. And Amy is more. She's just. She got up and she gave me the biggest hug and she had tears in her eyes and she said, dad, this is so cool. And she said, have we got to go down to your wrestling room and get a picture? And those girls. And I swear to you, those girls have not been in my wrestling room in 20 years. It's just Dad's place. It doesn't mean anything, you know, just. This is what dad does. [00:15:14] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. And I think I told you when we talked yesterday, I'm like, I said, george, don't you have a sign or something that says occupancy one or something like that? [00:15:25] Speaker A: Yes, yes. And I did. I posted. I posted the picture of me and the girls in the room and the sign is showing up there. And I did that on purpose. And I told the story that we kidded when we were standing in there. Lorraine says, I think the fire marshal is going to be coming because there's, you know, it seated the limit. It's a joke. But because they always tease me that, dad, nobody ever sees your room. Well, there are people that have people that are true wrestling fans. They come in all the time. But I wish you were here to see it. [00:16:01] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I'm going to make a Trip sometime up to Minnesota and come up north and see the wrestling room sometime. I sure will. I also wanted to mention Curran Jacobs, who is going to also be an award winner. He's receiving the George Tragos Award next year in Waterloo, and he's our MMA background guy. And I'm going to try to get Curran on the show here over the next couple of weeks. But so, so far, George has been announced as the James Melby Award winner and Curran Jacobs is our George Tragos Award winner. And we're going to have another big July in Waterloo in 2027. And as we always say, we need to. You know, you're my friend, George, and I'm going to bring some others, though. Bring a. Bring a friend. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Well, I've got a few people that have already said they're coming and I know my girls, they right away they put it on their calendar, dad, we're coming. And yeah, it's special, it really is, but I'm just, I'm humbled by it. It's, you know, the feeling, that's all I can tell you. And I just thank everybody and I know that when I'm standing there and all the time this past couple weeks, I've been thinking, my mind has been on a road trip with Melby, with I thinking about all the things that we've done that we did and, you know, and we lost him. Those people that don't know. We lost Jim very early in his life. He was only 57. He passed away in 2007. And I did. I did the eulogy at his. At his funeral. And that was a hard thing to do. But we. We drove down together, Jim and I, to the very first Trago Estez Museum hall of Fame when it opened, that was in Newton, Iowa, in those days. And it later moved to Waterloo. But Jim and I went down all those first years, we drove down together until. Till he passed, he didn't drive. Jim didn't drive. He was never, never had a license. But I'm glad he didn't because it had gave me a chance to be with somebody that was so special. And I swear you had to know that, man. And I just know that when I'm up there next year getting this award, it's Jim's friendship. [00:18:36] Speaker C: Yeah, well, George, listen, it's a cliche and it'll be said to you a million times between now and July and then after July as well, but it's well deserved. You've done some amazing work. You've been there since the beginning of the hall of Fame. And you know, like, like all relationships and like all things that we. We love and we care about, there's ebbs and flows, there's times when you're more. You're more in it than you are other times. But I'm just so happy that you've become more and more involved in the hall of fame. The last couple of years. You had that experience down in Wichita Falls where you were involved in the hall of fame down there, and that, you know, unfortunately ended not well. So not because of me, not because of you, but. But there's that whole hall of Fame. [00:19:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:30] Speaker C: Effort. An initiative. But I'm so happy that you're back in the Waterloo family, that you're more involved now. You're coming to the hall of Fame weekend. We are properly recognizing you for all of your efforts, both past and present, and the efforts that you will make in the future as a Trago Estez hall of fame member. So I'm just so happy for you. [00:19:56] Speaker A: I do. I'm going to say this publicly. I want to thank Gloria Level Gloria has always been in my corner. I worked with her. I had a chance to work with her for several years when we were both on the cauliflower alley club board back in the 2000s. And she's always been a supporter. And you couldn't find a harder worker and a more committed person for the job she does for the Trago Esther's Museum hall of Fame. [00:20:30] Speaker C: Yes. [00:20:31] Speaker A: And then my buddy James Beard, he was with me on that ill fated journey down in Wichita Falls for a couple of years. And he actually said to me last year when I was at the museum, the hall of Fame for you, which is still one of my proudest moments to present you that at the banquet. But James Beard said to me, he said, we were talking about Wichita Falls. We, we had, we've got memories of that. And he said, I didn't know you weren't in the Trago Estes hall of Fame. I said, no, I'm not. He says, well, you should be. And that came from James Beard. And I said, well, thank you, buddy. You know, we've. We've had a track record behind us too, so he's a good guy. [00:21:22] Speaker C: Well, you won't be able to say that anymore, so. [00:21:25] Speaker A: Well, I am, I am humbled. I am. It's. It's just a big moment. And like I say, this isn't. This doesn't rate up there with having children and being blessed with the most special wife in the world. But this is a different kind of a moment, that it's just a personal thing. And. And I even thank God for giving me wrestling, because my family would tell you that there were times when wrestling was what saved me. [00:21:54] Speaker C: I think we all need something that we enjoy, that we can be a part of, that we are enthusiastic about, and that some would call it a hobby. I tend to call it something, you know, an enthusiast. We're just, you know, and people are excited about different parts of the business. You know, some people are very excited over the video aspect of it. Some people are, you know, like Mark Matsuo in our group is very passionate about the magazines and different people are, you know, involved in the collect goat collectibles and the action figures and things of that nature. It just has a multifaceted place for everyone. And so that's what I think is great about pro wrestling. And, George, pro wrestling owes you a debt because as Red Bastine said so famously, you're one of the scribes. [00:22:52] Speaker A: She did say that. Yes. [00:22:53] Speaker C: And you've done a great job of it with your books, Minnesota's Golden Age, and also the AWA record books that you've published and all the work that you do in your Facebook group. And you've transitioned into being a multimedia historian. You know, 25 years ago, a historian was someone who went to the library and looked at microfilm and wrote books and all of that. And then we got into the era of the forums online and that kind of thing, and now we've entered the social media age and the podcasting age, and there's just different kinds of historians out there now. But you have made the transition through all of those, and I'm just so happy that we're going to recognize you and I'm going to be able to be there and see it happen in Waterloo, Iowa. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Well, I don't ever want to wish my life away, but I know the next 10 months or nine months is. Well, nine months. It'll be like waiting for my first child. You know, it's a long time, and yet it'll be a short time. [00:24:08] Speaker C: Well, you and I. You and I will be doing a lot of podcasting between now and then, so that'll make the time go by a little faster. [00:24:17] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for being the first one to have me on. [00:24:21] Speaker C: And I was an honor to be the one to call you. [00:24:26] Speaker A: Well, I tell you what, that's part of the story again. That. That phone call, that message you left, you scared me. I thought, my God, I have to call him. [00:24:34] Speaker C: Well, and it goes. The story is great. It goes all the way back to last year when you inducted me into the hall of Fame and you were on stage and you got to present me with my award. And now we're going to do it again, you know, back to back. We'll always be hall of Fame neighbors. In the hall of Fame, our plaques will be next door to each other for all time. [00:24:57] Speaker A: I like that. I like that. And just thank you, everybody. And thank you, Tony. [00:25:03] Speaker C: That's what I told Lorraine when she got on the phone. I said, george and I will be plaque neighbors. [00:25:11] Speaker A: Well, Lorraine is my biggest. You'd called her cheerleader earlier. I. She came in. It starts simply with Lorraine. I went on a first date with her. First date. We went to a wrestling match. Who takes anybody on a first date to a wrestling match? And I asked her when your future [00:25:30] Speaker C: wife, by all means. [00:25:31] Speaker A: I asked her when we're in the car. I said, have you ever heard of the Crusher? And of course she didn't. She entered my world that first night and God blessed me with her. And we're going to have. We're coming up on 53 years together married and 54 years together. So I love her to pieces. [00:25:52] Speaker C: Well, George, thank you for helping me kick off the show this week. And congratulations, man. [00:25:57] Speaker A: I love you, man, and thank you. I appreciate you so much. And your friendship is just one of my best blessings. Thank you. [00:26:04] Speaker C: All right. All right, let's get the show rolling. My first guest today is going to be Terry Sullivan, who is also a man of historian type of nature, who was a longtime broadcaster in the Detroit territory. And happy to welcome Terry Sullivan to our show this week. Well, everybody, my next guest is my good friend from, you know, probably know him best from the Detroit territory. And that's what we're going to Talk about today. Mr. Terry Sullivan is back with us once again. It is good to see you, my friend. [00:26:39] Speaker B: Oh, it is an honor to be with the award winning. [00:26:42] Speaker C: Oh, my. [00:26:43] Speaker B: Tony Richards. I mean that seriously. My gosh, the Jim Melby Award. What an honor. [00:26:48] Speaker C: Yeah, it really was. And I'm so thankful and grateful for it. And like I was telling you before, sometimes I would just wonder if it really happened or did I dream it because it's just so surreal to be inducted into so many with so many other great people like James Beard. [00:27:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:06] Speaker C: Welch family with Jeff Jarrett and gosh, just so many people. Too many to name. [00:27:14] Speaker B: Hard work pays off, my friend. [00:27:15] Speaker C: I suppose it does. Yeah. But you're a Hall of Famer as well. You're in the IBEW hall of Fame, aren't you? [00:27:23] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I, I'm in two halls of fame, actually. The International Big Time Wrestling hall of Fame in Detroit and the Championship International Wrestling Promotion that's around Michigan and Ohio. [00:27:38] Speaker C: Oh my gosh, that's, that's great. [00:27:40] Speaker B: A couple of the best promotions nobody's ever heard of. [00:27:44] Speaker C: Oh, well, you know. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:48] Speaker C: Like I say all the time I'm for every hall of Fame there is. So. Yeah, you know, if there's, if there's a Hall of Fame out there, so many, you know, Dave Meltzer gets criticized for his observer hall of Fame. And I, I don't feel that way. I just, I'm for anybody that recognizes, you know, recognize people need recognition for their hard work, like you say. [00:28:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And with his, the fans and people in the business vote, so. [00:28:18] Speaker C: Well, you're a long time Ohio wrestling person. You grew up near Toledo, right? You still live up. [00:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm living in Toledo still and started, I think I went to my first match at the Toledo Sports arena in about 1963. [00:28:34] Speaker C: Goodness. [00:28:35] Speaker B: And yeah, kind of somebody into taking me up there and it was the, the student George Steele was in the main event and he had the, the hood on at that point and you know, he used to scare the heck out of. And there he was in live and in living color. And at that time we didn't have color tv, so I was surprised that he came out in the all bright red outfit. [00:28:57] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:28:59] Speaker B: I thought he wore all gray. [00:29:01] Speaker C: I was going to ask you, like, what those early years as a fan were like. I mean, wrestling was just so exciting and people probably don't realize now just how fertile that Ohio territory was both in the owl half days, but then also in the Jim Barnett and Johnny Doyle days and all of that. I mean, just one of the best promotions. And I still say that 1965-1975 period was the best period for territory wrestling. [00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I would agree. Definitely. It was, it was a great territory. It really was. You know, the sheep was the kingpin and the perennial United States champ. And he didn't come in all that much. He came in once every six weeks or so and. But you know, all the, all the stars that I grew up with and, you know, literally idolized on television, Bobo and Dr. Jerry Graham, Dr. Bill Miller and, you know, just all these great [00:30:05] Speaker C: stars and Terry was. Terry ended up leaving the Sheik promotion and going to work with a guy named Jack Kane. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:16] Speaker C: And starting an outlaw Promotion that really didn't do a whole lot after he talked a whole bunch of people from leaving. And we tell that whole story in our 1975 Detroit episode. You go back and check that. But I've. It's just amazing how many times Jack Kane's name has come up in the last year. Of course, I'm doing fin trying to finish up this Dory Funk senior book, and every time I get close to the end, I get a new piece of information and I'm like, oh, I got to put that in there. [00:30:48] Speaker B: Sure. [00:30:49] Speaker C: And sometimes it. You know. A couple of new things about Jack Kane have come in lately that. That I didn't know. What kind of guy was he, Terry? [00:31:00] Speaker B: I thought he was a really, really nice guy. He was. He turned out to be a bit of a con man, but I thought he was real smart, very capable. When the sheik bought the television mobile un or leased the physical unit and the equipment for it in 73, Jack learned that operation from the bottom up, and eventually they took it away from him, gave it to somebody else. And I think that may have been the cause for some of Jack's dissatisfaction with it. But, yeah, he was the sheik's booker for a number of years. He came in from Texas, I think, in 67. [00:31:42] Speaker C: Yeah. For people who don't know, Jack was Dorie Funk senior's brother in law, and he was married to Dory Funk senior. His wife's name was Dorothy, and she had a sister, and her sister was married to Jack Kane and. [00:31:58] Speaker A: Barbara. [00:31:59] Speaker C: Barbara, that's right. And Jack was Dorie senior's nemesis in Amarillo. He was the manager of Iron Mike Dibiase and several other heels. And I think when. I think after Doc Sarpolos passed away and Dory got the total ownership down there, I don't know if the sheik needed some help or what. But the sheik, of course, and Dory Funk were very close friends because the sheik had come down to Texas. He had his first big run in west Texas against Dorie Funk and Dorie Funk Jr. Actually, they had a big angle where she burned Dory Funk junior's face and put it. Put him out for a while. And that senior, of course, was father was going to get revenge. And it led to program. But anyway, so I think. I don't know what the circumstances were on the sheik's end, but he was always close to the Funks, and I think they sent Jack up here to help him, which he helped. But yeah, he did. Was a great help. To the Sheik. Then like you say, he got his feelings hurt or something. [00:33:10] Speaker B: And yeah, he was a, he was a real smooth talker. And I don't mean to put him down in that sense necessarily, but he was really good with the TV people. Yeah, of course, the chic. Is he going to go meet with TV people? I mean, he would if it was necessary, but it was. Jack was the good, was the front man and consequently a lot of the TV contracts were in Jack's name. Jack was the one who signed the contract at the end on behalf of the, the company. And when we went opposition, that was one of the carrots that he dangled in front of us all was here I've got TV in Toledo and TV in Canton and no other TVs. But hey, we. So yeah, that was, he was, he was a really, really smart guy. [00:33:58] Speaker C: I know he was one of the pallbearers at Dory Funk seniors funeral. We should also mention that his real name was Jack Thornton. [00:34:07] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:08] Speaker C: And he was the stepfather of Billy Bob Thornton. [00:34:13] Speaker B: So the story goes. [00:34:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I think when they lived maybe in Arkansas or something. I'm a little fuzzy on that part of the story. But anyway, I'm always fascinated because, you know, I don't know that many people that knew him besides you. I'm always fascinated by your, your descriptions and your stories of him. And yeah, I mean, like a lot of guys in wrestling, you know, he was smooth talker, you know. [00:34:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:34:44] Speaker C: And so you went to work for him and that television that he had thought that he was going to get and all that never really panned out. So how long. No, how long were you away from the big time wrestling promotion? [00:34:56] Speaker B: About a year. [00:34:58] Speaker C: So yeah, you come back at the end of 76 or the first of 77. [00:35:02] Speaker B: Right in the middle of 76. My first night back was the infamous June 25th meeting of Muhammad Ali and Antonio Inoki. Yeah, that's when they brought me back in. [00:35:14] Speaker C: I was going to ask you about that. So did you guys do a closed circuit on that? [00:35:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, the sheik was poor. Sheikh couldn't catch a break around that time. Everything he touched seemed to cost him more and more money. And that certainly was one of them. We had. Or he had closed circuit live matches in Toledo, which were then beamed to Canton, Cincinnati, the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Dayton, I think, had it. And so he paid rent for all these buildings. The, the crowd really didn't turn out for it. They, they anticipated just huge, huge crowds and the ability to do the live show and. And telecast, all our hottest talent views was something they were really counting on. And then it really didn't. Really didn't come off well at all. [00:36:09] Speaker C: And then they saw it. [00:36:14] Speaker B: I was sitting in the stands and the Sheik was in the hallway right next to where I was sitting. He watched it until about round three, turned around and left. [00:36:25] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I've seen so many quotes from so many. Roy shire and Leroy McGurk and Watts and so many people that tried to. You know, the NWA was really in on that. You know, they really encouraged all their members to be involved with it, you know, because it was really going to be a big deal. And so, yeah, some promotions even did. I know, down in Texas, you know, Terry Funk and Rocky Johnson did a series because Rocky Johnson had been a boxer. So they tried to follow up with the wrestler boxer thing. And, you know, a lot of people did that. And when you came back in that 1976, the crowds really. I've got numbers here that says the Cobalt hall, which had drawn anywhere from 8 to 11,000, was now down to around 43,4400 on average. [00:37:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. And, you know, that's another reason, I think the sheep. Well, obviously that was a huge drain on the Sheik. I always said the Cobo was the meat and potatoes. The rest of the towns were pretty much the side dishes, but at least that's the way they were treated by the office is all. The emphasis was on Detroit and not so much on the other towns. But, man, once the bottom really fell out with Cobalt and it kept on declining for another, what, three, four years? [00:37:53] Speaker C: Yeah. While you were gone from the promotion during that 75 period, you know, she could have had a feud with Don Kentucky, and he had also had a big feud with Mark Lewin, one of their many. [00:38:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:38:07] Speaker C: And then in July, he drops the title again, this time to Pampero Furpo. And this was third. Third time around for Furpo to have the US Title. He didn't. He dropped it more than people give him credit for. I mean, he did put on some other people. [00:38:26] Speaker B: Yeah, the people kept. You know, a lot of people were in his ear, and the Funks among them. I honestly don't know exactly what the Funks told him or anything, but I believe, from what I heard, the general consensus was that he needed to step back from the main events and give his gimmick a rest, because this was also about the time that he was starting with the short matches and the. And all of his matches were screw jobs. It was rare for him to get pinned. I mean, it did happen, but not that often. But yeah, it was, it was, it was a difficult, difficult time to be there and to see, you know, him being so essentially helpless to really turn things around, no matter what he tried. [00:39:15] Speaker C: I don't know that he was that great a worker in the ring, but I always loved the way this guy looked as a heel. I loved his facial expressions. And that was Killer Carl. Killer Carl Croup, you remember Killer? [00:39:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:39:32] Speaker C: Sure. Think of Killer Carl. [00:39:34] Speaker B: I always sort of liked him. I mean, I, I can't say that I was ever really friendly with him, but he was, I thought, always a good performer. Whether he was Baron Von Krupp or Killer Carl Krupp or whatever name he chose, or even Dutch Momberg when he first started around this, there, you know, he was, he, I always thought he was a great talent. He had a, a program, a series with Dominic Denucci which I thought was, was quite excellent at this very time that we're talking about 76 or so, but they never really utilized him all that well. [00:40:11] Speaker C: He, I thought his interviews were good. Like. Oh yeah, I liked his, like I say, I liked his facial expressions and I like, yeah, he just looked menacing. [00:40:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:22] Speaker C: Now again, his matches weren't big time, what you'd consider classics or anything like that. [00:40:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:40:30] Speaker C: But, yeah, but he could get himself over as a heel and sometimes, sometimes that's all it takes to sell a ticket, you know? [00:40:38] Speaker A: Sure. [00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:40] Speaker C: In August, August 14th at Kobo that drew 53, 90 is one of the better crowds of the year. And Fur Poe beat Abdullah, another perennial heel in the territory. And Chic and Andre the Giant match. And I've always thought this is kind of not here, but in 74 in Toronto is kind of the point where the Sheik's trouble started where he and Andre wrestled and oh yeah, he wouldn't, he wouldn't put the, wouldn't put Andre over and then. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:15] Speaker C: And in this match it was a double DQ between the Chic and Andre. [00:41:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:23] Speaker C: Was Andre still effective and drawing a crowd with the Chic at this point? [00:41:28] Speaker B: I think so, yeah. I, I definitely think so. He hadn't been in that many times, so I, I, I think it was, you know, use Haystack Calhoun as an example. He was an attraction and once every now and then, oh, wow. Yeah, people got really excited about it. But in Detroit he stayed and stayed and stayed and it was no longer that big of a deal to see Haystacks plus He lost a lot of weight as time went on and. But yeah, I believe Andre was still a draw. [00:42:02] Speaker C: I mean, people might say, glad, Tony, what do you mean, Andre couldn't sell tickets? Well, it wasn't. I'm not saying Andre couldn't sell tickets, but I'm saying the Chic versus Andre might not be as big. I mean, if it was Andre and somebody else, you might have sold more tickets, I guess is what I'm saying. Because, yeah, by this point, people did not believe that the Sheik was going to lose the match, you know? [00:42:26] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:42:27] Speaker C: And I think that was part of the problem, don't you? [00:42:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. I think in Toronto, what was it, 127 consecutive wins that the Sheik had, going over several. Going back several years. Now, here comes Andre, the great white hope, you know, and no such luck. It was the same as. And you know, all the screw job endings. I mean, for heaven's sakes, at some point you got to satisfy the people. I believe. Now maybe some will argue with me, but I believe you got to have a good result, give the people what they want to see, and then screw them again the next show, whatever. [00:43:04] Speaker C: Well, yeah, well, the people want. And I think that was part of the problem, is that you didn't see too many heels. Homestead, you know, heels usually traveled around. The baby faces were the homesteaders. They were the local hometown hero. And at some point, the heels time runs out and gets fed to the baby face and then it's time for them to go. Well, the Sheik never left. I mean, he just stayed there because it was his promotion and. [00:43:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:43:34] Speaker C: I think that if the Funks did tell him that, I think that's what they were trying to get across to him is you need to just not be on a show for a while. But yeah, but he still was because in August 14, 5390, another good crowd comes out to see. Oh, no, we just talked about that. August 28th is the next one. The Chic and Thunderbolt Patterson. [00:43:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:44:00] Speaker C: Double DQ and fur over Von Krupp. Andre was there second time for the month. And he wrestled the guy you mentioned earlier, George Steele. [00:44:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:44:14] Speaker C: They went to a double dq. Don Kent and Hank James went to a draw. And so Thunderbolt Patterson. Was this another person who had seen better days in Detroit by 76? [00:44:31] Speaker B: No, he hadn't been around since 1969. And he was a heel when he left. And, you know, it was funny. Well, it was only, you know, six, seven years later, but he came back as a face and first time the [00:44:48] Speaker C: crowd had seen him in Detroit as a face then. [00:44:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And he was so darn good on the mic. Talk about people who could talk him through the tickets, Styles or the. Whatever he just was, you know, the. The funny thing was, for some reason, there wasn't interest in signing him full time. I don't know why. I have no idea why. But the chic son Eddie Jr. Was in charge of Cincinnati at that point in time with Cincinnati used to be Jack Kane's town, so that could have be another factor with Jax leaving. But Eddie was talking about Brigham Patterson, man, and he brought him in to wrestle Brooks, Killer Brooks on the main event. And Brooks was hot as hell at that point. He was clear, clearly the number two heel. And with the Sheik not appearing on. On every single card, it was. Brooks was the one who had the super heat at that point in time. And Patterson came in a. And, man, oh, man, they beat the. You know what out of each other, and the crowd just went nuts. And before too long, here's Thunderbolt Patterson at Kobo Arena. I don't think he came in full time. I think they used him, you know, here and there, and he flew in, but, boy, he was a great new. Basically, new fresh edition to the territory, Something which generally was lacking. Somebody with such charisma who was. Who could get over so strong. And, yeah, we didn't have too many of those. So Patterson was a real breath of fresh air. [00:46:33] Speaker C: Yeah. I think he worked three or four months there, and he had been through most of the southern territories at that point, and he had gone to work for the iwa, which didn't suit some people, but the sheik never let something like that bother him, so. No, but that. But I'm glad you brought that up, because that would make him different. If he left as a heel in 69 and then came back in 76 as a face, that would be plenty of time for people to get. You know, that's the thing. And they always say, you know, how could I miss you if you won't go away? Yeah, he was away plenty, you know, seven years before coming back, so. [00:47:16] Speaker B: And I remember he came back at Kobo, and after his match, he got a chair and he sat down, and here he goes, you know, it's like, okay, go buy some popcorn because Patterson's gonna talk. [00:47:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:28] Speaker B: But, oh, my God, did he connect with that audience? He really did. [00:47:32] Speaker C: And you know what? He still can, Terry. He still can. Yeah, I was with him. He, you know, he preaches the Gospel now and he had a little service there in Waterloo last year and I went down to attend and I'd gotten to know him and the guy that was taking care of him and pushing him around in his wheelchair and such. And so he said, you come on up here and sit with me. I said okay. So I went up there and sat with them and man did he that that room of I don't know, probably 150 people maybe. But boy did he connect with them and get them asking him questions and talking to him. And he still can connect with people. [00:48:18] Speaker B: Yeah. That's great to hear. [00:48:21] Speaker C: Let's see other people in the territory by this time. Chris colt, Gary Fulton, September 18th has the sheet beating Hank James and the spoiler beat in a non title match beat Pampiro Furpo. You mentioned Jack Kane having Cincinnati. What other towns did he have? Terry? [00:48:43] Speaker B: Canton, Canton and Cincinnati. And he and the Sheik. I think co booked Cobo. But as far as I think Jack had his hands in pretty much the entire territory. But his specific towns, the one that he was making the print the, the money off of were Cincinnati and, and Canton and Cincinnati was a really, really tough town to, to draw in at that point. Tough for the, the chic anyway. But you know they, they had it up. It was good hard work right from the, the bottom up and they, they had it up to. Good Lord, what are the gardens? Cincinnati Gardens, 8,000, I'm going to say maybe nine. And he had it up to about four or five. Four or 5,000. [00:49:34] Speaker C: Well, the Barnett and Doyle that was one of their hottest markets for. Oh sure, television. And they. Angelo Poffo was a huge draw there. Yep. So what, what do you attribute. Did something happen in the Barnett chic transition to cause Cincinnati to not draw as well or what. What made it a tough draw? [00:49:58] Speaker B: You know, honestly, none of the cities except Detroit were doing all that well. They had their. You know, I heard a. Blackjack Mulligan, I heard a. I don't know if you saw him talking about the Sheik. It was online a few weeks ago and he said that none of the Sheik's towns were drawn. This would have been in 68, I think. So it wasn't anything new. But Cobo really was the only one that was, that was drawing all that well because they had all the attention on Cobo. All the big stars, the big names flew in to Detroit. Did they stay around for Toledo or, or Dayton or Cincinnati? No, they didn't. [00:50:41] Speaker C: It's interesting to study the business side of Things because you would think it wouldn't really matter when promoters change if the wrestlers are still good and the cards are still good and everything's still good. But it really does make a difference. Like when a promoter leaves and another one takes over a group of towns or a town for some reason, it doesn't always go well. And sometimes those towns never draw as good as they did under the other guy for some reason. [00:51:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean in 76 we're talking about the chic only running three of Ohio's major cities. He was not in Cleveland. Cleveland was wide open at that point in time. He wasn't in Columbus. They couldn't ever draw flies in Columbus. [00:51:37] Speaker C: Well, there you go. Haft, you know, of course that was his home base was Columbus. [00:51:44] Speaker B: Oh yeah, Drew. [00:51:45] Speaker C: Drew millions of dollars in Columbus, Ohio. [00:51:49] Speaker B: Yep. And he ran. Good Lord. He had three or four towns a night in the smaller. And not talking about big cities, talking about smaller towns where he, you know, go in a few times a year, some of them and. And when it was still a novelty and would still sell. So he was. He and Jesus. Cincinnati haft had Channel 5, WLWT and which in the program went into their. The Dayton station. That was the Crossley's own. The stations at that point in time. Later on they were Avco broadcasting. But he. Channel four in Indy, Channel two in Dayton, Channel five in Cincinnati. He had his shows, some. Some of them were live. He had a couple of shows a week. And Al Haft owned the arena in Cincinnati? Yes, the outdoor arena. [00:52:39] Speaker C: Yes. Al's half a half's half acre, wasn't it? [00:52:43] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:52:46] Speaker C: A really good friend of mine used to be on the morning show at wlw. Gary Burbank. [00:52:51] Speaker B: Oh my God. One of my all time idols. He's a good friend of yours? [00:52:55] Speaker C: He is, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. He and I got to be really good friends when I was in the broadcasting business back in the 80s. I talked to him so long about taking Earl Pitts and syndicating it and he finally did and man, it was a hit, you know, and he flew. He flew down to Kentucky and did some television commercials for me and he went into the bathroom and came out. Earl Pitts came out with the gimmick on and the face and everything and did some television commercials and yeah, just a. I mean man, just riding right. I rode around with him one Sunday and we stopped and got tacos. I remember this like it was yesterday while he was in town to do those commercials. He stayed on Saturday night and his flight wasn't until Sunday afternoon. And we went around. We got tacos and drove around. And I never laughed so hard in my life. Just sitting and listening to him just talk about. Just. We'd drive by a building or we'd drive by and see somebody on the street or something, and he would say something that was just. And of course, he started in Louisville, I think, and then went to Cincinnati after that. [00:54:10] Speaker B: But Gary Burbank, he spent some time at CKLW in Windsor. Half the world could hear. That's where I first heard him doing mornings. And then when he went to WLW in the afternoons, I would seek him out on my way home from work. Every day I had to turn on Gary Burbank. [00:54:28] Speaker C: Yeah. What a talent. [00:54:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:31] Speaker C: So he wasn't in Cleveland, he wasn't in Columbus. What was the third town he wasn't in? [00:54:37] Speaker B: Well, he never was in. In Eastern Ohio, like Youngstown and everything, but Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland, Columbus. You know, he ran some shows in Daytona and. But I don't think he had TV in Cincinnati. I think he lost his TV because I couldn't find any Cincinnati results from 1976. Not a one. But he did run there a few years later, and maybe he had a sponsor. I. I wasn't around then, so I don't know. But Columbus, he never could draw, couldn't get TV in Columbus, and he never had a whole lot of luck in a market where he didn't have tv. [00:55:20] Speaker C: Did you think at the time you should be running those towns? [00:55:25] Speaker B: My God, I didn't see why not. You know, to me, it was really simple. But maybe in reality it wasn't. You know, you spend as much time and hoopla on Columbus, in Cincinnati as you do on Detroit and Cobo Arena. Start calling these places the. The Mecca of professional wrestling. What do they know? They don't know what's that? Something. Same thing's happening in Detroit. But I mean, my goodness, why wouldn't he be in these towns? [00:55:55] Speaker C: Especially back in these days, where fans didn't know what went on from one town to the next. [00:56:01] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:56:02] Speaker C: And I would imagine Jack Kane was in seventh heaven when he first got there. I mean, after you've been around Lubbock and Odessa and El Paso and. And Hereford, Texas and all that. And now you go to a place that's got potential to be in Columbus and Cincinnati and Cleveland, and he gets. He gets Cincinnati to promote. I mean, goodness gracious, Cincinnati would be much bigger than any West Texas towns. [00:56:35] Speaker B: You know, the same thing was true of Michigan now, you don't have as many huge population centers like Detroit, but. And in 76, the sheep was running occasionally in Grand Rapids, but I mean, these used to be, when I was there in 73, 74ish, you know, these used to be regular towns. And by 76, it was just a, you know, essentially drop in every several months. And, oh, gosh, he had TV in Grand Rapids, in Lansing and Battle Creek, and it could promote all the little towns around there, but nothing was happening. He, like I say, he ran a little in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek and, And Lansing, but that was just irregularly. And I never understood that, you know, what's going on here? [00:57:22] Speaker C: Do you think that was because people were tired of the chic or were they just tired of wrestling or what was the. You think? What do you think? [00:57:31] Speaker B: Well, you know, the. They always say, you give the people what they want to see and they'll turn up. But for some reason, he wasn't, he wasn't doing that. [00:57:39] Speaker C: Was he having money issues at that point? I mean. [00:57:43] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:57:44] Speaker C: I mean. [00:57:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:57:45] Speaker C: So television in Cincinnati or Columbus, let's say. What would it have taken to get your show on in there? [00:57:53] Speaker B: Because you couldn't tell you. [00:57:55] Speaker C: You weren't paying for it at that point, were you? I mean, well, at a barter deal, pretty much. [00:58:00] Speaker B: Well, around 76 or so was about the point in time when the TV station stopped giving it away or bartering it. You know, I know the, the, some of the stations got a percentage of the gate and some of the stations got some tickets and, you know, they, they have their own. The sheik would essentially pay for an hour and give the station six minutes, eight minutes, whatever it was, to do their own thing. But it wasn't really saleable. Wrestling was not a huge. Was not the kind of thing that the sales staff could go out and sell and make money off because it had to, you know, it had the CD rep back then and there, you know, people, I think, had the idea that only hillbillies and hicks come to wrestling matches, not people who, who have money. So we're not interested in running commercials to a show that appeals to these people. [00:58:57] Speaker C: And I just think that so strange because it was so hot just 10 years before. Yeah, just. I mean, in that early to mid-60s, I mean, all of those towns were on fire. Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati. Sure, that's where the studio wrestling idea first hit with Barnett. You know, the, the ring or the television production truck broke down on the way to the arena. So they decided to do the show back at the television station. And then after doing it, they're like, you know, we. We should. This is cheaper than driving to the arena and doing it there. We don't have to have as many people. We don't have to have as much equipment. The equipment's already there at the TV station. [00:59:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:59:44] Speaker C: And it was like a flash of brilliance. And studio wrestling was born there in the late 50s, and that late 50s to the mid-60s. I mean, those towns were just. I. I don't have the figures off top of my head, but the television ratings were through the roof. They were drawn. [00:59:59] Speaker B: Yep. [01:00:00] Speaker C: But of course, Barnett was promoting down in Lexington. He had Louisville, Kentucky. He had Southern Indiana. He had a whole lot. He had Indianapolis. Of course, you had all those towns that eventually were either chic or bruiser. [01:00:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:16] Speaker C: Barnett had it all. [01:00:18] Speaker B: But, you know, one interesting thing that you can look up was Barnett tried to come into Columbus a couple of times and fell on his butt. [01:00:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:26] Speaker B: So I don't know what it is about Columbus. [01:00:28] Speaker C: I don't know either. I mean, it was so. So successful for Haft. [01:00:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:34] Speaker C: And it's just interesting how. But. But I mean, the wrestling is so. You see that all over the place. I mean, after Jerry Jarrett and Nick Goulash split, Chattanooga never drew again. Nashville never drew like it did before. After Crockett got Atlanta, after Barnett and Ole Anderson, Atlanta never drew the crowds like it did in the Omni before. [01:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:02] Speaker C: It's just interesting how when a promoter changes the town hurts, you know, And. I don't know. I wish I knew more about the specific reasons for that. I don't know if it's. Yeah, fans move. If they get ignored for a certain amount of time, they just move on. Something else gets their attention or. [01:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Who knows? [01:01:24] Speaker C: I don't know. When Kings island opened in Cincinnati, I know that was a big recreational attraction. [01:01:32] Speaker B: Yep. [01:01:33] Speaker C: For people. What night did Cincinnati typically run on, Terry? [01:01:39] Speaker B: Usually Saturdays, and usually it ran on the opposite Saturday night as Kobo. They were each. Every two weeks. When Dick the Bruiser came in opposition in Detroit in 71. Shortly after that, the Sheik started running weekly in Detroit. So, you know, that probably was a little much. But then again, you know, she had some of his. Had sellouts in 72 and 73. I think we had seven or eight consecutive sellouts. Most of those were with the Chic against Johnny Valentine. [01:02:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:20] Speaker B: My God, what a. What a. What a great wrestler and human being Johnny Valentine was. Geez. Oh, Pete believed in him. [01:02:30] Speaker C: Johnny coming in from Crockett at that point, or I think Texas, Houston. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He and Wahoo had the big program down there and then they took it to Crockett. [01:02:43] Speaker B: Ouch. [01:02:43] Speaker C: Wow. Talk about guys that beat the heck out of each other. [01:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:02:48] Speaker C: What was the Chic and Johnny Valentine match like? I mean, because it didn't go as long as a Valentine Wahoo match, I'm sure. But. [01:02:58] Speaker B: No, but they also weren't as short as the Chic against whoever else. Yeah, they, they let each other have it and it was a good, it was a great series. It definitely, I don't remember any of them being short. So I think the sheep went in and probably put in 15, 20 minutes with Valentine. And I can tell you another classic that I, I saw was Valentine against Bobo. And it was a 60 minute draw and they made an entire hour of TV out of that match. I thought that was so great because these two pros just, you know, you, you believed what they were doing. I mean, I was there going, wow. Just marking out it, those two, like I say, those two old pros who could do it like few others. [01:03:56] Speaker C: There are guys like that that you want to take the ride with them, you know. [01:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:01] Speaker C: I mean, you are smart as smart can be, but you're sitting there and you're just, it's like, you know, you're sitting there. I've used this description before. It's like sitting and watching a TV show or a movie and, and you know, it's a production, but you still are invested in it. [01:04:20] Speaker B: Sure. [01:04:21] Speaker C: You're still. James Bond is still hanging off the mountain and your palms are still sweaty. You know, you're still thinking, oh my God, he's gonna fall. And. But in the back of your mind, you know, it's a movie. It's the same way with Valentine and Bobo. You know, they are just so good at bringing you in and you want to go on the ride with them through a 60 minute match. [01:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:45] Speaker C: And for people who just think, I mean, I wouldn't want to be in the ring five minutes with Johnny Valentine. Can you imagine 60 minutes in the ring for sure. I don't know how many 60, I don't know how many 60 minute matches he and Wahoo did, but Bobo is in there for 60 minutes. I mean, that's, that's a feat there. [01:05:09] Speaker B: You got to give him a lot of credit. [01:05:10] Speaker C: I tell you, I watched a match where Bobo was a heel and it was Jack Briscoe and Bobo Brazil in Japan. And I thought Bobo Was a really effective heel, but I don't remember him ever being a heel in the United States. [01:05:25] Speaker B: No. Was that the match where he ate. Bobo ate the flowers? [01:05:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:05:30] Speaker B: Japanese. Yeah, I've seen that. That's classic. [01:05:33] Speaker C: He is an offensive heel. He was. [01:05:36] Speaker B: I don't think he ever changed. [01:05:38] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. October 2nd at Kobo Pampero. Ferpo retains over Don Jardine. The spoiler. What'd you think about Jardine? [01:05:50] Speaker B: He was another one that I was really in awe of growing up. I had read a lot about him in the magazines and I hadn't seen it. Seen him yet at that point. But when he came in, he was just so smooth and agile and looked so menacing and, you know, great interviews. And he came in, though, out of nowhere. They didn't give him really any build up. I think it had been years and years since he had been there. I don't know if he ever wrestled in Detroit with the mask. I know he did without the mask back in the early 60s, but anyway. Yeah. [01:06:32] Speaker C: 76. You don't remember if he had them. He's. Because he's billed as the spoiler here. [01:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. He had the mask then. I don't remember if he had the mask in the early 60s. He had the mask yet. [01:06:43] Speaker C: I know in Texas he didn't. He didn't. In the early 60s, he just wrestled as Don Jardine. [01:06:49] Speaker B: Huh. But you know, why wouldn't they have shown tv? Why wouldn't they have shown video on him for a few weeks before he came in? And I saw that happen over and over and over again. Even when going ahead three or four years, when the sheik brought in my Via and superstar Billy Graham and. And Nikolai Volkov. Did he show video? [01:07:13] Speaker C: No. [01:07:14] Speaker B: Same with Backland. When Backlin came in and when Backlin came in the first time, we were doing a live TV show and Backlin talked to me and he was asking how come the crowd is so crappy and everything. And well, you know, we've got the live TV show, but. And he said, you have live TVs. I would come in and work that. Nobody told me. Maybe. Maybe that was from McMahon. McMahon said, I don't want him doing TV, but he could have come and done an interview. They could have had video on him. [01:07:44] Speaker C: I just wonder if Farhat just wasn't lazy booking by that point. Point just didn't. [01:07:50] Speaker B: Or he didn't know any other way. He didn't evolve. [01:07:54] Speaker C: Yeah. And wasn't open to. I mean, I can see where he would have Been excited and open for Jack Kane to come in. And he really opened up and trusted somebody, and then look what happened. [01:08:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:08] Speaker C: I just wonder if he just got very sour on just listening to any other opinions after that. [01:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah, I can definitely see that. [01:08:20] Speaker C: Because, I mean, I know even the Funks had their ups and downs with him, you know, in those later years where Dory Jr. And Terry tried to come in and help some and he wasn't always open to it. [01:08:32] Speaker B: Right. And that's when Lewin was coming in. Lewin and Hart, they'd wrestle in Houston on Friday night and obviously catch the red eye and be in the next day for. For TV and Kobo. And who else did they bring in? They brought in somebody else from. Well, Jerry Oates came in from Texas with them at that point. [01:08:55] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, we just lost Jerry. [01:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah, I saw that. [01:09:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:09:02] Speaker B: Lost a lot of them recently. [01:09:04] Speaker C: I. It really hurt me. Jerry and I had become very, very close friends, and we talked a lot, and I. I learned so much from him. And I was just. Just what a great loss. [01:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:18] Speaker C: Tremendous, tremendous guy. And I don't remember anybody ever saying one bad thing about Jerry Oates. [01:09:27] Speaker B: Credit to him. [01:09:28] Speaker C: Do you remember Jerry's work when he came in? [01:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah, he was. He was very good. Young, Very young. Very good. And I think that some people had the idea that they should put the belt on him permanently. Not as a transitional champion, but put it on him permanently. That never happened. I think Jerry probably worked three or four shows and that was it. [01:09:52] Speaker C: Yeah. So let's see. Fur Poe retained over the spoiler. Hank James beat the Sheik by disqualification. Bobo Brazil had a draw with Don Kent. And Dominic Denucci had a draw with Tim Hampton. I don't remember Tim Hampton. [01:10:10] Speaker B: Tim was a great friend of Bobo. He was from Benton harbor and did some promoting out around that area. He worked for Bruiser. Later. They called him Traitor Tim Hampton for a while. And he was also the Reverend Tim Hampton, one of the funniest guys I've ever met in wrestling. [01:10:28] Speaker C: Really. [01:10:29] Speaker B: And he was. He was just the classic Chicken Universe Watt heel. [01:10:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:33] Speaker B: Just a great, great man. I enjoyed the heck out of him. [01:10:36] Speaker C: Now I want to go find some. See if I can find some tape on him. October 16th, the title changed with the US title. Went back to Don Kent as he defeated Pampero Furpo to win the title. It was his second run with the belt. Sheik believed in Don, didn't he? [01:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah, apparently so. [01:11:00] Speaker C: I always loved Don Kent. He was a heel down here in The Tennessee territory. I didn't see him as much because he worked more on the eastern end of the territory. He had the Mid America title, and that was defended more in the Chattanooga, Birmingham end of the territory. Over here in the Memphis, Louisville end, we had. The Southern title was the one that was primarily defended. And I didn't see Don as much as I would have liked to, but what I did see of him, I really liked him. [01:11:30] Speaker B: You know, he was a. You know, he was a great wrestler. Absolutely. A great wrestler. The interviews were decent, but, oh, what a worker he was. [01:11:39] Speaker C: He had to be for Al Costello to team up with him. Right? I mean, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Al was picky, you know, and he. He got. He only wanted to tag team. He loved to have the Kangaroos at a high level. And so, yeah, Kent to replace Heffernan. That was a tribute to Kent in the thing. Yeah, I don't remember them here. I have seen that they uncovered a television show from Louisville not long ago where George Goulis is the host and Kent. And Kent and Costello as the Kangaroos with crybaby George Cannon. [01:12:19] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah. [01:12:20] Speaker C: Are on that Louisville TV show. But I. That was right when I was becoming a fan in 72, and I don't. But I don't remember ever seeing them here. There was a boxing match. Hank James beat the Chic in a boxing match. [01:12:37] Speaker B: God. [01:12:38] Speaker C: Unbelievable. [01:12:39] Speaker B: Well, let's throw it up against the wall, see if it sticks. [01:12:41] Speaker C: I hope Chris DeMarco doesn't have footage on that. He'll be showing that. [01:12:47] Speaker B: Well, somebody had the shark cage match with that. [01:12:50] Speaker C: That was him, Chris DeMarco. He was showing that one show you and I were on. [01:12:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's right. [01:12:57] Speaker C: Bobo Brazil beat the spoiler by dq. Yeah. Go ahead, Terry. [01:13:02] Speaker B: I was going to say, some people love the shark cage match. I thought it was absolutely an atrocity. [01:13:07] Speaker C: I was not. I didn't. I didn't think it did much for anything. And I like gimmick matches, but I like them when they're used. Right. You know. [01:13:17] Speaker B: Right. [01:13:18] Speaker C: They're in the right spot for the right reason, and they make sense. [01:13:23] Speaker B: Have we done the loser eats dog food match yet with Ken? [01:13:26] Speaker C: No, not yet. [01:13:28] Speaker B: No. Okay. [01:13:31] Speaker C: You know, I was just talking about that original gimmick was done in West Texas and Bulldog, Danny Pletches did it in Lubbock, Texas, where he was the Bulldog and he. If he lost the match, he'd eat dog food. And he ate the dog food in the middle of the ring and evidently was a big hit. November and December. Don Kent holds the US Title all through the end of the year and into 1977. Bobo Brazil is still on cards. The chic, of course, Hank James, Dominic Denucci. Dominic stayed there for a while. [01:14:12] Speaker B: Yeah, he was always in and out. I think he was not necessarily full time aligned with anyone because he was working shows for New York, of course for Tunny in Toronto. The bear man, Dave McKigney. In fact in 66 is when the Sheik started working a ton of shows for the Bear Man, Big Bear promotions up throughout Ontario. [01:14:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I did not know too much about him at one point because I knew he worked in New York and he was sort of connected to Bruno and that's about all I knew about him. But when I really started studying Jim Barnett. Jim Barnett. Dominic Denucci was his major, first major champion in Australia. [01:14:57] Speaker B: That's right. [01:14:58] Speaker C: And really got over in Australia and really had a lot of success there. And I got a whole new respect for Dominic Denucci after I started. [01:15:08] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. And he was a top draw in San Francisco after Australia. But I read somewhere that Barnett gave Denucci a lot of credit for his success there. [01:15:19] Speaker C: Yeah, he was, he was iw, IW F or something like that. Champion. Some Alphabet soup. [01:15:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:29] Speaker C: The tag titles were held at various points and there's a fabulous. We were just talking about the Fabulous Kangaroos. There was a Fabulous Kangaroos tag team there for a while. It was Al Costello and Tony Charles. I didn't know they were a team. [01:15:43] Speaker B: Oh geez. You know, I forgot all about that. Tony was. He was very short lived. Yet Al had another guy, Bob Marcus who was. He and his brother Joe were Toronto natives and worked for the Tunnies mainly as enhancement mid card guys. But he brought Bob Marcus in, called him Bob Hefner. [01:16:11] Speaker D: Oh. [01:16:13] Speaker B: And so they lasted. They didn't last all that long at all. [01:16:18] Speaker C: Did you get to know Al Costello very well? [01:16:20] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah. Really well. What a tremendous gentleman. He was total old school and man, I think, I think anybody could learn, could get a master's degree in wrestling from Al Costello. I don't think he had a whole lot of patience for the, the blood and guts style and he would have preferred the more traditional mat wrestling but. But you know, geez. Or Pete. What a. What a great, A great man. I enjoyed the. The heck out of him. [01:16:53] Speaker C: I would have loved to. I would have loved to have sat down with Al Costello for a day. [01:17:00] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [01:17:00] Speaker C: You know, and just soaked it up from him. I. He had his stories I found online And I did. It was on ebay and I didn't get it. Somebody outbid me for it. [01:17:12] Speaker A: It. [01:17:12] Speaker C: And I don't really bid on that many things because I wouldn't really consider myself a collector. But there are certain things I come across that I really would like to have. And I came across this fold out of the Fabulous Kangaroos. It must have been produced like in the early six, late 50s, early 60s maybe. And it was a fold out and it had the Fabulous Kangaroos on the inside demonstrating all these wrestling holds. [01:17:42] Speaker B: Okay, sure, yeah. [01:17:43] Speaker C: Swing hold. And it would show them putting it on a guy or something. [01:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm a big fold out. [01:17:49] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:17:50] Speaker C: And I mentioned that. I mentioned that. And Corey Santos, who is. Who's a wrestling historian. [01:18:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:00] Speaker C: Supposedly there's a rumor he's working on a Jack Pfeffer book. He came to Waterloo the weekend I got the award and brought me one of those. And he said, I had one of these. And I saw that you liked it and you wanted it, and I'm never gonna. It's just laying in my apartment. And I said, yeah, I'm gonna get a big frame and I'm gonna frame that fold out with all those wrestling holes on it. I want that. You can see I got big spaces back here for post. [01:18:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:35] Speaker C: So he brought that to me and gave me that as a gift for my hall of fame. [01:18:40] Speaker B: Wow. That. How nice of him. [01:18:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it was cool. But. But my thing was that I love the Al Costello and I really wish. I am envious that you got to spend so much time around him. [01:18:52] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Never forgot it. He was one of the guys like Furpo was the same way. Get to the arena, coat and tie, old school. And I respect that because they really. Yeah, absolutely. One thing, you know, there's a couple of guys who are missing from Detroit in the Michigan, Ohio Territory in 76. That's bull and Fred Curry. [01:19:15] Speaker C: Yeah, we were sort of talking about them. [01:19:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they were sort of off doing their own thing down in southeastern Ohio. They ran. They were running Columbus with pretty much local talent. Bull was usually on top and Freddie somewhere on the card. And. But they were running a lot of the Ohio towns that the sheik never approached, like Zanesville, Chillicothe, down, like I say, in southeastern and in the middle part of Ohio. And I guess they did okay. It was old school promoting, you know, posters in the window and newspaper ads and radio station giveaways, and they did okay. [01:19:58] Speaker C: Now you're a firm believer that Bull Curry should be in the hall of Fame. Right? [01:20:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. No question about it. Every hall of Fame. I mean Bull Curry did so much in not that many places, but in enough places around the, around the country from the 30s on up. I mean, my God, for him to be such a, such a force in wrestling for that many years, I mean and to be drawing the crowds well into his 50s and beyond, jeez, that deserves recognition. [01:20:32] Speaker C: And are we just, I mean Terry, we're old, I mean we're, are we just getting to, are we just getting so far away from these guys era that it's harder and harder to get them to get the rest the. Of recognition they deserve? [01:20:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Because there's no video. [01:20:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:20:49] Speaker B: You know the, the, the folks who are coming up becoming fans, you know, if they don't see it on video and they can't look it up on YouTube or tick tock or whatever, it's irrelevant. [01:21:02] Speaker C: Talk a little bit about, but I mean talk a little bit about Fred Curry. We lost him. [01:21:06] Speaker B: Oh, Fred. [01:21:06] Speaker C: Since I. [01:21:07] Speaker B: What a fantastic worker. What a fantastic worker. You know, he and Bull, as we were talking earlier, we were just polar opposites in, in the ring. But Freddie came in young, good looking, clean cut guy, the, the, the high flyer which no one had ever seen in, in our area when he came in and he, you know, wasn't immediately in the main events but it wasn't long before and I think, I know at that point in time they used to build things up. Championship matches with the Chic and the she cat, Ernie Roth as his manager then. And Freddie would challenge the Chic and Ernie would give it in the, you are not worthy. Go out and beat somebody or beat the Chic in a non title match and then we'll talk. [01:21:56] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:21:57] Speaker B: And you know, they go from there. But Freddie was just a tremendous draw and for you know, a good 15 years, whenever you had Fred Curry on a card when I was running spot shows, if they would give me Freddie on the main event, I said thank you God. Because he was one of those who would draw the crowds and you know, always a tremendous worker and you know, the drop kicks, the flying head scissors and the way he could work the crowd, which I'm sure was a chip off the old block. And you know, I dearly loved Freddy and Bull. I just enjoyed the hell out of Bull Curry. I was just so in awe of him, you know, because he scared me to death when I, when I was a little kid and you know, here he is and here I used to drive him occasionally from somewhere to Columbus, where he was staying at the time. And, and just an amazing guy to talk to and listen, for example, how much he admired Lou Thess. You know, talk about a clash of styles, but geez, they were, they were very close and Lou was one of those guys who had the, The Bulls admiration. [01:23:08] Speaker C: Detroit territory, you know, as I think about, was just a territory that had just an amazing. No matter what year. You talk about amazing cast of wrestlers. [01:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:22] Speaker C: I mean, you don't see a Pampero Furpo today. You don't see a bull curry today. [01:23:29] Speaker B: No. [01:23:29] Speaker C: And I'm not being the old man yelling at the clouds or the get off my lawn guy, but I'm just telling you, I watch a little bit of modern wrestling from time to time, and I don't see Abdullah the Butcher, you know, I don't see a bull curry who. Yeah, they are George Steel. They just. [01:23:51] Speaker B: Right. [01:23:53] Speaker C: That wasn't a character, that was them. [01:23:56] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, Insane heels. [01:23:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And they just. That was their facial features that, you know, Bull Curry with the bushy eyebrows and the, the scowl and the. Yeah, that was just him, you know. [01:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:11] Speaker C: He didn't have to be a character. He already was a character. [01:24:15] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. But, you know, people believed then, at least to a much greater extent than they do today. I mean, I, I turn it on, somebody's gushing blood in the corner and people are. Or fans are behind them laughing, or somebody gets their head smashed into the turnbuckle and. Oh, isn't that funny? [01:24:36] Speaker C: I agree with you 100%. And I also think, though, that part of it, it's not all of it. I mean, you know, some of it is that the business has been exposed and yeah, everybody knows more than we should. [01:24:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:50] Speaker C: But I mean, believe me, professional wrestling, folks, listen, I'm telling you, professional wrestling was a lot more fun when we didn't know everything. I mean, it just. [01:25:01] Speaker B: I agree. [01:25:01] Speaker C: It really was. [01:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:03] Speaker C: But I do think that what we're talking about here is a key where I think that we have today, and I'm not criticizing the business today, I watch it. And I know for fans of today, this is their wrestling. This is the wrestling they are growing up on. So this will always be their favorite wrestling. [01:25:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:28] Speaker C: I also think, though, at the same time that you have more guys playing characters now, when back in the time we're talking about the guys that just was who they were. I mean, that was just Bull curry. That was just Pampero Furpo. That was just Bobo Brazil. That was Abdullah the Butcher. They, they didn't have to go very far away from who they were as people to that. [01:25:56] Speaker B: Right. [01:25:56] Speaker C: They were doing. [01:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, it's just good versus evil. Very simple. [01:26:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Why is this guy mad at this guy? And, and, and who's the. I was reading an article. I was doing a piece on Whipper Billy Watts in his reign as the NWA champion that year in 1956. And there was a big article in San Francisco because in September of that year there was a rematch between Watson and Thes, and they were both classic baby faces. And the whole article was, who do we boo? And that was what the guy was writing about. Three column story in the San Francisco Chronicle. We've got this, we've got this big match coming up and Whipper Billy Watson is the NWA World champion and he's facing the former champion, Lou Thes. We don't know who to boo. And isn't that really what wrestling comes down to? [01:27:00] Speaker B: Isn't. Yeah. Isn't it, though? Yeah, it really does really now. [01:27:06] Speaker A: And there was the pure choice. [01:27:07] Speaker B: Go ahead. [01:27:08] Speaker C: No, go ahead, Terry. [01:27:10] Speaker B: And there was the pure joy of watching a scientific match. And because, you know, you didn't see him that much, but occasionally there, there would be one and the people would plot, applaud politely, and it was. You just don't see that kind of thing anymore. I don't think people would take it well. [01:27:27] Speaker C: I just posted some footage. Just the last couple of days we lost Bill Dundee. And I was talking about how people always talk about Tennessee being this wild, crazy territory where we just had brawling and crazy stuff. And we did have that, but this match was Bill Dundee and a guy we just talked about, Tony Charles. And it was probably 45 minutes long and Tony Charles won with like a small package or something, but it was a complete baby face, scientific match. And the fans were just sitting there on their hands just. Oh, really, just mesmerized. I mean, they weren't jumping up and down and going crazy or anything, but they were, they were engaged in it. [01:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Gee, that's the name on the marquee. Right? [01:28:19] Speaker C: Well, I remember Eddie Graham saying that he had Billy Robinson and Tony Charles in the territory. And he said, I will put Billy Robinson and Tony Charles in the very first match on the card because that will tell people what we're all about for the rest of the card. Right. And it'll be, it'll be a wrestling match. And he said, I won't be able to put them in the main event because that's not really what Florida wrestling is all about. But we are about wrestling and we do have some amateurs here, and we do sponsor amateur wrestling and all that. So this Billy Robinson and Tony Charles is perfect for us in a particular spot on the card. [01:29:04] Speaker B: But very smart. [01:29:06] Speaker C: But it wouldn't be a main event. And I always thought that's so smart. [01:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah, very deep, but very true. Yeah, I can see that. [01:29:14] Speaker C: So you're, you have been there in the days where you're drawing 12,000 people to Kobo. [01:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And now, first time I worked Como, [01:29:21] Speaker C: and now you come back here in the middle of 76 and you're drawing four. So what are your thoughts here in 2H76? I mean, what, what were you thinking? [01:29:36] Speaker B: What's it going to take to turn it around? Is, is it possible? I mean, it still had two TV stations at that point in time. He had three hours of TV every week. But before, I think in 78, 77. Ish. 77, he lost the better of those two stations. And now he was on. And I probably talked about this before, he was. [01:30:06] Speaker C: Well, I don't remember the answer. Why did he lose it? [01:30:08] Speaker B: Okay, well, he was on a weak UHF station. And people today, generally, the younger folks, don't understand what it's like to have to get up and turn all the way up to fix your dial and tune in channel 62. And this is a Detroit station which didn't even reach the suburbs, depending on what direction their antenna faced. But not even all the people in Detroit could get that station. And I still say, well, you've got Terry Funk against Mark, Mark Lewin. You've got Harley Race coming in and you've got all these guys, but if nobody's seeing them, then there's no one. [01:30:51] Speaker C: There's no way, no way to tell people, you know. [01:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And I, I, and people argue with me and pointed any number of reasons for the decline, but I, I still believe in, in a large part, it was due to that, you know, horribly weak TV situation they had. [01:31:09] Speaker C: And Sheik was never a big newspaper guy, was, was he? [01:31:13] Speaker B: No, that was another thing. The newspaper ads were so expensive, he would run like a 1x4, maybe, I think once a week, usually on the day of the show. That was it. And, and, and the newspapers weren't giving away any, any, you know, card rundowns or, or little promotional articles at all. You paid or go away. [01:31:40] Speaker C: Did you think it could be turned around at that point? [01:31:44] Speaker B: I did. I always held out hope. Yeah, but it, you know, it was a very, very sad thing to see a man as proud as the sheik lose pretty much everything that he had. You know, he had worked so hard for his home, the mansion. They lost the mansion. He lost. Couldn't afford TV in so many of these markets, you know, and was, try as he might, he couldn't turn it around. You know, a few years up the road now into 78ish. You know, they. They would tell him, stay off the card. Stay off the card. And he would leave. And they would drop immediately drop 1500. 1500 people if he wasn't on the card. [01:32:32] Speaker D: Wow. [01:32:32] Speaker B: So what do you do? [01:32:34] Speaker C: I just recently saw a film clip of Terry Funk, and It was in 77, I think, where a fan comes up to ask a question. Is that you in the background there? [01:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's me. [01:32:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:32:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:51] Speaker C: I couldn't hardly recognize you. I wasn't sure if that was you or not. [01:32:55] Speaker B: I had my beautiful head of hair. [01:32:58] Speaker C: You had a lot of hair. You had a lot of hair and a mustache. Yeah. That draw, you had a guy with the microphone there, the announcer, but then you were standing behind there, where. Yeah, you brought. Maybe you brought the fan up there. Maybe. Did you? [01:33:13] Speaker B: I think they did, yeah. They had me. Somebody chose him, so they had me pull him out of the audience. But why would an angle like that draw? [01:33:23] Speaker C: I don't know. But I'm telling you, I was watching that clip, and knowing what I know about the business and everything else, I still. When Terry started going off on the fan, I still sat there and looked at that video and said, I'm glad I'm not that fan. [01:33:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I. I was sure he was gonna punch the guy. [01:33:44] Speaker C: Yeah, he looked like he was going [01:33:45] Speaker B: to, which is the whole Johnson. [01:33:48] Speaker C: Which is the whole magic of a. Of a Terry Font punk, you know? [01:33:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, God, was he good. Geez, just incredible. [01:33:57] Speaker C: Really was. [01:33:57] Speaker B: He came in in 76 for the [01:33:59] Speaker C: first time, had the title right toward [01:34:04] Speaker B: the end of the. No, I don't think so. [01:34:05] Speaker C: He had the title for all of 76. [01:34:08] Speaker B: Did he? [01:34:09] Speaker C: When? [01:34:09] Speaker B: He must have. He must have. [01:34:10] Speaker C: Yeah, he lost it. He won it in December 75, and he lost it in February of 77. [01:34:16] Speaker B: Okay. [01:34:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:34:18] Speaker B: Because he came in toward the end of the year in 76. Must have been. No, Dory came in with the title once. But anyway. [01:34:27] Speaker C: Yeah, that would have been in the early. And we just lost him. Yes, we just lost Dory a few weeks ago. [01:34:33] Speaker B: Yeah. How sad. Geez. Carl Von Shots also died. John Anson. [01:34:39] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Did you. Did you know John? [01:34:42] Speaker B: Absolutely. John And. And Kurt Von Hess were tag team champions, I think five or six times. And it was them against the Kangaroos against the Stomper guy, Mitchell the Stomper and Ben Justice. We had some. Just some terrific tag team encounters back at that time. [01:35:02] Speaker C: You did? I just had Paige on here not long ago. [01:35:06] Speaker B: Oh, did you? What a wonderful lady. [01:35:08] Speaker C: Yeah, she just. She just took Darla Stagg's place at the Cauliflower Alley. [01:35:13] Speaker B: Oh, good for her. [01:35:15] Speaker C: So she's the benevolent director coming up, I think maybe. [01:35:19] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [01:35:20] Speaker C: Maybe got installed at the recent reunion. But yeah, I never talked with her before and I had her on and she had some wonderful stories about Kurt Von Hess. [01:35:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Hotel life. [01:35:33] Speaker C: She's very proud to be the daughter of a He. You. [01:35:37] Speaker B: Yeah, right. I've always heard her stories about how they lived in motels and, you know, got so close because all the wrestlers, the kids and the families were together all the time. [01:35:49] Speaker C: So Carl Von Shots, John Anson. What kind of guy was John? [01:35:54] Speaker B: Great guy. He was a ton of fun. In fact, when we did that whole opposition thing, he came along with us and he was gruesome hair and was a face. He was a. He was a good face too. He wrestled the Killer Brooks, who was our number one heel, as in the opposition, and sort of helped get George Cannon and his gang started up in Ontario. [01:36:19] Speaker C: Wow. Well, Terry, it's been a great, fun time. Thank you for taking us back in time and giving us some of your memories and some of your great experiences. I always enjoy talking with you. We should talk more than we do. [01:36:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like, I think you and I could probably go on for a few more hours. [01:36:37] Speaker C: We could. Let's. So. Let's not make it so long next time. That way we, we. We can get another hour or so in and then another hour, another time and. [01:36:47] Speaker B: Yeah, got it. I appreciate you, Tony. I appreciate all the hard work you do every morning. I love. Look forward to my email so I can, you know, read you. Nobody researches like you do, and I have so much respect for that because it's so hard to find out. Find the truth. [01:37:04] Speaker C: It is, it is. And yeah, I, I have a lot of facts and data in my writing because you never know what story to believe, you know, but if you could write, you know, if you can get a few true facts and try to paint a picture for people and really what I'm trying to do is. And even in these. I mean, I wasn't around in 1956, but I enjoy seeing that world and what it was like. And then trying to communicate it to somebody else of what it was like. [01:37:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:37:38] Speaker C: And I think that's the job of a. I'm not a pure historian. I'm a combination historian, storyteller, and I gotcha. The storyteller part of me's job is to take a world and try to reconstruct the world and tell that story to somebody so that they can experience it. And I just think those days in pro wrestling are worth the work. [01:38:05] Speaker B: I agree. And you do a very laudable job at it. [01:38:09] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:38:10] Speaker B: Very enjoyable. [01:38:11] Speaker C: I appreciate you. I appreciate our relationship, man. [01:38:14] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:38:15] Speaker C: All right, come back soon. I will see you, everybody. We are continuing on with the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. We had a great kickoff to the program today with George Shire and a big congratulatory opening here to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. George will be the 21st recipient of the James C. Melby Award and be inducted in the 2027 Trago Estes hall of Fame in July of 2027 at our hall of Fame weekend there. And I'm excited. George has already asked me to be the one that inducts him. And I will be able to refer, return the favor, as they say in the business. And I will do the job for George and. And get up and say some. I won't even have to write down all the wonderful things that I can think of when I think of George Shire. He's just a tremendous fellow and I look forward to him getting his honors at the 2027 Trago says Hall of Fame weekend. And then Terry Sullivan, man, if you're not a Facebook friend of Terry Sullivan, you're missing out on some really good Detroit wrestling and Ohio wrestling history. I don't know how Terry does it. And I know people say that about me. Like, how many, how many hours in the day do you have to do this stuff? But some of his posts with so many intricate details and so much information and photos to go along with it. Terry does a magnificent job on Facebook with his wrestling nostalgia habit. He's got the sickness, as they say. And so if you're connected with Terry Sullivan on Facebook, you're a beneficiary of all that great information that he posts. And if you're not, you need to be friends with him because you need to get all that information that he posts on the Detroit territory. Well, you had some good stories today too, huh? Well, we just keep hanging wreaths here at the Richards Ranch. We're going to have to hang another wreath because we lost. Bart Batten. One half of the Batten twins tag team died just a couple of days ago on October the first at his home in Stambaugh, Kentucky. Stambaugh is on the other end of the state from me. I'm on the western horse country end of the state. And Stambaugh is on the coal mining right at the edge of the Smoky Mountains over there by Paintsville and Prestonburg. And all of those locations are all over there on that side of the state and probably 50 to 75 miles away from Stamford, Kentucky. He was 68 years old. He was born on September 8, 1958 in New Martinsville, West Virginia. And as of the time that I'm recording this for the show, we don't have a cause of death for him. Or at least it hasn't been publicly confirmed. The news was announced on the Internet, I believe by Bobby Fulton who went on and gave us the news about it. But Bart's name was Bartley Allen Batten. And of course they were the Batten twins. He was the identical twin of Brad Batten. And they were a couple of. I remember when they broke in around 1983, something like that. I was in the. I was in the. I was in the throes of building my work career and I had to work, I believe in the evenings during that time I was working an evening shift. I didn't shift to the morning show until 1984. So they broke in about 1983. So I didn't see them as at as many shows as I would have if they had broken in with ICW early on in the 80s. But they were promoted, I saw on television quite a bit. They were promoted as high flying baby faces. They were trained by Angelo Poffo and Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo. Broken into the business by the Poffo family, they did debut in 1980 there with international Championship Wrestling. And they later worked for Jim Cornette in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. And they worked some WCW enhancement spots and some independent wrestling. They I remember them also being out in central states in Kansas City. Bart married his wife Tama on March 20, 2015. He and Brad both. Both became born again Christians on the same day after they had gone separate ways for a little while. Bart and Brad were a popular territory tag team from 1983 to 2005. And even though they were from Stambaugh, they were billed quite often as being from Charleston, West Virginia. They were billed as a time as being from Kansas City because they were working out there they worked a Central State with the Midnight Rockers, Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetti and teams involving Akio Sato, who was a longtime Central States veteran, and Sheikh Abdullah the Great Continental Wrestling with Ron Fuller, Jim Crockett Promotions, Texas All Star, Southern Championship Wrestling and others. Their biggest success success came in Puerto rico with the WWC, the World Wrestling Council in the late 1980s and early 1990s where they were a top babyface act and they feuded with teams such as Hurricane Castillo Jr. And McGee Miguel Perez Jr. And they won the WWC World Tag Team Championship four times and the WWC Caribbean Tag Team Championship two times. They had championship gold and more than a dozen promotions overall. Their final match together that we know of was May 21, 2005 in Bradley, West Virginia. Teaming with Bart's son Brent to be Shane Matthews, Chris Vega and JV Insanity. Brad died of a heart attack November 18, 2014 at just 56 years old and their parents were Marjorie and Jack Batten of West Virginia. Bart's son Brent also wrestled and teamed with them on occasion and on their retirement tour. So our big condolences and wishes of prayer for peace and comfort to the family of Bart Batten, one half of the Batten Twins tag team. From all of us here, especially me, Tony Richards at the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History show, sorry to hear about that. We're losing more and more of our stars from the territory era as time goes on. And we all, you know, we're all of our. Jerry Oates told me one time, interestingly enough before he passed away, all of our numbers are going to be called at some point and we don't know when that's going to be. So we have to make the best out of life and enjoy this wonderful hobby that we call pro wrestling. Enthusiasm for the history of pro wrestling and I'm so glad that you all join me. Another thing I wanted to talk about here just before briefly, it fits a little bit in the Detroit show that we've got going here today. We've got Brian Solomon who's going to come up here in just a second. We're going to specifically talk about, you know, he wrote the Blood and Fire Chic book about the Sheik and we're going to specifically talk about the year 1976 here in a few minutes. But I posted something the other day and I can't remember if it was a photo or if it was a newspaper ad or what it was, but it was about Klondike Bill and I was contacted by not one, not Two, but several different people on a couple of different social media platforms who were shocked to learn that Klondike Bill had a career beyond being the ring guy for Jim Crockett Promotions. And of course he was seen on a lot of video background, especially with the triple cage of Doom and some of those things that he built, or the War Games cage where he built it with his skill as being a welder and a boilermaker and things of that nature. He drove the ring truck. He was one of the guys who drove the ring truck for Jim Crockett Promotions through the various towns and with recency bias and with all that being what a lot of fans know, that's what they thought he did. But before that he had an amazing career in wrestling. His name was William Soleweko. I think I'm saying that right. William Soloako. He was born December 1, 1931. He passed away October 3, 2000. He was billed as Klondike Bill, also Bill the Brute. Sometimes he was billed as the Kodiak Bear. And he was a Canadian heavyweight wrestler trained by Stu Hart in the Calgary Dungeon under the Hart House. And he was billed from Kodiak island sometimes. And he was also billed as being from Fairbanks, Alaska, hence the Klondike name, being a Gold rush prospector type type character. And he was about 6 foot tall, 350, 365 pounds. So he was a very rotund gentleman. And he worked a barrel chested, lumberjack, strongman gimmick. He had a beard, he wore jeans. Sometimes he wore, oh, overalls. His jeans were held up by a rope belt, a little bit like Jethro Bodine on the Beverly Hillbillies. You know, he used a rope for his belt and he had a finish of the Bear Hug. And the Big Splash, of course, was also a finish. He was a very reliable territory hand from the late 1950s until the mid-1970s. And then he became behind the scenes fixture for Jim Crockett Promotions, doing all kinds of work at the ballpark and like I said, hauling the ring for different things. He started out in Stampede Wrestling and other Canadian wrestling promotions and he moved throughout the NWA territories. His best years saw him working about 15 to 18 days a month. And he later said in interviews that his best year he made 30,000 to $35,000, which was solid money in the late 50s and mid-1960s, especially in Toronto. And later he worked the Mid Atlantic area and that was his steadiest territory. He also was promoted pretty good. He got a pretty good push in Florida in the mid-60s Central states in Kansas City, in Hawaii, the Amarillo Territory, as a matter of fact, in the July 29, 1965 Texas death match between Dory Funk Senior and Iron Mike DiBiase. Klondike Bill is on the opening match for that night's, that night's card. He worked Georgia, Japan, Australia, Detroit and some others. Here's some interesting things just in his career. January 18, 1962, Maple Leaf Wrestling in Toronto. He was tag team partners with the Whipper Billy Watson. And they beat Chris and John Tolos, which are very good tag team for the NWA International Tag Team Championship. And they lost those titles back to the Tolos brothers in March by a disqualification. In 1962 and 63, he was a regular in the Maple Leaf Gardens against, with or against such names as Johnny Valentine. He challenged Johnny Valentine for the title at the time and lost the match. He was also matched up with with Bulldog Brower, Sweet Daddy Siki, the Kalmakovs, the Kalmakov brothers, the Hans Hans Schmidt, Billy Red Lyons and Tony Marino. And he also worked in the Maritimes during this time 1963 and 64, he was in the WWWF and he often beat enhancement talent on the undercard, including a win over Tim woods at the Madison Square Garden card but lost to the guys who were on top of the card. Bruno Sammartino, Bobo, Brazil, Ernie Ladd, Bill Watts. One secondary source lists him as George Steele's very first match. I don't know if that's true or not. It's just kind of a side note here that I made in my research. In the mid-60s he went to Florida and this is where because I've been researching 1966 this year and Klondike Bill is a regular. In 1966 in Florida he won the NWA Southern heavyweight title. He beat Larry Hamilton, the Missouri Mauler. And he also challenged unsuccessfully for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1966 against Gene Kinisky. And that's. I was riding a tracking the world champions, I think for either July or August of 1966. And I saw that he had wrestled Kiniskey for the title in Florida. Swing for Kiniskey, January 11, 1968 in the Central States territory. He was a tag team partner with Ronnie Etchison and they won the NWA North American Tag Team Championships and beating Bob Geigel and bulldog Bob Brown. July 8, 1968, he was in Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance JPA was Skull Murphy as his tag team partner. He won the All Asian Tag Team Championships from Kentaro Oki and Yoshimura. And then one final one. August 28, 1968. Working for Ed Francis in the 50th state big time Wrestling in Honolulu. He beat King Curtis Ikea for the NWA Hawaii Heavyweight Championship in a two out of three falls match by using his feet on the ropes for a deciding pin. Getting that extra leverage and the referee didn't see it. Ed Francis then, who was the. Also the promoter of the Hawaii Wrestling cards there at that time, was also the authority figure ordered a rematch after he saw the television tape and he saw the title change in the disputed result. And he ordered Klondike Bill and King Curtis to wrestle again. Other notable opponents that he himself in interviews have singled out as toughest was Bulldog Brower and Gene Kinisky. Other frequent or highlighted names across the decades included Larry Hamilton, the Missouri Mauler, Don Leo Jonathan, various Von Strawheim, Von Hess style heels and local champions in the territories that he was working. Angles were the standard territory mix title programs, tag team combinations with established names where you bring in Klondike Bill as the special unknown partner, mystery partner with Whipper Billy Watson and Skull Murphy, Ronnie Etchison, and the occasional monster presentation where he'd be brought out. I had a picture of him. I don't know if I can share it and it will, if it will look very good or not. Let me see if I can. Let me see if I can share this photo. There's a picture of Klondike Bill and Grizzly Smith together. So you can see in Klondike's obviously just six feet tall. Grizzly Smith's like six, eight. But they would occasionally bring in Klondike Bill as the Monster because without. I mean, obviously this picture gives you a comparison shot. So he looks 6ft tall or he actually looks a little smaller than that standing next to a guy who's almost, you know, 4 inches away from being 7 foot tall. But they'd bring Klondike in for the, for the Monster presentation. The secret surprise monster who would come out of a box or something like that. That's what they would do with the Klondike Bill. He stayed active into the 70s. March in March 1971, in Georgia Championship Wrestling, he beat Crazy Luke Brown. Come on, Tony. He beat Crazy Luke Graham for the NWA National Television Championship. And he held that until October when Big Bad John took it away from him in early 1974. No, that, I'm sorry, he got. He held that television title until Big Bad John took it away from him and then in early 1974 with Luke Brown, that is a Grizzly Smith's old tag team partner. One of the Kentuckians. He won the NWA Tri State United States tag team titles. When they beat Kim Duck and Stan Kowalski. And that was in Leroy McGurk's Tulsa territory. Sources also credit him with the Mid Atlantic Tag Team Championship. Along with Nelson Royal. And a Southern heavyweight title reign in the Mid Atlantic territory. After Ted Turner's 1988 purchase of the Crockett promotion. Klondike Bill stayed on as a road agent and a ring coordinator for wcw. He handled logistics for a much larger roster. Colleagues described him as reliable and good humored. In the late 1980s, he appeared on television in the Eric Bischoff Demotion skits. Bischoff was shown setting up the ring under Klondike Bill's supervision. He was also famous for his appetite. He's credited as the only person to finish two 72 ounce steaks plus sides inside the one hour time limit at the Big Texan restaurant in amarillo in the 1960s. And I got another photo of him eating there at the Big Texan. Another story has him and Johnny Heideman that got kicked out of a buffet after eating 56 pieces of chicken. He died October 3, 2000 in Pineville, North Carolina at the age of 68. From a neuromuscular disorder described as some kind of palsy similar to Bell's palsy. That caused him the use of his tongue and left him unable to speak. David Crockett and others from the promotion stayed close to him throughout his entire illness. And it was a terrible end for a guy that I think I would have liked to be around. Klondike Bill. That was cool that he worked for Crockett. And he ended up finding a place in the wrestling business after his career was over. Obviously he was a journeyman, specialty type wrestler. Who worked middle to top of the card, carried enough of the tag team belts. He carried a couple of singles titles at the top of the card. He challenged for the NWA title a time or two. Klondike Bill had quite a career in the 1950s and 60s. And found a way to stay in the wrestling business and be helpful with his skill set of welding and putting together rings and cages and things of that nature. And repairing. You know, wrestling promotions never typically had new ring trucks. So he probably had to do a lot of work on the trucks that they had. But he just found a way to hang around and make himself useful. And that is one thing About Crockett. They were very loyal to the guys who were longtime loyal to them that they really thought could be useful in the future and gave them jobs. And then. And he even survived the merger or that the takeover of Jim Crockett Promotions by tbs. And I had a pretty successful career there until TBS got rid of the promotion in 2001, I guess. So Klondike Bill, man, he was on the COVID I, one of the things that I did with the guy who asked me, he goes, klondike Bill was a wrestler. I'm like, yeah. And he was on the COVID cover of a couple of magazines too. And I, I went and found, I think a wrestling review and a Ring Wrestling and a couple others where he's on the COVID of the, the magazine in the. In his feud is being featured there. So shout out to Klondike Bill in the Heavenly Beyonds, buddy. We're still talking about you and your contributions to pro wrestling down here. Okay, let's get on with our show today about Detroit. And let's bring in the expert on the Sheik, the original Sheik, Ed Farhat, the author of Blood and Fire, my good friend Brian Solomon here at the Richards Ranch. And we're rolling on into big Detroit, Michigan. We're talking about the territory of Detroit today. And of course we have a subject matter expert with us and a good friend of mine, Brian Solomon, who's won the Wrestling Observer Book of the Year award two different occasions. And one of those books was about our subject today, Blood and Fire, the story of the Sheik. And so I'm excited to have Brian here to talk about 1976. As most of my listeners and readers know, I write about a framework called the seven stages of the territory era. And stage six is fragmentation. And it's the 10 year period from 1976 to 1980, 1975 until 1985, where a lot of the territory system was starting to fragment, it was starting to break apart, it was starting to sputter and slow down. And I think it'll be interesting because we're in the second year of that particular phase and I think that's kind of what's happening in Detroit. And Brian's going to tell us whether or not that's true or not today. Hey, Brian, how are you? [02:02:27] Speaker D: I'm okay, how are you? It's good to be here. It's a great topic. [02:02:30] Speaker C: Yeah, you bet. And I'm so. I'll just. I just love talking wrestling with you. So it's just, I always get excited When I know we're going to visit and talk, because I know it's going to be a. It's going to be great. So thank you. So 1976, when you did the book, which is so thorough and so well researched and so well written. I know, and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, but it seemed like the arc of the Sheik and his promotion sort of hit a pinnacle in 74 and then began its descent. Now, a lot of times, and I tell my clients this all the time, you got to be careful watching your business because falling feels like flying for a little bit while, you know, I mean, in the early years, it's difficult on a downward trend to tell because you're still at a very high altitude. Right. So you think you're still doing okay. But he was really starting to experience some sputtering in 76, wasn't he? [02:03:35] Speaker D: Yeah. And it's interesting how closely, now that you mention it again, this time frame, like you said, 75 to 85, where things are starting to break down. This territory is the template for that. I mean, it is right on the money there. This is one of those places where people can always, people always talk about the WWF expansion and when they were going head to head with all these other territories and companies. But Big Time Wrestling in Detroit was one of the ones like Amarillo, like San Francisco, that was already long gone. They, they did themselves in through various reasons. [02:04:12] Speaker C: The Gulf Coast. Yeah, there were several. San Francisco, Los Angeles, you know, the. One of the things, and I'm sure we'll get to this today, but one of the things that was telling about Roy Scheier in San Francisco was the Ali Inoki thing. And so many promoters did that. And it had a local card with the Closed Circuit, and his local card didn't really draw that well. Like a lot of promoters, their local card helped the event more than the Closed Circuit drew the people. But in San Francisco, he took a bath. He didn't really draw very many people with. I think it was Pat Patterson and the great Fuji on top. Mr. Fuji on top. [02:04:54] Speaker D: So I think, yeah, that was the one. And you're right. And the same thing happened in Detroit because the. Which was unfortunate because the Sheik was directly involved. And again, this is 76, of course, like the year here we're talking about. Yeah, the Sheik was involved in the promotion. He was. He had been assigned to be, quote, unquote, Ali's trainer, of all people. Ali's trainer for the match with Anoki. So he was visible. There's a press conference. I don't think there's footage of it. There was a press conference with Ali and the Sheik was there and things like that. And yet they showed it at, in Detroit at the Olympia Stadium and did not do well. [02:05:35] Speaker C: Now let me ask you this. Did the Ali do the press conference specifically for the Chic or was it just a press conference that Sheik attended? [02:05:43] Speaker D: It wasn't for the chic. The Sheik was there. It was really, it was about the match and it was kind of like they, they would do some publicity where Blassie would be there because the WWF had sent Blassie to be the guy and the Sheik was, was hooked in, [02:05:55] Speaker C: in that way would be involved. [02:05:58] Speaker D: Yes, that's right. [02:05:59] Speaker C: Different people. Dick the Bruiser. [02:06:01] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. But he was high. So he was high profile in, as a part of this and it just didn't do that well. 76 is really the year where I agree with you. The, the downturn starts hindsight being 20 20. You can see it in 75 for sure. But 76 is the first year where it's significant. And part of that is because the, the war with Dick the Bruiser and the WWA was over. So like you said, what the, the year that they seem to be at their peak is 74, I guess, or 73. [02:06:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I think somewhere around in there. [02:06:44] Speaker D: And that is because they are going head to head. I mean, it's a crazy war. Olympia and Cobo would have shows on the same night sometimes, if you could imagine, you know, where you'd have 20 some odd thousand people going to see wrestling that night in Detroit between the two. And the Sheik did very well in that, in that war. There was never a time where Bruiser had the lead in that war. Never Atlanta. [02:07:09] Speaker C: Atlanta is one of the few exceptions where the town draws okay. And draws well after a war. You know, most of the time it's. The town never draws as well as it did before. [02:07:24] Speaker D: No. And I think part of it is they didn't really know what to do afterwards. That was part of it. So they, they did the classic thing similar to what they did in Memphis with Randy Savage and Jerry Lawler, which is when the war is over, you build on that real life conflict. Right. They tried to do it and it was bruiser versus Chic. And again, it was very disappointing. I write about it in the book book because there was never a clear cut winner. Neither guy would consent to put the other guy over. And it's just A series of frustrating, disappointing matches. I mean, to be honest, the person who should have done the honors was the chic in that situation, but he would not do it. And I think that just. And then after that, they had no plan. And I. I have a couple of numbers here that I just want to hit you with that illustrate it. So, like, it, like with anything with wrestling, the numbers get exaggerated with nostalgia and all this kind of thing. And Kobo arena was selling out very often during the Sheik's peak period, but they were running it bi weekly and sometimes weekly. And not all of them were sellouts, but they did very well. But the last true sellout at Kobo arena and in that building, it was about 12,500, was April of 1973. They never sold it out after that. And just to give you an idea, the average attendance in 73 for the numbers we know is 8,257, which is respectable as an average. In 76, it's 4,589. So you're talking about a building that is 2/3 empty on average. And so, I mean, that. That's pretty dramatic. [02:09:14] Speaker C: Yeah. And. And the reason I pointed to 74 was because of the Andre in Toronto thing. [02:09:19] Speaker D: Yes, but. [02:09:20] Speaker C: But it sounds like the summer of 73 was when the ark might have been. [02:09:24] Speaker D: Actually, yes. If you look at 73, it's. It's informative if you were to break the year in half, because even that average I gave for 73, 8257, that's really dragged down by. Of 73. If you look at the first half, you know, I didn't crunch those numbers, but if you looked at the first half, it would be something more in the range of about 10,000. So it's that later part of 73 where it's starting to wind down. And that war had been going on for two years at that point, and. But 76 was. 76 was where you could see there was trouble, for sure. [02:10:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And so the capacity for Kobo is like 12 and a half. [02:10:05] Speaker D: 12 and a half, yeah. [02:10:07] Speaker C: Wow. And then. Can you imagine what that was like when that's your business and you're looking out there at the crowd and you used to draw 12,500, and now you're drawing 4,300 and 4,500 and that kind of thing? You know, I could imagine his temperature was starting to get desperate, you know, at that point. And it seemed like he kept going back to a lot of the same things, trying to rejuvenate it like it seemed like the same cast of characters. [02:10:38] Speaker D: Well, then the numbers were. And the numbers were steady. So when I talk about an average, if you look at 76, it's pretty steady around that range, four or five thousand people almost every time. The biggest crowd that again, the numbers are incomplete. But the biggest figure we have from 76 is 6669. And that was a show where the Sheik wrestled twice. He wrestled Lewin on the undercard and then in the main event, he wrestled. He wrestled Brazil for the US title. So, you know, I mean, that was. And I'm sure it was advertised that way, so that's probably what helped. But even then the building's half empty. [02:11:18] Speaker C: Yeah, can you imagine? I mean, he's, he's just thinking, well, if they just see more of me, that will fix it. [02:11:24] Speaker D: You know, it was partly him. But you know, the funny thing is, is that year he moved around that US title quite a bit more than usual. And I'm looking at it now because I don't have everything committed to memory. [02:11:37] Speaker C: Well, it's a lot of the same guys that he had used before. I mean, it was Lewin, it was Don Kent, it was right. Brazil, it was right. [02:11:45] Speaker D: So. [02:11:46] Speaker C: And nothing against those guys. They're fabulous guys, but it was the same people. Same, same guys. [02:11:51] Speaker D: Yeah, it started the sheep, actually Lewin looking at it now. So. Yeah, so Lewin vacated the title in early 76 and then Brazil won a tournament and he had it for a little, for like a month. Then the sheet gets it back and then it's Furpo who had turned baby Face Pampero. Furpo comes back to the territory, then Don Kent. Yeah, by the end of the year. So, you know, these are familiar faces to the. The Detroit faithful. I mean, just to give you an idea, and this depends a lot on people having an awareness of when these wrestlers careers began and ended. But you know, some of the top stars at that time that they were using were Bobo Brazil, Don Kent, Brute Bernard, who was a dinosaur even then at that point, Dominic Denucci, people that had been around a while. Thunderbolt Patterson was one of the newer guys, but I mean, they weren't really taking a lot of chances was the problem. They were. They kept going back to the. Well, like I talk a lot about how right after this, in the late 70s, at various points they had in there Austin idol Randy Savage and Gino Hernandez as and pretty well pushed. Randy Savage was in main events against the Chic in Cobo Arena. This is kind of a forgotten Part of his career. Gino got the US title in 77. Austin Idol didn't get quite as big of a push, but he was already Austin Idol, and he was there. And this was pre Memphis, I'm pretty sure. And he just sort of, you know, that would have been a way to build your future. And instead he just kind of sent them back where they came from and just kept going back to the same people. [02:13:43] Speaker C: Meanwhile, just to give you a contrast, meanwhile, George Scott over in Mid Atlantic at this time is starting to build the Flair Steamboat thing. And they're. And they're both young, you know, exciting guys, you know, and really going toward the youth movement. And I'm thinking that is part of the reason why Cross Rocket Promotions continued to prosper was that, I mean, nothing against Johnny Valentine, and I certainly wish the plane crash wouldn't have happened, but it certainly forced George Scott to take a different route than keeping the same guys on top, you know. [02:14:22] Speaker D: Yeah, for sure. And there was. It was. It was kind of a sobering year, like you said, because they're noticing these numbers. And I talked even to fans that were. That were regular attendees back then, and the fans noticed, you know, it was alarming, you know, that people and that kind of thing. As, you know, when that starts to happen, it is like a vicious cycle because the fans start to get a sense that this is not as much fun as it used to be, and this is getting sad and it's fading, and then they come less because of that. Meanwhile, happened in Dallas. [02:14:56] Speaker C: You brought up Memphis and Tennessee. I mean, meanwhile, back here in Tennessee, we had. In 76, we had had Jerry Lawler come back to the territory as a heel. We had Tommy Rich in his first year. So Jarrett was doing the youth thing too. I mean, Lawlor had only been in the business for four or five years at that point, and he was a cool heel. You know, that was revolutionary for. For a promotion in 76. I mean, he was doing record albums and he had a hamburger stand. I mean, heels didn't do that. You know, back in those days, you didn't buy stuff from heels, right? So he was, you know, he was a super cool heel. And so I'm just pointing out that some promotions just took a completely different route than going back to the same guys. Because Bruiser was doing the same thing, you know, in the wwa, he was. He was going back to the same people until, you know, Wilbur got to the point where he just like, hey, I'm retiring to moving to Florida. Yeah, but, you know, what's interesting is, and not to get ahead of ourselves, but in 77, the chica and Bruiser have a feud and work together and draw some houses for Bruiser. I don't know how it did for the Sheik, but, or if they even did it in Detroit. But it's interesting how frenemies can, can form, you know. [02:16:14] Speaker D: Yeah. And, but again, it's more of these same guys and it's guys that have been around since the 50s. And you look at that after that year in 77, and this just goes to show you that this is a hopeless wrestling company is the sheet gets the idea. Okay. Maybe I should try to produce a new young baby face that can be the new long term hero of this company. And the person he chooses for that is his son, Eddie Farhat Jr. Captain Ed George. [02:16:51] Speaker C: Right. [02:16:51] Speaker D: And I don't even think I need to, you know, get into that, but it's a disaster. Well, there might be disastrous decision. [02:16:57] Speaker C: There might be some fans that don't know who Captain Ed George is. [02:17:01] Speaker D: Yeah, I get the sense, you know, it's interesting, I never put this together how you're saying, you know, how, how big, how hot Lawler had gotten in Memphis in 76. [02:17:09] Speaker C: Right. [02:17:10] Speaker D: You could draw some parallels to a Captain Ed George as a similar type of figure that the Sheik was trying to create. But of course it was a complete failure because Ed George is sort of this, I mean, he's not a heel, but he's this young new brash star. He's kind of presented as this, this working class hero guy who is, who is going to ascend out of that into, into greatness. But he's just not up to that task. His, his, what we know of it is, you know, his heart wasn't really in it. He didn't necessarily have the skills. He had never worked anywhere else. I, I think, you know, when I looked it up, I think maybe she could send him around very briefly to a couple of places. He just was not the guy to put in that spot. But of course, the Sheik who always really wanted to play it safe, really, that's what it comes down to. He, he picked somebody that he knew wasn't going to leave or wasn't going to hold him up for money. And, and he paid, he paid the price for that. I mean, you've got, you've got Randy Savage, Gino Hernandez, Austin idol, and you pick Captain Ed George, you know. [02:18:19] Speaker C: Yeah. So was that just Brian, was that just a, was that just a trust issue or just, you Know, I don't know, it's, it's strange the, the mentality without being there, you know, and seeing it, you know, know, knowing why, why people make the decisions that they make. [02:18:39] Speaker D: Right. I'm always so careful when you write these books. There's such a temptation to become an armchair psychologist and get inside the heads of these people. I think we've talked about this, you got to be careful, you know. And I, I have theories knowing now that what I know about his whole life and I think he was really one of those people who, he didn't, it's not that he came from poverty, he really did, didn't. His family was okay, they did okay. But he did grow up in the Depression. You know, he did come up in World War II. He came from a very large family where he had a really. And he was the last of the sons and you kind of had a fight for attention. He was a street kid. And I think part of that he never lost that sense of self preservation, survival, not trusting anyone, which he imparted on Sabu. And I think to a certain degree, to his detriment. Quite honestly, this idea that you can't trust anybody, you can't, you know, everybody's going to try to screw you over, which in wrestling is sometimes true. But I think he took it too far and he wound up sabotaging himself because he just, he would never take chances. [02:19:46] Speaker C: That was part of it speculation of course. But do you think Sabu actually thought that, that the Sheik had been a success? [02:19:56] Speaker D: Well, the Sheik was a success at a certain time, but I just think he never questioned it. And even to the very end, I don't think he ever questioned it. That the Chic imparted. The Sheik's heyday, but this whole thing of, you know, and this is why we see with Sabu's career, you know, he blew it in wcw. He, he, and he really blew it. He blew it in the WWF multiple times. And it was because he was often so stubborn and so untrusting that he would, he would, he would have a gift horse in front of it and he always had to look it in the mouth every time, you know, and, and I think a lot of that came from, came from Chic because I think it was advice. Maybe that worked in 1964, but in 1994 was not really relevant anymore. [02:20:53] Speaker C: That's, that's why I, you know, of course I have a hometown bias with the Welch's in Tennessee, but it's one of the reasons I Admire them so much because so many of these promoters, when you look at them, have really got about a 10 year run. That's, that's successful. The Chic was really successful from 1965 to 1973. 74. Somewhere around in there he was. He did really well, you know, as you said, you know, the. Well, the Welches did well from 1940 until 1970. I mean, until, until Roy got too sick to, to continue. And he had mentored Jerry Jarrett and turned, you know, that part of the promotion over to him. They had such a long run compared to. I mean, when you think about a Doc Sarpolos in Texas, he had a run from 55 till he died in 67. That's 12 years. You know, Dorie Funk Senior was from 67 to 73. That's six years. These, these runs are not these long things that we think about, you know, [02:22:01] Speaker D: and I think one of the, one of the issues that comes up a lot is wrestlers becoming promoters. [02:22:06] Speaker C: Promoters. [02:22:07] Speaker D: Right. And there had been in the earlier years that was sort of kind of controversial, especially with the promoters from the old school who had not been wrestlers. [02:22:17] Speaker C: Right. [02:22:17] Speaker D: They would, they would bemoan this to each other. I have a letter in the book that's from Much Nick to Johnny Doyle, I think, or vice versa, where they're talking about this. I think it's Much Nick because he's saying like how he's embarrassed to tell people, people that the Chic is now the promoter in Detroit. That because Johnny Doyle has left. And part of that is because of Kayfabe, obviously, and part of it is just because he's a wrestler. But I think here's, here's the problem. And this is part of my theory too. There were wrestler promoters who were great. Eddie Graham, you mentioned Carl Sapolis, a lot of these guys. Fritz Von Erich, the Welshes. [02:22:59] Speaker C: Right, right. [02:22:59] Speaker D: But when you look. And I think this might be the difference for the most part, the wrestlers who became promoters, they started out, even Jerry Jarrett as well. They started out as the assistant or sort of the understudy to other promoters. And very often some of those promoters were non wrestler promoters like a Nick Goulas or. I don't. I know Cowboy Luttrell was a wrestler. I don't know if was Ed McLemore. I know, don't. [02:23:26] Speaker C: No, he was, he started out in the popcorn stand. Right. [02:23:29] Speaker D: Well, there you go. Or Paul Bosch with Morris Siegel. Yeah, that sort of thing. [02:23:33] Speaker C: At Morris Segal was an accountant. [02:23:35] Speaker D: Right, right, right. [02:23:36] Speaker C: Or. [02:23:37] Speaker D: But, but here's the difference. The Chic did not have that. So the Chic came in cold. The Sheik had never been an assistant promoter anywhere. I think he had done a little bit of booking a little bit for Barnett and Doyle. I think I don't have it in front of me, but. But he really didn't have those chops. He had never been. He was figuring it out as he went along. He jumped at this opportunity in late 64 to buy in, to take it over and just winged it. And I think that might have been part of the problem. [02:24:10] Speaker C: But he. But he did well winging it. [02:24:13] Speaker D: He did, he did. You're right. These hot runs. So it's like 60, late 60s, early 70s, really. Truly, I said in the book, even though, you know, we can never really fully know for sure, but it's very possible that that might have been the most successful territory at that time anywhere in wrestling in terms of the. The consistent business they were doing during that little window of time. They were doing even more consistently better than then. Even the WWWF in the Northeast, which kind of had a rough late 60s, actually did better in the early 70s. But Los Angeles might have given them a run for the money because they were riding high with all the Blassie Tolo stuff and everything, but. But they really were on fire. And then it just. The bottom just fell out of it very quickly in the. [02:25:09] Speaker C: In the NBA and in basketball now. Well, not just in the NBA, in college too. But there's a. There's a term that's used with players called their bag. And it's. It's all the moves they do, right? They go to the basket with their left or they got a good handle or whatever. It's like, oh, man, that's a. He's got that in his bag, you know. Well, bookers had bags, you know, they had. They had things that they did in their bag. And the thing that made most bookers booker successful is they moved around and they used those same tricks in different territories, right? And the thing about the Sheik is he built his bag there in the 60s and he kept going back to it in the same territory, you know, and if he would have had the opportunity to. And he did do that with himself, you know, he moved around. I remember he came to Tennessee in 74, had matches with Jackie Fox, Fargo and Lawler. And those were exciting because we never saw the Sheik before, you know, and if he would have been able to move around as a booker, he probably would have done really well based on what he did in that first Run. We were just doing a mailbag on the show not long ago and Steve Giannarelli had a question from one of our listeners about George Scott. And, and I said, you know, when George Scott was at Mid Atlantic, as I mentioned earlier, he. He built the youth guys. He built Flair, Steamboat, Jay Youngblood and guys like that. And then when he went to the wwf he just did that again. You know, he just repeated a lot of the same things that he had done in Mid Atlantic. But then when he went to Atlanta in 89, he tried to do it again and it just wouldn't, you know, the time had passed him by. And so it's just timing and place and there's just so many things that go into whether or not wrestling as an entertainment venue works or not. [02:27:03] Speaker D: It's funny that you mentioned too when he went to. To work with Jerry Lawler, Jackie Fargo in Tennessee and all that, he did a lot of things. That's sort of a forgotten part of his career. He worked with Bobby Eaton when he was in the Southeast. He wrestled Bobby Eaton a very young, obviously Bobby Eaton. He worked with the Freebirds when. I don't even think they were called the Freebirds yet. When it was still just Michael Hayes and Terry Gordy. He was working with those guys not long after this. But he just couldn't or wouldn't replicate anything like that in. In his own home territory. He, like you said, he seemed to just run out of ideas. And the same thing by the way was happening in Toronto because he had been the booker there in Toronto for years. You talked about the Andre the Giant match for which was sort of like the jumping of the shark when he beat Andre the Giant by count out. And at that point people were just giving up that he would ever lose. Now 76, that relationship is also falling apart with Frank tunney because in 77 it ends and the Chic has had enough. There's a couple of. I mean Tunny's had enough. There's a couple of disastrous shows at the CNE Stadium that are just very badly booked and tons of no shows. And. And by that year then is when he starts to use Crockett talent and mainly and also drawing people from WWF awa. But you know, so it. [02:28:34] Speaker C: The. Which by the way leads to George Scott's downfall at Crockett, right? [02:28:39] Speaker D: Oh yeah. [02:28:40] Speaker C: Jim Crockett Jr. Said that George Scott cared more about Toronto than he did about the home territory. And he ended up getting rid of George Scott because of that. And of course George being a Canadian, that Makes total sense. [02:28:53] Speaker D: I want to say something, too, about 76. I don't want to leave this out because I talk about it in the book. And it's the fact that you cannot discount as well that there were personal things going on that were causing this company to falter. For example, a big one is in that year is where the Chic starts to have some issues of. Of addiction, unfortunately. And he has gallbladder surgery. That's where it starts early in the year. And a lot of fans of Detroit wrestling may remember around that time, the Chic wrestling with this gigantic bandage on his abdomen. You almost can't. You know, you can't get it out of your mind when you see it. And that just goes to show you that he was pushing himself too hard, too, too far. He was back in the ring at less than three months. And this was. There was no laparoscopic back then. When you. When you had your gallbladder out, they opened you up not to get too graphic. [02:29:53] Speaker C: And so, no, I remember my grandmother had it, and she actually kept her stones. They. [02:29:59] Speaker D: Yes, mine too. My aunt did. [02:30:00] Speaker C: They sent her stones home in a little bottle, and she kept them in the cabinet, you know, and she'd pull them out going, this is where I had my gallbladder out. [02:30:08] Speaker D: Right, right. [02:30:09] Speaker B: But. [02:30:09] Speaker D: But he had this procedure, and it was very invasive. And because, like, we see with a lot of wrestlers, unfortunately, the problem they run into with painkillers is they will have an injury or a surgery that is pretty commonplace for people to have. But the average person is not a wrestler. So the average person, let's say you have neck surgery or you have. You know, you're not. Not taking shots to the head with chairs. You're not working in the ring every night. So when they do that, they need to start getting into heavy painkillers in order to work. And so that's kind of where it started, where he. He sort of developed what today we would call an opioid addiction, you know, from those painkillers leading to other things. And so the. The reason that I mentioned this is this is the man in charge of the whole operation. So. So as you can imagine, when he's in that kind of shape, things start to get compromised and bad decisions become even worse decisions. He was just not. He didn't have his eye on the ball. There were other things. There were gambling issues and other things going on, and his eye just wasn't on the ball. Look, it even. It even happened to Vince when he was going through his troubles in the 90s with court and everything, the company was falling apart because he wasn't there. Partly because he was. Wasn't there. [02:31:24] Speaker C: But you tend to get lazy and you tend to, you know, just sort of wing it and you're not really focused, and that's a terrible thing to happen to anybody. You know, I. I actually have empathy for him, you know, that. You know, that. That he became. I mean, any kind of addiction, that. That becomes the main thing in your life, you know. [02:31:47] Speaker D: Yes. [02:31:48] Speaker C: You begin to serve that thing. That's the thing you love. That's the thing you serve. That's the thing that you have to have above anything else. And. [02:31:58] Speaker D: And it's expensive. [02:31:59] Speaker C: And it's expensive. Right. [02:32:01] Speaker D: And on top of that, you also have to imagine medical treatments, medical bills piling up. These guys have no health insurance for the most part. And that's a real concern of. You could almost sense how desperate they must have been getting in those years because there's gambling debts and the. The house that they lived in, that big, famous mansion. I'm trying to think it was eventually foreclosed on, but I think that was a lot later, maybe about 1980 or so. But you can imagine those fears growing. They don't come out of nowhere, of just this entire empire that you built is falling down around you, and you're trying to do whatever you can to prop it up. Yeah. And keep it going. [02:32:47] Speaker C: You bet. What other issues were there in 76? Was that the main one, or were there other. [02:32:55] Speaker D: I think that part of it is that the chic solutions to this problem were just none of it was working. And actually, one thing he started to do, and this is also a lot of this theorizing, is he started to travel. I mean, he was always a traveling attraction. Right. It was never like a Vern Gagne who just decided, I'm going to stay here. I'm not traveling anymore, or Fritz Von Erich did that, and people like that. The sheik continued to be a national attraction, even when he had his own company. But in 76, he starts to look into leaving more than ever, or more than he has in a long time. And I think that, again, this is armchair psychology, but I think this is partly the desperate desperation in the sense where he's going, well, my company might be falling apart and declining, but I still need to make money, so I'm going to go out on the road and bank on my own name. But of course, that doesn't do any favors for the company, which you're now leaving behind at Stretches of time. So you had, you know, he's appearing at the Omni a lot around this time. He goes down to Texas. He does a whole run through Texas, which is where he meets Gino Hernandez, who he later brings in. And he meets Bruiser Brody during that time in Texas. He works the whole Dallas, Corpus Christi, that whole run. Like I said, Omni with Abdullah the Butcher. [02:34:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Gino is starting to work with Jose Lothario. [02:34:25] Speaker D: Yes. [02:34:25] Speaker C: And so he would have seen that interaction and thought that could be something that would be a solution for him. I'm sure he also. [02:34:33] Speaker D: And this shows the desperation, too, he starts working. [02:34:37] Speaker C: Which, by the way, not saying it wouldn't have worked if he would have done it properly, but Gino Hernandez versus Jose Lothario in Houston, Texas, is different than Gino Hernandez versus anybody in Detroit. Right, right. But it could have been done it right. The guy had. Was young and he had talent and could, you know, we saw what he became later. So. So obviously it could have. You know, it could have been something. [02:35:03] Speaker D: Well, it's the old story. He, Sheikh needed to step back. It couldn't have just continued to be every new guy versus the chic. You know what I mean? He needed to kind of step off the stage because there were people that could have been brought in to work with him. I mean, like I said, you had. They could have had Gino versus Randy Savage. I mean, that could have been a feud in Detroit if the Sheik was willing to step aside or. Or Gino versus Austin Idol or Austin Idol versus Randy Savage or whoever, which there was. [02:35:32] Speaker C: There was a clue to that. In August of 76. I was looking to see when the biggest part of 76 was. And the Aug. 14 show at Kobo drew 5,390, which I think was the biggest crowd of the year, which had Pampero Furpo as the US Champion against Abdullah and Sheikh and Andre under that with a double disqualification. And then your regular cast of character, Don Kent, George Steele, Dominic Denucci, the spoiler. So that. [02:36:04] Speaker D: The original spoiler. [02:36:05] Speaker C: Yes. That should have, you know, given him a clue that, hey, if I use something different on top, you know, there seems to be more people coming. [02:36:14] Speaker D: But one thing I will say, though, is there was a show that drew a little bit more than that. [02:36:18] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [02:36:19] Speaker D: What was it and was it it. It was May of 76. And this just goes to show, this is where Sheik may have been getting his reinforcement from. That was the show where the Sheik wrestled twice and he wrestled Lewin and he Wrestled Bo, which were the old standbys, you know, this was also the year where he, I don't think it was that show where he had that very well known loser leaves town match with Lewin, that is the one that makes all the rounds on every videotape and every streaming platform where he, he throws the fireball at Eddie Creatman and that whole thing, it was a little bit of that. But I was going to say before part of the desperation you can see even in Toronto, because in 76, the sheik starts to wrestle for the Bear man, Dave McKigney, which is a very awkward situation because he's the booker for Frank Tunney and. And now he's wrestling for an outlaw promotion in Ontario which had kind of a love hate relationship with the tiny organization. They were sometimes seen as not a threat, so we'll just tolerate them. They're doing all the little towns we don't go to. And sometimes they were looked at as, as competition or even though they didn't have television, but just competition for talent. So. But again, the sheiks, I think the Sheik's desperation and need for money was causing him to just make decisions like this, where this did not help his relationship with Tunney that he was working with Bear Man. I'm sure it didn't. [02:37:54] Speaker C: Yeah, we, we had situations like that down here where a Mario Galinto or somebody like that would work, you know, some little promotion that was running two or three towns and that was just a place for him to go to be off television, you know, and it was fine. They'd welcome him back later because I mean, who cares? It's just a small little promotion, you know, that's, that's working around. Even though it was an outlaw, they weren't really making a big difference, you know. [02:38:23] Speaker D: No, I want to mention too, I want to correct myself because I'm looking, I'm looking at my copious notes. Actually. The spoiler who came in at the end of, in 76 was, believe it or not, Bobby Harmon. It was not Frank Morell. It was, it was Bobby Harmon who had been in and out of that territory. In fact, that's how he and Ernie Roth had originally met. But he was brought in as the spoiler and, and something else too, I want to mention to bring up to show how so many blown opportunities there were. So the WWF had gotten on HBO, right? Starting in 1973, they were airing the Madison Square Garden cards. And I think by 76 they were less on HBO and more on the MSG Network, which was starting up at that time, Showtime, which was a competitor to hbo, which was around the same time they were looking to compete in the area of wrestling. And apparently Bob Finnegan, who was the Sheik second in command in, in the Detroit office, he was, he was the commentator and also the, you know, the right hand man of that territory. Bob Finnegan was trying to get big time wrestling on Showtime as counter programming. In other words, the HBO would have the Garden, Showtime would have Kobo Arena. And when he came to the chic with the numbers, because of course the way it works, work back then, they were going to have to pay Showtime for this, not the other way around, not the way it is today. [02:39:57] Speaker C: Right. [02:39:58] Speaker D: The sheet blew a gasket. And you know, again, short term thinking, short term thinking, we're not going to pay Showtime that that number is crazy. We're not doing this. And you have to imagine that that probably would have helped to have that kind of exposure like that on cable. [02:40:14] Speaker C: You bet. Two other things I wanted to ask you about. One is, you mentioned it, Creechman, tell us a little bit about him. [02:40:23] Speaker D: So I love Eddie Kreachman, I really do. I consider him the most underrated wrestling manager maybe ever. And I know, you know, there's other ones like Dr. Ken Ramey is a good example of that. But I think Creature even more. I mean, you never hear anything about him. And I think he was one of the most effective managers I've ever seen. So he was a guy who, he lived in Quebec and he had his own business there. I think he was like a junkie, owned a junkyard or something like that. And when, when Ernie Roth had to leave, Ernie Roth was Abdullah Farouk and he became the Grand Wizard. He had been the Sheik's manager in the late 60s, early 70s. He left in around 73 or 74 to go to the WWF and become the Grand Wizard. And when he left, the chic chose Eddie Kreachman to be his new manager because she couldn't talk. And so he had to have this new heat magnet. And he had gotten to know, the way he'd gotten to know Creatman was when he wrestled in Montreal, Kreichman was a manager there. And I think it would be one of those cases sometimes when the Sheik would travel because Farouk didn't travel with him. He would have different managers in different areas. So like Lord Alfred Hayes would manage him in Florida, Gary Hart would manage him in Texas, things like that. And so Eddie Krishman managed him at the Montreal Forum. And they started a riot, which the sheik loved. He thought, if this guy could generate this kind of heat, I want to bring him back with me. And he started working Detroit and Toronto with the Sheik. And he was the character, first of all, I think the reason he's not talked about as much is because he also didn't travel. But as you know, as, you know, Tony, the managers usually did not travel back then. It was rare. Cornet was kind of like he had. He'd become a major exception. When he started doing that with the Midnight Express, it wasn't really done. And so Krichman would just not. Was not well known outside of that Detroit, Toronto, Montreal kind of run. But he. The character he played was. So it was something I guess you couldn't really do today. But. But the way that he drew heat was partly that he was playing this very over the top Jewish caricature who happened to be managing a wrestler who was Arab. And so they were able to sort of like Saul Weingruff would do with the. Right. With the Germans, they were going for the same thing, but it was very explicit. Like you could hear Kreachman on promos talking about, you know, Palestine and the PLO and Arafat. I mean, they were very on the nose about it, but. But he was very good at what he did. I mean, an absolutely magnetic person. You couldn't take your eyes off. [02:43:11] Speaker C: Wow. I always liked the. The. It was almost like a workout warm up that he'd wear with his name on the back of it, you know, in the huge block letters, you know, I thought, man, that guy's really wanting his name out there, you know? [02:43:27] Speaker D: Yes. And his nickname was the Brain too, by the way. [02:43:30] Speaker C: That's right, yeah. [02:43:31] Speaker D: Eddie the Brain creation before Bobby Heenan was calling himself that. [02:43:36] Speaker C: That's right, yeah. Well, he's a fascinating character. So I wanted to make sure and ask about him because, like you say, I don't think he's talked about very often. So I want to. [02:43:44] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:43:45] Speaker C: The other thing is that. And this is something that Terry Sullivan's talked a lot about is that. And this probably added to the sheik's paranoia and lack of trust. You know, the Funks sent Jack Kane up to help him. And Kane ends up turning on him and leaving and starting an outlaw promotion, which I'm sure did not help the sheik's trust issues at all. But I always think about, you know, obviously Jack Kane couldn't get anything together. He couldn't get a television. He couldn't get Anything going that he sold, all the guys that he took with him that he was going to do. But if he would have. Can you imagine what would have happened if somebody would have done the opposite or would have done something different and revolutionary in that market at this time? That the Sheik was probably at his weakest. It would have been a time where somebody could have gone in there and really made a big difference. Difference, I think. [02:44:44] Speaker D: Yeah, that's true. And this happened, by the way, several times. That's one of the problems is, I think that the chic, for whatever reason, he had trouble inspiring loyalty, I think in some people that worked for him. He had a very tight inner circle. So you see, Bobby Davis starts an outlaw during this time in Columbus. And Lewin, I think Lewin might have been involved in the same one that. That Jack Kane was, but there was a third one. In fact, Dave Brzezinski himself told me that he jumped to one of the outlaws and he was just working in the office and working as a photographer. So there was a lot of that One time it happened, and this might have been the seventh one time they were laying in wait for the Sheik to go to Japan. And he went to Japan and everybody left. I mean, it was very calculated. Everybody left and he. He had to cut the tour. Actually, it was the only time he ever worked with Anoki for New Japan because he always went with Baba like a lot of those guys did. [02:45:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:45:48] Speaker D: And he went well. He did one New Japan tour. He had to cut it short to go back home. And Inoki never worked with him again after that. It was just like kind of like a burned bridge. But Jack Kane left, who was his. Who is his great booker. And I think there was a little window there. And this might have been because of the connection, but Dorie Funk came in junior and briefly booked there. That's not talked about. People always talk about him booking in Mid Atlantic and other places. Georgia, but I think. Georgia, right? [02:46:17] Speaker C: Yes, yes, but. Well, no, Florida. Florida. Florida, but. [02:46:21] Speaker D: But he did Detroit very briefly. And then the. She got Tom Ernesto. [02:46:25] Speaker C: Who. [02:46:26] Speaker D: I don't know. I mean, I guess I can't. I can only speculate. I just think he was maybe another person that was just very, very rooted in the past. And then when Rinesto. [02:46:36] Speaker C: Well, he only. His booking only worked in certain places. It's like talking about, you know, his booking worked in Georgia really well. But then when he went to Tennessee for Goulas and then later Jarrett hired him, it was awful. I mean, it just didn't it didn't [02:46:52] Speaker D: work because I think, I mean, yeah, and then the, the real, the nail in the coffin with booking was after Ernesto the chic just started having Eddie Jr. Do the booking for him. And I mean, set aside the fact that he didn't have the experience, no one respected him, he didn't have the respect of the boys. So I remember even Terry Funk told me when I was working on this that he would, he would give them finishes and he would explain, well, this is what, what we're doing with you. And they would just kind of laugh it off and do whatever they wanted. And that's chaos. You could imagine then they can't even tell coherent stories at that point. [02:47:30] Speaker C: But it does tell you about momentum in business. I mean, the fact that the Sheik didn't have his stuff together, he was distracted, he had personal issues and all that. But all of his momentum that he built in the 60s and early 70s continued to carry him forward. Even though he had challengers and opposition and people tried to go against him, none of them were successful because even though he wasn't really doing the business that he was doing before, the momentum and the brand that he built was still carrying him forward. I just think that's interesting. [02:48:04] Speaker D: Yeah, he was able to bank on his name for a while, even in some of those dark years and big [02:48:10] Speaker C: time wrestling, you know, had the brand name name too, that was able to continue on. [02:48:16] Speaker D: It isn't until the 80s that even that really kind of dries up where even his name value isn't doing anything. And part of that is he does himself no favors when he goes a little too far with the outlaw thing and he gets blacklisted by the nwa. So like then, then his, his bookings are so limited he can hardly go anywhere. And he goes into a semi retirement in the 80s where he's only taken a few bookings a year. [02:48:40] Speaker C: Basically in business, one of the most difficult things to do with any business, wrestling or whatever. What if you're going to start a business and have a business and do a business or whatever, the most difficult thing in the world is to create momentum and you get the rock rolling. And you cannot let the rock slow down or let the rock stop because it was difficult to get it going to the first time, to get it going a second time. It's almost impossible to do once you lose momentum. And that's the thing that the wrestling wars did to a lot of territories is it got the rock rolling so fast that when that was gone, it just. The Rock stopped, you know, and the towns and the promotions didn't draw as well as they did before. [02:49:27] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of what happened with Sheik, because the Bruiser thing. And by the way, the, the reason that Bruiser finally gave up was that Vern Gagne had had enough, you know, because he was kind of hooked in with the Bruiser and he really was not pleased with how long that was dragging on for. And. And he kind of wanted it to end. So he was putting pressure on Bruiser. And also the Sheik started threatening because Bruiser was running TV in the Sheik's territory, and the Sheik started threatening to do that with the. In the Bruiser and Gania's territory. So. So that's when he really said, look, you have to. You have to bring this to an end. [02:50:09] Speaker C: Well, that's where I always think if you haven't. And no, no disrespect. I mean, not everybody loves this stuff the way you and I do, or other people that we know. I mean, but, you know, you take your average fan who's just looking into this stuff, you know, the 80s are just like this golden age of, of wrestling where, you know, man, the territories were on fire. Yeah, they were on fire, but they were burning down. You know, it was. It was the apex of the comet. You know, the comet was flaming in the 80s, and you had so many of these promotions like San Francisco and Los Angeles and Detroit and Amarillo and Gulf coast that had already flamed out by the time the 80s came around. The other promotions that were left, Fritz and Watts and Crockett, they were flaming at their apex in the 80s. It wasn't. It wasn't the beginning of anything. It was the end of things. And I think it's just interesting when you go back in 10 year stretches from the 80s and you see all these great wrestling areas like Ohio and Michigan and Indianapolis and Los Angeles were so hot and they were so awesome and had such great wrestling. And then by the 80s, they were all just ruins, you know, with nothing left. [02:51:34] Speaker D: Yeah, they had ruined Detroit to the point where Even when the WWF had started to come there at the end of 83, they had trouble doing well there, even with Hogan, I think, because the first time they came there, Hogan wasn't the champion yet. And I think this is hilarious. So the. For. I know this isn't 76, but the first time they came to Detroit at the end of 73, it was right after the Iron Sheik had won the title. It was actually during the iron 83. 83. I'm sorry. [02:52:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [02:52:08] Speaker D: They came there in the last week of 83. The Iron Sheik is the champion. The Iron Chic as the world champion, is conspicuous by his absence on that Cobo arena card. He's wrestling in some high school gym somewhere on the same day. And you have to imagine that even Vince McMahon is saying, this is my first time in Kobo arena in Detroit. There's no way in hell that I am main eventing with a different chic that that is not happening. [02:52:35] Speaker C: Right. [02:52:35] Speaker D: So the Iron Sheet wasn't there, and neither was Hogan. But even when they start bringing in Hogan, it took a good year and a half before they started doing strong numbers in Detroit because it was so dead as a city. [02:52:47] Speaker C: Well, I. You know, I've often talked about Atlanta. You know, it survived the wrestling war with the Gunkle and. And all of that, and then it was real hot in the 70s. But by the time the 80s came around and Black Saturday happened, the fans in Atlanta just said, screw this. You know, I. I'm done with wrestling. Because Crockett never drew in the Omni like Georgia Championship Wrestling did. The WWF never drew there. For years after that. The. The fans were just. They were just tired of it. You know, I. I just wrote an article in my seven stages this past week where I talked about how in Atlanta, Crockett drew 3,500 people in the Omni, and they drew 12,000 people in Greensboro, and they drew 10,000 people in Philadelphia and 3,500 in the Omni. It just never. It just never drew again, you know, like that. When Goules went out of business, Birmingham and Chattanooga never drew again. I mean, Georgia tried it. Jarrett tried it. All these people. Nashville never drew like it did when Goulis Welch had it. It just. Fans, just once they've had enough, and they've just like, I'm not going to mess with this anymore. I mean, it's. It's hard to get that momentum back ever. [02:54:11] Speaker D: Right. And this is. This is happening in Detroit in this year. We're talking about 76, where, you know, this is something that I think. Think is not. Is overlooked a lot. [02:54:21] Speaker C: And. [02:54:21] Speaker D: But it happens so many times, is that fans walk away and they don't come back. [02:54:27] Speaker C: Right. [02:54:27] Speaker D: It's. It's a story that's not told. If you just look at numbers, because you. You might think, oh, it's the same people, but they're just starting to come back now. It's different people. Right? [02:54:36] Speaker C: Right. [02:54:37] Speaker D: Because people very often we saw it with WCW millions as we, we can safely say, millions of wrestlers, fans just were done with wrestling at that point when they went under and just never watched wrestling again, right? And that was that. They lost them. And that happened. That was happening with big time wrestling. They lost from 73 to 76. They lost half their audience, about half their half their loyal fans. And they by nine years later, 85, those are different people people, those are kids, those are young fans. A new generation. By 85, 86, you got some, like I said, the books and young fans who wouldn't even have remembered the heyday of the chic or even maybe the chic at all by that point. If you have a 10 year old, 11 year old kid in 1986 going to Kobo, you know, these are new people now. You know, those people left. [02:55:35] Speaker C: Let me ask you this question. And this is, you know, since we're just talking, do you think, and we talk about these things as they apply to the territory era, but now we've gone through the national expansion in the 80s and the 90s and the 2000s. Now we're in the global expansion. We're in a completely different transition like we were in the 80s where you know, one wrestling company or two are starting to run off all over the world. It's a global deal. But do these same rules apply, you think? Can these same momentum killers happen today like they did back then in a regional or local territory? [02:56:17] Speaker D: Well, it's funny because it seems like they're trying to proof themselves against these things happening, you know, and we saw it even in the 80s when the business was going down in the 90s. Sorry, when the business was going down here, WWF started focusing more on Europe and the uk. So I mean, and I think that's the same way they're thinking now. They're, they're cooling off a bit here. I mean still doing numbers now. [02:56:43] Speaker C: It's, I mean obviously there's France and there's Saudi Arabia and there's other places, but I mean it seems to be, especially where the WWE is concerned, it seems to be a real focus on Central America and Mexico. Like they really are trying to fortify themselves by being rooted there. [02:57:00] Speaker D: They're going into the Lucha Libre scene. They bought aaa, right. They've been even doing a lot of their own house shows in Mexico. Wwe, they are do in fact the only for the most part house show tours they do now are internationally. When they go to Asia or the Middle east or Europe or Mexico, South America, very. That's where they focus their live event touring, they're talking about doing more and they have been doing more premium live events outside of North America than ever, ever before by far. And yeah, I mean, they're looking at it as. [02:57:39] Speaker C: Can you sustain wrestling fans with that broad of a demographic and psychographic and culture? Or do you think eventually these things will break apart and there will be WWE specific stars and rosters and television shows for those continents and those areas, or will it continue to be across the board global? [02:58:03] Speaker D: I think that might be what they want to do with it and where they want to go with it. Because even a few years ago when they were experimenting with having a UK office and NXT UK which would have different wrestlers, and they pulled back from that. And I think the reason is, I think is that the infrastructure isn't there. It's a very challenging thing to do. If you really want to spin off like that, it's very hard to do. I mean, they had trouble doing it in Canada, you know, having their own office there. So you could imagine. But I think if they were able to figure that out, I think you would see exactly what you're describing. [02:58:38] Speaker C: Do you think that under that particular regime, which was the Vince McMahon regime, where they pulled back from the UK and all right, it was during that time, it was now they have a completely different management company that is global, that does think a little bit different or whatever. Does that have an effect on what they might do strategy wise, you think? [02:59:01] Speaker D: Yeah, because they have more resources and they have more. And they're thinking more knowledge. More knowledge and they are thinking more globally than I think even Vince was thinking. And so, you know, I don't think that's out of the question, especially if you think about it too. It would be a lot easier even for the talent themselves. If you're saying, okay, you don't really have to go to the other side of the world that much anymore because we have our own wrestlers over there now. India was a market they were heavily trying to figure out, but I think they pulled back a little from that they were trying to get into there. In fact, they had Jinder Mahal as their world champion, who was a guy that they took from enhancement level I can't even think of. And maybe you know of another example of a wrestler who without ever going to any other place or company, went from enhancement elevated all the way up to world champion within the same company without ever going anywhere else. I don't think that was ever done. And that was partly because they were so keen to get into India. But I think the problem is that one of the problems they're having internationally is I think that there is a very niche fan base in some of these countries. Like you go to Italy, for example, the amount of WWE fans in Italy, certainly there's enough of them in Turin, let's say, to fill up your arena, but maybe not much more than that, you know, so it's bad enough wrestling here has become such a. A very. It's very robust, but it's sort of like a niche market. It doesn't cross over in the same way as it used to. And I feel like that's even more so in other countries. So that would be another thing to figure out. And maybe if they had their own stars, it might help. [03:00:52] Speaker C: Well, you know, the topic always comes up among people that, you know, listen to this show and watch this show and talk about it because they're very interested in the history of the territories, and they have a deep desire for the territories to one day return. And this is one of the reasons why I think it would be very difficult for that to happen. Although I do know a couple of people who do run small wrestling operations. James Beard in Texas, Bo James in Tennessee and at Alabama. But they're running it very smartly. And television is so expensive now. The days are gone back from the territory days where you just traded it, you know, exposure time for commercial time. Now those television stations expect to be paid. And also the building insurance that you would have to pay now, you wouldn't be able to run 10 towns with 10 different buildings with the insurance cost and liability issues that you would have now in a wrestling show, I would think. I mean, those are prohibitive things that I think would keep the old school territories from coming back. I think, because we've just entered into this place where there's so many economics involved. I think it would be. It's just like trying to open up a local little hardware store in a town. You know, when there's Home Depot and Walmart and Lowe's, you know, it's just very difficult. [03:02:16] Speaker D: Part of the reason that I think it's impossible is because the structure of the whole business has changed so much. So, Right. As you know, you know very well, there's a. What you're describing are not really territories. They're independence. [03:02:30] Speaker C: They're. [03:02:31] Speaker D: They're very healthy, thriving independence. The difference, a territory you are, that is your area. No one else is there. There isn't a giant multinational corporation that's running down the street putting 20,000 people in the building. That's your building. So the territory means it's yours. It means you're on television. It means you are perceived by your fans as the major league of where they are. [03:02:59] Speaker C: Well, to your point, you can't have that today. To your point, one of the things that killed the territories was comparison. [03:03:06] Speaker D: Yes. [03:03:07] Speaker C: I mean, as long as, let's put it this way, if you have a very nice house and a very nice lawn and you're just super happy with your house and you're super happy with your lawn and everything's great, then all of a sudden somebody buys a lot next door and they build a bigger house and a nicer house and has a nicer lawn. Then all of a sudden you're looking between the two going, wait a minute, that, that, that, I like that better than I like this. And in the territory days, to your point, there wasn't the comparison. [03:03:35] Speaker D: Right. So you could train your fans, you could condition your fans. They didn't have, I mean, look, the classic example is Kansas City. I mean, even Vince used to bring it up himself sometimes. Once you, if you, if you live in Kansas City, once you have seen the WWF come to your area, why in the world, world or even on television, even more so because of the production values. Why in the world would you go back to watching Bob Geigel Central States Wrestling? [03:04:02] Speaker C: Well, even, even before that it was Georgia Championship Wrestling. [03:04:05] Speaker D: Right. [03:04:06] Speaker C: Once people got cable and they could see Atlanta, you know, that's what Terry Funk said. He goes, that's why we sold the territory. Was once my, our fans could see Tommy Rich, like we knew it was kind of over, you know, I mean, because we were familiar to everybody and those guys, we're new and you always gravitate toward the new thing, so. [03:04:25] Speaker D: Right. Yeah. [03:04:25] Speaker C: Well, Brian, thank you so much. Thank you for all this information about Detroit in 1976. You have any closing thoughts for us on the chic in, in the bicentennial year? [03:04:37] Speaker D: Well, I, it's like what I said when the book was coming out. I just think one of the biggest takeaways, I guess, from the chic and from big time wrestling is the need to avoid coasting too much on your success and not planning for the future, not having any kind of plan B and just having this magical thinking that it's just going to keep going this way forever. And so this particular year of big time wrestling is where the chickens come home to roost and where it starts to, you start to really see it form apart. So, I mean, that that's the lesson learned from, from that company in that year. [03:05:18] Speaker C: I think those kinds of things that you just take somebody that I'm really familiar with, like a Jerry Jarrett, when the Mid South Coliseum would get in the 5,000 and 4,000 range, that motivated him. Like, I got to find something else, you know, something to light this thing back up and get back to the 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 again. And that cycle kept going over and he just got to the point where by the 90s, he was burned out doing that because he had done it so many times and he had switched off with Lawlor and done all those things. But when you're the only guy and you're. It's all on you. I can see where that burnout sets in and none of your ideas work. And I think that we, we've covered that pretty thoroughly with the sheik in 76. [03:06:03] Speaker D: I do, too. [03:06:04] Speaker C: Thank you, sir. I appreciate you. [03:06:05] Speaker D: You. My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Tony. This is great. [03:06:08] Speaker C: Tell everybody about your podcast and everything. I talk about it all the time. It's my Wednesday. Listen. But tell everybody. [03:06:14] Speaker D: Well, the podcast is called Shut up and Wrestle and it is a wrestling history podcast. And I have rotating guests, so it's a different guest every week. And the topic we discuss is dependent on who that guest is. So we've talked about everything under the sun. You can imagine from. I had things where I've learned. I had guests who talked about wrestling in Argentina. You know, I. I have a guest coming up talking about in the next week or two who grew up in Italy talking about wrestling there, which I've never heard anyone talk about. Apparently it was very big in the, in the 40s, 50s and 60s. They had their own wrestling there. So, you know, you never know what you're going to find when you tune in every week to the show. It's always different. [03:06:57] Speaker C: Shut up and wrestle. [03:06:59] Speaker D: Shut up and wrestle. [03:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [03:07:00] Speaker C: Thank you, Brian. [03:07:01] Speaker D: My pleasure. [03:07:03] Speaker C: Well, I hope you have enjoyed our Detroit. I can't say it without saying it like Bob Seeger on Live Bullet. Detroit. Hey, Detroit. I can't say our Detroit territory. Review of 1976 this week on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. We started off today with our little thing with George Shire, who it has just been announced is the James C. Melby Award winner in the Trago says hall of fame 2027. He'll be going into the hall of Fame and receiving that award. Then we had our first guest, Terry Sullivan. Well, George is kind of our first guest, but he's Family. So everybody else here, though Terry Sullivan came in and we talked a little bit about the Detroit territory in 76 from the behind the scenes where he was still kind of on the outs with the Sheik until the end of the year. Then we had a little dedication to Bart Batten and who passed away recently. We talked about Klondike Bill and then we had Brian Solomon come in and discuss the Sheik, which by the way, I wanted to follow up on the. What the Sheik was doing Besides Detroit in 1976. He had that gallbladder surgery that Brian was talking about, where he was out from roughly February 16th until April 22nd. So he was out for about two months. Even then he came back with that bandage as Brian was talking about. He was still the wild man from Syria managed by Eddie Creachman, relying on the pencil, the fireball, the choking and the camel clutch. Most finishes outside his towns were DQ finishes, double disqualifications or countouts. So his whole gimmick stayed intact. Clean pins against him were rare and usually set up to return, have a return match. In early 1976, he stayed around the Detroit, Ohio loop and of course Toronto, which I wanted to get Toronto in here on this episode, but it would have been a four and five hour episode. And so but I do have Toronto ready to go with our friend Wes Maidment. And we do talk about the chic in that. So I didn't get to, didn't get to put that in this show. It would have just been a little bit too long. January and February, he was in a series with Mark Lewin in Maple Leaf Gardens. He had a Toronto, Texas death loser leaves town match. He was in tag teams with Don Kent or Ernie Ladd against Mark Lewin and Bobo Brazil. Okay, let's talk about where he went outside of Detroit. He was in Georgia Championship Wrestling where he wrestled of course in Atlanta on Friday night at the Omni once in the spring and then he was there on Thanksgiving night. This is one of the clearer outside outside Detroit runs that he had in Jim Barnett's Georgia Championship Wrestling. And this is pre satellite. They didn't go on the satellite bird until late 1976. They were on some local regional cable outlets, but they were not on the satellite distribution for the major cable outlets throughout the country until the end of 76. April 23, he had a double disqualification in Georgia with Thunderbolt Patterson. April 30, he teamed up with the Spoiler who was feuding with Dusty Rhodes at the time. They had a no contest with Dusty and Thunderbolt. May 21, Dusty and Thunderbolt defeated the Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher. And the Sheik was also in the multi man battle royal which was won by Andre the Giant. Then In Thanksgiving on November 25, 1976, Thanksgiving night, the Chic with his manager Eddie Creechman defeated the Mighty Igor by count out. The full Omni card drew about 11,300 other matches that night included Thunderbolt Patterson over Dick Slater in a countout win and the Andersons in the tag team main event. So we're not still to the point where they're doing the annual tag team tournament it in Georgia quite yet. We got Bobby Simmons coming up talking about Georgia 76 here very soon on the show. This program in Georgia was brief, bloody and of course built on non finishes or countouts. Georgia was a classic special attraction booking for the Sheik. And he also made a swing through Texas for the Dallas territory. Fritz Von Erich's big time wrestling. And so this was probably his heaviest outside concentration of the year. He worked Dallas at the Sportatorium Fort Worth at the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, formerly the north side Coliseum. And he worked in Houston in the Sam Houston Coliseum on that Dallas territory loop. He worked Corpus Christi and he had at least one San Antonio date. And this was the last three months of the year, October through December. October 4th in Fort Worth, Rocky Johnson beat him by disqualification. October 5th in Dallas. He beat El Brasserio very quickly. October 25th in Fort Worth, Chic and Moondog Maine beat Rocky Johnson and Charlie Cook. October 26th in Dallas. Rocky Johnson beat the Sheik by DQ. Tony Charles was a special referee. And I think I say this on the Dallas 76 show that we're going to have coming up really soon. Why in the world did they use a technical wrestler like Tony Charles who people know as a British technician in this? Why didn't they use Fritz as a special referee and the Bloody Wild crazy, you know, just doesn't seem to make sense to me to use Tony Charles. He should have been the, you know, the referee in the Billy Robinson and somebody match, right? November 9th in Dallas. Andre the Giant beat the sheet. November 11th, Corpus Christi, double count out with Andre. November 12th in Houston at the Sam Houston Coliseum. Rocky Johnson beat The Sheik by DQ and two out of three falls. Nov. 26 in Houston. The Sheik beat Rocky Johnson. Nov. 29 and Fort Worth, Moondog Maine beat the Sheik. Nov. 30, Dallas double disqualification with Fritz. Dec. 1 in San Antonio at the Municipal Auditorium vs Charlie Cook with Gary Hart managing The Sheik and the material that we have, the research we have on that card says it was a capacity crowd for December 1st in San Antonio. December 10th in Houston. Dori Funk Jr. Beat the Sheik by DQ in a best two out of three falls match. December 13th in Fort Worth, he had a draw with Fritz. And then December 14th in Dallas, Moondog Maine, who was the on top sometimes Baby Face, sometimes he'll beat the Sheik by disqualification. There is a West Texas date of July 23 that lists him with Super Destroyer and Harley Race on top of in Lubbock. But the Chic is a no show, so he doesn't show up for that card. July 24, he's booked in Colorado Springs to wrestle Reggie Parks, which is right there on the edge of the Funk Western States wrestling territory. And I don't know if he showed up for that or not. The Texas finishes where as you could tell, except for the Andre win, he was being protected. Foreign object, blood, manager interference and all of that other outside dates. Dave Dynasty is coming on the show to talk about the Bruisers WWA in Indianapolis. And the Sheik did wrestle some there at the end of the year and they're going to have a program in 1977. So he's got some late December dates in Indianapolis. December 11th, he beat Paul Christie and Danny Alberts. December 27th, he beat Prince Pullens. And he had a tag team win with Eddie Creechman, who was working that night against Dick the Bruiser and the announcer Sam Miniker. So there was an angle where the Sheik threw fire at Minaker, I think, who was calling matches at ringside. And then he's around various Ontario towns outside the Maple Leaf Gardens. We discuss this a little bit. When Brian was here when he's working for the bear man, Dave McKigney in Toronto, he was still a headliner at the Maple Leaf Gardens. This at this time, he hadn't been fired from that role quite yet. November 19th, Thunderbolt Patterson beat him in four minutes to win the Toronto United States title. Sometimes they kept that United States title separate from Detroit and Toronto. Well, Thunderbolt Patterson won. The Patterson won the Toronto version. She got it back on December 26th. And then other Maple Leaf Gardens opponents that year included Gene Kaninsky. There was a June 6 cage match when a tag team loss with Ox Baker. They lost to Kaninsky and Mark Lewin. And one source we have list that show is drawing around 7,000. Chris Markov and Ox Baker were also in a tag team match versus the Sheik. And somebody Business at the Gardens had already begun to soften, and we talked about that where they're eventually going to get a little bit down on the Sheik and decide that his reign as the booker of talent into Toronto at the Maple Leaf Gardens is going to come to an end soon. 1976, it was a mixed bag. You know, he was in Detroit. We talked about a lot of the things that happened in Detroit. That's a little bit of a view of some of his outside bookings that Brian and I talked about where he was starting to take bookings because maybe he needed the money. Not quite sure the Atlanta card was a good card. Of course he. The Atlanta card. He's not on that. It's a combination ensemble that would have drawn that 11,300 in Atlanta and then that capacity crowd. I'm not sure which building in San Antonio. I don't know if it was the Wrestlethon or the Municipal Auditorium or. I didn't really pay attention when I look that up. But, you know, he was a reliable, special attraction draw. I thought he might have. I thought he was in Tennessee, but maybe he didn't come back to Tennessee until later on. He was in Tennessee in 74 and 75, but maybe not 76, because he didn't. He didn't show up on my list as being in the Tennessee territory. And so 76. So, hey, it's been a. It's been a good show. We've been talking about blood and fire and. And grit and grime and crazy dirty matches. And hey, if you're like me and you, you've got a little grit and grime on you, then you need to get some of these big box soaps that are going to leave your skin feeling stripped and dry and wonderful and smelling good. You're going to love these guys. I just talked to Chastity the other day, Chastity Alcock, who is partners with her husband, Travis Alcock. And I'm going to have Chastity coming up on the show here really soon. You're going to get to hear from Chastity. You're going to get to hear her voice and hear their story at Grizzly Up Soap Company. I got more and more messages pouring in from people. I meant to print that one off, and I got one or two that I need to acknowledge here on the show. We'll try to remember to do that for you next week. These goat milk bars give you that rich, creamy lather that leaves your skin feeling soft instead of tight and not good. Right. And the Scents are out of this world. They're seriously good. And of course, you know, I have been hooked on Kentucky bourbon. I've been hooked on loaded weapon. Well, now I've been. I've had in my shower pina colada. My shower in the bathroom and the hallway. My bedroom is on the one side of the house. There's a hallway where the bathroom is. I got a really incredibly small bathroom because it's just me that lives here at the bunkhouse. If there's ever anybody else that lives here besides me, we may have to add on to the bunkhouse here and add a bathroom on. But as long as it's just me, one bathroom sufficient, it's really pretty bathroom. And then my research room is on the other side of that where I have a lot of files and filing cabinets and books and things in there with a high top table and a computer where I can go in there and have a separate room for research. But that whole area smells like the Bahamas or Jamaica with the pina colada soap scent that's coming from my shower from the Grizzly Up Soap company. Everything they have is made from the same. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly. Attitude. Bold, natural and made to last. You can swing by their shop. It's located at 200 East 9th street right here in downtown Hopkinsville. I say right here. I'm in western Kentucky. I'm probably 50 miles or 60 miles north of Hopkinsville. Hopkinsville is between here and Nashville and that's the location of their physical store, 200 East Ninth Street. And if you need to go online to order their products, which a lot of our listeners do, because you're listening to us from around the world and we haven't done a check in from all our listeners who are listening around the world, we need to do that too on a show coming up here real soon. We need to give you information on all the people that are listening to our show outside the United States. Our show is growing. I was contacted the other day by a network who would like to acquire our show for their network because of the amazing amount of downloads that our show is getting. And it would, it would be, it would be good. You would have to suffer through a couple of more commercials besides the Grizzly up one that I do and the ones on YouTube. But it would help my history practice and it would help my history work and offset some of the costs of my history work and also give us a few more resources to use here. A lot of this stuff costs money at the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. So it's nice to have a little revenue coming in. And we get that from the Grizzly Up Soap Company, who are our partners here locally. And they're a local western Kentucky business, which I like supporting. And they're just the sweetest couple and they got the sweetest little boy that Chastity is going to tell you about. I want you to hear his story as well when she comes on the show. So we're supporting a local Kentucky family, we're supporting a local Kentucky very small business and we're treating your skin right. When I just highly recommend the Grizzly Up Soap Company. Thank you all who have bought soap from them or some kind of product. I know that some, some of our listeners have bought the beard oil. Some have at least one person bought some laundry detergent the other day. People have bought soaps for their granddaughters and shipped them down to Jacksonville, Florida. And that's the great thing about the website. You can buy products and ship them anywhere that you want them to go or you can have them sent right to your house. Grizzly Up Soap Company, Western Kentucky on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. That's going to do it for this week. Thank you, everyone, everybody. Appreciate you checking out our Detroit Wrestling Episode 1976 with the Sheik and Mark Lewin and all the crazy people that were involved in that crazy, crazy, wild big time wrestling territory. Next week here on the Pro Wrestling TimeTune history show, it's our what if episode and we have a brand new segment we're going to be debuting called the what if Segment segment. It's going to be a regular segment we're going to do from time to time here on the show. But next week it's going to be an entire episode of what if. And one of the things is I'm going to have Jimmy Garvin and Magnum TA here next week to be on the show. And they had the final match of Magnum TA's career in Greenville, South Carolina, I think on October 14th, which is going to be next week when this show comes out. It's going to drop on Wednesday the 14th. And we're going to talk to them about what if that Magnum wouldn't have had the accident. Where was that program going between Jimmy Garvin and Magnum ta and what plans did they know about for Magnum and how would have it gone forward? And it's a fascinating conversation. We've already recorded it and I've listened to it a couple of times. It's a great conversation and I can't wait to share it with you here next week. Jamie Ward will be joining the show here with Steve Giannarelli and I, and we have a what if scenario that we're going to run past you as well. So it's a what if episode next week right here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. Don't forget to come and subscribe at the pro wrestlingtimetunnel.com My substack, which publishes every single day a wrestling history newsletter about the territories. And you can get that for free or you can sign up for special content that I will email you four to six times a month for just $5 a month or $50 a year if you want to save $10. That's here on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Show. Thank you everybody. Appreciate you coming by and listening. Appreciate your support of our show. And don't forget, if you want better neighbors, be a better neighbor. That's it. From the Richards Ranch in Western Kentucky, I'm Tony Richards from the Bluegrass State, saying bye bye everybody. [03:25:55] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. Tune in for another great episode next week, interviewing wrestlers, referees and media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. We'll release a new episode soon. Don't you dare miss it.
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