Stale Popcorn (Mid-Atlantic Gateway)

Watered Down Cokes

& Stale Popcorn

Little Stories Of Respect I Want To Hang On To

by Dick Bourne

Stale Popcorn

I'll be adding to this page over time.

• Thanks to Mike Mooneyham for mentioning the Mid-Atlantic Gateway and quoting from the Cokes & Popcorn stories in his 2/21/10 wrestling column.

Thanks to Jim Nelson, Paul Jones, Ole Anderson, and of course Peggy Lathan for their contributions to this page.

Welcome to the Territory

When Ole Anderson first came to the Mid-Atlantic area, "the Charlotte territory" as it was known then, he would go to the gym each day with Gene and Lars Anderson to work out. Ole was hitting the weights hard at the time. There was another fellow working out at the gym each day who Gene and Lars warned Ole about. Ole might want to stay away from this fellow, he might be a little too interested in the new arrival to the area.

One day while Ole was lifting weights, the man came over and touched Ole gently his shoulder. "My, my, aren't you big and strong!" Ole never said a word to the guy, but moved over to the other side of the gym. Gene caught Ole's eye and nodded, as if to say "this is the guy you need to look out for." So Ole tried his best to avoid him.

A few more times that week, the same man approached Ole. "My, my, you're the biggest of the Anderson brothers, aren't you? You're soooo big and strong!" Ole was ready to pound the guy, but each time Gene would convince him to just let it go.

One of the first matches Ole had in the territory was a 6-man tag team match with his partners Gene and Lars. Ole's three opponents were across the ring, one of them with his back turned and his foot on the bottom ropes. In those days, you got your start date in the territory and you were given your bookings and you might be working against guys you had never wrestled before, and some cases, being new to the territory, not even have met yet, as the good guys and bad guys didn't travel together or hang out with each other. So it was in this case, Ole wasn't familiar with all of his opponents that first night. When the bell rang, Ole started the match, and as he came to the middle of the ring, there was the friendly fellow from the gym ready to lock up with him! That man was none other than Sandy Scott.

Gene, Lars and Sandy had successfully pulled a huge rib on Ole. Over the course of his career in wrestling, and certainly in those early years in the Charlotte territory, Ole learned to have a great deal of respect for Sandy Scott as a wrestler. The Anderson Brothers had a big rivalry with Sandy and George, the Scott Brothers in the late 60s and early 70s. But on that night in the summer of 1968, Ole quickly gained a great deal of respect for Sandy as one of the best ribbers in the business.

The two remain good friends to this day, enjoying fellowship in recent years at the Gulf Coast Wrestlers Reunion in Mobile AL and the NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest events in Charlotte, and speak regularly on the phone. Ole even tried to sell Sandy a copy of his book while in Mobile; after all, Ole doesn't give anyone a book for free. But by the end of the weekend, Ole gave way to Sandy's relentless pressure and gave Sandy a book. "All these years later," Ole complained, "and the son of a gun is still ribbing me!"

Don't Mess With Brisco

Jim Nelson and I were recently lamenting the untimely death of the great Jack Brisco. Jim got his first big break in the business in early 1982 as Pvt. Jim Nelson, one of Sgt. Slaughter's two Marine recruits, right around the time that Jack and Jerry Brisco returned to the Mid-Atlantic territory. Jim told me this great little story about the respect that Jack had from the boys as one of the real tough guys in the business.

The Brisco Brothers were set to wrestle Gene and Ole Anderson in a tag team main event at the Township Auditorium in Columbia SC. Jim was on the card that night as well, and in the same locker room as the Andersons. Jack had been suffering from the stomach flu and sent word to the Andersons in their locker room via referee Sonny Fargo to go easy on him that night. Ole, sensing an opportunity to make Jack miserable (as was apparently Ole's tendency to do to everyone) just laughed and said "We'll see about that." But Gene, one of the legit toughest guys ever himself, knew better.

"Don't mess with Brisco, Ole," Gene said. "You mess with Brisco, you're on your own."

Ole, who probably really knew better, decided not to heed Gene's warning and when the match began, Ole started going after Jack pretty good. The word had gotten around, and Jim said all the boys in both locker rooms had their heads sticking out the door to watch what was about to happen.

The match got underway and Jack had soon had enough of it, and started stretching Ole - bad. Ole tried to tag in Gene, but Gene would short-arm him. "You pissed him off, you deal with him."

After the match Ole came back to the locker room all worked up. "How can a guy with arms that little make me hurt so bad?"

Who's Your Friend?

Even though I don’t watch wrestling anymore, I have a certain amount of respect for John Cena having nothing to do with him inside the ring, but rather based on something that happened a few years back at a gathering of old timers having lunch in Florida. Paul Jones related the story. It was the monthly get-together in Tampa of some of the guys who live in the area….Buddy Colt, Brian Blair, Jack Brisco among others. Paul said Jack brought a kid with him that day and Paul, who doesn't watch today's wrestling product, didn’t know who it was, although everyone else seemed to. Paul said the kid was very pleasant, but sat quietly and wasn’t saying much.

Paul finally asked Jack, “Who’s your friend?” Jack smiled, and asked, “You don’t know who this is? This is Vince’s champion,” and introduced the two. Paul said Cena stood up, extended his hand and said “Mr. Jones, it’s an honor to meet you.” He said Cena could not have been more polite, more respectful of all the guys at that table. He sat, listened, and laughed with them; never once would Paul have guessed this guy was a big deal.

That was good to hear and said a lot about Cena, at least as it regards how he looks at the business and those that came before.

Old Wrestling Makes New Friends in Line at Hardee's

My friend Peggy's father, Dick Lathan, still works part time and goes every morning to Hardee's for breakfast. One morning, he was standing in a long line waiting to place his order and was wearing the 2008 Fanfest t-shirt (with the Anderson Brothers and Thunderbolt Patterson on the front) Peggy had given him. There were two old men in line behind him and he felt fingers on his back and turned around thinking he was in their way. They told him no, they were just reading his shirt. The shirt listed on the back all the wrestlers who were part of that year's Fanfest event. The men said they were familiar with almost every name on the shirt and that they were big wrestling fans. Mr. Lathan asked them who their favorite was, and they said Ole and Gene Anderson. He turned around and showed them the front of the t-shirt with the picture of Ole and Gene and Thunderbolt and they just loved that.

They all talked for 20 minutes about wrestling. They didn't know Gene had died and they shared some memories of going to wrestling at the Greenville Auditorium and seeing the Andersons wrestle and they remembered when Ole was stabbed there leaving the ring after a match.

It's nice when things like that happen, to make connections with old fans like us who remember and have great respect for those great days and those great wrestlers.

Real Pain

Ole Anderson was in the hospital for a few days over Christmas 2009. Among other problems, he was suffering from kidney stones, and confided to the nurse at the hospital that he hadn't been in that much pain in some time.

"Have you ever felt worse pain?", she asked him. "Sure I have," he told her. "What could have possibly caused you more pain than a kidney stone?" she asked.

Ole replied -

"Danny Hodge."

The nurse didn't get the joke, but Ole felt better for setting the record straight.

Danny Hodge and Ole Anderson at the 2009

NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest in Charlotte