Longtime Mid-Atlantic Wrestling fan and current WWE referee (and the best currently in the business) Charles Robinson sent us this photo he took back in 1978 of Johnny Weaver after a bloody battle with Baron Von Raschke for the NWA Television Championship.
Also in the photo legendary NWA referee Tommy Young, holding the NWA TV title belt in his right hand. On the right looks like Ted Oates, and not sure on the left. Can you help us positively identify the wrestlers in this photo who came to Johnny's aide?
Johnny won the TV title on 3/5/78 from Baron Von Raschke in Charlotte. He lost it back to the Baron a month later, 4/3/78, in Greenville, SC.
Photograph by Charles Robinson / Mid-Atlantic Gateway
Originally published in March 2014 on the Johnny Weaver Blog, part of the Mid-Atlantic Gateway
The summer of 1981 was a crazy one for the "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. He had become distracted from regaining the United States championship that he had lost in January to Roddy Piper. The primary distraction took the form of yet another round in the ongoing family-drama with his cousins Gene and Ole Anderson. The Andersons, along with the help of Ivan Koloff, had attacked Flair inside a steel cage and left their cousin badly beaten. Flair was all about getting revenge and had even started bringing a baseball bat with him to the TV studio and the arena. He was banned from some buildings as a result of this bad behavior, and resorted to buying a ticket himself to gain entry, only to hit the ring and attack the Andersons again.
Ric's main beef appeared to be with Ole. They trash talked each other throughout most of the summer, and things were heated to say the least. Finally, the Crocketts decided that the issue between the two needed to be settled once and for all. They booked a series of matches across the territory where Ole and Ric were bound together in some way. In some towns it was an Indian strap match, with Wahoo McDaniel coaching up Ric on the tricks of the trade. In other cases it was a Russian chain match, with Ivan Koloff coaching up Ole.
On Sunday, September 6 on a big Labor Day holiday card at the Charlotte Coliseum it would be a Texas bullrope match with the unlikeliest person of all coming in to coach up Ric. The American Dream (the reigning NWA World heavyweight champion) Dusty Rhodes was there to school Ric in the strategies of the famed Texas bullrope match!
Tensions were already running high between the two. Rhodes had won the NWA title from Harley Race earlier that June, but everyone knew (especially Rhodes) that Ric Flair was gunning for his shot at that world title. They had been at odds with each other on the national cable broadcast of "Georgia Championship Wrestling." And even though they wrestled out of the same locker room in the Mid-Atlantic territory, it was a surprise - - even a bit surreal - - to see Ric Flair standing side by side with the American Dream in a promo leading up to to the match.
A day earlier, on Saturday 9/5, I had just returned to Davidson College for my junior year, and learned of this big match from a print ad in the Charlotte Observer. Not only was Ric Flair fighting Ole Anderson in a Texas bullrope match, but Dusty Rhodes was defending the NWA World championship that night against Greg Valentine! This was a huge card I didn't want to miss.
The problem was, I didn't have a car. My only other college friend who both had a car and liked wrestling wasn't back to school yet from New Jersey. I decided to beg and plead my roommate Flint to go with me and drive us to Charlotte for the big Sunday night show. He had no interest in wrestling. But rooming with me, he knew I did. And being the great guy he was, he agreed. I had to buy the tickets, refreshments, and fill that tank up with gas of course, but it was a small price to pay.
The Charlotte Coliseum was nearly old out for the show. We got there just before bell-time and were sitting way up about six rows from the top of the Coliseum.
That night, there was no doubting what the main event was. Dusty may have been there defending the NWA World tile, but the match that drew the near-sellout house was the Texas bullrope contest between Flair and Anderson. In fact, Dusty and Valentine went on before the bullrope match.
Another big match that night was part of the ongoing feud between Wahoo McDaniel and Roddy Piper where they each took a partner. Piper's hired gun was the "Madman from the Sudan" Abdullah The Butcher.
Dusty successfully defended the "ten pounds of gold," pinning Greg Valentine. Flair and Ole Anderson had a long, bloody, bullrope battle that finally resulted in Flair dragging Ole completely around the ring and touching all four corners. There was a huge pop at the Charlotte Coliseum for that.
A few weeks ago, our friend Charles Robinson sent me a photo he had taken at that show. He certainly had better seats than Flint and I did.
Charles grew up a Mid-Atlantic Wrestling fan in the 1970s and went to many shows at the Coliseum. He later followed in the footsteps of the great referees of that era like Tommy Young, Stu Schwartz, and Sonny Fargo and became a referee himself for WCW. He made the transition to WWE after they bought the Turner company, and he remains arguably the best referee in the business today.
Charles Robinson's photo taken from ringside, 1981. (Click to enlarge.)
So when I first saw the photo of Flair and Ole tied together with a bullrope, and he told me it was taken in Charlotte, I immediately knew it was from the same show I had attended, too.
That was 34 years ago today as I post this. Sunday, September 6, 1981.
It got me to thinking about this big card and big match. I mentioned earlier Ric being distracted that summer from his quest to regain the U.S. title from Piper. One of those distractions might have been his greater quest to win a bigger prize. Exactly 11 days later at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Ric defeated Dusty Rhodes for the NWA title to win his first world championship.
That didn't put an end to Ric and Ole's feud, though. Ole Anderson became Flair's top challenger for the NWA title in the Mid-Atlantic area, as well as other towns Crockett was booking like Toronto, ON and Buffalo, NY.
We've rounded up a little bit of video promoting the big bull rope match, Ric and Dusty side by side with "World Wide Wrestling" host Rich Landrum. The quality isn't the best, but it's still fun to see. You'll notice that Dusty sends a message to Ole in the promo that no matter whether he liked Ric or not, things had to be settled between Ole Anderson and Ric Flair.
Great memories of a great time in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling!
Originally published September 6, 2015 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.
Mike Cline, longtime friend of the Gateway and publisher of the terrific Mid-Atlantic Grapplin' Greats website, forwarded to us a link to an article on the WBTV-3 TV website. The article is ostensibly about a current WBTV reporter, David Whisenant (author of the article) reconnecting with Charlotte area radio broadcasting legend Larry Bruton. After not having been in contact with each other for many years, David had received a letter and a package from Bruton. The package contained a gift for David, a 1960s 16mm Bell & Howell movie camera that was used to record silent film footage of local news events that would be used on the local WBTV TV newscasts. It was a memento from Bruton's career that he wanted David to have.
The letter, however, also contained a nice little Charlotte-wrestling memory Bruton had from the 1960s that related directly to the 16mm silent film camera.
Here is an excerpt (emphasis mine) from Whisenant's article that relates to Bruton's wrestling/auto racing story involving legendary pro wrestling manager Homer O'Dell.
Manager Homer O'Dell with
Bronko Lubich and Aldo Bogni (Mid-Atlantic Grapplin' Greats website)
This type of camera has a pretty interesting history, both with WBTV, and in the world of televised sports. Larry recalled one of the first times that a TV news camera was placed inside of a race car actually running on the track at Charlotte Motor Speedway
"I shot film with this camera from a race car at speed at the Charlotte Motor Speedway that was broadcast on WBTV in 1966," Bruton wrote. "We taped Bill Ward's Championship Wrestling show on Wednesday nights for rebroadcast on Saturdays, and one of the wrestling managers was named Homer O'Dell. I think Homer was one of the first "bad guy" wrestling managers who shouted and threw chairs and such. He was best known later for the tag teams of Brute Bernard and Scull Murphy, and Rip Hawk and Swede Hansen, but in 1966 he had two nasty wrestlers named Bronko Lubich and Aldo Bogni, a couple of real knuckledraggers."
Bruton said that at the time, O'Dell realized the value of a cross promotion between wrestling and racing.
"To promote his wrestlers, he had bought a patched up 1964 Ford race car, hired a driver, and officially entered the 600," Bruton recalled. "During race week Homer came into the studio to tape the wrestling matches and began showing around pictures of the car. I asked him if I could come to the speedway the next morning and try to shoot some film from inside the car while it was on the track for practice. Homer was all for it, and they said they would rig up some kind of seat for me on the passenger side. When I got to the track, the 'seat' was an upside-down wire milk crate sitting unattached to the floorboard...no shoulder harness or seatbelt. And nobody seemed to question any of this. These are the kinds of things you do when you are young and stupid. Anyway, I locked an arm around a roll bar support to steady the camera and off we go around the track at full speed. I held the camera braced against my chest pointing it out the windshield and the side windows, and we used the film on the 6pm newscast, so I'd say WBTV scooped the network in-car cameras by about 13 years."
Bruton says the race cars actual performance on the track wasn't as exciting.
"In the big race, the car blew up after only twenty laps or so, and the Homer O'Dell Wrestling #96 Ford finished dead last," Bruton added. "I think he gave up race car ownership shortly after that an d went back to fulltime chair throwing."
(Editor note: The car didn't actually finish dead last, but it was close. The Homer O'Dell Ford finished 38th out of 44 cars. Driver Sonny Lamphear retired with drive shaft troubles on lap 29.) (Read complete article.)
It's nice to come across even the smallest recollection from an era in pro-wrestling that is now largely forgotten or ignored. It's part of what Mike Cline does on his Grapplin' Greats website and what we strive to do here on the Gateway. It's nice to know Larry Bruton has some of those wrestling memories tucked away, too, and was able to share them with David Whisenant in his letter.
The Bell & Howell camera may have been the gift to Whisenant, but the wrestling memories are gifts to all of of us.
