T-Shirts

Wrestlers wore some interesting t-shirts back in the day.

Top left: Rocky Johnson (Sweet Ebony Diamond), "Steve Rickard's Gymnasium and Health Clinic, Wellington, New Zealand." Steve Rickard was the NWA promoter in New Zealand and brought many of the top U.S. stars to his promotion down under.

Top right: Dewey Robertson, "Moosehead Beer." Dewey was Canadian and Moosehead was Canada's "proudly independent" brewery. Headquartered in Saint John, New Brunswick and still independently owned to this day.

Bottom left: Roddy Piper, "Master." Piper had all sorts of t-shirts, most of  them looked like he had them printed up at a local mall. He had some classics. This wasn't necessarily one of them, but I liked the photo with the pipes and U.S. belt.

Bottom right: Wahoo McDaniel, "The King's Gym - Body Building." No idea where this gym was, but would like to know, so if you have info, smarten us up. Wahoo never spent much time in the gym, but that was only because he was too busy fishing and golfing. One of pro-wrestling's greatest atheltes and according to ost everyone that stood across the ring from him one of the toughest men to ever walk the planet.

Poster: Flair and Sweet Ebony Diamond challenge Valentine and Superstar at Ernie Shore Field

 

by Brack Beasley
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor

Ernie Shore Field in Winston-Salem, NC opened in 1956 and was home to the Winston-Salem minor league baseball team. On occasion this baseball stadium would host concerts as well as professional wrestling, both Mid Atlantic and IWA.

This poster takes us back to the summer of 1980 and promotes a card held on July 25th with the main event being a tag team matchup pitting the Masked Superstar and Greg Valentine against Ric Flair and Sweet Ebony Diamond.

Rocky Johnson entered the Mid Atlantic territory under a mask as Sweet Ebony Diamond and was a superb performer, but probably best known today as father of "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson. 

Dewey Robertson was also on this card, having lost the Canadian Heavyweight Championship to the Iron Sheik a couple of months earlier. Sheik was on a roll, having also won the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship from Jim Brunzell two weeks before this card at Ernie Shore.

I'm confident it was an exciting Friday night under the stadium lights for wrestling fans with an undercard also featuring Mid-Atlantic greats Johnny Weaver and Don Kernodle. 

The poster design itself really draws your attention with black print on a bright yellow background and the date and main event in bold high impact red. It would definitely be hard to miss sitting in the front window of a local business as you're passing by.

NO. 5 IN A SERIES

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Gateway Notes:

Mid-Atlantic Wrestling was also being held that Friday night in Charleston SC and Lynchburg, VA. Charleston was headlined by Blackjack Mulligan vs. Enforcer Luciano in a Texas Street Fight. Lynchburg's main event saw Jim Brunzell trying to reclaim his Mid-Atlantic title from the Iron Sheik.

Rich Landrum Remembers Rocky Johnson

Rocky Johnson as Sweet Ebony Diamond
(Photo from Maple Leaf Wrestling)

Rich Landrum shared a nice memory with us about working with Rocky Johnson in the Mid-Atlantic area, back when Rich hosted "World Wide Wrestling" and Rocky was working under a mask here as Sweet Ebony Diamond.

I thought I would share Rich's tribute.
 

I was really saddened by the death of Rocky Johnson. He was a terrific wrestler in the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling area and a good friend.

He was truly one of the "nice guys". He had some great matches. One in particular, with the Masked Superstar, Bill Eadie. Two masked men going after each other was a sight to behold. Especially with those two. I believe that was the first time that had ever happened. Especially on TV.

After the TV taping moved from Raleigh to Charlotte, I would fly in and out to Charlotte every Wednesday. Rocky would pick me up at the airport early Wednesday mornings and take me the studio's of WPCQ. He continued to do this right up until the time he moved from Charlotte.

It was during this time that I had the opportunity to meet his young son Dwayne. He was a cute kid.

Rocky was fun to be around and always seemed to have a kind word for the fans. He will be missed by many.

RIP Rocky!

- Rich Landrum                

Superstar vs. Sweet Ebony Diamond: Collision of Masked Men in 1980

by David Chappell
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

During the summer of 1980 in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, the stars appeared to be aligned for the first major extended mask versus mask confrontation in Jim Crockett Promotion since 1975. Back in late 1974 and early 1975, the masked Super Destroyer and the masked Avenger carried on a spirited program which saw the Avenger eventually defeated and losing his hood. These bouts were entertaining and well attended, so it was a bit surprising that it took the promotion five years to think about doing a repeat.

www.theofficialwrestlingmuseum.com

In May of 1980, the Masked Superstar was a Mid-Atlantic mainstay, in the middle of his second run with Jim Crockett Promotions. The cerebral but bruising Superstar was the NWA Television Champion, and was just finishing a tag team angle where he was teamed up with Superstar #2, who had been recently unmasked by Blackjack Mulligan as being John Studd. Hence, Superstar #1was primed to segue into a singles program with a new opponent.

At the same time, Ric Flair had been telling the fans of the Mid-Atlantic area that he had convinced a good friend of his to come to the Carolinas to wrestle. Flair told the fans that this man was a premiere athlete, and that he was full of charisma and soul. Eventually, Ric said this newcomer would be going by the name of Sweet Ebony Diamond. When the hooded “Diamond” arrived, he certainly seemed to exude all of the dynamic characteristics that his buddy Flair had promised. Muscular, but very light on his feet, and possessing a lightning fast drop kick, “Sweet Ebony” moved up the ranks of the “good guy” side of the roster in short order.

By the summer of 1980, these two masked men had taken note of each other and were making comments about the other during their interview segments. Then on the World Wide Wrestling television program taped on July 16th, it was announced that the Superstar would be defending his NWA TV Title again Sweet Ebony Diamond on the show! Color commentator Johnny Weaver said, “Get you a good seat in front of your TV set because we’ve got Sweet Ebony Diamond who is gonna go up against the Superstar for the TV Title! Now Sweet Ebony Diamond’s made a big hit with the fans; he’s a Ric Flair man and he’s shown us a lot of promise and today, the next hour, he’s gonna get his chance.”

Maple Leaf Wrestling

Prior to the televised bout, Diamond told the World Wide Wrestling fans, “Man, this is the big one right here on TV, right, for the TV Title. I’m so hyped up, I’m so psyched up, I’m so fired up…I don’t think anybody could beat me right now, man!”

Announcer Rich Landrum got the fans of World Wide Wrestling set for the battle of the masked men saying, “We’re set for our title match, with the Superstar putting his title on the line against Sweet Ebony Diamond, and what an exciting match this will be…15 minute time limit match for the TV Title! Two masked men in the ring…this ought to be exciting!” Weaver agreed, “Exactly, that’s an oddity…one mask against the other!”

The match began with a clean break between the two combatants, with Weaver offering that it was a show of respect between the two masked men. Weaver continued, “Sweet Ebony Diamond, a find of Ric Flair and he’s finally got his big chance here in the World Wide area. He’s been goin’ through everybody here so far.” Landrum added, “On national television to have a shot at the NWA TV Title…whoa! That moves you up about 10 steps on the ladder very quickly.” Weaver countered, “And he’s in there with a smart cagey individual, very cautious…it’s hard to make this man commit an error.”

As the match continued, with both men feeling each other out, Landrum elaborated on the Superstar’s cerebral style in the squared circle commenting, “I was just trying to think back, and I could probably, in the whole time that I’ve had the opportunity to watch Superstar wrestle…the whole time I could count on one hand all of the matches he ever made a mistake in, and those are very few.” Weaver concurred, “Very few, it’s hard to force him into a mistake. He doesn’t rush, and he’s a methodical type wrestler.”