Poster: Valentine and Wahoo Headline Stacked Card in Greensboro (1975)

by Brack Beasley
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor

This poster takes us back to Sunday, September 28th, 1975 and features an absolutely loaded card at the Greensboro Coliseum. 

Johnny Valentine defended his United States Heavyweight title in the main event against perennial foe Wahoo McDaniel in what was sure to be a hard hitting, violent affair. Unfortunately, it turned out to be Valentine's last match in Greensboro due to the Wilmington, NC plane crash less than a week later. 

In the semi, Gene and Ole Anderson put their NWA World Tag Team belts on the line against the exciting duo of Dusty Rhodes and Paul Jones, while Ray Stevens came into town trying to collect Valentine's bounty on Tim Woods. 

The mid-card match had Ric Flair vs. Tiger Conway Jr. and the undercard included Ken Patera, The Avenger (Reggie Parks), Great Malenko, Spoiler No. 2, Danny Miller, and Steve Keirn. 

The poster's horizontal layout has red and black print over a two tone hot pink and yellow background. In addition, images of seven wrestlers adorn both sides and are accompanied by the signatures of Wahoo and Ole. 

Oh, what we wouldn't do to go back maybe just once and experience an event such as this one, professional wrestling as it should be.

NO. 37 IN THE BRACK BEASLEY POSTER SERIES

Poster: Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson Battle Each Other in Norfolk

by Brack Beasley
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor

This poster promotes a card held at the Norfolk Arena in Norfolk, VA on Thursday, November 7th, 1974.

The main event, promising to be a violent affair, was a Fence Match between former allies Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson with a special stipulation making the pile driver legal. At the time, the pile driver was an illegal maneuver in the National Wrestling Alliance.

The semi main event featured promising newcomers Tiger Conway Jr. and Chuck O'Connor (who later would become Big John Studd). 

While this poster gives few details on the other bouts on this card, we know from the newspaper ad for this show that Klondike Bill teamed with Tio Tio vs. Two Ton Harris and Frank Morrell, Danny Miller took on rookie Ric Flair, and Billy Ash met Ken Dillinger in the opener. 

The poster is the smaller variety measuring only 14 by 22 inches and has a vertical layout with all black print over the two tone pink and yellow background. I would assume this card took place at the old arena built during World War II as opposed to the larger Scope Exhibition Hall which opened in 1971 but I could be mistaken. Nevertheless, Crockett held cards at the Scope starting in 1972 and for many years forward.

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Mid-Atlantic Gateway Notes
by Dick Bourne

• Promotional posters from Richmond, Hampton, and Norfolk are hard to come across. Nice to see this one from Brack's amazing collection, especially from the less familiar venue of the Norfolk Arena.
• For fans from that era, seeing long-time tag team partners Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson fighting each other had to be surreal. Swede had turned "good guy" following a split between himself and then-partner the Super Destroyer (aka The Spoiler, Don Jardine) in February of 1974. When Rip Hawk returned to the Mid-Atlantic area in the spring of 1974 from his NWA suspension for using the piledriver (actually had been away working in Florida), he would occasionally cross paths with Swede in tag matches, but the singles feud between the two former partners broke wide open in August and continued throughout the fall of 1974.
• Rookie Ric Flair defeated veteran and longtime area star Danny Miller on this card, an indication that Flair's star was continuing to rise as a singles competitor within Crockett Promotions. Flair and Rip Hawk were the reigning Mid-Atlantic Tag Team champions at the time of this card in Norfolk.
  

 NO. 26 IN A SERIES

Chief Wahoo McDaniel: Missing in Action

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

Unconvinced, David Crockett turned everyone's attention back to the film clip from the infamous night in Charlotte. Crockett said, "Well, we’re gonna hear from Wahoo right now." As the film played again, the fans could hear the Charlotte ring announcer say, "The referee’s decision for this match is a no contest, a no decision match," to a loud chorus of boos.

At this juncture everyone would finally hear from the Indian Chief himself, Wahoo McDaniel! Wahoo bellowed, "Let me tell you something, when I was on my way to the match I stopped at the store and both of ‘em jumped on me! I tell you one thing, I’ll get ‘em both! Nobody’s ever done this to me and got by with it, I promise you!"

Bob Caudle then pronounced, "And that’s what Wahoo said happened." A grinning Valentine scoffed, "Yeah, I heard him and that doesn’t make any difference because let me tell you something...Wahoo McDaniel, you are lying, you are lying through your teeth! You were over at some bar out there getting drunk, and you got beat up by about five or six bums and that’s why you got there late!"

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!

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Catch up on what you missed earlier:
PART ONE  |  PART TWO  |  PART THREE
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Originally published December of 2017 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Hailing From the Great State of Texas!

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway 

Part 1

Growing up in East Tennessee, I didn't know a whole lot about the geography of the state of Texas as a youngster. I knew it was big, but that's about it. But when I started regularly watching Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling on a regular basis in the early 1970s, that all changed for me.

I had an Atlas that my parents had given me and I loved looking up far away places and day-dreaming about what it would be like to go there. It seemed to me that more wrestlers came from the state of Texas than from any other state in the union. And from some very cool sounding places.

My first memory of being interested in learning about Texas was in 1976 during the year-long war between Paul Jones and Blackjack Mulligan over the United States Heavyweight Championship. Paul was from Port Arthur and Blackjack famously hailed from Eagle Pass, Texas. Both of these places sounded very exciting to me. Part of it was the way they were announced by WRAL TV ring announcer (and promoter) extraordinaire Joe Murnick:

These were the first Texas towns I heard about on wrestling that I remember looking up in my Atlas. I learned that Port Arthur was a relatively small town on the Gulf of Mexico, just east of Houston.

I looked up Eagle Pass, too, and saw that it was a small Mexican-border town about two and a half hours west of San Antonio on the Rio Grande river. But this confused me a bit, because Eagle Pass was nowhere near all the colorful places Blackjack talked about in his local promos. Blackjack always mentioned west Texas towns like Odessa, Abilene, Sweetwater, Midland, or Duvall County in the tales he would weave into the local promos for upcoming Mid-Atlantic area events. But that string of west Texas towns was along the I-20 corridor well over 300 miles north of Eagle Pass. This wasn't adding up.

I asked Blackjack about this once, asking how he came to be billed from Eagle Pass. He confessed that it just had an outlaw sound to it that he liked. And some of Mama Mulligan's kinfolk were from there, too, he said with a smile. Blackjack was always working.

So here is a short list of wrestlers that I watched in the 1970s and 1980s that hailed from the great state of Texas. It isn't a complete list by any means, just the ones I think of the most. I remember looking up all these hometowns in my trusty Atlas during those years. All of them seemed like magical places to me.

Blackjack Mulligan - Eagle Pass
Blackjack loved telling tall tales about the characters he encountered in Texas, many of them archived in our section of this website called Blackjack's Bar-b-que. Of all the wrestlers who hailed from Texas, none of them was more Texan in my eyes than the great Blackjack Mulligan. He set an early  record for the most U.S. title reigns, and was both a hated heel and beloved babyface during his seven years headlining our territory.

Paul Jones - Port Arthur 
Port Arthur always had this very cool, classy sound to it to me as a kid. And Paul Jones was that kind of babyface in his peak years for Jim Crockett Promotions in the 1970s. The quintessential good-guy fighting the uphill battle against the dangerous Texas villain Blackjack Mulligan. Their rivalry in the area is still remembered to this day. Paul held just about every title you could hold in our area, and was a main eventer here for over a decade.

Dick Murdoch - Waxahachie
When Dick Murdoch came for a multi-month stay in our area in 1978, he was billed from Waxahachie, Texas. It took me a while to learn how to spell it to be able to look it up on my Atlas! Waxahachie is just south of Dallas. Murdoch was later billed from Canyon, Texas, which is just south of Amarillo in the west Texas panhandle, and a much more appropriate place to be from given his ties to other west Texas wrestlers like Blackjack Mulligan, Dusty Rhodes, and the Funk brothers. But how cool is the name of a town like Waxahachie? Unforgettable.

Dusty Rhodes - Austin
I knew of Austin of course, being the state capitol of Texas. But it didn't have that same exotic feel to it that some of these lesser known Texas towns I was learning about. But for years I knew that Dusty was the "son of a plumber" from Austin, Texas. Rhodes made regular appearances in our area in the 1970s as a special attraction, similar to Andre the Giant. He was a semi-regular on the big cards held in Crockett's main town of Greensboro. In 1984, he came in full time as booker and led the company to heights it hadn't seen since the George Scott Mulligan/Flair/Steamboat era of the 1970s.

Dory Funk, Jr. and Terry Funk - Amarillo
Amarillo was always a fascinating place to me as a kid because it was where the famous Funk family originated from, and the Funks were wrestling royalty that you read about in all the wrestling magazines. They were the only two brothers to have ever held the NWA World Heavyweight championship and both had many title defense in our area. Real men came from places like Amarillo, Texas. I knew this for a fact.  Late addition: David Chappell reminds me that Dory Funk also worked under a mask as the Texas Outlaw and held the Mid-Atlantic title managed by Paul Jones.

Tiger Conway, Jr. - Houston
Conway was a breakout star here in 1975, teaming with rookie Steve Keirn to upset the world tag team champions, the Anderson Brothers, in a non-title match on television. He and his father had success in Houston, and were billed from that city while wrestling here.

Nelson Royal - Amarillo
Nelson's heyday was before my time as a fan, but he was always around, especially in the 1980s where he made a brief return as the mentor and tag partner of fellow Texan Sam Houston. I loved that Royal always looked like the quintessential Texas cowboy. He was actually originally from Kentucky and lived most of his life in North Carolina and was actually once billed as being from London, England! Our friend Carroll Hall seems to remember that when Nelson turned babyface in the mid-1960s and began teaming with Tex McKenzie, he was billed from Amarillo. Who can ever forget those cool vignettes beginning in December of 1985 when Nelson would invite us for a cup of coffee around the campfire to smarten us up on the Bunkhouse Stampede? During the 1980s he was billed from Mooresville, NC (his legit home), although he was seemingly always considered a Texan.

Wahoo McDaniel* - Midland
Wahoo is listed here with an asterisk because in our area he was primarily billed as being from Oklahoma, where he had great success playing college football at the University of Oklahoma. But occasionally he was billed as being from Midland, Texas, where he actually did grow up and graduated from high school. His father worked the oil fields there. Wahoo's little league coach in Midland was future U.S. president George H.W. Bush, part of another famous Texas family. Wahoo was occasionally billed from Houston, too. I'm guessing it was because his biggest early career success in pro-wrestling was working that city for promoter Paul Boesch. I remember how surprised I was learning later that Wahoo and Johnny Valentine had battled for years in Texas long before both were brought to the Mid-Atlantic area by booker George Scott. I just assumed as a kid that their first battles were in our area. Boy was I wrong about that.

Stan Hansen - Borger
My exposure to Stan "The Lariat" Hansen in the 1970s was from watching "Georgia Championship Wrestling" when Superstation WTCG-17 (which later became WTBS) first appeared on our local cable system in 1976 or 1977.  Gordon Solie always called him "the bad man from Borger, Texas." Borger is about 30 miles northeast of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle. Hansen only wrestled in the Mid-Atlantic area occasionally, most notably in a late-70s tag team tournament with partner Blackjack Mulligan, and as a NWA world tag team champion with partner Ole Anderson in 1982.

Bobby Duncum - Austin
Duncum had a big battle with Blackjack Mulligan in the early 1980s which always seem centered around their real and/or fabled history with each other in Texas. Whether it was in Texas bullrope matches or Texas death matches, they shed some blood in our rings, and it always seemed to be a fight over the love of some former Texas sweetheart like Sarah Joe Puckett. Or at least that's how I remember it. Mulligan and Duncum's promos were filled with west Texas references, and I always wondered if it was was part of the lore or was part of a shoot!

Jake Roberts
Jake "The Snake" Roberts came here in 1981, when he was a tall, lean and lanky Texas cowboy through and through, and had a great look in that regard. This was before he carried around a snake or had created the DDT or was possessed by the devil and all the rest.  I always liked the Texas cowboy version of Jake Roberts the best. He was later billed from Stone Mountain, Georgia, but in our area in the early 1980s he was billed from Texas, although I can't recall them ever saying where in Texas. (If you remember, let us know!)

Outlaw Ron Bass - Pampa 
I confess I never looked up Pampa on my Atlas, and never knew where it was until I saw it included on an exit sign driving on I-40 from Amarillo to Oklahoma City in 2011. Pampa is a tiny little town between the two. Booker Ole Anderson brought "Outlaw" Ron Bass in to our area in 1981 to fill the Texan role left vacant by the departure of Blackjack Mulligan, but because the two had such a similar persona, the fans never rallied around Bass here the way they always had ol' Mully. 

The Von Erich Brothers* - Denton
No wrestlers were more associated with the state of Texas in the 1980s than the Von Erich brothers. David and Kevin only wrestled once in the Mid-Atlantic area, in a tournament here, and so they have an asterisk beside their name, too. But they have to be on my list. Their syndicated TV show aired in many markets in our area, and even if you didn't see them on TV here, you were well aware of them through their endless coverage in the wrestling magazines. David Von Erich's nickname was "the Yellow Rose of Texas" which became younger brother Kerry Von Erich's symbol, too, after David's untimely passing. It was part of a memorable tribute to David when Kerry defeated Ric Flair for the NWA World Championship. The Von Erich exploits in the ring were primarily carried out in Dallas, Fort Worth, and surrounding areas, but the town always associated with them is Denton, some 20 miles north of the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Tully Blanchard - San Antonio
Tully was always billed from San Antonio, and his father Joe Blanchard promoted wrestling there in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Joe Blanchard actually had some of the Crockett champions down to his territory to defend their titles occasionally (which we cover in part two of this series.) Tully first made a name in the Mid-Atlantic area in the late 1970s on the mid-card, but returned in 1984 and headlined here until leaving in 1988 for the WWF.  He also brought another notable Texan into the area in the mid-80s, Nickla "Baby Doll" Roberts, to accompany him as his "perfect 10."

Sam Houston - Houston
In the tradition of the "tall drink of water" cowboys like Jake Roberts a few years before him, Sam Houston personified the Texas cowboy image for Jim Crockett Promotions during the Dusty-era of JCP. (Dusty had assumed more of a "David Allen Coe truck-drivin' hat" persona in the mid-1980s.) I always thought Dusty had really big plans for Sam, but they never panned out for various reasons. Houston teamed with veteran Nelson Royal during those years, too, and that gave him even more Texas street cred.

Late Addition!
Black Bart - Pecos
"Dadgum!" I can't believe I left out Black Bart! Brian Rogers reminded me, and dadgum it, how can I not include a guy who yells "TEXAS!!" as he leaps from the second turnbuckle with a big legdrop! Bart was billed from Pecos, Texas, which is further west on out that I-20 corridor past Odessa. The former Ricky Harris in the Mid-Atlantic area in the early 1980s, Black Bart was one half of the Mid-Atlantic tag team champions with the aforementioned Ron Bass managed by James J. Dillon. He was National Champion as well. But my lasting memory of Bart was that Stan Hansen-esque primal yell of 'Texas!!" as he lept from the turnbuckle with that big leg drop. Sorry I forgot you to begin with, Bart!


Those are the wrestlers that I think of when I think of Texas wrestlers working for Jim Crockett Promotions in the 1970s and 1980s. I fully realize my list isn't complete. David Chappell, who has an incredible memory for details for things like this, sent me his list of wrestlers in our area who were billed as coming from Texas during his years watching JCP wrestling. He also admits he's probably left someone out, so if you can recall any others, please let us know.

CHAP'S LIST

Scott Casey, Sonny King, Paul Jones, Tiger Conway, Jr., Wahoo, Blackjack, Brian Adias, Baby Doll, Tully Blanchard, Bobby Duncum, Dory Funk, Jr., Terry Funk, Chavo Guerrero, Jr., Stan Hansen, Sam Houston, Killer Karl Kox, Dick Murdoch, Barry Orton, Dusty Rhodes, Jake Roberts, Richard Blood, Barry Windham, Mark Youngblood, Skandor Akbar, Bruiser Brody, Skip Young, Gary Young, Len Denton.

In 2011, I took a long road trip through the Southwestern and Midwestern United States. I met a good friend in Dallas and we went to the State Fair and rode the Texas Star. Afterwards I headed west through the oil and cotton country of west Texas, driving through towns like Abilene, Sweetwater, Midland and Odessa. Then I headed north into the panhandle through Lubbuck, Canyon, and Amarillo. This was Funk country, Rhodes and Murdoch country, Mulligan country. Throughout that beautiful drive, I heard the echos of bodyslams in the ring and the voices of Bob Caudle, Gordon Solie, and Joe Murnick naming those towns whenever they spoke of these great Texas legends. I treasure the memories of that adventure west.

In PART TWO of this "Texas Connections" feature, we'll take a look at some of the many times Jim Crockett's area championships were defended for other promoters in some of the Texas territories of the NWA including the NWA World Tag team titles, the U.S. title, and the NWA TV title.

Originally published October 31, 2017 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.

Poster: Andersons battle Keirn and Conway on Plane Crash Saturday

by Brack Beasley
Mid-Atlantic Gateway Contributor

October 4th, 1975 is an infamous date in Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling history and for that matter, professional wrestling history as a whole. The participants on this card at the Starland Arena in Roanoke, VA  must have been grateful that they were not booked on that ill-fated chartered flight out of Charlotte to Wilmington which ended the careers of "The Champ" Johnny Valentine and Bob Bruggers, injured Tim Woods and David Crockett, and almost stopped Ric Flair's rise to the top of the wrestling world. The Wilmington plane crash this Saturday evening no doubt changed the landscape of wrestling. 

The Starland main event featured Tiger Conway Jr. and Steve Keirn continuing their quest for Gene and Ole Anderson's NWA World Tag Team belts with an undercard that included Ken Patera, Mike " The Judge" Dubois, Johnny Weaver, and Two Ton Harris.

This vertical poster, as most all Starland posters were, has a pretty basic layout with all black print on a bright yellow background and the western style "Wrestling" logo.

Imagine how different the wrestling world would have become if the Roanoke and Wilmington cards had been reversed.

NO. 12 IN A SERIES

An Upset for the Ages: Keirn and Conway beat the Andersons (1975)

by David Chappell
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

I loved watching Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling on television. In fact, my Saturday’s during the Mid-Atlantic era revolved around TV wrestling! But as much as I loved my television wrestling on Richmond’s WTVR-TV 6 back in the 1970’s, the TV matches themselves were very predictable as far as who won and who lost. And that was absolutely okay with me. It made sense that an established and championship duo like Gene and Ole Anderson would whip up on and defeat the many young upstart tandems that the promoters threw in against them on TV. For me, the team of Tiger Conway and Steve Keirn fit that bill. In my mind they were in the class of a good upcoming tag team, and would certainly put up a good fight, but there was no way in the world they could beat Gene and Ole Anderson. Boy, was I in for a big surprise!

Steve Keirn & Tiger Conway, Jr.

First off, let me say that in September of 1975 Conway and Keirn brought a little more to the table than some of the typical Anderson’s TV opponents. Tiger Conway, Jr. was rapidly losing the “junior” designation…he was becoming his own man, and an accomplished wrestler. Tiger rose to one half of the Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Champions with Paul Jones in late 1974 and early 1975. But in February of 1975 when Gene and Ole Anderson took over as the area’s tag team kingpins, it was Tiger who was effectively booted out of the territory. Conway reappeared in the area with little fanfare a few weeks before being paired with Keirn in September of 1975.

Steve Keirn was building up some credentials as well. Hitting the area in the middle of 1975, the 1974 NWA Rookie of the Year put on an impressive showing against NWA World Champion Jack Brisco in a rare TV match from the WRAL TV studios soon after entering the territory. But Keirn’s performances after that were a bit uneven, and it appeared he was settling into a mid-card tag team slot with partner Ron Starr. Conway’s return to the area seemed to change things, as Tiger liked what he saw in the aggressive youngster Keirn.

Gene & Ole Anderson

During the latter days of September 1975, NWA World Tag Team Champions Gene and Ole Anderson were operating at an all-time high level. Gene and Ole were winding down one of the greatest tag teams programs ever, with Paul Jones and Wahoo McDaniel, having wrestled Jones and McDaniel in lengthy matches throughout the spring and summer. As great as the Anderson Brothers were, they perhaps were never as invincible-looking as they were in the middle of September of 1975.

The Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling TV show that was taped on September 17th was down to its final match of the program, with the World Tag Team champs Gene and Ole Anderson pitted against youngsters Tiger Conway and Steve Keirn in a non-title bout. While the match had no particular build-up, the crowd was super hyped. I probably should have sensed something unusual was up when television commentator David Crockett said, “There’s something in the air; I don’t know what it is, but these fans can feel it. They were up on their feet when Keirn and Conway walked in the ring. They’re ready!”

Blooper! A "Worked" Tag Team Title Match

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

We love the newspaper bloopers, but this might be better classified as a major breach of kayfabe! It's from Greenville, SC, in October of 1975.

We're pretty sure this was supposed to say WORLD Tag Team Title Match. (The "K" and the "L" are actually next to each other on the keyboard, which likely explains the error somewhere in the process.)

We're also pretty sure the boys in the back got a big laugh out of this if they saw the ad in the local paper.

Worked Tag Team Title Match!

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Tiger Conway, Jr and Steve Keirn were the hot babyface tag team at the time, even earning a non-title win over the Andersons on television.

Interesting 2nd main event with a young Bob Backlund making a rare appearance in the area. He was in for a few dates over the previous weekend as well.

Also interesting to note that the ad announces "New Time" for the show - - but doesn't actually list the time! By checking other ads before and after this show it looks like the bell-time for Greenville events changed from 8:15 PM to 8:00 PM.

For more Bloopers,  check out the list here. More to come!

Classic Poster Friday: One of Greg Valentine's Earliest Appearances as a Regular in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Today's "Classic Poster Friday" features a historical look at Greg Valentine's first main event match in the Mid-Atlantic territory back in September of 1976. It would be a run in that territory that lasted some 7+ years. 

Valentine made his very first appearance in the Mid-Atlantic area as a "guest' appearance on a Greensboro NC card in August of 1976. Greensboro was somewhat famous for having regular appearances by "guest" stars coming in from other territories. In this case, coming in from Florida, it was a big deal that the "brother" of Johnny Valentine (Greg was actually Johnny's son) was coming into the area that Johnny had dominated up until his tragic airplane accident less than a year earlier.

What fans didn't know then was that Greg would enter the area on a full time basis a month later.

The "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" and "Wide World Wrestling" shows taped 9/15/76 in Raleigh featured a special video tape segment hosted by Gordon Solie sent in from Florida. In the tape, Greg Valentine was demonstrating the power of his "bionic elbow" by breaking boards with it, etc. He told Solie he would be entering the Mid-Atlantic area soon. A week later at the tapings on 9/22/76, Valentine made his full time debut defeating Steve Bolus. Two nights later, he would wrestle in his first main event, teaming with Ric Flair (who would soon become his permanent tag team partner) against Wahoo McDaniel and Tiger Conway, Jr. on 9/24/76 in Lynchburg, VA, the headline event on the poster above.

The next night in Hampton, VA, Greg would challenge Wahoo McDaniel for the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight championship. The match played off the history of Wahoo's epic battles with Johnny Valentine and also foreshadowed Greg and Wahoo's legendary feud that would begin in 1977.

It was somewhat unusual in those days for a newcomer to hit the main events as soon as he was in the territory, but Valentine indeed did just that. It didn't take him long to capture gold, either. In less than two months he defeated Mr. Wrestling Tim Woods for the TV championship and then a month later with partner Ric Flair defeated the Anderson brothers to take the NWA World Tag Team championship. 

In the semi-main tag match on this Lynchburg show, the brother due of Lanny and Randy Poffo challenged Red Bastien and Vic Rosettani. Randy Poffo would become "Macho Man" Randy Savage in ICW in the late 1970s, and go on to headline the WWF in the 1980s.

Of note about this card in Lynchburg, it was only a four-match show, which was still occasionally the case in smaller towns or spot show towns. Jim Crockett Promotions often ran three towns a night, and on this night they were also in the regular Friday night towns of Richmond VA (headlined by Blackjack Mulligan vs. Rufus R. Jones in a Texas Death Match) and Charleston, SC, (headlined by Angelo Mosca defending the TV title against Tony Atlas.)

Thanks to Jody Shifflett for the poster image and David Chappell for additional research.

Ric Flair and Greg Valentine Defend Their NWA World Tag Team Titles at the "Parade of Champions" in Texas

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Ric Flair and Greg Valentine head to Texas
with the NWA World Tag Team titles!

In December of 1977, NWA World Tag Team champions Ric Flair and Greg Valentine left their Mid-Atlantic home territory and headed to Corpus Christi, TX to defend their title belts.

Last November, I wrote a series on the Texas Connections with Jim Crockett Promotions, and PART TWO of that series focused on JCP's relationship in 1977 and 1978 with promoter Joe Blanchard in San Antonio. His fledgling "All Star Wrestling" promotion would later be known as "Southwest Championship Wrestling."

Recently, researcher Mark Eastridge came across newspaper material related to the big Corpus Christi "Parade of Champions" show on 12/15/77. It was on this show that several Mid-Atlantic stars made their way down to the Lone Star State to make this almost a combined Blanchard/Crockett show.

The headliner was one of the biggest wrestling stars to ever come out of the state of Texas, Wahoo McDaniel. The Midland, TX high school standout and Oklahoma University all-American and AFL/NFL football legend had been a ring warrior in both the Amarillo and Houston territories in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was making a big return to Texas on this night.

This "Parade of Champions" show had a strong Mid-Atlantic flavor to it:

• Wahoo McDaniel was one of the top full-time singles stars in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, in the middle of the memorable feud with Greg valentine over the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship that months earlier had cost Wahoo a broken leg.
• Blackjack Mulligan was another favorite son of Texas, and was in middle of a big headlining feud with Ricky Steamboat in the Mid-Atlantic area. In fact, only a couple of weeks after this "Parade of Champions" show in Corpus Christi, Mulligan regained the United States title from Steamboat in Greensboro, NC. 
• Ric Flair and Greg Valentine brought their NWA World Tag Team championships to Corpus Christi to face Tully Blanchard and Tiger Conway, both familiar mid-card faces in the Mid-Atlantic area. Blanchard would stay in the San Antonio territory and become a headliner for his father's promotion over the next few years. 

Results from the show:

• Wahoo McDaniel defeated Ox Baker in what was originally billed as an American Championship title match. However, three days before the big Parade of Champions show, Baker had lost his title to Fritz Von Erich in Fort Worth, Texas, on 12/12.
• Ric Flair and Greg Valentine defeated Tully Blanchard and Tiger Conway, Jr. in a 2-of-3 falls contest to retain their NWA World Tag Team championships.
• Alberto Madril defeated Blackjack Mulligan by DQ to retain his Texas Heavyweight championship.
• Killer Karl Krupp defeated Dennis Albert in the opener.

It's fun to go back and see the Crockett promotions stars making special appearances, and even title defenses, in another area. In this case, it was Crockett and booker George Scott lending a helping hand to promoter Joe Blanchard who was just getting his San Antonio office started. Corpus Christi was one of his towns.

Note: This post corrects an earlier error on the location of this card.

* * * * * * * *

Check out the earlier installments of the "Texas Connections" series published last fall on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway

PART ONE: Mid-Atlantic Wrestlers Hailing from the Great State of Texas
PART TWO: Crockett's Connections with Joe Blanchard's Southwest Wrestling
PART THREE: Crockett TV in Texas
PART FOUR: Terry Funk Takes the U.S. Title Back to Texas
PART FIVE: Sound Clips!
PART SIX: Bonus: Big Ratings in Austin, TX

Wahoo McDaniel: Missing in Action (Part 4 - Final Chapter)

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

Unconvinced, David Crockett turned everyone's attention back to the film clip from the infamous night in Charlotte. Crockett said, "Well, we’re gonna hear from Wahoo right now." As the film played again, the fans could hear the Charlotte ring announcer say, "The referee’s decision for this match is a no contest, a no decision match," to a loud chorus of boos.

At this juncture everyone would finally hear from the Indian Chief himself, Wahoo McDaniel! Wahoo bellowed, "Let me tell you something, when I was on my way to the match I stopped at the store and both of ‘em jumped on me! I tell you one thing, I’ll get ‘em both! Nobody’s ever done this to me and got by with it, I promise you!"

Bob Caudle then pronounced, "And that’s what Wahoo said happened." A grinning Valentine scoffed, "Yeah, I heard him and that doesn’t make any difference because let me tell you something...Wahoo McDaniel, you are lying, you are lying through your teeth! You were over at some bar out there getting drunk, and you got beat up by about five or six bums and that’s why you got there late!"

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!

Republished in December of 2021 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Wahoo McDaniel: Missing in Action (Part 3)

by David Chappell
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Catch up on what you missed earlier:
PART ONE  |  PART TWO

And now the saga of Wahoo McDaniel missing in action in Charlotte continues to unfold:

As David Crockett, Greg Valentine and Bob Caudle continued to view the film of Ric Flair and Tiger Conway battling in the ring, everything seemed to stop in its place while the crowd erupted for some unknown reason. Then the camera panned to a familiar face approaching ringside, covered in blood! Crockett exclaimed, “Ah ha! It looks like Wahoo! That’s right, that’s Wahoo McDaniel!”

Clearly flustered, a bellicose Valentine hollered, “Now, this is completely unfair!” Crockett responded, “Why is it unfair, he was supposed to be in the match!?” The “Hammer” elaborated, “But Ric Flair was wrestling Tiger Conway and Wahoo McDaniel comes in from behind and starts beating on Ric Flair…this is completely unfair!” Crockett pressed his luck yelling, “No it isn’t!”

The film then showed a sequence of the bloody McDaniel in street clothes giving the “Nature Boy” quite a beat-down. Greg, becoming animated and more and more agitated, followed up, “There’s no way you should let a thing like this go on…look at that!” Becoming ever more confrontational Crockett shot back, “Tiger’s not wrestling Ric now, Tiger’s not wrestling Ric, so why shouldn’t Wahoo wrestle him? Tiger’s outside the ring!” Valentine countered, “That just shows you what kind of man Wahoo McDaniel is.”

Valentine, who had successfully defended his Mid-Atlantic Television Title in the previous bout of the evening, got wind of what was going on in the ring and interjected himself in what was now the regularly scheduled matchup between Flair and Wahoo. David continued on towards Greg, “Now, you come into the ring…” The “Bionic Elbow” attempted to explain, “The reason I came into that ring…” At that juncture Crockett interrupted, and it drew a strong rebuke from Greg!

“WILL YOU SHUT UP,” Valentine hollered to David! Crockett relented and Greg explained, “The reason why I came into that ring is because Wahoo McDaniel got in there and jumped Ric Flair from behind…that’s the only reason I came in because my partner Ric Flair needed help, he had two men on one!” Crockett mustered up the nerve to speak again and commented, “Look at Wahoo…he’s a man possessed, he’s a man possessed! Now Wahoo was in there, Tiger wasn’t helping him.”

A seething Valentine retorted, “I can beat Wahoo by myself anytime, anywhere, in any arena.” On the film, both Valentine and Flair departed the ringside area prompting Crockett to say, “But now, both of you left the ring…why did you leave?” Greg countered, “We both left the ring because what had been done had been done…Wahoo, again, made a complete fool out of himself.”

Now the ring announcer could be heard on the film saying the referee had declared the match a no decision, no contest finish. With there no longer being a match to describe on the film, Crockett asked the question everyone in Charlotte and now the Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling television audience wanted answered, “But why did Wahoo show up late, why did he show up late?” Caudle concurred, “I was gonna say, let’s pursue that for a moment David.”

Valentine paused…and his upcoming explanation for Wahoo’s showing up late was truly one for the ages!

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4
PART ONE  |  PART TWO

Wahoo McDaniel: Missing in Action (Part 2)

THE BATTLE CONTINUES IN CHARLOTTE
by David Chappell
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Catch up on what you missed in PART ONE that set the stage for the tremendous battle between Ric Flair and Tiger Conway, Jr.

* * * * * * * * * *

PART TWO

When Greg Valentine was confronted by David Crockett regarding the disappearance of Wahoo McDaniel an indignant Valentine snarled, “Well, why do you have a feeling that I know where Wahoo is?” Crockett answered, “We’ll see what happens in the match. Right now…now Ric Flair is up to his usual tricks, he has his man down and he wants to punish the man.” Greg, smiling now as he’s viewing the film cackles, “Now you see, this is what I told you before…STAMINA! Tiger Conway is blowed up; he’s had all he can take! Desperation punch there, but he is tired…”

Crockett then interjected, “That’s right, he’s tired from wrestling a previous match.” Valentine then deadpanned, “Now, this surprised me that he had energy to do that.” As Conway turned the tide, an excited Crockett exclaimed, “Look at this, look at this!! Tremendous slam, almost all the way across the ring!” At this juncture, announcer Bob Caudle clarified for the fans watching on TV the key point that the fans in Charlotte witnessed in person, “David, you mean that he’d all ready wrestled a match prior to this?” Crockett affirmed, “That’s correct, and Tiger he’s goin’ full gun. Ric Flair now, Ric Flair’s on the defensive…he’s backing up!”

Mark Eastridge Collection

The “Bionic Elbow” was not about to give Tiger any credit retorting, “Well, let me tell ya something, Ric Flair only backs up when knows he needs to step back and think and get ready to make another move. That’s the only reason he’s backin’ up, not because he’s afraid of Tiger Conway, Jr. because there’s no way.” Crockett continued to push back against Valentine stating, “Well, he’s standing back and now he’s sort of got his hands up saying stay back a little bit. Now, look at Tiger! He’s goin’ 110 percent. It looks like Ric Flair is the one that’s blown up!”

Valentine fired right back at Crockett saying, “I’ll have to disagree with you there. The match is still new; the match has only been goin’ five or six minutes. As I said before, Ric Flair will wear the man down.” Caudle then again clarified the situation for the fans at home noting, “David, do you think Ric Flair knew where Wahoo was?” Crockett answered, “I think he did.” Caudle followed, “You think Ric also knew, then?” David reiterated, “I think he did, I definitely do.”

As the film continued to play, it showcased what was a very competitive match between Flair and Conway that had to be thrown together because of the surprising absence of Chief Wahoo McDaniel. David Crockett continued, “Tiger Conway, Jr., he’s doing very well taking up for Wahoo. He’s doing a fantastic job! Now Ric Flair…” The “Hammer” then interrupted, “That’s a familiar hold right there, a familiar knee right into the old bread basket.” Crockett concurred, “Yes it is, and now Ric is working on the mid section.” Seeing Tiger in trouble, Valentine then gleefully quipped, “Now you see Tiger Conway, laying flat on the mat!”

The back and forth between Flair and Conway was intense, and the film showed how enraptured the Park Center crowd was with this impromptu bout between these two. But there came a time during the film replay that a booming crowd reaction came that didn’t seem to track a brief lull in the action in the ring. It was even to the point that Ric and Tiger almost stopped their brutal assault against each other to see what the crowd was reacting to. While viewing the film at this point, David Crockett’s voice rose in anticipation, “Now, wait a minute…wait a minute! Ric Flair’s looking around! I think he senses something…”

What was unfolding before Crockett’s eyes was the dizzying spectacle that the fans in Charlotte watched with in amazement in person, and one that the fans around the Mid-Atlantic area on television would momentarily witness in disbelief!

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3

Wahoo McDaniel: Missing in Action in Charlotte

by David Chappell
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Fans filing into the Park Center in Charlotte, North Carolina were looking forward to another outstanding Monday night card of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling on November 15, 1976. A double main event was on tap that evening, featuring Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair battling “Chief” Wahoo McDaniel and second from the top the newly crowned Mid-Atlantic Television Champion Greg Valentine squared off against Rufus R. “Freight Train” Jones. The top tag team bout of that stacked card matched Tiger Conway and “Cowboy” Frankie Laine against the up and coming Poffo Brothers, Randy and Lanny Poffo.

Mark Eastridge Collection

This card, replete with tremendous action, was progressing normally until the main event was scheduled to go on. At that juncture, the Charlotte faithful were advised that Wahoo, shockingly, was nowhere to be found. The fact that McDaniel would no-show against his bitterest rival was unfathomable. But the show had to go on, and Tiger Conway, despite having wrestled in a lengthy bout earlier in the evening, was called upon for double-duty and faced off against a fresh and ready “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.

During the match between Flair and Conway, the fans in Charlotte were left wondering, ‘Where is Wahoo?’ Well, they were about to find out in shocking fashion! And on the Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling television show that was taped on November 17, 1976 the whole Mid-Atlantic territory was about to find out why Wahoo McDaniel came to be missing in action in Charlotte…and the unsolved mystery at the time was blown wide open!

Tiger Conway, Jr.
(Online World of Wrestling)

The TV segment was started by color commentator David Crockett who said, “Now, let’s get down to a little matter that I have, I’ve brought a piece of film and I wanted Ric Flair to be here and Greg Valentine. Ric Flair is not here; Greg Valentine is here. I want to call him in right now, Mr. Valentine come in here.” Announcer Bob Caudle then noted, “Fans, here comes Greg Valentine in now.” With Valentine now on the set, things would get quite interesting.

Crockett started, “Now, this pertains to a match that took place between Ric Flair and Tiger Conway, Jr. Now, there’s some things that happened in that match that I want Mr. Valentine to explain to us.” Caudle responded, “Good, we’ll let him do a little commenting as we go along, right David?” Crockett answered, “That’s right.” The film started to roll, with Valentine looking piqued all ready. “As soon as we can, okay we’re into the match and right now Ric Flair is wrestling Tiger Conway, Jr., and Mr. Valentine right now Tiger has got the best of Ric Flair…how about that,” Crockett inquired of Valentine.

The “Hammer” replied, “Well, he’s a good athlete. I never take anything away from Tiger Conway, Jr. He’s gonna be a great star and in fact, he’s a good wrestling star right now. But, how long can he keep this up? You know, the match is very new right now, it’s only been going about two or three minutes so how long can he keep it going? How good is his stamina? That’s where the real professionalism comes in, in this wrestling game.”

At that juncture, Crockett would ask the $64,000.00 question, “All right, during the match though I was standing out of the ring and people asked me, ‘Where is Wahoo?’ And I had to say I didn’t know. And…I have a feeling that YOU know where Wahoo was.” Valentine bristled up, and the mystery of Wahoo’s disappearance was set to take a shocking turn…

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2

Crockett's Texas Connections with Joe Blanchard's Southwest Wrestling (1978)

TEXAS CONNECTIONS IN THE MID-ATLANTIC AREA
PART TWO 

Did you miss PART ONE? Go back and check out some of the many wrestlers that appeared in the Mid-Atlantic area that hailed from the great state of Texas.

 * * * * * * * *

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

In PART TWO of our feature on the Texas Connections with Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, we take a look at a brief working relationship in 1978 between Jim Crockett Promotions and the new Southwest Championship Wrestling promotion headed up by Joe Blanchard in San Antonio.

Joe's son Tully had been competing in the Mid-Atlantic territory as a rookie getting experience in the opening matches of the cards in the Carolinas and Virginia. He arrived in the area in May of 1977 and spent the rest of that year there.

Tully left Jim Crockett Promotions in December of 1977 around the same time his father took over promoting the San Antonio territory which had just been renamed "Southwest Championship Wrestling."

The Lone Star State was divided into several small territories in the 1970s. The Amarillo territory, run by the Funks, covered Amarillo, Lubbock, the panhandle and points west. Dallas was promoted by Fritz Von Erich and covered Dallas, Ft. Worth, and the entire metroplex. The city of Houston, was promoted by Paul Boesch. South Texas (except for Houston) was now run by Joe Blanchard, and the territory included everything from Waco south, including Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and other towns in the Rio Grande valley.

Along with his core group of wrestlers, Joe Blanchard would occasionally book talent from other territories which included some of the top stars from Jim Crockett Promotions. The relationship was apparently developed though Blanchard's history with Crockett booker George Scott.

In early 1978, Crockett landed a time-slot for its program "Wide World Wrestling" on a Corpus Christi station, and in May of that year placed their flagship "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" show on a station in Austin. Blanchard's home base of San Antonio lay right in the middle, and the exposure of the Crockett stars each week in much of Blanchard's territory allowed him to occasionally book some of Jim Crockett Promotions' top stars for key events. This included Crockett's U.S. and World Tag Team titles being defended there, too.

The following is a short summary of some of the appearances Crockett stars made in Southwest Championship Wrestling over roughly an 8-month period. We know there are many others, but we just haven't unearthed them yet. We're working on it!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

September 14, 1977 - San Antonio, Texas
September 15, 1977 - Corpus Christi, Texas
Tully Blanchard & Tiger Conway, Jr. vs. Big John Studd and the Iron Sheik
Tully Blanchard and Tiger Conway left the Mid-Atlantic area for two quick shots in the Lone Star State. Tiger Conway Jr. was a Texas favorite, as was his father, and was a regular mid-carder for Jim Crockett Promotions during this time period. Conway had headlined shows in the Mid-Atlantic area in late 1975 with partner Steve Keirn in a feud with Gene and Ole Anderson. Blanchard had become a frequent tag team partner of Blanchard's while Tully was in the area in the second half of 1977.


December 15, 1977 - Corpus Christi, Texas
NWA World Tag Team Title Match: 
Ric Flair & Greg Valentine vs. Tully Blanchard & Tiger Conway, Jr. 
Wahoo McDaniel vs. Ox Baker 

 

Only days after one of his final regular shots in the Mid-Atlantic area, Tully Blanchard returned home and teamed with Texas favorite Tiger Conway, Jr. to challenge NWA World Tag Team Champions Ric Flair and Greg Valentine for their world title belts. It is thought to be the first time the Crockett version of the NWA world tag team title was defended in Texas. On the same card, Wahoo McDaniel came in and defeated tough Ox Baker. Mid-Atlantic favorite Blackjack Mulligan was unsuccessful in his bid for the Texas title on this card. Flair and Valentine retained the NWA tag titles, and headed back home with Wahoo and Tiger for the Mid-Atlantic area's traditional two-week break before Christmas.


May 17, 1978 - San Antonio, Texas
Southwest Championship match: Tully Blanchard vs. Ricky Steamboat
Ricky Steamboat had become one of the top stars in the country off of his feud with "Nature Boy" Ric Flair in the Mid-Atlantic area, and so it elevated both Tully Blanchard and his Southwest title to successfully defend it against Steamboat in San Antonio.

 

The title match was part of a huge San Antonio card that was headlined by NWA World Champion Harley Race defending the "ten pounds of gold" against the man he dethroned for that very title, Amarillo's own Terry Funk. A third title match on that big card featured Dale Valentine (Buddy Roberts) defending the Texas Heavyweight Championship against Killer Karl Krupp.

June 21, 1978 - San Antonio, Texas
NWA World Title Match: Harley Race vs. Ricky Steamboat
Steamboat must have proven to be a good draw for them, because Joe Blanchard brought him back a month later to headline San Antonio against the NWA World Champion Harley Race. Also on that card, Tully Blanchard was attempting to regain the Southwest title he had recently lost to Alberto Madril. (See the program for this big San Antonio main event featuring Race vs. Steamboat.)


August 3, 1978 - Corpus Christi, Texas
United States Championship match:
Ric Flair vs. Blackjack Mulligan
In August, Joe Blanchard booked Jim Crockett's hottest main event to headline his own big show in Corpus Christi, a U.S. title defense by Ric Flair against his former partner and now top challenger, the big man from Eagle Pass, Texas, Blackjack Mulligan. Blanchard had also booked two top young stars catching fire in Dallas, Kevin and David Von Erich. Dale Valentine (Buddy Roberts) defeated Kevin, and David topped Don Kodiak. Tully Blanchard and Rocky Johnson wrestled to a draw. (There is reason to believe this may have been a TV taping.)



There were likely other occasions during 1978 where Crockett's top stars made appearances, and we continue to try to uncover them.

In PART THREE of our "Texas Connections" series, we'll take a closer look at Crockett TV airing in Texas in the territory days, as well as Flair defending his U.S. title in the Amarillo territory. And looking ahead, we'll be listening to some vintage audio clips from Mid-Atlantic Wrestling with a decidedly TEXAS theme to them. Stay tuned!

Did you miss PART ONE? Go back and check out some of the many wrestlers that appeared in the Mid-Atlantic area that hailed from the great state of Texas.

[Special thanks to Mark Eastridge for the newspaper clippings and for inspiring this Texas series.]

6/21/78: San Antonio, Texas:
⭐️NWA World Title Match⭐️
Harley Race
vs.
Ricky Steamboat pic.twitter.com/h3W1NLaicP

— Phil Cole (@Philcool27) February 28, 2023

Hailing From the Great State of Texas

Part 1
by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Growing up as I did in East Tennessee, I didn't know a whole lot about the geography of the state of Texas. I knew it was big, but that's about it. But when I started regularly watching Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling on a regular basis in the early 1970s, that all changed for me.

I had an Atlas that my parents had given me and I loved looking up far away places and day-dreaming about what it would be like to go there. It seemed to me that more wrestlers came from the great state of Texas than from any other state in the union. And from very cool sounding places.

My first memory of being interested in learning about Texas was in 1976 during the year-long war between Paul Jones and Blackjack Mulligan over the United States Heavyweight Championship. Paul was from Port Arthur and Blackjack famously hailed from Eagle Pass, Texas. Both of these places sounded very exciting to me. Part of it was the way they were announced by WRAL TV ring announcer (and promoter) extraordinaire Joe Murnick.

These were the first Texas towns I heard about on wrestling that I remember looking up in my Atlas. I learned that Port Arthur was a relatively small town on the Gulf of Mexico, just east of Houston.

I looked up Eagle Pass, too, and saw that it was a small Mexican-border town about two and a half hours west of San Antonio on the Rio Grande river. But this confused me a bit, because Eagle Pass was nowhere near all the colorful places Blackjack talked about in his local promos. Blackjack always mentioned west Texas towns like Odessa, Abilene, Sweetwater, Midland, or Duvall County in the tales he would weave into the local promos for upcoming Mid-Atlantic area events. But that string of west Texas towns was along the I-20 corridor well over 300 miles north of Eagle Pass. This wasn't adding up.

I asked Blackjack about this once, asking how he came to be billed from Eagle Pass. He confessed that it just had an outlaw sound to it that he liked. And some of Mama Mulligan's kinfolk were from there, too, he said with a smile. Blackjack was always working.

So here is a short list of wrestlers that I watched in the 1970s and 1980s that hailed from the great state of Texas. It isn't a complete list by any means, just the ones I think of the most. I remember looking up all these hometowns in my trusty Atlas during those years. All of them seemed like magical places to me, especially living in the far off hills of East Tennessee.

Blackjack Mulligan - Eagle Pass
Blackjack loved telling tall tales about the characters he encountered in Texas, many of them archived in our section of this website called Blackjack's Bar-b-que. Of all the wrestlers who hailed from Texas, none of them was more Texan in my eyes than the great Blackjack Mulligan. He set an early  record for the most U.S. title reigns, and was both a hated heel and beloved babyface during his seven years headlining our territory.

Paul Jones - Port Arthur 
Port Arthur always had this very cool, classy sound to it to me as a kid. And Paul Jones was that kind of babyface in his peak years for Jim Crockett Promotions in the 1970s. The quintessential good-guy fighting the uphill battle against the dangerous Texas villain Blackjack Mulligan. Their rivalry in the area is still remembered to this day. Paul held just about every title you could hold in our area, and was a main eventer here for over a decade.

Dick Murdoch - Waxahachie
When Dick Murdoch came for a multi-month stay in our area in 1978, he was billed from Waxahachie, Texas. It took me a while to learn how to spell it to be able to look it up on my Atlas! Waxahachie is just south of Dallas. Murdoch was later billed from Canyon, Texas, which is just south of Amarillo in the west Texas panhandle, and a much more appropriate place to be from given his ties to other west Texas wrestlers like Blackjack Mulligan, Dusty Rhodes, and the Funk brothers. But how cool is the name of a town like Waxahachie? Unforgettable.

Dusty Rhodes - Austin
I knew of Austin of course, being the state capitol of Texas. But it didn't have that same exotic feel to it that some of these lesser known Texas towns I was learning about. But for years I knew that Dusty was the "son of a plumber" from Austin, Texas. Rhodes made regular appearances in our area in the 1970s as a special attraction, similar to Andre the Giant. He was a semi-regular on the big cards held in Crockett's main town of Greensboro. In 1984, he came in full time as booker and led the company to heights it hadn't seen since the George Scott Mulligan/Flair/Steamboat era of the 1970s.

Dory Funk, Jr. and Terry Funk - Amarillo
Amarillo was always a fascinating place to me as a kid because it was where the famous Funk family originated from, and the Funks were wrestling royalty that you read about in all the wrestling magazines. They were the only two brothers to have ever held the NWA World Heavyweight championship and both had many title defense in our area. Real men came from places like Amarillo, Texas. I knew this for a fact.  Late addition: David Chappell reminds me that Dory Funk also worked under a mask as the Texas Outlaw and held the Mid-Atlantic title managed by Paul Jones.

Tiger Conway, Jr. - Houston
Conway was a breakout star here in 1975, teaming with rookie Steve Keirn to upset the world tag team champions, the Anderson Brothers, in a non-title match on television. He and his father had success in Houston, and were billed from that city while wrestling here.

Nelson Royal - Amarillo
Nelson's heyday was before my time as a fan, but he was always around, especially in the 1980s where he made a brief return as the mentor and tag partner of fellow Texan Sam Houston. I loved that Royal always looked like the quintessential Texas cowboy. He was actually originally from Kentucky and lived most of his life in North Carolina and was actually once billed as being from London, England! Our friend Carroll Hall seems to remember that when Nelson turned babyface in the mid-1960s and began teaming with Tex McKenzie, he was billed from Amarillo. Who can ever forget those cool vignettes beginning in December of 1985 when Nelson would invite us for a cup of coffee around the campfire to smarten us up on the Bunkhouse Stampede? During the 1980s he was billed from Mooresville, NC (his legit home), although he was seemingly always considered a Texan.

Wahoo McDaniel* - Midland
Wahoo is listed here with an asterisk because in our area he was primarily billed as being from Oklahoma, where he had great success playing college football at the University of Oklahoma. But occasionally he was billed as being from Midland, Texas, where he actually did grow up and graduated from high school. His father worked the oil fields there. Wahoo's little league coach in Midland was future U.S. president George H.W. Bush, part of another famous Texas family. Wahoo was occasionally billed from Houston, too. I'm guessing it was because his biggest early career success in pro-wrestling was working that city for promoter Paul Boesch. I remember how surprised I was learning later that Wahoo and Johnny Valentine had battled for years in Texas long before both were brought to the Mid-Atlantic area by booker George Scott. I just assumed as a kid that their first battles were in our area. Boy was I wrong about that.

Stan Hansen - Borger
My exposure to Stan "The Lariat" Hansen in the 1970s was from watching "Georgia Championship Wrestling" when Superstation WTCG-17 (which later became WTBS) first appeared on our local cable system in 1976 or 1977.  Gordon Solie always called him "the bad man from Borger, Texas." Borger is about 30 miles northeast of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle. Hansen only wrestled in the Mid-Atlantic area occasionally, most notably in a late-70s tag team tournament with partner Blackjack Mulligan, and as a NWA world tag team champion with partner Ole Anderson in 1982.

Bobby Duncum - Austin
Duncum had a big battle with Blackjack Mulligan in the early 1980s which always seem centered around their real and/or fabled history with each other in Texas. Whether it was in Texas bullrope matches or Texas death matches, they shed some blood in our rings, and it always seemed to be a fight over the love of some former Texas sweetheart like Sarah Joe Puckett. Or at least that's how I remember it. Mulligan and Duncum's promos were filled with west Texas references, and I always wondered if it was was part of the lore or was part of a shoot!

Jake Roberts
Jake "The Snake" Roberts came here in 1981, when he was a tall, lean and lanky Texas cowboy through and through, and had a great look in that regard. This was before he carried around a snake or had created the DDT or was possessed by the devil and all the rest.  I always liked the Texas cowboy version of Jake Roberts the best. He was later billed from Stone Mountain, Georgia, but in our area in the early 1980s he was billed from Texas, although I can't recall them ever saying where in Texas. (If you remember, let us know!)

Outlaw Ron Bass - Pampa 
I confess I never looked up Pampa on my Atlas, and never knew where it was until I saw it included on an exit sign driving on I-40 from Amarillo to Oklahoma City in 2011. Pampa is a tiny little town between the two. Booker Ole Anderson brought "Outlaw" Ron Bass in to our area in 1981 to fill the Texan role left vacant by the departure of Blackjack Mulligan, but because the two had such a similar persona, the fans never rallied around Bass here the way they always had ol' Mully. 

The Von Erich Brothers* - Denton
No wrestlers were more associated with the state of Texas in the 1980s than the Von Erich brothers. David and Kevin only wrestled once in the Mid-Atlantic area, in a tournament here, and so they have an asterisk beside their name, too. But they have to be on my list. Their syndicated TV show aired in many markets in our area, and even if you didn't see them on TV here, you were well aware of them through their endless coverage in the wrestling magazines. David Von Erich's nickname was "the Yellow Rose of Texas" which became younger brother Kerry Von Erich's symbol, too, after David's untimely passing. It was part of a memorable tribute to David when Kerry defeated Ric Flair for the NWA World Championship. The Von Erich exploits in the ring were primarily carried out in Dallas, Fort Worth, and surrounding areas, but the town always associated with them is Denton, some 20 miles north of the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Tully Blanchard - San Antonio
Tully was always billed from San Antonio, and his father Joe Blanchard promoted wrestling there in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Joe Blanchard actually had some of the Crockett champions down to his territory to defend their titles occasionally (which we cover in part two of this series.) Tully first made a name in the Mid-Atlantic area in the late 1970s on the mid-card, but returned in 1984 and headlined here until leaving in 1988 for the WWF.  He also brought another notable Texan into the area in the mid-80s, Nickla "Baby Doll" Roberts, to accompany him as his "perfect 10."

Sam Houston - Houston
In the tradition of the "tall drink of water" cowboys like Jake Roberts a few years before him, Sam Houston personified the Texas cowboy image for Jim Crockett Promotions during the Dusty-era of JCP. (Dusty had assumed more of a "David Allen Coe truck-drivin' hat" persona in the mid-1980s.) I always thought Dusty had really big plans for Sam, but they never panned out for various reasons. Houston teamed with veteran Nelson Royal during those years, too, and that gave him even more Texas street cred.

Late Addition!
Black Bart - Pecos
"Dadgum!" I can't believe I left out Black Bart! Brian Rogers reminded me, and dadgum it, how can I not include a guy who yells "TEXAS!!" as he leaps from the second turnbuckle with a big legdrop! Bart was billed from Pecos, Texas, which is further west on out that I-20 corridor past Odessa. The former Ricky Harris in the Mid-Atlantic area in the early 1980s, Black Bart was one half of the Mid-Atlantic tag team champions with the aforementioned Ron Bass managed by James J. Dillon. He was National Champion as well. But my lasting memory of Bart was that Stan Hansen-esque primal yell of 'Texas!!" as he lept from the turnbuckle with that big leg drop. Sorry I forgot you to begin with, Bart!


Those are the wrestlers that I think of when I think of Texas wrestlers working for Jim Crockett Promotions in the 1970s and 1980s. I fully realize my list isn't complete. David Chappell, who has an incredible memory for details for things like this, sent me his list of wrestlers in our area who were billed as coming from Texas during his years watching JCP wrestling. He also admits he's probably left someone out, so if you can recall any others, please let us know.

CHAP'S LIST

Scott Casey, Sonny King, Paul Jones, Tiger Conway, Jr., Wahoo, Blackjack, Brian Adias, Baby Doll, Tully Blanchard, Bobby Duncum, Dory Funk, Jr., Terry Funk, Chavo Guerrero, Jr., Stan Hansen, Sam Houston, Killer Karl Kox, Dick Murdoch, Barry Orton, Dusty Rhodes, Jake Roberts, Richard Blood, Barry Windham, Mark Youngblood, Skandor Akbar, Bruiser Brody, Skip Young, Gary Young, Len Denton.

In 2011, I took a long road trip through the Southwestern and Midwestern United States. I met a good friend in Dallas and we went to the State Fair and rode the texas Star. Afterwards I headed west through the oil and cotton country of west Texas, driving through towns like Abilene, Sweetwater, Midland and Odessa. Then I headed north into the panhandle through Lubbuck, Canyon, and Amarillo. This was Funk country, Rhodes and Murdoch country, Mulligan country. Throughout that beautiful drive, I heard the echos of bodyslams in the ring and the voices of Bob Caudle, Gordon Solie, and Joe Murnick naming those towns whenever they spoke of these great Texas legends. I treasure the memories of that adventure west.

In PART TWO of this "Texas Connections" feature, we'll take a look at some of the many times Jim Crockett's area championships were defended for other promoters in some of the Texas territories of the NWA including the NWA World Tag team titles, the U.S. title, and the NWA TV title.

Published again in October of 2021 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.

NWA Champ Terry Funk Defends His Title in Greensboro

A flashback to this month 40 years ago, a big card at the Greensboro Coliseum, headlined by Terry Funk defending the NWA world title against the "American Dream" Dusty Rhodes. 

May 30, 1976