Roses? No. Chocolates? Never.
More likely a flying elbow smash.
If you're really lucky maybe your sweetheart will tie you up in some sort of half romantic/half kinky figure-four leglock.
What does Greg Valentine recommend? Break Wahoo's leg and brag about it.
Wishing you and yours a Happy Valentine's Day!
By David Chappell
Mid-Atlantic Gateway
The year of 1977 saw the fabulous young team of Ric Flair and Greg Valentine strip away the aura of invincibility from the veteran duo of the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, Gene and Ole Anderson. Flair and Valentine took the coveted NWA World Tag Team Titles away from Gene and Ole in Greensboro, North Carolina on December 26, 1976.
 |
| NWA World Tag Team Champions Ric Flair and Greg Valentine |
In the 1977 Year-In-Review Wide World Wrestling television program that aired in most Mid-Atlantic markets on December 24, 1977, Flair and Valentine gave a rather biased review on the tag team battles between these four combatants in 1977. Announcer Sandy Scott led off by saying, “In ’77 and the tag team warfare, the World Tag Team Championship changed hands and we have two of the champions right here now. We’ve got Greg Valentine and Ric Flair.”
Greg Valentine responded, “Well, you know, since you’ve spent about 35 minutes talking to all the losers it’s about time you brought a couple of winners on. Because that’s exactly what you’re looking at. The World’s Champions! You know, you’re talking about us being the World’s Champions, we had to chase the Andersons down for eight or nine months. The reason why we lost the belts in the first place was because of a certain individual by the name of Wahoo McDaniel being a referee in the match.”
Valentine continued, “[Wahoo] should have never had the license to be a referee, but we finally tracked him down, we nailed them right on television and made them sign a contract. And then just like we told all the people, we met ‘em in the Greensboro Coliseum and we beat ‘em fair and square, one, two, three right in the middle of the ring and now we’re the new World Champions. And Gene Anderson is suffering a very severe shoulder injury because of this, but you know that’s tough. That’s the breaks of the game.”
The Nature Boy then chimed in, “Sandy, what can I say? I’ve told you; I’ve told the people out here thousands of times. They gotta be sick of hearing me saying it! But they also have to know that it’s true. We are the greatest team of all time! Everything we do, everything we say is first class. Look at us! Tailor made clothes, big cars, pretty ladies, and the gold belts that symbolize the World’s Tag Team Championship. The gold belts that symbolize number one in the world today.”
Flair concluded, “And all you people out there that just can’t quite get it through your heads that we are the best. But you better open your eyes because ‘78 is gonna even be a bigger year. Bigger money, bigger cars, prettier ladies, finer clothes is all gonna happen to the World Champions in ’78! WOOOO!!”
Flair and Valentine retained their World Tag Team belts into the Spring of 1978, when the NWA stripped them of the Titles alleging that Ric and Greg did not show up for matches and on occasion left the ring before verdicts were reached. Despite that inauspicious ending of their Title reign in 1978, this young and talented team of Ric Flair and Greg Valentine took the wrestling world by storm during 1977. Truly, a changing of the guard.
by Jody Shifflett, Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor
This poster is from 1981 at the historic Greensboro Coliseum. Four of the best ever in professional wrestling squared off against each other.
The dynamic duo of Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat against the dirty tough duo of Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine. I could not find the results of this match but with George Scott as special guest referee I’m sure steamboat and Flair took the win.
A great undercard featuring two rough tough Texans, Blackjack Mulligan against Bobby Duncan in a Texas Street Fight. Matches between big guys like this usually did not go a great distance time-wise, but they were brutal and usually bloody.
Another great match featured Ivan Koloff against the Iron Sheik. This match had to of been exciting with two of the best bad guys in the business back in the day.
The poster has a great layout being in light blue and bold red lettering for all of the main eventers. And as always an 8:15 start time!
NO. 10 IN THE SHIFFLETT POSTER SERIES
by Brack Beasley
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor
This poster promotes another fantastic night of professional wrestling at the historic Greensboro Coliseum on Sunday, October 30th, 1977 with a loaded card top to bottom.
The main event was a "Hair vs. Belts" match as Ric Flair and Greg Valentine put up their long blond manes against Gene and Ole Anderson's NWA World Tag Team belts. Fortunately for Flair and Valentine they left Greensboro with both the belts and their hair to begin their second and last reign as world tag champs. They would hold onto the belts until being stripped by Jim Crockett Jr. and the NWA in April of 1978.
In the semi, Paul Jones was seeking revenge against the Masked Superstar who had knocked him silly and cut his hair only three weeks earlier in Greensboro. On this night Jones would leave the ring victorious via disqualification.
To the fans' delight, the popular duo of Mr. Wrestling Tim Woods and Ricky Steamboat topped Blackjack Mulligan and Baron Von Raschke in the upper mid card tag match, while three more exciting matches got the crowd warmed up.
Six great wrestler images on the sides, the familiar "Wrestling" splash in the upper left corner, and black and red print over a two tone yellow and pink background make for a very eye- catching poster. I seem to recall Flair putting his hair on the line in several important matches throughout his career and I can assume it's safe to say he never lost one, at least not in that era.
NO 42 IN THE BEASLEY POSTER SERIES
Another great presentation from our friends Scottie and Reggie at Wrestler Weekly.
This time they feature the NWA World Tag Team Champions Greg Valentine and Baron Von Raschke in front of one of the classic issues of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Magazine from that era.
Man, these little belts make the whole thing work! Check out the Wrestler Weekly twitter feed for more great wrestling memories, tributes, and memorabilia.
"If the man wrestled with his mouth, he'd be unbeatable. But he has to get in there and defend that title, and I'm on a lucky streak right now, I'm gonna take his title and get Harley Race - - I got a chance at the world title. Three belts in one week, it's never been done." - Wahoo McDaniel
This poster was from Valentine’s Day 1981 and took place at the farthest northern point that Mid-Atlantic wrestling covered at the time which was Culpeper, Virginia.
What a main event for the small venue which featured four of the greatest wrestlers of all time and I can only imagine what the atmosphere was like inside the Culpeper Junior High School gym as these four Titans went to war in the ring.
Pretty good under card led up to the main event and I would imagine that was a good match between Ole Anderson and Dewey Roberson because these were both respectively tough men, which most of the Mid-Atlantic stars were anyway.
Features great sunrise colors and the classic 8:15 start time!
NO. 6 IN THE SHIFFLETT POSTER SERIES
During the year of 1977, the Anderson brothers had a torrid feud with their young cousin Ric Flair and his partner Greg Valentine. The two teams battled over the NWA World Tag Team titles.
What was unusual about the feud was that the two teams wrestled out of different territories. Flair and Valentine were the top heel team in the Mid-Atlantic area, while the Anderson Brothers were the top heel team for Georgia Championship Wrestling.
The Andersons left Jim Crockett Promotions in the fall of 1976 after Ole Anderson lost a series of "Loser Leaves Town" matches to Wahoo McDaniel. Behind the scenes, Ole had taken the job as booker for Georgia Championship Wrestling and he and Gene had moved to Atlanta.
The Andersons were NWA World Tag Team champions at the time, and took those titles with them to Georgia. Flair had a falling out with his cousins in October of 1976 and formed a new tag team with partner Greg Valentine. The Andersons returned to the area for a title defense against Flair and Valentine in Greensboro the night after Christmas of 1976. The "blond bombers" upset the Minnesota Wrecking Crew to take the tag titles.
Mid-Atlantic booker George Scott maintained a working relationship with Georgia booker Ole Anderson and there were several talent exchanges throughout the year of 1977. This allowed for the Andersons to continue their feud in the Mid-Atlantic area with Flair and Valentine throughout the year of 1977, with the Andersons making sporadic appearances in the territory, usually over weekends, to continue the feud.
In the Mid-Atlantic area, the Andersons had become 'fan favorites', but were still hated heels in Georgia.
The Andersons regained the titles from Flair and Valentine in Charlotte on May 7, 1977 in a famous cage match where Wahoo McDaniel was the special referee. However, on October 30 in Greensboro, Flair and Valentine got the titles back and badly injured Gene Anderson in the process.
The interview with Gene and Ole Anderson seen in the YouTube video embedded above was shot in Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta as Gene was recovering from that surgery. It was shot by the Georgia office, hosted by Freddie Miller, and the tape sent to Jim Crockett Promotions and aired on their syndicated television shows.
In the months that followed, Ole Anderson took different paths in the two different territories. in Georgia, he took Sgt. Jacques Goulet as his new tag team partner and the hated team went on to win the Georgia Tag Team titles. In the Mid-Atlantic area, though, Ole became even more of a fan favorite when he asked Wahoo McDaniel to become his tag team partner to challenge Flair and Valentine for the NWA World tag titles.
It was all part of a long feud between the Andersons against Flair and Valentine that lasted off and on for the better part of nine years, until finally "the family" was reunited in 1985 when the Four Horsemen were formed. Gene retired and the younger 'cousin' of Ole Anderson and Ric Flair emerged on the scene to make the Anderson family stronger than ever.
For complete details on every twist and turn in the Anderson/Flair family feud over the years, check out our timeline history book on the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, available at Amazon.
 | ||
| The marquee at the Columbia Township Auditorium, January 24, 1978 |
 |
| NWA World Tag Team Champions Ric Flair and Greg Valentine |
 |
A NWA World Tag Team Title match headlined a four-match card at the historic Township. |
Digital artist Robby Bannister is back with another great art-cover paying tribute to the old Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Magazines of the 1970s and 1980s.
This time, the cover features one of the most iconic moments in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling history - - Greg Valentine celebrating his 1977 Mid-Atlantic championship title win over Wahoo McDaniel, wearing the Mid-Atlantic title belt and his infamous "I Broke Wahoo's Leg" t-shirt.
 |
| Art by Robby Bannister |
Greg had an original cover of his own that year, one of our favorite covers of that era, featuring an artistic rendition of "the Hammer" standing alongside the mythical Valentine Trophy Case that sported the Mid-Atlantic title belt and other trophies. The only thing missing was the fish bowl filled with a thousand silver dollars. Or in the case of that famous match between Greg and Wahoo, TWO thousand silver dollars. The photo that inspired Robby's cover was in that very issue.
Robby's other couvertures d'hommage have featured Blackjack Mulligan, Arn Anderson, Jimmy Snuka and Paul Orndorf, and the idea that began the series Don Kernodle.
by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway
Edited From the Mid-Atlantic Gateway Archives / Cokes & Popcorn
Roddy Piper once told a story which illustrated what old-timers did to protect the business back in the day. In his day, they sometimes would go to extremes to make sure fans completely bought into an angle. It was all about "protecting the business."
In the audio clip below, Roddy is discussing the famous 1982 angle where he and Ric Flair engaged in an amateur wrestling contest. After Piper embarrassed Flair by pinning him both amateur and professional style, Flair and his cohort Greg Valentine attacked him and ground his face into the cement floor of the WPCQ TV studios in Charlotte.
In a radio interview in 2011 promoting an upcoming NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest, Piper discussed what we didn't see during the commercial break to make sure fans bought into the angle:
 |
| Roddy Piper 1982 Photograph by Eddie Cheslock |
 |
| Ricky Steamboat 1978 |
Nobody Does it Better
Ric Flair claims the song "Nobody Does It Better" was not inspired by James Bond, but by him. "The songwriter, Carol Sager, obviously has seen me wrestle. Who can blame the woman for becoming overcome by my brilliance?" Don't you wish you had Flair's imagination?
Move Over Mother Teresa
Wahoo McDaniel doesn't want any publicity for his many charitable works, but someone should publicly congratulate him. Wahoo is a tireless worker for the downtrodden and helpless. We're lucky to have Wahoo living in our world.
A Dish Best Served Cold
Terry Funk, back on the road to success, declares, "Harley Race cheated when he took my title. That doesn't bother me anymore. I don't want revenge. I just want to break him in two for the fun of hearing him scream."
Two Legs A Week
Feeling no remorse whatsoever for breaking Wahoo McDaniel's leg, Greg Valentine has gone on to break the leg of young rookie "Irish" Pat McKillan. "I hope to break at least two legs a week," says Valentine. "Maybe four, if I get lucky."
Originally published in May 2018 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.
by Jody Shifflett
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor
This poster is from 1976 and originated from the Hampton Coliseum and happened just two nights after the Thanksgiving spectaculars at the Greensboro Coliseum and the nearby Norfolk Scope.
What an epic card this was, headlined by none other than Andre The Giant, Paul Jones and Rufus R. Jones taking on and defeating the dream team of Ric Flair, Greg Valentine and Blackjack Mulligan!
The poster features great sunrise colors and took place at the legendary Hampton Coliseum which is often referred to by concert-goers as the 'Mothership' because of its unique design.
 |
| The Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA |
NO. 2 IN THE SHIFFLETT POSTER SERIES
by Jody Shifflett
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor
It happened at University Hall in Charlottesville, VA, which was not a regular stop like Richmond or Roanoke but with more frequent stops than just a spot show. University Hall was built during the same era as the Hampton Coliseum and Norfolk Scope and it had a very unique roof that resembled a clam-shell and was definitely a landmark in Charlottesville until it was torn down in 2019.
This poster has terrific rainbow coloring and was one of many great cards to take place in this historic building.
* * * * * *
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Notes
by David Chappell
This was Jimmy Snuka's first main event match in Jim Crockett Promotions. He and Paul Orndorf, who wrestled Gene Anderson on the semi-main, would team up soon and eventually win the NWA World Tag Team Championships!
NO. 1 IN THE SHIFFLETT POSTER SERIES
We hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day weekend. Buy your sweetie a dozen roses, some chocolate candy . . . and then make them watch some old Mid-Atlantic Wrestling! Of course, beware of a big hammer out of nowhere and a "flying elbow smash" (as the great Bob Caudle used to call it.) If you're lucky, you'll finish up with some sort of romantic figure-four leg-lock!
For the complete story on what should have been an epic NWA World Tag Team title match - - but wasn't, check out the following story on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway:
And thanks to Mike Sempervive and the Mid-Atlantic Championship Podcast for their support of the "Mighty" (we love that) Mid-Atlantic Gateway.
Mid-Atlantic Championship Podcast Website
Mid-Atlantic Championship Podcast Twitter
Mid-Atlantic Championship Podcast on YouTube
by Brack Beasley
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor
A sensational triple main event was on tap for wrestling fans at the old Charlotte Coliseum on Saturday night, October 15th, 1977 as all three Mid Atlantic singles titles were up for grabs.
Ric Flair defended his United States title against Dusty Rhodes, Greg Valentine defended his Mid-Atlantic title against Paul Jones, while Baron Von Raschke's TV title was on the line for the first 15 minutes in a rematch with Ricky Steamboat, whom the Baron had just defeated for the belt at a television taping a few days prior.
The mid card match was an interesting 6-man tag with Dick Murdock, Mr. X #1, and Mr. X #2 versus Roberto Soto, Tiger Conway Jr., and Johnny Weaver, while the undercard featured familiar Mid-Atlantic grapplers such as the Missouri Mauler, Charlie Fulton, Abe Jacobs, and Danny Miller.
There were seven matches in all but unfortunately for most fans in Charlotte this particular night. all three heel champions managed to retain their respective championships against the babyfaces, although I imagine Rhodes, Jones, and Steamboat gave the reigning champs a run for their money.
The poster itself has a horizontal layout with black print on a two tone pink over yellow background while the date and six main-event participants really stand in high impact red.
There are also great images of Flair, Rhodes, Jones, Valentine, Steamboat, and Soto along each side and it's neat how they put "The American Dream" under Rhodes' name opposite "Champion" under Flair's.
* * * * * * * * * *
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Notes: The American Dream Dusty Rhodes
As was often the case in the mid-to-late 1970s, and on this night, Dusty Rhodes made sporadic short-term appearances in the area, usually over a weekend. Rhodes was a special draw all over the country in those days, and for all three major organizations: WWWF, AWA, and many of the NWA territories, particularly Mid-Atlantic, Georgia, and Florida.) Much like Andre the Giant or the NWA Champion coming to town for a small number of dates, Dusty would hit lots of different promotions in any given week. In this case, Rhodes was only in for Saturday (for this card in Charlotte vs. Flair) and Sunday in Asheville NC (matinee show vs. Valentine for the Mid-Atlantic title) and Savannah GA (then a Mid-Atlantic town, for a second shot at Flair's U.S. title.)
Also of note related to Rhodes, it is worth pointing out that the Friday night before this Charlotte card, Rhodes and partner Dick Slater lost the NWA World Tag Team titles back to Gene and Ole Anderson in Atlanta, bringing an end to their short one-month reign. In the prior two weeks, Rhodes had also challenged Harley Race for the NWA title in a couple of matches in Florida, and Superstar Billy Graham for the WWWF title in Madison Square Garden. Yes indeed, the American Dream was on quite a roll.
NO. 24 IN A SERIES
by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway
"I was looking at that cane and I could tell that cane was gonna be brutal to break over a darn cement block, let alone somebody’s head."
- Greg Valentine
Except it wasn't Gene Anderson that hit him. And the cane didn't break. And that was part of the problem.
To be fair, it was Gene Anderson's cane, and it happened back in 1980, almost 42 years ago this summer, so it's easy to understand how the details of the thing can getting a little foggy over time.
It was actually Greg Valentine who tried to break Anderson's cane over Ric's head following a tag team match between Flair and Valentine against Jimmy Snuka and the Iron Sheik, who were managed at the time by the then cane-wielding Gene Anderson. Valentine failed miserably at the task, although it wasn't really his fault. However, Ric paid the price for it with a legitimately broken nose and 30-plus stitches in his head, face, and lips.
 |
| Ric Flair battles Greg Valentine during their bloody feud of 1980. |
One guy who did remember every detail of it was Greg "The Hammer" Valentine who perpetrated the deed. David Chappell and I asked him about it back in March of 2004, just prior to his induction to the WWE Hall of Fame at Wrestlemania 20. We had the opportunity to interview him at a legends show in Lenoir, NC, promoted by Tony Hunter.
Rather than have me tell you the story of that angle, let's let Greg tell you himself, in this edited excerpt from our Gateway Interview in 2004 with The Hammer himself:
Chappell (to Greg Valentine): When you first came back from New York at the end of 1979, you asked Ric to be your partner again, and he wouldn’t do it, right?
Valentine: Flair turned his back on me. (laughs) When I came back fr
om New York, Ric was on the other side. He was a babyface, and he wouldn’t tag with a villain like me. (laughs)
Chappell: Then for a while right after that, you went back to tag team wrestling?
Valentine: Yeah, that’s right. Ray Stevens and I held the (World) Titles at that time.
Bourne: But soon after that, you went after Flair again. And you broke his nose in that feud in 1980. Now, one of the urban legends in wrestling was that you caught Ric with Gene Anderson’s cane and legitimately broke his nose with that cane. Is that true?
Valentine: Yeah…it’s true. You know, we were sitting back in the dressing rooms getting ready for that match. Of course, Ric was on the other side of the building. We didn’t have dressing rooms together…heels were on one side and babyfaces were on the other. George Scott came in and told me what they wanted us to do. But I was never supposed to break Flair’s nose…I was supposed to break the cane!
Chappell: But didn’t that whole thing have its roots from an incident on TV, where you came out and told Ric that you’d seen the light, and that you now wanted to tag back up with him? Wrestle as a fan favorite tag team, in other words?
Valentine: (laughing) Can you believe he trusted me?! This was against…I think it was Snuka and the Iron Sheik, right? And Gene Anderson was managing Snuka and the Sheik at that time. So I short-armed Ric and wouldn’t tag him. The place was sold out---I thought there was going to be a riot when I refused to tag him. Ric is already bleeding, and he keeps crawling on his knees trying to tag me in…and I’m walking away from him.
Chappell: You were heartless! (everybody laughs)
Valentine: I know it! (laughs) But as I was saying before, they told me back in the dressing room, ‘We want you to hit Flair over the head with Gene Anderson’s cane and make sure you break the cane over his head.’
Chappell: That cane was pretty sturdy, wasn’t it?
Valentine: Hey, I was looking at that cane and I could tell that cane was gonna be brutal to break over a darn cement block, let alone somebody’s head. (everybody laughs) I didn’t know, but I kept saying, ‘Maybe you better gimmick up the cane a little bit, so I can make sure I can break it.’ Gene said, ‘Naw, you can break it…just hit him.’
Chappell: That was easy for Gene to say!
Valentine: (laughs) Ric knew I was supposed to break the cane. But later, I found out that the cane was made out of hickory wood. You know, the hardest wood there is! They make baseball bats out of hickory.
Bourne: Oh my word!
Chappell: Flair’s nose didn’t stand a chance, did it? (everybody laughs)
Valentine: At the time I didn’t know it was hickory, but I was thinking it might be something like that. So I was out there, and the Sheik and Snuka found out that I wouldn’t tag Ric so they worked him over pretty good. After they took the fall on Ric, Gene Anderson threw me the cane and I caught it. Ric’s hanging over there in the corner trying to get away…or acting like he’s trying to get away. Now, Flair has blood all over his face by that point, and I’m thinking if I hit him, the cane is just going to slide down. But…I went for it! (everybody laughs) WHAM! I hit him as hard as I could…and it didn’t break! (everyone laughs)
Chappell: What was running through your mind then?
Valentine: I’m just looking at that cane. Gene is looking at me from the outside on the floor. Gene yelled at me, "Break it kid, break it!" So now I really clocked Ric hard with the cane right on top of the cranium. And he’s REALLY trying to get away when he heard Gene say again, ‘BREAK THE CANE, KID!!’ (laughs) I tried again with a wild stroke and Ric is moving trying to avoid it and I hit him across the top of his nose…the bridge of his nose. It went right down and busted his lips open…his lips were bleeding bad.
Chappell: Did you know you had broken his nose then?
Valentine: I had no idea I had broken his nose…I didn’t find out until a few hours later that his nose was broken. And I STILL didn’t break the cane! (everyone laughs) But the damage had been done then. I think it was Mulligan that came out and ran us all off. Ric went right to the hospital. He had stitches all over his lips.
Chappell: What was Flair’s reaction to what you had done?
Valentine: I called Ric up around two o’clock in the morning, and he was already back home. I apologized for it. And he said, ‘Man, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna make lots of money from it.’ (laughs)
As our friend George Pantas pointed out to me recently, we all sure were laughing a lot at Ric's expense. You could tell Greg enjoyed remembering that time. And of course they did make lots of money off that very real angle, drawing big houses for the matches across the territory for months to follow. The angle led eventually to Valentine defeating Ric Flair for the United States Heavyweight title later that summer. The cane angle is a notable moment in the title history of the U.S. Championship and another great chapter in the tumultuous "family" relationship between Flair and his cousins the Andersons in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling lore.
You can find video of the whole thing from Mid-Atlantic TV on YouTube if you want to search for it. We won't post the links here because the date on the YouTube footage is wrong and the video quality is atrocious. But worth at least hearing Flair's interview with Bob Caudle and David Crockett in advance of looking at the film because it is one of Ric's greatest dead-serious babyface promos of that era.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Some links to other features on the Gateway related to this story:
Greg Valentine: The Gateway Interview
(Archive site. The above edited excerpt is from Pg. 3 )The Ric Flair/Gene Anderson Figure Four/Hair Challenge
The angle that led to Gene Anderson needing to carry a cane.
PART FOUR
by David Chappell
Mid-Atlantic Gateway
Catch up on what you missed earlier:
PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE
And now the final chapter of the saga of Wahoo McDaniel missing in action in Charlotte:
PART FOUR - THE FINAL CHAPTER
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling fans were on the edge of their seats as Greg Valentine was pressed to weigh in on the reasons for Wahoo McDaniel showing up late to the Charlotte Park Center in a bloody, bruised and battered condition. An unrepentant Valentine explained:
"Listen, I don’t know why Wahoo showed up late. Maybe he went to some bar and got drunk and got beat up by a bunch of guys. I don’t know why, I don’t know why he had blood all over him. But I’ve heard we’ve been accused of beating up Wahoo McDaniel at some package store, or some Safeway store or whatever. Well that’s ridiculous! It’s ridiculous and it’s absurd!"
 |
| Safeway Supermarket |
The Hammer continued to roll, "And you’re tryin’ to accuse it on the Nature Boy and myself well let me tell you something Wahoo McDaniel…I don’t need Ric Flair to beat you up! I can beat you up by myself anywhere, anytime in a street, in a bar, in any arena! I don’t need Ric Flair and Ric Flair doesn’t need me to beat you up…we can handle you by ourselves!"
As the Bionic Elbow strutted out of the television studio, the perturbed Crockett shouted at Greg, "I hope you try it, I definitely hope you try it!" Caudle concurred, "I do too David, because I think this is something that we’ve seen the beginning, but certainly not the end of this." Crockett concluded the segment, "That’s right, we’re gonna see Wahoo…he’s got two of them, he’s gonna get them singly now."
This explosive TV segment served to begin the transition of Wahoo McDaniel moving out of his 1976 epic singles program with Ric Flair to one with the newcomer Greg Valentine that would dominate much of the following year, including the memorable TV match where Valentine broke Wahoo's leg in September of 1977.
Bob Caudle was certainly prophetic when he commented that this episode was only the beginning and not the end of Wahoo's issues with Flair and more particularly with Valentine. And who would have ever thought that a dust-up at a Safeway store would usher in one of the greatest feuds in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling history? Wahoo's disappearance in Charlotte and the reason why unlocked the key to much of what we were to see between McDaniel and Valentine for many years and great matches later!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Catch up on what you missed earlier:
PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE
* * * * * * * * * * * *
This poster promotes an event held on Sunday July 6, 1980 and it's beautiful red, white, and blue layout reflects the Independence Day theme. The blue print stands against a solid white background with the date and 4 main event participants in high impact red.
In the main event U.S. Champion Ric Flair continued his bloody feud with former ally Greg Valentine. Although Valentine fell short in his title quest on this night, he would finally capture the U.S. belt from Flair three weeks later in Charlotte, NC, to commence his first reign as US champ.
The semi was a good ol' Texas Street Fight between Blackjack Mulligan and Enforcer Luciano while Ricky Steamboat tied up with Ray Stevens.
Andre the Giant headlined a 14 man $7,500 Battle Royal which also included Jimmy Snuka, the Iron Sheik, Sweet Ebony Diamond, Johnny Weaver, Ox Baker, and Pedro Morales, amongst others. As it says at the bottom of the poster there were seven big matches in all.
Not surprisingly Andre would win the Battle Royal and while $7,500 doesn't really sound like a huge amount, it computes to roughly $25,000 in today's money, not too bad for a night's work.
NO. 17 IN A SERIES
