Thursday, July 22, 2021

Best of: Old Wrestling Posters Never Die

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Some time ago, I received an email from John Harrison, a nice fellow I met a few years back at a show in Seagrove, NC. He forwarded to me a photo of an old poster he had held onto for nearly 36 years. It looks as though it is stapled to a plywood wall, torn, tattered, ripped, weathered - - it's beautiful.

I appreciate folks who hold onto their early wrestling memories. It is what this website is all about, after all.

"Me and three buddies went to this one," John wrote me, "and we actually pulled this poster from a sign in the middle of Main Street in Biscoe, NC. I was driving, pulled up to the sign and we had to pull this poster off the wooden sign it was stapled to.  A town cop came by and turned around and pulled us over.  He thought we had hit the sign, but we told him we were taking the poster, and he laughed and sent us on our way."

John also pointed out that Biscoe is spelled incorrectly on the poster.

"We used to get a couple of shows locally each year," he concluded. "I was a Flair and Mulligan fan and I remember them coming around as well.  Good times..."

Good times indeed. I can identify with John. Some of my best wrestling memories growing up were going to wrestling shows with my buddies. And I held onto every bit of memorabilia I could get my hands on then, wether it was ticket stubs, posters, programs, you name it.

This particular poster is from January of 1979 for a card in Biscoe, NC which is a small town in Montgomery County located about halfway between Charlotte and Raleigh, just off I-73.  Back in those days, long before there was an I-73 running north-south right by town, Biscoe was a very small town like so many others where Jim Crockett Promotions ran small spot shows, often times in conjunction with a fund-raising effort by a local high school or civic organization.  This show took place just weeks after Paul Jones turned on Ricky Steamboat in the famous two-ring battle royal in Charlotte. (Paul swears it was Steamboat you really turned, but I digress...)

The fact that this poster is in such bad shape just makes it an even better story, more impressive that John hung on to it after all these years. It has no real financial value being in such rough shape. But I'm guessing it has tremendous sentimental value to John and his buddies who were with him that night at the East Montgomery Gym in Biscoe.

Originally posted July 26, 2015 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway