by Dick Bourne Mid-Atlantic Gateway
Includes rare, exclusive audio tracks embedded below.
When I first got "hooked" on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, one of the things (other than the great wrestling) that I liked most about both Crockett shows was the great theme music.
I'm not talking about wrestler's theme music. This was in 1975 and almost a decade before every wrestler had their own theme music.
I'm talking about the opening theme music that started off each show. It was a signature element of each of the two programs that Jim Crockett Promotions produced, and is today as much of the sentimental or nostalgic aspect of those shows. That's something long ago lost as it regards pro-wrestling on TV today.
Ed Capral with NWA champion Harley Race on the set of "Wide World Wrestling" in 1977
Over the many years, I've enjoyed collecting theme music from the various wrestling shows I watched in the 1970s and 1980s. Some used edited versions of popular commercial music, some used "production" music written especially for that use.
My favorite wrestling TV-show theme of them all was the music for "Wide World Wrestling" in 1975-1978. "Wide World Wrestling" was Jim Crockett's "B" show. If a TV market only featured one of Crockett's TV shows, it would always be the "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" show, which was the "A" show. If a traditional Crockett TV market featured both Crockett shows, then "Wide World" would be added as the second show in that market, or the "B" show.
The show began in October of 1975 and was hosted by longtime Atlanta wrestling broadcaster Ed Capral. When Capral left in 1977, he was succeeded by hosts Russ Dubuc and then Tom Miller and George Scott. In 1978, Crockett changed the name of the program to "World Wide Wrestling" as host Rich Landrum took over the show, and by the early 1980s, this was the show that started going into Crockett's expansion markets, as well as remaining the "B" show in Crockett's home markets.
"Truckin'" Tom Miller, host of "Wide World Wrestling" for roughly 6 months in 1978
The opening theme music for this show was awesome! The opening video package that ran under the music was a quick montage of various wrestlers doing various wrestling maneuvers that flew by at quick pace that matched the upbeat tempo of the music. The music and video open had sort of a "Wide World of Sports" feel to it. ABC's "Wide World of Sports" was one of the most popular sports programs of the era and as much a part of Saturday afternoons as wrestling was.
Recently our friend Craig at Wrestling Media (wrestlingmedia.ws) was kind enough to send us the original recording of the music used for "Wide World Wrestling." I got his very nice email on Thanksgiving Day - - what a wonderful gift on Thanksgiving! I was thankful indeed for his generosity and for remembering at all that this was something I had been looking for for years. He was able to identify it solely by the low-resolution recording I had of it on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway Archive site.
The music, titled "Diamond Head" was written and recorded by Walter Murphy, who had a #1 pop hit back in 1976 called "A Fifth of Beethoven." Murphy has an extensive resume of production music and there are several vinyl recordings of his still floating around. The album that has "Diamond Head" was titled "Major Production Music", Vinyl 6088 on Major Records (now known as Valentino.) It is track 3 on side B of the record and was recorded and released in 1975 (the same year "Wide World Wrestling" debuted.
The "Wide World Wrestling" theme was created by taking various segments of the original 1:30 recording and piecing them together to make the final 25 sec. version you heard each week to open the show. The tempo of the wrestling version was also a little faster than the original, although at the same pitch.
I took Murphy's original recording and edited a version together that is nearly identical (in arrangement and speed) to the classic 1975 wrestling theme, and happily present it here.
There are no known video recordings of the 1975-1978 "Wide World Wrestling" show, which is a very sad thing. The theme hasn't been heard in this arrangement since 1978, so only fans who are roughly in their mid-40s or later would even remember it. But for those that watched "Wide World Wrestling" every single weekend without fail as I did each week, this will be a wonderful trip down memory lane and a nostalgic reminder of a great era in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. And for those hearing it for the first time, this is what a real wrestling theme sounds like.
Thanks to Craig at Wrestling Media (wrestlingmedia.ws) for his forwarding this information and for providing me the original track that resulted in my favorite wrestling theme music of them all.
Originally published December 2016 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.
There were lots of great music themes over the years for Jim Crockett Promotions TV shows, but likely the most remembered is the 1979-1986 theme for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling.
The music was an edit from a 1978 European disco hit titled "Got to Have Loving" by French writer/arranger Don Ray (real name Raymond Donnez.) It was the only single from Ray's solo album "The Garden of Love."
The new theme debuted on the February 10, 1979 episode of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling (taped February 7 at WRAL studios in Raleigh.) It played across the same familiar "four square" opening that had debuted back in 1977.
Here is the opening as it played out each week in your living room:
The complete Don Ray track can be found on YouTube (along with the complete album, too.)
That February show also debuted the familiar set that would be used on the Mid-Atlantic tapings through the remaining years at WRAL and then moved and used in modified formation at the smaller WPCQ studio in Charlotte. It was discarded all together when production moved out to the arenas in July 1983.
The set included a new standing-desk for hosts Bob Caudle and David Crockett, with a gorgeous textured background that included the new moniker "Mid-Atlantic Championship Sports" in raised block letters and a map that included two more states (West Virginia, Georgia) than the previous map and logo used on the 1974-1979 set.
Another big change going forward that began with this show was that introductions for matches would no longer be conducted from inside the ring, but instead by Bob Caudle as he would turn in front of a blue-screen NWA logo. That blue screen allowed a chroma key effect to be used, showing the wrestlers in the ring during their introduction. This set up would be used for the duration of the studio shows, and I've always thought it was a big mistake to make that change. The fans in the studio audience never reacted to Caudle's introductions like they had done over the years for Joe Murnick (or the Murnick boys) because Bob couldn't be easily heard by the fans. Most of the time it made for very flat reactions to the introductions.
Sadly, Don Ray's classic disco theme was removed from the episodes of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling that air on the WWE Network and replaced with a more generic sounding production cut.
But the winds of change were blowing with new music, a new set, and a new method for ring introductions, making the taping on February 7, 1979 one for the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling television history books.
Originally published 3/1/21 on the Studio Wrestling website. Research by Dick Bourne. Some information taken from David Chappell's Mid-Atlantic Gateway Almanac.
The WWE has added about four years worth of "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" from the 1981-1985 to their streaming service (The WWE Network) beginning this past January. We've been enjoying these episodes that begin in September of 1981 and currently run through June of 1985, with more to be rumored to come in the next few weeks. There are dozens of missing episodes, some of them key in the evolving storylines, but by and large it's a wonderful collection of shows and we're glad to have what we've got so far. Hopefully, there will be more, including filling some of the holes.
One of the unavoidable disappointments was the replacement of the original opening theme music with music that the WWE licensed to replace it. It's completely understandable but so unfortunate. The WWE did not want issues with copyright to the opening music Jim Crockett Promotions used then. Oddly enough, they did not replace this music when these shows aired on their now-defunct on-demand cable channel from back in the 2000s. Regardless, it's been replaced now, and it is somewhat jarring to hear different music used in the opening, closing, and bumper segments.
For those a bit nostalgic, here is the original opening with the music used for Mid-Atlantic Wrestling from 1979-1986:
The music heard here is edited from from Don Ray's 1978 disco classic "Got to Have Loving" from his album "The Garden of Love" on Polydor Records. It's not known if the music was appropriately licensed by Jim Crockett Promotions at that time. Most wrestling promotions used commercial music for TV show themes and wrestler entrance themes without regard to licensing until sometime in the mid-1980s when the licensing organizations BMI and ASCAP cracked down on that.
The WWE replaced the original music with appropriately licensed stock music from a collection for that intended purpose. The tune is "Manila Skies" by Seymore Milton from the album "Funk and Disco." This is the tune you hear played on the WWE's version of the Mid-Atlantic shows (usually at higher volume than the rest of the show so as to drown out the original track.
ABOUT THOSE TWO WRESTLERS IN THE OPEN
When Mid-Atlantic Wrestling debuted its new musical theme and opening sequence in 1977, it was a sharp departure from the show opening Jim Crockett Promotions had used for the previous several years, which was a montage of wrestlers and wrestling maneuvers from the TV show. This new opening featured three distinct graphics and one brief wrestling scene, each one finally scaling down into a screen divided into four equal sections.
The four sections were as follows:
the familiar Mid-Atlantic logo on a blue background
a short wrestling clip, shot in an dimly lit arena
the title "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" with a small collegiate-style wrestling icon
and five states that represented the Mid-Atlantic area at that time, all in yellow on a red background.
From the moment this new opening aired, I was fascinated by the short wrestling clip. It appeared to be one wrestler cradling another for a pinfall, but I couldn't identify the wrestlers. At first I thought it might be Jack Brisco and Terry Funk from their NWA title match in Miami Beach in 1975. In that match, Brisco went to apply the figure-four leglock and Funk cradled him for the pin. In this brief opening wrestling clip, it looked at first as though perhaps the same thing was happening. Or maybe not. It all happens so quickly.
I had only seen the Brisco-Funk clip one time, when Mid-Atlantic Wrestling showed it in December of 1975 right after that title change. I was only 13, and going on my memory of that. We didn't have VCRs then, so there was no way to compare the two clips.
The segment with the wrestlers only lasts about 2-3 seconds, and is full screen for less than a second. With no DVRs or VCRs in 1977, there was no way to pause or freeze-frame the clip to examine it. All I could do was wait until next week's show and try to get another quick look at that 3 seconds.
While the wrestler on the mat had curly hair and at a quick glance looked very much to me like Terry Funk did at that time he won the NWA title, the wrestler on one knee had what appeared to be a horseshoe on his trunks. I knew that wasn't Brisco. Also, the referee in the shot sure looked like Tommy Young, and I knew Tommy Young was not the referee for the Funk/Brisco match. It also became clear after watching it several times that the wrestler on one knee wasn't being cradled when applying a figure-four leglock or a spinning toe hold; it was clearly a hammerlock on the arm into the cradle. This wasn't Funk/Brisco.
The mystery remained.
In a 1999 exchange with several folks on a wrestling message board speculating on this very subject, there were a number of different guesses, everyone going on their memory of this alone; no photo was posted. One person put forth the guess of "Cowboy" Frankie Laine as the wrestler in the blue trunks. Speculation continued on Terry Funk on the mat in the black trunks.
The mystery remained.
Doug Somers and
"Cowboy" Frankie Laine
When the WWE started airing complete episodes of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling on its On Demand channel around 2005, the crystal-clear digital transfer from the master tapes (from which the image above was taken) allowed a much closer look at the short clip. The Frankie Laine guess looked good, but it still wasn't clear who the wrestler on the mat was.
In 2010, I received an email from a visitor to the website who had seen an earlier article on the Gateway speculating about all this. He asserted that the wrestlers in the opening were Frankie Laine and Doug Somers. Another look at the photo above confirmed that. Doug had that brown curly hair back then (long before he became "Pretty Boy" Doug Somers with the bleached-blonde hair.) It made perfect sense; Laine and Somers were both mid-card guys in those years and would have wrestled each other a great deal I'm quite sure.
If there had been a contest, and winners were announced for the first correct guess, I'd have to award the prizes to Richard Sullivan for first guessing "Cowboy" Frankie Laine in that Wrestling Classics message board thread from 1999, and Randy Elrod for his more recent identification of Doug Somers in 2010.
That opening theme segment for Mid-Atlantic Wrestling aired from 1977 until 1983. "Cowboy" Frankie Laine and Doug Somers were seen more times on that open than any others wrestlers ever seen on the show itself. Funny that it took another couple of decades before most of us were ever aware it was them.
Mystery solved.
Originally published on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway 9/2/2015, and also on the Gateway Archives from 2010.
Take a look at the opening theme to Mid-Atlantic Wrestling from 1981.
This video open was used from 1977-1983. There were two different versions of theme music used.
Borrowing from the French philosopher Voltaire, I offer some sage advice. And as I offer this advice to you now, I confess to have repeated this advice quietly to myself several times over the last few days; don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Is this treasure trove of early 1980s Mid-Atlantic Wrestling programming on the WWE Network perfect? No. But is it good? You bet it is. It is very good.
I've been waiting for the WWE Network to add Mid-Atlantic Wrestling to their network for four years, since the day it first launched back in February of 2014. Yet I find myself fretting over the things I don't like, the things that are missing, the things they had to change. And it is here that I keep telling myself those same words:
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Over the last few days I have found myself alternately excited and frustrated by this new material (and the lack thereof) now included on the WWE Network service. I'm not complaining about the period of time covered by the drop (September 1981 - October 1983). That period is just as relevant as any other period in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling history. We all enjoy certain time frames more than others, we all have our favorite periods, usually determined by when we first started watching wrestling. They'll get to the rest of what they have at some point, I feel confident.
No, what I keep reminding myself of is how blessed we are to have this material available at all.
Many people like to demonize Vince McMahon as the devil incarnate. Hogwash. Without Vince McMahon and the WWE owning those libraries of old tapes, none of this material would have likely ever seen the light of day in its current form. These are the folks investing millions of dollars in a digital delivery system (i.e.; "the network") to archive and make available these shows. And I, for one, am very grateful for that.
Some people respond that YouTube has a lot of old Mid-Atlantic Wrestling shows, so we don't need the network. To be sure, there are many random clips and complete episodes on YouTube, and I actually enjoy those very much. But nothing there matches the volume and the comprehensiveness of this material on the WWE Network (both what they have put up and what is still yet to come.)
Now, all that being said, I have been just as deeply disappointed in what has been omitted within this time frame as I have been excited about what is there. Friends of mine that are more familiar with how the network works have encouraged me with their experience of the network continuing to add material in subsequent weeks after a big drop, often filling in gaps and adding shows that are missing in the sequence. Glad to hear that.
Some of what's missing can't be blamed on WWE. The sad fact is a few of the shows are simply missing and no longer exist and those could never be added. But not all of what's missing falls in that category. In fact, likely not most of it.
My problems is, I'm just paranoid enough about this stuff to imagine they have selectively omitted things for reasons known only to them. (Not really, but I just told you I'm paranoid about it.)
Here are several examples:
The October 3, 1981 show is missing, which includes Ric Flair's first appearance in his home area as NWA World Heavyweight Champion and a warm interview with host Bob Caudle. This is one of the most historically significant shows of that fall. It's missing.
A full three weeks of shows (2/19, 2/26, and 3/5) are missing leading up to the huge and historic Greensboro cage match featuring Sgt. Slaughter and Don Kernodle vs. Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood. This show is known generally as the "Final Conflict" and was the show that convinced Jim Crockett Promotions to try closed-circuit events, which led to the first Starrcade later that year.
One of the most shocking heel turns of the era was the Brisco Brothers turning heel. Three of the shows in a row (4/30, 5/7, and 5/14) that build up to that, including the show with actual turn itself, are missing. While clips are replayed on later shows, these shows kicked off the bitter feud that would eventually culminate at Starrcade '83 seven months later. And they are missing.
In those same shows is the angle where Greg Valentine injures the ear of Roddy Piper, which set up the feud that would also lead all the way to Starrcade '83. Piper called it the "year of the ear." Most of that initial material is missing (although they show clips of it later.)
Bob Caudle and David Crockett congratulate Ric Flair on winning the NWA World Championship
on the 10/3/81 episode of "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling." Sadly, the episode is not
currently included on the WWE Network.
These are just a few examples. It'd odd that it doesn't seem to be random shows missing, it seems to be key shows missing.
But given what I'm told the network did earlier with the drop of "World Class Wrestling" and "World Championship Wrestling (WTBS)" shows, I have hope that they fill in these gaps at a later date. But it begs the question - - what purpose is served by holding those back now? They are part of a story being told that is missing for no apparent reason and it greatly disrupts the flow of these things.
THE OPENING THEME MUSIC
One of things people have been unhappy about is the removal of the opening theme music. This really isn't the WWE's fault, and we knew it was probably going to happen. Because they don't own the rights to the music originally used and don't want to get into the additional cost of licensing the music in perpetuity, the network removes or drowns out all unlicensed music and uses canned music they own or license to replace it.
The original theme music during those years, with its familiar opening bass line, was taken from a 1978 minor disco hit titled "Got to Have Loving" written and performed by 1970s disco producer, arranger and performer Don Ray. Jim Crockett Promotions started using a custom edit of the song for its opening theme music sometime in 1979 and continued using it until the spring of 1986 when the name of the show was changed to "NWA Pro Wrestling" and a new musical theme was introduced.
I will admit is is jarring when that familiar opening sequence of the Mid-Atlantic logo begins and you hear something totally foreign. Your brain expects to hear those descending bass notes leading into the synth jungle-disco drum line to follow, and then the familiar sight and sound of Bob Caudle welcoming us to another hour of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Now we hear a generic sounding theme that has sort of a funky-soul-disco feel to it, like it also came straight out of the late 1970s.
And it's not just the opening of the show. It is used to replace the original music when bumping out to commercials, or during slow-motion instant replays, and in place of the closing theme, too. At the end of the show, this new music completely removes the familiar, almost ritualistic, barter declaration:
"Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling has been furnished to this station for broadcast at this time by Jim Crockett Promotions in exchange for commercial consideration"
And because they lay this new music over the original audio throughout the show to drown out the original music but still allow us to hear what Bob Caudle is saying (sort of), it is much louder than the normal audio level of the show itself, and it becomes a little annoying.
Actually, it's not that bad of a replacement tune if a replacement had to be made to begin with. I sure would prefer the original, but I like the funky horns in this replacement and if we had to lose the original, this suits me fine. But to be sure, it does take you out of the moment every time it plays.
THE LOCAL PROMOS
Also missing are most of the the custom local promotional spots for each market that were inserted into the original shows. That's also understandable, but that also eliminates the very familiar announcement that always announced those promos:
"Let's take time for this commercial message about the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling events coming up in your area."
A few of the local promo spots survived if they were on the original tape to begin with. (We're compiling a list to be posted here later.) In their place in many of the shows are interviews taped live in the studio that most people never saw because they were seeing their local interviews in that spot. For many months, the time was used to allow underneath (enhancement) talent the time to work on interviews, something they never had the opportunity to do in these shows otherwise. Some of these are painful to watch. In the shows from late 1982 and the spring of 1983 that I've watched so far, the promos feature the main event talent and seem to be aimed at the Florida market where Mid-Atlantic Wrestling was now apparently being seen. It's actually kind of fun hearing those as there is lots of discussion of the wrestlers working then for Championship Wrestling from Florida.
All of these shows are great to see again, but they aren't perfect. But here again, I keep reminding myself - - - - don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And I'm having a really good time watching these shows again, most of which I haven't seen since they originally aired over 35 years ago. I'm not going to let the fact that they aren't perfect ruin an otherwise good time.
Besides, if you really are missing the original theme music and need your fix, here it is for you to enjoy (from the Mid-Atlantic Gateway Archives site):
MID-ATLANTIC WRESTLING THEME (1979-1986)
Now, go get the network, watch and enjoy these old shows. And let the WWE Network know on their Facebook and Twitter pages how glad you are they have added Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling.
by Dick Bourne Mid-Atlantic Gateway
Includes rare, exclusive audio tracks embedded below.
When I first got "hooked" on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, one of the things (other than the great wrestling) that I liked most about both Crockett shows was the great theme music.
I'm not talking about wrestler's theme music. This was in 1975 and almost a decade before every wrestler had their own theme music.
I'm talking about the opening theme music that started off each show. It was a signature element of each of the two programs that Jim Crockett Promotions produced, and is today as much of the sentimental or nostalgic aspect of those shows. That's something long ago lost as it regards pro-wrestling on TV today.
Ed Capral with NWA champion Harley Race on the set of "Wide World Wrestling" in 1977
Over the many years, I've enjoyed collecting theme music from the various wrestling shows I watched in the 1970s and 1980s. Some used edited versions of popular commercial music, some used "production" music written especially for that use.
My favorite wrestling TV-show theme of them all was the music for "Wide World Wrestling" in 1975-1978. "Wide World Wrestling" was Jim Crockett's "B" show. If a TV market only featured one of Crockett's TV shows, it would always be the "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" show, which was the "A" show. If a traditional Crockett TV market featured both Crockett shows, then "Wide World" would be added as the second show in that market, or the "B" show.
The show began in October of 1975 and was hosted by longtime Atlanta wrestling broadcaster Ed Capral. When Capral left in 1977, he was succeeded by hosts Russ Dubuc and then Tom Miller. In 1978, Crockett changed the name of the program to "World Wide Wrestling" as host Rich Landrum took over the show, and by the early 1980s, this was the show that started going into Crockett's expansion markets, as well as remaining the "B" show in Crockett's home markets.
"Truckin'" Tom Miller, host of "Wide World Wrestling" for roughly 6 months in 1978
The opening theme music for this show was awesome! The opening video package that ran under the music was a quick montage of various wrestlers doing various wrestling maneuvers that flew by at quick pace that matched the upbeat tempo of the music. The music and video open had sort of a "Wide World of Sports" feel to it. ABC's "Wide World of Sports" was one of the most popular sports programs of the era and as much a part of Saturday afternoons as wrestling was.
Recently our friend Craig at Wrestling Media (wrestlingmedia.ws) was kind enough to send us the original recording of the music used for "Wide World Wrestling." I got his very nice email on Thanksgiving Day - - what a wonderful gift on Thanksgiving! I was thankful indeed for his generosity and for remembering at all that this was something I had been looking for for years. He was able to identify it solely by the low-resolution recording I had of it on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway Archive site.
The music, titled "Diamond Head" was written and recorded by Walter Murphy, who had a #1 pop hit back in 1976 called "A Fifth of Beethoven." Murphy has an extensive resume of production music and there are several vinyl recordings of his still floating around. The album that has "Diamond Head" was titled "Major Production Music", Vinyl 6088 on Major Records (now known as Valentino.) It is track 3 on side B of the record and was recorded and released in 1975 (the same year "Wide World Wrestling" debuted.
The "Wide World Wrestling" theme was created by taking various segments of the original 1:30 recording and piecing them together to make the final 25 sec. version you heard each week to open the show. The tempo of the wrestling version was also a little faster than the original, although at the same pitch.
I took Murphy's original recording and edited a version together that is nearly identical (in arrangement and speed) to the classic 1975 wrestling theme, and happily present it here.
There are no known video recordings of the 1975-1978 "Wide World Wrestling" show, which is a very sad thing. The theme hasn't been heard in this arrangement since 1978, so only fans who are roughly in their mid-40s or later would even remember it. But for those that watched "Wide World Wrestling" every single weekend without fail as I did each week, this will be a wonderful trip down memory lane and a nostalgic reminder of a great era in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. And for those hearing it for the first time, this is what a real wrestling theme sounds like.
Thanks to Craig at Wrestling Media (wrestlingmedia.ws) for his forwarding this information and for providing me the original track that resulted in my favorite wrestling theme music of them all.
Always liked this particular version of the "World Wide Wrestling" theme music. Someone has taken the opening video and added the remainder of the music through to the end of the cut. Well done.
There were at least three instrumental variations/arrangements of the final bars of this song that played out over the years. One in particular was a bit of a different take used in 1988. I'll try to locate that and post the audio of that here as well.
When Mid-Atlantic Wrestling debuted its new musical theme and opening sequence in 1977, it was a sharp departure from the show opening Jim Crockett Promotions had used for the previous several years, which was a montage of wrestlers and wrestling maneuvers from the TV show. This new opening featured three distinct graphics and one brief wrestling scene, each one finally scaling down into a screen divided into four equal sections.
The four sections were as follows:
the familiar Mid-Atlantic logo on a blue background
a short wrestling clip, shot in an dimly lit arena
the title "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" with a small collegiate-style wrestling icon
and five states that represented the Mid-Atlantic area at that time, all in yellow on a red background.
From the moment this new opening aired, I was fascinated by the short wrestling clip. It appeared to be one wrestler cradling another for a pinfall, but I couldn't identify the wrestlers. At first I thought it might be Jack Brisco and Terry Funk from their NWA title match in Miami Beach in 1975. In that match, Brisco went to apply the figure-four leglock and Funk cradled him for the pin. In this brief opening wrestling clip, it looked at first as though perhaps the same thing was happening. Or maybe not. It all happens so quickly.
I had only seen the Brisco-Funk clip one time, when Mid-Atlantic Wrestling showed it in December of 1975 right after that title change. I was only 13, and going on my memory of that. We didn't have VCRs then, so there was no way to compare the two clips.
The segment with the wrestlers only lasts about 2-3 seconds, and is full screen for less than a second. With no DVRs or VCRs in 1977, there was no way to pause or freeze-frame the clip to examine it. All I could do was wait until next week's show and try to get another quick look at that 3 seconds.
While the wrestler on the mat had curly hair and at a quick glance looked very much to me like Terry Funk did at that time he won the NWA title, the wrestler on one knee had what appeared to be a horseshoe on his trunks. I knew that wasn't Brisco. Also, the referee in the shot sure looked like Tommy Young, and I knew Tommy Young was not the referee for the Funk/Brisco match. It also became clear after watching it several times that the wrestler on one knee wasn't being cradled when applying a figure-four leglock or a spinning toe hold; it was clearly a hammerlock on the arm into the cradle. This wasn't Funk/Brisco.
The mystery remained.
In a 1999 exchange with several folks on a wrestling message board speculating on this very subject, there were a number of different guesses, everyone going on their memory of this alone; no photo was posted. One person put forth the guess of "Cowboy" Frankie Laine as the wrestler in the blue trunks. Speculation continued on Terry Funk on the mat in the black trunks.
The mystery remained.
Doug Somers and
"Cowboy" Frankie Laine
When the WWE started airing complete episodes of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling on its On Demand channel around 2005, the crystal-clear digital transfer from the master tapes (from which the image above was taken) allowed a much closer look at the short clip. The Frankie Laine guess looked good, but it still wasn't clear who the wrestler on the mat was.
In 2010, I received an email from a visitor to the website who had seen an earlier article on the Gateway speculating about all this. He asserted that the wrestlers in the opening were Frankie Laine and Doug Somers. Another look at the photo above confirmed that. Doug had that brown curly hair back then (long before he became "Pretty Boy" Doug Somers with the bleached-blonde hair.) It made perfect sense; Laine and Somers were both mid-card guys in those years and would have wrestled each other a great deal I'm quite sure.
If there had been a contest, and winners were announced for the first correct guess, I'd have to award the prizes to Richard Sullivan for first guessing "Cowboy" Frankie Laine in that Wrestling Classics message board thread from 1999, and Randy Elrod for his more recent identification of Doug Somers in 2010.
That opening theme segment for Mid-Atlantic Wrestling aired from 1977 until 1983. "Cowboy" Frankie Laine and Doug Somers were seen more times on that open than any others wrestlers ever seen on the show itself. Funny that it took another couple of decades before most of us were ever aware it was them.
Mystery solved.
Take a look at the opening theme to Mid-Atlantic Wrestling from 1981.
This video open was used from 1977-1983. There were two different versions of theme music used.
1977-1979: "Good King Bad" by George Benson
1979-1983: "Got to Have Loving" by Don Ray
* * * * * * * * * *
This article was drawn from an earlier story posted on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway in 2010.
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