by Brack Beasley
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor
Here we have a poster promoting a spectacular triple main event at the Greensboro Coliseum dated Thursday, March 13th, 1975. The famous feud between Johnny Valentine and Wahoo McDaniel continued this night with an Indian strap match, and I'll bet the fans in Greensboro were on their feet bell to bell.
It was a matchup of masked men with The Super Destroyer vs. The Avenger, Reggie Parks himself, the legendary belt maker. Reggie's belts were handmade pieces of art that showed his great talent other than professional wrestling.
Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes faced off in a return grudge match, and three new names not so familiar to Mid-Atlantic fans at the time appear on the undercard: Blackjack Mulligan, Mr. Fuji, and Chris Taylor.
Southern Poster did a great layout on this one showing black print on a two-tone pastel blue and bright yellow background with the date and three main events in high impact red. I like how the older Greensboro posters say "War Memorial Coliseum" as opposed to the later "Greensboro Coliseum" and this one also has the familiar "Wrestling" splash in the top left corner.
One other thing that stands out here is the six images of completely contrasting individuals, a Chief, a tough guy, a big masked man, a brash young blonde, an up and coming African American star, and a bald lunatic. Something for everyone I suppose.
NO. 7 IN A SERIES
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Gateway Notes:
This was during Blackjack Mulligan's first short run in the Mid-Atlantic area before moving on to the WWWF where he and Blackjack Lanza would hold the WWWF Tag Team titles. Later that same year of 1975, though, Mulligan would be recruited by JCP booker George Scott to come back to the area to replace Johnny Valentine as the top heel in the promotion following Valentine's career ending injury in the October 1975 Wilmington plane crash. Read more about that first short stint for Mulligan in our series "Mulligan Faces the Indian Strap."
The Flair/Rhodes confrontation was one of the earliest matches between the two men who would later be involved in a feud that defined pro-wrestling in the 1980s. Flair and Rhodes met several times in Greensboro in the 1970s.
Chris Taylor was a bronze-medal winner in the 1972 Munich Olympics in wrestling, and was making a short string of appearances in the territory at this time. Check out Chris Taylor's Mid-Atlantic Cup of Coffee on the Gateway.