A Look Back at 1960s Wrestling in Gaston County, NC

Rasslin’ Once Reigned Supreme in These Parts
by Bill Poteat
Gaston Gazette www.gastongazette.com

The silly hype and the endless hoopla that now surrounds the Super Bowl pale in comparison.

The suspense and the drama accompanying Game 7 of the World Series might have come close, but not really.

The Masters, college basketball’s Final Four, even the most wreck-filled NASCAR race, were but poor imitations.

When it came to sheer sporting excitement in the Piedmont region of the Carolinas, including Gaston County, nothing could compare with Championship Wrestling, broadcast every Saturday from 5 to 6 p.m. on Charlotte’s WBTV Channel 3 when I was a youngster.

Championship Wrestling, hosted by WBTV Sports Director “Big Bill” Ward, made its debut in the autumn of 1958 and life in these parts was profoundly altered.....


Read the entire article and enjoy a blast from the past at:
https://www.gastongazette.com/news/20200418/rasslin-once-reigned-supreme-in-these-parts

(Thanks to Barry Caldwell for making us aware of this article.)

Hart and Ringley on Charlotte TV Special (1972)

"Playboy" Gary Hart and JCP's John Ringley (1972)

In 1972, John Ringley hosted a special episode of "Championship Wrestling" that aired on WBTV-3 in Charlotte that focused on Rip "The Profile" Hawk. Ringley and Hawk's manager, "Playboy" Gary Hart were situated on a set in the WBTV studio. They reviewed 16mm film footage shot at the Charlotte Coliseum and Greensboro Coliseum featuring Hawk against various opponents including Jack Brisco in a battle over the Eastern Heavyweight Championship.

Matches included:

• Rip Hawk and Swede Hansen vs. Johnny Weaver and Argentina Apollo
• Rip Hawk and Swede Hansen vs. Johnny Weaver and Art Nelson (Greensboro)
• Rip Hawk vs. Jack Brisco (Hawk wins Eastern title) (Charlotte)
• Rip Hawk vs. Art Nelson (taped fists match) (Greensboro)

We recently had a conversation with Mr. Ringley about booking changes back during this very time period. That article can be found on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway by clicking this link.

This post was originally published on the Studio Wrestling website, a sister-website of the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.

Originally published on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.  

Remembering George Harben

by Mike Cline
Mid-Atlantic Grapplin' Greats
Published here with permission from the author.

Do you remember George Harben?  I certainly do.

I remember George Harben as the ring announcer on WBTV's CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING TV program, which was video taped every Wednesday night in Charlotte and broadcast that following Saturday afternoon.

GEORGE HARBEN

And for a number of those years, the same program was broadcast over WBTV's 'sister station' in Florence, South Carolina.

However, Mr. Harben's career in the wrestling business went back quite a bit further than announcing on television and at house shows at PARK CENTER and the CHARLOTTE COLISEUM.

Harben was born in Stone Mountain, Georgia, a famous historical spot that is still visited by tourists the year round. He broke into the business as a wrestler in 1933 and had an active career until retiring in 1956.

In 1935, George helped train one of the all-time greats of modern wrestling, none other than LOU THESZ, who went on to become WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION six times. THESZ was a young boy of eighteen when he worked with Harben.

In 1940, during the years of World War 2, George Harben made a trip to Australia by boat to wrestle and was on board when the vessel was struck by a mine off the coast of New Zealand.

He also wrestled in Cuba before Fidel Castro took control of that country.

George Harben wrestled with his brother Charlie over most of the United States as a tag team. The two were in the main event that drew the largest crowd to ever witness a wrestling card at the old CHARLOTTE ARMORY. It was in early 1953, and the Harbens' opponents were GEORGE and BOBBY BECKER.

Besides his ring announcing duties for JIM CROCKETT PROMOTIONS, Harben also assisted in advertising the company's wrestling shows in several other towns besides Charlotte and for a while promoted house shows in Hickory, North Carolina.

George Harben passed away some years ago, but I can still his voice---
"Good evening Ladies and Gentleman and welcome to another exciting evening of Championship Wrestling on Channel 3."

* * * **

Originally published on Mid-Atlantic Grapplin' Greats, October 25, 2016 
Published here with permission from the author.

WBTV Website Story Includes Wrestling and Racing Memory

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Mike Cline, longtime friend of the Gateway and publisher of the terrific Mid-Atlantic Grapplin' Greats website, forwarded to us a link to an article on the WBTV-3 TV website. The article is ostensibly about a current WBTV reporter, David Whisenant (author of the article) reconnecting with Charlotte area radio broadcasting legend Larry Bruton. After not having been in contact with each other for many years, David had received a letter and a package from Bruton. The package contained a gift for David, a 1960s 16mm Bell & Howell movie camera that was used to record silent film footage of local news events that would be used on the local WBTV TV newscasts. It was a memento from Bruton's career that he wanted David to have.

Larry Bruton in the mid-1960s (WBTV.com)

Reporter Notebook: Two broadcasters reconnect over a period of forty years
By David Whisenant, WBTV.com

The letter, however, also contained a nice little Charlotte-wrestling memory Bruton had from the 1960s that related directly to the 16mm silent film camera.

Here is an excerpt (emphasis mine) from Whisenant's article that relates to Bruton's wrestling/auto racing story involving legendary pro wrestling manager Homer O'Dell.

Manager Homer O'Dell with
Bronko Lubich and Aldo Bogni
(Mid-Atlantic Grapplin' Greats website)

This type of camera has a pretty interesting history, both with WBTV, and in the world of televised sports.  Larry recalled one of the first times that a TV news camera was placed inside of a race car actually running on the track at Charlotte Motor Speedway

"I shot film with this camera from a race car at speed at the Charlotte Motor Speedway that was broadcast on WBTV in 1966," Bruton wrote.  "We taped Bill Ward's Championship Wrestling show on Wednesday nights for rebroadcast on Saturdays, and one of the wrestling managers was named Homer O'Dell.  I think Homer was one of the first "bad guy" wrestling managers who shouted and threw chairs and such.  He was best known later for the tag teams of Brute Bernard and Scull Murphy, and Rip Hawk and Swede Hansen, but in 1966 he had two nasty wrestlers named Bronko Lubich and Aldo Bogni, a couple of real knuckledraggers."

Bruton said that at the time, O'Dell realized the value of a cross promotion between wrestling and racing.

"To promote his wrestlers, he had bought a patched up 1964 Ford race car, hired a driver, and officially entered the 600," Bruton recalled.  "During race week Homer came into the studio to tape the wrestling matches and began showing around pictures of the car.  I asked him if I could come to the speedway the next morning and try to shoot some film from inside the car while it was on the track for practice.  Homer was all for it, and they said they would rig up some kind of seat for me on the passenger side.  When I got to the track, the 'seat' was an upside-down wire milk crate sitting unattached to the floorboard...no shoulder harness or seatbelt.  And nobody seemed to question any of this.  These are the kinds of things you do when you are young and stupid.  Anyway, I locked an arm around a roll bar support to steady the camera and off we go around the track at full speed.  I held the camera braced against my chest pointing it out the windshield and the side windows, and we used the film on the 6pm newscast, so I'd say WBTV scooped the network in-car cameras by about 13 years."

Bruton says the race cars actual performance on the track wasn't as exciting.

"In the big race, the car blew up after only twenty laps or so, and the Homer O'Dell Wrestling #96 Ford finished dead last," Bruton added.  "I think he gave up race car ownership shortly after that an d went back to fulltime chair throwing."

(Editor note: The car didn't actually finish dead last, but it was close.  The Homer O'Dell Ford finished 38th out of 44 cars.  Driver Sonny Lamphear retired with drive shaft troubles on lap 29.)  (Read complete article.)

It's nice to come across even the smallest recollection from an era in pro-wrestling that is now largely forgotten or ignored. It's part of what Mike Cline does on his Grapplin' Greats website and what we strive to do here on the Gateway. It's nice to know Larry Bruton has some of those wrestling memories tucked away, too, and was able to share them with David Whisenant in his letter.

The Bell & Howell camera may have been the gift to Whisenant, but the wrestling memories are gifts to all of of us.

Meet Our Baby Brother: Ole Anderson

The Anderson Brothers Bring in the Baby!
by Richard “Dick Deluxe” Egner
for the Mid-Atlantic Gateway

     In 1966 I was 11 years and old and our family had just moved to rural North Carolina,  In those days television was much simpler-3 networks and TV antennas with aluminum foil on them.  One Saturday afternoon after bemoaning the lack of entertaining shows I stumbled onto a truly life changing event.  It was Championship Wrestling from Charlotte with Big Bill Ward at the microphone.

The Minnesota Wrecking Crew: Gene and Lars Anderson

     I vaguely knew wrestling existed, when we were younger and living in Wisconsin in the late 50's my Dad used to pick up the phone when my brother and I got too rowdy and pretend he was calling “The Whipper”.  The mere implication Whipper Billy Watson was coming over to restore order was enough to straighten us out! (I didn't know who he was but it sounded pretty serious!)

    At any rate Saturday afternoon's became my most anticipated moments of the week.  The shows were filmed at a TV studio in Charlotte and the always avuncular and serious Mr .Ward would always carefully describe the action as evenly as possible-especially considering the dastardly deeds so often perpetuated by what I soon found out were “heels”.

    While the show almost always began with singles bouts, the real action as the hour progressed inevitably was tag team action.  Little could I have imagined that nearly 50 years later the names and memories would remain so vivid. George Becker and Johnny Weaver, Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson, the Scott Brothers, the villainous Infernos with the evil J.C. Dykes as manager, Tex McKenzie and Nelson Royal, Aldo Bogni and Bronko Lubich with their scheming mastermind Colonel Homer O'Dell.

    But perhaps the scariest and most exciting team was the Anderson Brothers from Minnesota.  Lead by Gene, he and Lars we a cruel and efficient machine and somehow their blend of physicality, brute strength and clever methods of bending the rules made them truly a force.

    As the weeks went by I noticed that at the end of each show there was information on how to attend the TV tapings on Wednesday nights.   Hey Dad!..Sure enough, after some cajoling Dad decided it was time to pack up the car and drive the 90 miles to Charlotte for the show!

   I'm guessing it was spring of 1967 but at any rate we got to the studio and sure enough there was Big Bill Ward! The ring was somewhat smaller than it appeared and the 50 or so fans who attended were crammed in the bleachers very tightly-and boy was that ring close!

    The opening bout featured a “scientific” match between, if I recall correctly, Les Thatcher and the young rookie Bobby Shane. They shook hands and for 10 minutes put on a great demonstration of holds and despite a testy moment or two it was all fair and square.  Somehow right before the 3 count the time limit was up and it was declared a draw!  After a hearty shake of hands it was off to commercial break.

    Prior to match number two, Big Bill strode up to ring side and to my surprise Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson came out for an interview.  Rip did all the talking and while I don't recall the exact fued, it was clear they planned to rip their opponents a new one-and in turn they listed a full schedule of nights of mayhem ahead-Monday in Charlotte at the Park Center, Greenville, South Carolina, Lumberton, Winston Salem and so forth.

    At the time it was not yet “Mid-Atlantic” Wrestling, it was Carolina's Wrestling and it was clear that Mr Jim Crockett and the NWA were in charge! And there were a fair amount of titles at stake on any given bill.  Clearly the Southern Tag Team Belt was the prize possession but also a variety of other belts were at stake including the mysterious and always traveling NWA World Champion who at the time was Gene Kiniski.

    I also about this time discovered national wrestling magazines and soon my walls were filled with pictures of my heroes locally and from territories throughout the USA and worldwide.  AWA? WWWF?  Who was Bruno? Verne Gagne?  Could they beat Kiniski?

    Another great feature was the addition of new talent and after a while via studying the magazines I had a pretty good idea of who these newcomers might be.  When The Missouri Mauler was introduced I felt very superior that I knew his name was Larry Hamilton!  And there was a rumor his brother Jody was one of the Assasins!
   

Lars, Gene, and Ole Anderson

     But of all the memories of my 3 years in North Carolina from 1966 to 1969 the most memorable was the night the Minnesota Wrecking Crew introduced “baby brother” Ole-fresh from the Northwoods of Minnesota.  As rough and tumble as Lars was, Ole somehow seemed meaner and more in tune with Gene.  That first night was a 6 man tag match and while I don't recall who the opponents all were I do remember poor old Lee Bulldog Henning taking a ferocious pounding.

    Within weeks the Andersons were feuding with everyone with extra special heat between them and the hero's of all hero's-George Becker and Johnny Weaver.   At a subsequent taping I have the unforgettable memory of the teams facing off on a special 2 of 3 fall grudge match for TV.  We were there and the buzz in the room was palpable. 

    After a particularly rough and tumble first fall, the lights dimmed and to my surprise both teams-moments before attempting to cripple each other, decamped to beyond the footlights and Geroge Becker and Gene Anderson popped over to ringside to bum a smoke from my Dad!..What?  Anyhow within minutes they were back in and out of the ring pounding each other and the end of course was riddled in controversy.

    Later that summer my family moved to Houston and my love affair with Carolinas Wrestling was replaced by my newfound passion-Houston wrestling promoted by Paul Boesch.  I kept up with the action in North Carolina via the magazines and I continued to follow wrestling closely-eventually I worked for Mr Boesch and for a time was a columnist for The Wrestler magazine (Texas Rasslin roundup!) where I breathlessly recounted the action.

    It's hard to believe 50 years have passed but I have nothing but fond memories of those Wednesday tapings and Saturday afternoon's glued to the TV soaking up every match.  And who could have ever imagined that the introduction of Ole Anderson to the scene would have turned out to been such a historic event and lead to such a long and iconic career,  And I was there!

* * * * *
Richard “Dick Deluxe” Egner is now a 61 year old musician/entertainer based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Texas Ranchers and Charlotte Wrestling

A longtime friend of my father's, who has always been thoughtful of me, mailed to me a Vince Staten column about wrestling from the Kingsport Times-News in Kingsport, TN. I went to the Times-News website in hopes of linking to the column, but the article appears not to be there. So I've transcribed the whole thing here.

I love finding references to "Charlotte Wrestling" and "studio wrestling." And how many folks in the mainstream media write about the great George Becker anymore? Not many, that's for sure.

I've added a couple of photos below that were not part of Staten's original article.   - Dick Bourne

How did Texas ranchers know about Charlotte Wrestling?
by Vince Staten, Kingsport Times-News

I was a thousand miles from Kingsport, sitting by myself at a table in the Dove Creek Café — Roanoke, Texas' answer to Kathy's Korner. There wasn't a female customer in the place. All the men seemed to know each other. I munched on my country ham biscuit and eaves-dropped on the conversations.

First they dissected the Warriors-Cavaliers' basketball series. Pretty much everyone in the house had been for Golden State but they appreciated what Cleveland had done.

Studio #2 at WBTV-3 in Charlotte,
home of "Championship Wrestling"

Then my mind was jolted into another time when one of the old men took the conversation in a different direction.

"What was his name, George Becker? What was it he did, the Figure-Four Grapevine Hold? No, that's not it. It was the Abdominal Stretch."

How in the name of Big Jim Crockett did these fellows in Roanoke, Texas — ranchers, most of them from the tenor of their other conversations — know about George Becker, the cleanest of the clean-cut wrestlers of my youth? George was a regular on "Studio Wrestling," broadcast live every Saturday from the studios of WBTV in Charlotte.

That is a thousand miles away from Texas. Apparently George and his signature hold, the Abdominal Stretch, got around.

I was late getting into wrestling. I was 10. We had just got-ten cable and I was fascinated with "Studio Wrestling," a regular Saturday afternoon show from Charlotte. I didn't know at the time that it was really just a promo for a regular Monday evening wrestling card at the Charlotte Coliseum.

I had seen wrestling before we got cable. Johnson City carried "Texas Rasslin'," a show that was filmed in a big arena in Dallas. It didn't seem real. The major player was Gorgeous George, and even at 10, an age when I pretty much believed anything, I didn't believe Gorgeous George. He be-longed in an arena, an arena for show dogs.

George Becker (center) applies his famous
abdominal stretch in the ring at WBTV.

But Charlotte wrestling, I knew that was the real thing. Large, sweaty men who threw each other around and, my favorite part, wrapped each other up in signature holds.

Like George Becker and his Abdominal Stretch. I can still see him pulling on his opponent until he started screaming, "Give! Give!"

I never could figure out how the Abdominal Stretch was supposed to hurt. But I could understand the Figure-4 Grapevine Hold. That was Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers' signature hold. I used to practice it on kids in the neighborhood. It didn't take much pressure to get them to scream, "Uncle." Of course, I usually practiced it on kids half my age.

I was about to interject myself into the conversation, tell them it was Buddy Rogers who had the Figure-4-Grapevine, tell them about Charlotte wrestling, when they started talking about the upcoming bull sale.

I would have literally been out of my league. So I paid and left.

But it did get me doing a little Googling. And I discovered, much to my amazement, that Gorgeous George had wrestled in Kingsport, at the Civic Auditorium, three times: in '51 (he defeated Herb Welch); '55 (he defeated Tex Riley); and '58 (he lost to Angelo Martinelli).

When he died in 1963, the Times-News put his obituary on the front page.

Next time I'm in Roanoke, Texas, I'm going to see if I can get those old men talking about Gorgeous George instead of George Becker.

Columnist Vince Staten can't be blamed for not getting every detail right about TV wrestling from the 1960s, but one thing needs to be clarified here:

The wrestling program on WBTV-3 from Charlotte was never called "Studio Wrestling", although it certainly did take place inside the cozy confines of WBTV studio #2. The show was called "Championship Wrestling" from its inception in January of 1958 until it ended in the fall of 1974.

However, Staten's memory of Gorgeous George on "Texas Rasslin'" was pretty accurate. If Gorgeous George and George Becker had ever met in the ring, Becker would have mopped the floor with him.

And lastly, just to set the record straight on my all-time favorite rasslin' hold, one demonstration of the abdominal stretch by George Becker would have demonstrated to Mr. Staten just how much it really hurt. Just sayin'.

For more information on wrestling from WBTV channel 3 in Charlotte, click here.

For more on the Dove Creek Cafe in Roanoke, TX, click here. Alternatively, for more on the Texas Tavern in Roanoke, VA, click here.

You can contact Vince Staten at vincestaten@timesnews.net. His blog can be found at vincestaten.blogspot.com.

John Ringley: Jim Crockett's Early Relationship With Television

by Dick Bourne 
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

As mentioned earlier, I recently had the pleasure of a casual conversation with John Ringley, at one time the most trusted confidant of promoter Jim Crockett, Sr. He had graciously agreed to talk with me for a feature I am constantly updating related to the old TV studio taping locations of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. The following is another little "tidbit' about the wrestling and TV business in the early days gleaned from those conversations, plus a broader perspective on wrestling and TV's relationship in general. 

When Mr. Ringley and I began talking about the changes in presenting wrestling on television over the decades, one thing became clear: in the early days of TV, unlike today, professional wrestling was in an equal partnership with their television counterparts.

The 1940s and 1950s

Wrestling from New York and Chicago and the west coast had been a staple of national television in the 1950s. By the late 1950s, a growing percentage of  programming on local stations began originating from the studios of those stations, and wrestling was one of earliest programs on local television. 

In 1958, Charlotte, NC television station WBTV partnered with local wrestling promoter Jim Crockett, Sr. to produce live televised wrestling bouts in Charlotte. The arrangement was advantageous for both parties. WBTV needed original local programming, and Jim Crockett benefited from an effective and far reaching way to promote his weekly wrestling cards at the Charlotte Park Center.

Studio 2 at WBTV-3 in Charlotte

The 1960s

At first, the wrestling matches were broadcast live. Later, as technology improved, the station began to record the matches on huge reels of videotape and air them later. Eventually, Crockett soon began similar arrangements with other TV stations including WGHP TV in High Point, NC and WRAL TV in Raleigh.

Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, it was a barter arrangement with hardly any additional expenses for Jim Crockett Promotions. John Ringley explained how it worked at WBTV.

"Things were so different back in the day as it related to expenses," Ringley said. "It was a partnership with television. For example, at WBTV in Charlotte - - the only expense [Jim Crockett Promotions] had was buying dinner for the television studio floor crew at channel 3. That was it!"

And Big Jim made sure those boys always ate well.

The relationship was one of near perfection. Crockett didn’t have to pay for studio time. WBTV didn't have to pay for the wrestlers or the matches.  It was a simple arrangement, equally advantageous to both parties. Crockett promoted his upcoming live events in the area. WBTV got to sell advertising for the highly-rated program.

The only other expense was of course to get the ring set up and torn down in the channel 3 studio, a task that fell to longtime veteran wrestler and trusted Crockett lieutenant Wally Dusek and his crew.

The Crockett/WBTV relationship was put together by people at the top of each organization. "Charlie Crutchfield was the fellow we dealt with at channel 3," Ringley told me. Crutchfield was once president of  Jefferson-Pilot Broadcasting Company which owned WBTV. He had been with the Charlotte based broadcasting company since 1933, where he was a host on 1110 WBT-AM radio. "He was a powerful man, with ties to the highest levels of government and of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)," said Reno Bailey of Crutchfield on his BT Memories website. It is only fitting that James Crockett and Charles Crutchfield, two pillars of the Charlotte community for decades, worked together to make "Championship Wrestling" one of the early success stories of local television in the southeast.
 
WBTV stopped taping wrestling in 1973 when all of Crockett's local TV tapings were consolidated to WRAL studios in Raleigh.

"It was a great bunch of folks to work with for all those many years we did TV there (at WBTV), " Ringley told me.

Hart and Ringley on a "Championship Wrestling" Special

"Playboy" Gary Hart and JCP's John Ringley (1972)

In 1972, John Ringley hosted a special episode of "Championship Wrestling" that aired on WBTV-3 in Charlotte that focused on Rip "The Profile" Hawk. Ringley and Hawk's manager, "Playboy" Gary Hart were situated on a set in the WBTV studio. They reviewed 16mm film footage shot at the Charlotte Coliseum and Greensboro Coliseum featuring Hawk against various opponents including Jack Brisco in a battle over the Eastern Heavyweight Championship.

Matches included:

• Rip Hawk and Swede Hansen vs. Johnny Weaver and Argentina Apollo
• Rip Hawk and Swede Hansen vs. Johnny Weaver and Art Nelson (Greensboro)
• Rip Hawk vs. Jack Brisco (Hawk wins Eastern title) (Charlotte)
• Rip Hawk vs. Art Nelson (taped fists match) (Greensboro)

We recently had a conversation with Mr. Ringley about booking changes back during this very time period. That article can be found on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway by clicking this link.


This post was originally published on the Studio Wrestling website, a sister-website of the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.
Republished on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway 11/7/19.