And some guys didn’t want to go to work with an “outlaw” promotion because you eventually burn bridges and run out of work
opportunities, too, I imagine.
That’s exactly what it was.
I know some of those guys did go on to return to some NWA groups...
All the people who had talent worked if they wanted to. And most of them never missed a beat. There were some guys that decided they
didn’t want to do it. Dick went a long time where he ran some shows on his own for awhile after we folded, but most of the guys who
wanted to work, were working again elsewhere pretty darn quick.
After All-South closed, you went back to Georgia Championship Wrestling. How did that come about?
There were thirty-three wrestlers and referees on the (All-South) roster, as far as full time people on Saturday. We closed down on Friday
night. I saw Dick write a story about this – I think it was on your message board, but he mentioned a town we were in the last night, and
he ran the town.
We were in Montezuma at the National Guard Armory. When I got there to referee that night, Charlie Harbin was there, and he never went
to the towns. I didn’t have a clue anything was going on. Then Charlie walked in and proceeded to tell us this was it – at the end of the
night we were through. I asked him about the TV for the next day, and he said, “don’t go to the TV station.”
He called me out in the hall and said, “Bobby, they’re having a meeting in the morning back at the office at ten o’clock. All the wrestlers
will be there. Barnett’s going to be there, and he’s going to get some people booked into other territories. You stay away from the office –
you’re being taken care of.” (Laughs) I had no idea what that meant.
You’re being taken care of – you could take that any number of ways...
That’s exactly what he said. I trusted Charlie Harbin explicitly, because he had been very good to me, but I didn’t know what that meant at
the time.
I got up the next morning, and I just thought this was nuts. I just had to know what was going on, so I went to the office anyway. When I
got there, Charlie was the first person I saw, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him I needed to know what was happening. “You
said I was going to be taken care of – what does that mean exactly?” (Laughs)
I stood around and didn’t say anything. I watched a lot of guys going in and out of the office – some seemed happy, some didn’t seem so
happy. We said our good-byes because we didn’t really know for sure what was going to happen to anybody. We’d all grown very close
because we had worked together everyday for the last two years.
Finally, when it was all said and done, Charlie introduced me to Barnett, and he said, “I’ve been wanting to meet you. I understand you
can drive the ring truck, work on rings, and put them together. And I understand you’re a pretty good referee. Be at my office Monday
morning at nine o’clock so you can meet my booker.”
So I went over there Monday morning, I walked back out of the office about fifteen minutes later as an employee of Georgia
Championship Wrestling. I was a referee, I put the ring up, and they wanted me to help work around the office a little bit. That was my
duties – same thing I had been doing for All-South. So nothing changed for me except my place of employment. Out of the thirty-three
people who lost their jobs at All-South that Saturday, I was the only one who was back to work by Monday morning.
You said Barnett wanted you to meet the booker. Who was it at that time?
Harley Race. It was the first time I had ever met him.
He wasn’t there much longer after that, right?
Harley was there maybe another month, six weeks at the most. Then Renesto showed up as the booker (Laughs). You know, we all
have our opinions (Laughs).
How long did Tom carry the book at that time?
A couple of years, maybe three.
And then it eventually fell back to the Andersons?
When Tom left, Gene Anderson came in as the booker. Gene was the booker, and Ole was to be the assistant. I had met them, but I’d
never worked for them.
I remember talking to Tom the day before he left. He said, “I know you’ve worked for me for a long time, but it’s going to be different
working for these guys. I’ve watched you grow, and helped you along the way. These guys are strictly businessmen. Walk the line and
do what they ask you to do.”
But I never had a problem with Gene Anderson. Gene and I got along fine. Me and Ole get along fine. We haven’t always seen eye to
eye. But as time went on and I got a little more authority, and became the office manager and had some say as to what was going on, we
really didn’t see eye to eye a couple of times, but I never had a problem with him.
Well, that’s the nature of any business relationship.
Yeah, I never had any serious problems with either one of them. I’ve been through a lot of bookers (Laughs). That was the beginning of
the tide, as it were, because when Gene and Ole left, we went through some bookers.
I think Bill Watts came in for another run...
Watts came back, Buck Robely, Robert Fuller – a host of assistant bookers like Louie Tillet, Jody Hamilton. Ron West also worked in the
office and was an assistant booker a lot of the time. He never got a lot of credit. He was one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met and he
got very little credit. A lot of the ideas we came up with that weren’t mainline were not Ole’s ideas, they were Ronnie’s. It was like a
revolving door there for awhile.
Barnett had become involved with Georgia Championship Wrestling in 1974. Do you know how that came about? Perhaps it was to
put the final nail in All-South’s coffin?
I’m not sure who sold what, but Barnett was offered majority ownership of the company. So he got fifty-one percent of the stock. He also
owned part of Florida, which probably led to it. They were running it by committee at that time. This was prior to my going back over there,
so this is just my outside view of the situation, and I believe they were running it by committee.
Jarrett had booked some, Harley had booked, and Watts had the book for awhile. Harley didn’t want to live here and be the booker. He
was really just helping out. They had Harley aimed for the strap. He was also part owner of the office in Kansas City, and that was his
home and where he wanted to be. Jarrett was only here helping out – his main interest was in Tennessee. They needed some
stabilization. They needed somebody to come in here and make it their own company. Barnett had come out of Australia and I think it
was a right place at the right time deal. That’s how he wound up here.
I guess Paul Jones took even more of a backseat than he already had prior to Barnett’s arrival.
Paul hadn’t been real active for a long time before that.
He would just show up on television now and then to put his face in front of the fans, right?
Paul was strictly the promoter. Ownership had changed a lot over the years. The old owners had sold out, and a whole new group had
come in. Percentages of ownership had been swapped around. At one point in time there were a couple of minority owners who had
two and a half ownership points apiece.
Paul Jones initially stepped out in 1962, and gave way to Don McIntyre to become promoter, as well as a brief run by Les Wolfe. Is it
safe to assume when Paul came back in in 1964 that it had become Ray Gunkel’s promotion?
Without a doubt it was Gunkel’s promotion. Paul had just become a figurehead. He had a certain percentage of the office, but he had no
say as to how they ran the business. He owned the Sports Arena – that was his building, and where the office was, but he was just a
figurehead by then.
Ted Turner – this guy came out of nowhere. He inherited his dad’s billboard company, and he came to Atlanta and bought a little
independent local channel called WJRJ. (Turner purchased WJRJ in 1968, and in January 1970, changed the call letters to WTCG.) Of
course, the rest is history as far as that is concerned. I always heard he was a huge wrestling fan, and when he put it on his station, it
became the anchor.
He owned a station in Charlotte as well. It was a little independent station. Live Atlanta Wrestling had been on Channel 11 for years.
That station began to jack Gunkel around on the time slot. For years it had been on at 6:30 live every Saturday night. Now all of a sudden
they shift it around every week, sometimes the regular time, but sometimes as late as 11:30. Then it would be on at four o’clock in the
afternoon.
They just kept moving it around, and Gunkel got really fed up with it. I’m not sure who approached who because I wasn’t in that loop at
the time, but it was announced to everybody that we were going to Channel 17. They were going to give us a set time every Saturday
night at six o’clock.
Me and Larry Nichols, the guy that was setting up the TV ring – he went on to referee at All-South – we went to move the ring in the middle
of the night. Sort of like the Indianapolis Colts deal. We went down in the middle of the night and moved the ring down to this little
independent station, and at that time it was located on West Peachtree Street.
The week we moved, Ted went on his TV station in Charlotte and told people he was broke, and asked all his viewers to send him a
dollar apiece to help him keep the cost down so he could stay on the air. Gunkel found out about that and about had a stroke (Laughs).
He had put the business in this guy’s hands. And as you say the rest is history.
The first Saturday we went to tape the first show at WTCG, the door was locked and I couldn’t get in. I rang the buzzer but nobody
answered. I can’t get in and don’t know what to do.
And you were supposed to tape in just a couple of hours?
Right. Here I am by myself, and I had gotten a ride with my dad, and he’d left. I can’t find a phone to call anybody. So I took my
pocketknife out and jimmied the door, and I got in. It’s only the second time I’ve been in this building in my life.
I had been there the night before to put up the ring, and so I know where the studio’s at, but I know I need to tell somebody I’m in there. I
went through the place and found the control room. There was a guy sitting in the control room, and he was the only guy in the place. He
had long hair down his back, he’s barefooted, sitting back with his legs crossed and playing a guitar and smoking a joint (Laughs). It’s
eight o’clock on a Saturday morning and he’s just strumming. And he sees me and says “hey, man, how’s it going?” I told him I was
there to set up for the wrestling show and he’s in a daze and says, “Okay.” (Laughs) So that was my first experience with WTCG.
As the years went by it got much more professional, but that was just when the station was getting started. As far as Turner’s concerned
– there was a catwalk in the studio above the lights and the wall was jet black. There was a door that was on that wall, which was where
his office was. There were many Saturdays I would look up and he’d be watching us tape.
He was notorious back then for having a drink or two, and there were times you’d hear him up there after a long night where he’d
probably not even ever left the office. As far as I know he liked wrestling. I know he did later on because we were his highest rated show
for a long time. We outdrew the Braves for a long time on TV.
You were the anchor of his station...
Yeah. I’m sure he was at least somewhat of a fan. Maybe a closet fan, but he was a fan.
Did he ever help in anyway financially or offer input? Was he ever around when any of the booking ideas were being planned?
No, he didn’t really get involved at all.
What about Freddy Miller? When did he become involved and what did he do in the promotion? I know he was actually credited in
later years as producing the TV show, as well as hosting some of the programs.
Freddy had been in broadcasting for years.
He had been in radio...
Exactly, and he had actually done the Georgia Tech games on radio when they were sponsored by Texaco. He was working for GCW
before I went to work over there. He was in charge of the TV program. He made sure the tapes got shipped to the towns on the loop. He
made sure they aired when they were supposed to.
Freddy owned an advertising agency named Freddy Miller Enterprises. When you call a TV station to buy advertising time, they quote me
on rate. If I call and say, “this is Bobby Simmons Advertising,” they quote me a better rate because they know I’ve got to make money. So
Freddy was responsible for buying all the time slots, as well as the advertising spots on TV and radio. He was the on air voice for the
promos. If he had been smart enough to copyright that “don’t miss it, be there” line, think about how much he could’ve gotten from NBC
years later.
He gave the office x amount of dollars a week to produce the program and then whatever he made was his money. He would be back in
the control room with the director when we taped making sure everything was timed out properly. He was responsible for typing out the
formats that got shipped with the tapes.
On Tuesday mornings we would go to the studio to tape the interviews for all of the other shows for being shown around the loop. When
we taped that show on Saturday mornings, fifty-seven minutes after we started the show was in the can. There was never any post-
production. When we were through, it was done. Whatever we had was ready to go. Tuesday mornings we would go back in and take
that same tape, and cut new interviews for those interview slots, and we’d cut the promos for whatever shows were coming up, for
example, Augusta, Savannah, and so on. But each tape was unique to whatever station it went to in regard to what was going on there.
Freddy did all those interviews. So, in effect, he was the producer.
He was responsible for whatever people saw when they watched. He would only be in the office a couple of days a week and it was just
to make sure that sort of stuff got done. He had his own things going on and he was still involved in some radio spots and other things.
Gordon Solie came in shortly after the split and became the new voice of Georgia Championship Wrestling, replacing Ed Capral. Do
you have any specific memories of Gordon you want to share?
What you saw with Gordon was pretty much what you got. To me he was always very professional and businesslike. I dealt with Gordon
a lot. He worked more in the Florida office than here of course. He came in and did the show and was very professional. You’d tell
Gordon what you wanted and he just went out and did it without a hitch.
He was very believable – he wasn’t a rah-rah cheerleader – he just went out and called it. If something called for him to get excited, he’d
get excited. I heard Les Thatcher say one time “I’m an ex-wrestler, why should I get excited over a hammerlock?” And I agree, and that’s
how Gordon was.
I heard that near the end of Gordon’s life he had become a little bitter because he felt like he maybe had been done wrong because he’d
sort of been put out of the business. I don’t know anything about that. My dealings with him were always professional and I got along
with him fine. I never had any problems with him at all. As far as I’m concerned he was a good guy.
To me, and most of the fans, he was arguably the best. A lot of people around the south bring up Lance Russell’s name a lot, Ed
Capral and Les Thatcher, but from my era, in particular, Gordon was the man. My take on him was he made it feel like a legitimate
sport when he called it.
He sold it that way. Ed was good, too. Before Ed, there was a guy here named Ray McCay. Ray was good for his era. But after you got
used to Ed, Ray came back and did some ring announcing and a little TV work with Ed. Ray came off as corny compared to Ed. Then
after you had worked with Gordon, Ed came off as corny. Lance Russell, out of Memphis, he was very good. There again, I don’t think
Lance would’ve fit in in Atlanta. He would’ve come off as corny compared to Gordon. It’s just what you’re used to.
I think it’s the market you’re in.
Very much so.
Was it true that Gordon wanted to be in the dark so he could sound surprised when something big took place that would require him
to get excited?
No, Gordon knew everything in advance. He attended the production meetings. Of course, when I say production meetings, you have to
realize these happened about five minutes before we went on the air (Laughs). It was “here’s what we’re going to do – this match, that
match, this interview, that interview” – that was pretty much it. We didn’t meet on Thursday night to discuss what we’d be doing on
Saturday morning.
Nothing like what goes on today where you’re hiring Hollywood scriptwriters and such.
No sir.
I started watching in the mid-seventies, and one thing I’ve noticed doing research for the website, there was a huge boom of great
young stars in here that went on to bigger and better things. Guys like Bob Backlund, Rick Martel, Ricky Steamboat, Gino Hernandez
– why didn’t Georgia try to hang onto them? Was it a matter of too much talent to hang onto at one time? Or was it just not obvious
that these guys had what they eventually became?
I think it was obvious, but you have to remember it depends on when you get the push and how you’re used. I look back at all those guys,
and I refereed some of their very first matches. They’d probably never admit this, but some of the guys you named I would call the
matches for them because they didn’t know how to do it at the time.
Ricky Steamboat was just getting started. Tito Santana was there around the same time frame, and he was just starting out. Paul
Orndorff – same time frame. Scott Irwin – later became the Super Destroyer and one of the Long Riders. All of these guys...and you take
the fact they were just starting into consideration, and talk about what big stars they became. Then you look back at some of these guys,
at that time they were just getting started and really didn’t know what they were doing. You think they have what it takes to be big, but as a
promoter and a booker you look at them and have to do something with them.
Maybe its not the right place and time for some of them. And you can’t hang onto everybody. If you take the list of guys we’ve mentioned
and you’ve got them all in one territory at the same time, how do you keep all of them happy? They all want to be on top.
Then you get the complete opposite. We had a guy in here in the late seventies – his name was Sterling Golden. He lasted two weeks.
Ole says “I can’t do nothing with the guy. He can’t work – he’s big, but he can’t work.”
And at the time nobody knew that a few short years later that wouldn’t matter anymore.
Right place, right time, Sterling Golden becomes Hulk Hogan and starts making millions of dollars. The funny thing about that now is he
still can’t work (Laughs). He never really has been able to. He just found the right niche and the right push, with the right kind of booker,
all things that were necessary to get him over. Lou Thesz was eighty-seven years old when I talked to him one time and he summed it
up perfectly. He said, “the guy doesn’t know a wristwatch from a wristlock. I’ll wrestle him right now.”
And beat him...
Not a doubt. You just can’t keep all of them and make them all happy at the same time. Sometimes you get lucky with the ones you keep,
and sometimes you don’t. I’m sure you’re going to bring up Tommy Rich sometime in this interview, but one thing about Tommy is he
was brought in here to be a piece of hamburger meat for Abdullah the Butcher. Barnett took one look at him and saw his future.
Around this same time, Ole Anderson had really become heavily involved in running things in the promotion. You said Gene was
supposed to be booking and Ole was just supposed to help out. Did either one of them ever actually own a piece of the business
during that time? I know Ole did years later, but did they have that much of a stake back then?
At that time no. Gene was brought in to be the booker, and Ole was going to be his assistant. They stayed here awhile and they left.
When Ole came back, Ole came in as the booker.
Ole came back after the revolving door we spoke about earlier...
Right.
And it was him and Barnett pretty much in control the rest of the way...
Barnett at that time still had some input, but Ole was the man. As far as the talent and the booking, what Ole wanted was what
happened.
You stepped into the ring on occasion as a stand-in. Is it safe to say they were squashes, or were you actually adept as a wrestler?
(Laughs) No, I wouldn’t call of them squashes. I knew what I was doing. If a guy couldn’t make it, I would fill in for the first match, for
example. I worked with Tom Prichard, Bill Dromo – a lot of guys.
Did you always wear a mask?
I always did here because I was a referee and everybody knew me. They weren’t always squashes – I went to Athens once and the main
event had the Assassins against Ole and Lars Anderson. Jody Hamilton was double-booked and they sent him to Knoxville and I took
his outfit and worked with Randy Colley against Ole and Lars. Nick Patrick, who was Jody’s son, was the referee for that match. I
remember during the instructions I looked at Nick and told him, “if you call me daddy one time I’m going to whip the referee.” (Laughs)
Do you remember any of the names you used under the hood?
Sometimes the Invader or the Enforcer – it didn’t matter what they called me so long as the check cleared on Monday (Laughs).
I have seen your name in some of the results as Bobby Simmons, so you weren’t always under a mask.
I worked some like that if we didn’t have a mask, and it was usually a small town and I’d have to do a fill in. I worked Griffin some that
way. I haven’t thought about this for years, but there was a time when I worked as myself. I worked with Jerry Lawler in Griffin. I ran into
Lawler a few years ago in Conyers and showed him some pictures from that and he couldn’t believe it. I sit here now and that’s thirty
years ago. That’s hard to even say. (Laughs)
When we talk about referees in the Georgia territory during the seventies and eighties, most people probably think of Ron West
immediately. He told me he had been here about thirteen years.
Yeah, he came here in about 1973 working for Ann Gunkel, and stayed about ten days and left. He came back about two or three weeks
later working for the NWA office, and I would pass him and he’d act like he didn’t know who I was. Of course, that was the nature of the
business at that time. Anyway, he never left. He was here a good twelve or thirteen years, and was the best I’ve ever seen, without a
doubt.
Turner was beamed through satellites for the first time in December 1976, and in late 1979 with the cable boom, things really
exploded. When did it first become obvious that the territory had grown in popularity beyond the territorial borders due to the WTBS
exposure?
Barnett was a facts and figures guy, and he was always interested in the ratings. When the quarterly ratings books were released and
issued to WTBS, he was always given a copy. It was never a secret that we were the top program for Turner. We had even maintained
more of a following than the Braves, who were his second highest rated program.
I had birthday parties that drew better than the Braves back then (Laughs)...
If the Braves schedule conflicted with our time slot, people would call and complain. We knew that it was growing. People see stations
like WTBS and WGN, and they see that they’re called a superstation, but a lot of people don’t realize what a superstation really is.
A superstation is a station that has two separate transmitters. One transmits over a satellite or cable system, nationally or globally
depending on how big it is. The second one transmits locally. When you were seeing a show in Atlanta or out of the Atlanta area you
were seeing commercials for ‘Joe Bob’s Siding Company’, but if they were watching it in Cincinnati they were seeing Budweiser or Delta
Air Lines ads.
Turner’s people knew that we had something when we started selling those kind of spots to that kind of sponsor. Not only did Turner
know what we had, but so did the FCC. I don’t know how it is today with McMahon’s (WWE) shows, but we were the most tightly
regulated wrestling program in the history of wrestling at that time. You're only allowed x number of minutes of commercial time per hour.
I don't remember what the figure is, but if it’s twenty-two minutes, and they have sold sixteen minutes of commercials to sponsors, that
meant we only had six minutes where we could physically get on TV and go “Rich Tate, I’m going to be in Columbus tonight and I’m
going to kick your butt.” Because if I mention this promotion will be in Columbus, that’s a commercial. And once you say that, that
segment, however long it may be, goes against the commercial time – that whole promo spot is a commercial.
So the FCC came in and told us we had too much commercial time in our shows. So we knew we had something and we really didn’t
know what to do with it because at the time you’re talking about territories and good ol’ boys.
Just to give you an example of how popular our show was – Tony Atlas was booked by Paul Boesch in Houston to work with the
champion out there. Tony had never been to Houston in his life. They flew him in on a Friday to work off of our TV show. They sold out
the coliseum and Tony got the biggest pop of the night and made $3,000 for one night. That was rare at the time and it was from the
popularity of that satellite. So we knew we had something – we just didn’t know where to take it.
Amazing. There were many memorable story lines and feuds throughout your time. All of the message boards have covered them
many times, but if you had to narrow down to one angle from either All-South or GCW during your employment, which one stands out
as the best executed in your opinion?
Dropping Ted DiBiase on his head on television (Laughs). The piledriver on the floor that put him in the hospital.
Tell me about that day. You and I have talked about this before, but share your story with our readers.
At any show you did you were required to have a doctor in attendance. We had one that worked at the studio, but I don’t recall his name.
He may even still be practicing. He was a little naive, and had no idea the business was a work. He was a good fellow, and he enjoyed
being around there, and actually got into it quite a bit.
Anyway, he was on call on that particular weekend, and we knew that. I got called into the office on Friday because they had the plan and
we needed extra time to work out the details, and they wanted to be sure I would be at the station the next morning. The deal was that we
were going to shoot the angle the way you saw it, with the piledriver on the floor, and we were going to call 911 to have him hauled out of
the studio.
Now as I told you before, we never broke tape – once we started something it ran. This was the idea – we didn’t smarten up WTBS or
anybody. The only people that knew what we were doing were the Freebirds, DiBiase, the Junkyard Dog, Gordon, Ole, Jim Barnett and
myself. We didn’t even tell the rest of the guys what we were doing.
So everything’s going well and everything’s going smooth and I’m just walking around shooting the bull. And they got the match in the
ring and bing-bing-bing-bing-bing, do the deal and out on the floor and they hit him with the piledriver. As soon as they land him I dial
911. We wanted them on the way, but we wanted some time with him just lying there.
What we didn’t expect was the WTBS people, the film crew, thought it was a waste of time to keep rolling tape, and they decided to stop
the tape. Nobody knew they stopped it. Gordon’s doing his thing, you know, he’s talking, and I’ve walked over to Ted and I’m looking at
him and talking to him and people are buzzing.
All of a sudden one of the TBS guys comes over to Gordon and tells him he can calm down, meaning that they had stopped rolling the
tape. Well, we couldn’t go ballistic because we would have given ourselves away. Gordon came over to me and told me they had
stopped the tape, and I went back and told them, “I know this sounds gross, but we need you to turn back on that tape. We need a record
of this. There may be some lawsuits that might come out of this.” (Laughs) I said, “we need some proof of what’s going on. We won’t do
any commentary, but you need to turn the tape back on and have your guys shoot this.”
Well, if you remember seeing this, you recall that you could hear the sirens as they pulled in, so we got some of it on tape. But they take
him to the hospital, and I went with him. I’m walking around over there, and it turns out they can’t find anything wrong with him (Laughs).
So I pulled the doctor over to the side and I said, “you know, we may get sued over this deal. This guy’s one of our big stars and I’m
scared to death. If he gets out of here today, he may go and try to whip that guy tonight. Is there anyway you can hold him for observation
for a day or two, just to be sure he’s okay?” And he says, “yeah, we can do that.”
So that’s how I got him admitted to the hospital (Laughs). They shut the switchboard down at the hospital because so many people were
calling. There were death threats – it was really bad, it was awful.
Where was he?
At Crawford Long. I called up there on Sunday and told the lady who answered that I needed to speak to Ted DiBiase. She told me she
was sorry and that he wasn’t taking anymore calls. So I told her that I sign his paycheck and felt pretty sure that if she told him it was me
he’d answer the phone. She says. “hang on a minute,” (Laughs) So I got on the phone with him and he told me he had to lock the door
to his room because it had gotten so crazy.
So he’s just on a boring vacation...
(Laughs) Yeah...he just laid there and watched TV for two days. He told me, “man, it’s crazy. They’ve shut the switchboard down and
locked my door.” But that was the most well conceived thing we put together while I was there. There were a lot of angles we did that you
could mention like Mr. Wrestling #2 and the Superstar, the Spoiler, Roddy Piper – but that was probably the best executed thing we ever
put together.
To this day it’s still probably top three to most people...
People are still talking about it today. It’s funny, you know, I walk into people who say, “aw, man, I knew that stuff was fixed,” and those
are the same people who tell you, “but I was there the day they dropped DiBiase on his head and he really got hurt.” (Laughs) When I
look back at that, I do so with a sense of pride because...
Because you pulled it off...
Because we were that good. We had people sitting as close to it as I am to you, and they didn’t know.
I’ll admit I... (Laughs) ...I was about thirteen and I knew wrestling was a work, even if I didn’t know that term at the time, but I bought
it... (Laughs) So Ole booked that angle, which is funny because a lot of people knock his work outside the ring, but I think he did
some really great stuff.
Ole was a perfectionist. He was outspoken, and he would tell you what he thought. People didn’t like that, but I’d rather deal with
somebody like that. At least you know where you stand...
Exactly...
He was such a perfectionist, and he protected the business to the utmost level. That’s why he got fired from Turner, because he told the
pack of guys who were over there that they were drug addicts and they couldn’t work and were exposing the business. Finally, McMahon
comes right out and says, “hey, we’re sports entertainment and it’s all a work.” But to this day – and you’ve met a lot of the guys – we
protect our business. And that’s just the way it was.
What about George Scott, the booker? He and Ole traded places for about a year in the early eighties.
He was a serious businessman with a brilliant mind. He’s the one that made the North Carolina territory (Mid-Atlantic) what it was.
The Thanksgiving Tag Team Tournaments were a huge draw. They were probably some of the most stacked cards you guys had. I
didn’t think much about it at the time, but in hindsight, I can’t believe it never occurred to me how it just so happened that the titles
were always conveniently vacant around that time of the year. Did it ever occur to anyone back then that people would catch onto
that fact?
No, it just became a tradition. We drew our biggest house of the year every Thanksgiving when we started those. The first time we ever
drew over $100,000 was on a Thanksgiving night. Our top ticket price was $8 and general admission was like around $4 in an 18,000
seat building. That’s a lot of money back then. Today it wouldn’t be because they’re selling ringside for about $300. It just became habit
to put those together each year. And we were competing against football games, family get-togethers, so it was never an easy draw.
After lunch on Christmas Day there’s nothing for people to do. They’re always looking for something to do, so Christmas night became a
top draw. Thanksgiving was a tough sell, but once we established it as a big card, it was “get dinner over with early and go to the
matches.” The only thing my family didn’t like about it was I had to go to work every Thanksgiving, but it was what we did for a living.
What were your favorite places around the loop, and in contrast, your least favorite?
I never liked Augusta.
Why is that?
I just hated the ride. I hated the trip. The first time I ever went to Augusta I was about fourteen years old and I couldn’t drive, so I rode with
Rocket (Monroe).
You’ve probably heard the story about Mr. X, - Doug Scoggins – we called him ‘Kissie’. He got killed on the way to Valdosta one Monday
night. Him and Wayne Cowan were roommates. I was with Rocket and Wayne the night he got killed. We were going to Augusta and
they were on their way to Valdosta when it happened.
But I never liked Augusta – don’t know why. People were always nice to me and I never had any problems there, I just didn’t like the
drive.
It is a pretty boring drove out that way.
(Shudders) Columbus and Macon were always good towns for me. Athens was a good town. Anyplace where the trip was shot was
good. Atlanta was always fun. I never liked Savannah. It was such a long trip and we never drew anything there.
Is that one of the reasons it eventually became a (Jim) Crockett town?
It was 262 miles one way, a four-hour ride no matter how you made it from Atlanta. At the time we didn’t have an interstate all the way. It
even got to the point when we running it at the end we were on Sunday afternoons. Barnett started flying everybody down there and back.
I mean, we were killing ourselves working a seven-day week. And coming off of Saturdays where you had two TV’s and a house show –
it was tough.
We would fly out of Atlanta on Sunday about twelve o’clock, work a three o’clock show and the last plane out of there was at six o’clock.
You killed yourself just to get back to the airport for that flight home or you’d have to spend the night there or rent a car the next day to get
back to Atlanta. It was never good – it just never clicked down there. I don’t know why. They had a huge civic center right in downtown,
seated about 8,000 people. It just never clicked for us.
How did the transfer to Mid-Atlantic happen for Savannah? You say it didn’t draw. Did you guys just stop running there, and
eventually Crockett picked it up?
I’m not sure of the details, but it was sold to Crockett. It was actually closer from Charlotte to Savannah than it was from Atlanta to
Savannah. Besides the people in Savannah were getting Crockett’s show out of Charleston, and they were seeing ours, too, so it wasn’t
a big stretch for them (Mid-Atlantic). I’m not sure if they ever made a lot of money over there either.
Was there ever anyone who came through Georgia you felt deserved more of a push than they received, or less than they actually
got?
Nobody pops into my head. There’s a lot of guys I would’ve liked to have seen make more money. I would’ve liked to have seen Ted and
Jerry Oates do better out of here. Not blowing smoke, and I’ve said this to his face, but I think Dick Steinborn would’ve made an excellent
World Champion. (Technically, Steinborn did win a World title, but on a local level – the previously named WWA title that had been
brought in from California by Freddie Blassie.) He’s the best babyface worker I’ve ever seen. He knew how to sell. I wish he had gotten
a shot at it if he wanted it. Some of the top guys you kind of look at and wonder how they got where they are.
How much input to this sort of stuff did you have?
Talent wise, none, I didn’t have any. The only time I would get involved was if they were doing something stupid that was affecting the
business name. I was office manager. I ran the office for Barnett. As far as talent was concerned that was totally out of my hands. You
know, if a guy went out and did something stupid and got arrested then sometimes I’d have to help them out. It was my job to find out
what went on, but nothing I said got anybody hired or fired.
Let’s talk about Thunderbolt Patterson – practically invented the gimmick Virgil Runnels turned into Dusty Rhodes.
Yep.
To this day, I understand he’s bitter toward the business, and he claims he was a victim of racism and always thought he should’ve
been bigger. But when I look back, he was pushed as hard as anybody else, even Ray Candy, Tony Atlas or Butch Reed were in
Georgia. What are your feelings on how he was used?
I did an interview one time on a radio station here in Atlanta, and I was asked this same question, and I’m going to answer you the same
way I did them. I don’t care how good you are at what you do. I could be the best logistics guy you’ve ever met (a reference to my real
job), but if you come ask me for a job and you can make me tons of money yet your attitude is disruptive to everybody else in the
company, it gets to a point where you’re not worth having around no matter how much money you’re making for my company. That’s
pretty much what happened in my opinion.
Yeah, the race card was played, but I never saw it. He was a heck of a worker and a nice guy to me. I never had a problem with that man
– not one problem. All of that started with Ann. That’s where he started using the race card, but I never saw it.
When Ole was booking GCW, he came to work here and it wasn’t too long before the same thing started up. We all want to think we’re
worth more than we are, and we all want to be the top dog. It’s like I said about that watermelon – you can only slice it so many ways
before you’ve got to get a new watermelon.
I think that’s basically what happened. Yes, he’s bitter toward the business and he feels like he should’ve been treated more differently.
So did a million other people. I wish I’d have made a million dollars, but you know...
We talked about memorable angles before, and which ones stuck out as still over. There were many before my time, and after we
talk about these specific ones I am going to ask you about, please feel free to bring them up. I know feuds such as the (Bob)
Armstrong-(Bobby) Duncum feud were huge, but from the era when I was watching there’s a few in particular I’d like to touch on.
We talked about the DiBiase piledriver story, but another one that still seems to hang with the fans is the Austin Idol flat tire angle.
How can something so simple have made such an impact and burned itself into the brains of fans?
It’s all in how you sell it. It made perfect sense. The things that didn’t work in the wrestling business were the things you tried to make
too complicated. We were talking about Thunderbolt – do you remember the deal where he bought the new Cadillac?
Yeah...
And the hub cap deal?
Continued
opportunities, too, I imagine.
That’s exactly what it was.
I know some of those guys did go on to return to some NWA groups...
All the people who had talent worked if they wanted to. And most of them never missed a beat. There were some guys that decided they
didn’t want to do it. Dick went a long time where he ran some shows on his own for awhile after we folded, but most of the guys who
wanted to work, were working again elsewhere pretty darn quick.
After All-South closed, you went back to Georgia Championship Wrestling. How did that come about?
There were thirty-three wrestlers and referees on the (All-South) roster, as far as full time people on Saturday. We closed down on Friday
night. I saw Dick write a story about this – I think it was on your message board, but he mentioned a town we were in the last night, and
he ran the town.
We were in Montezuma at the National Guard Armory. When I got there to referee that night, Charlie Harbin was there, and he never went
to the towns. I didn’t have a clue anything was going on. Then Charlie walked in and proceeded to tell us this was it – at the end of the
night we were through. I asked him about the TV for the next day, and he said, “don’t go to the TV station.”
He called me out in the hall and said, “Bobby, they’re having a meeting in the morning back at the office at ten o’clock. All the wrestlers
will be there. Barnett’s going to be there, and he’s going to get some people booked into other territories. You stay away from the office –
you’re being taken care of.” (Laughs) I had no idea what that meant.
You’re being taken care of – you could take that any number of ways...
That’s exactly what he said. I trusted Charlie Harbin explicitly, because he had been very good to me, but I didn’t know what that meant at
the time.
I got up the next morning, and I just thought this was nuts. I just had to know what was going on, so I went to the office anyway. When I
got there, Charlie was the first person I saw, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him I needed to know what was happening. “You
said I was going to be taken care of – what does that mean exactly?” (Laughs)
I stood around and didn’t say anything. I watched a lot of guys going in and out of the office – some seemed happy, some didn’t seem so
happy. We said our good-byes because we didn’t really know for sure what was going to happen to anybody. We’d all grown very close
because we had worked together everyday for the last two years.
Finally, when it was all said and done, Charlie introduced me to Barnett, and he said, “I’ve been wanting to meet you. I understand you
can drive the ring truck, work on rings, and put them together. And I understand you’re a pretty good referee. Be at my office Monday
morning at nine o’clock so you can meet my booker.”
So I went over there Monday morning, I walked back out of the office about fifteen minutes later as an employee of Georgia
Championship Wrestling. I was a referee, I put the ring up, and they wanted me to help work around the office a little bit. That was my
duties – same thing I had been doing for All-South. So nothing changed for me except my place of employment. Out of the thirty-three
people who lost their jobs at All-South that Saturday, I was the only one who was back to work by Monday morning.
You said Barnett wanted you to meet the booker. Who was it at that time?
Harley Race. It was the first time I had ever met him.
He wasn’t there much longer after that, right?
Harley was there maybe another month, six weeks at the most. Then Renesto showed up as the booker (Laughs). You know, we all
have our opinions (Laughs).
How long did Tom carry the book at that time?
A couple of years, maybe three.
And then it eventually fell back to the Andersons?
When Tom left, Gene Anderson came in as the booker. Gene was the booker, and Ole was to be the assistant. I had met them, but I’d
never worked for them.
I remember talking to Tom the day before he left. He said, “I know you’ve worked for me for a long time, but it’s going to be different
working for these guys. I’ve watched you grow, and helped you along the way. These guys are strictly businessmen. Walk the line and
do what they ask you to do.”
But I never had a problem with Gene Anderson. Gene and I got along fine. Me and Ole get along fine. We haven’t always seen eye to
eye. But as time went on and I got a little more authority, and became the office manager and had some say as to what was going on, we
really didn’t see eye to eye a couple of times, but I never had a problem with him.
Well, that’s the nature of any business relationship.
Yeah, I never had any serious problems with either one of them. I’ve been through a lot of bookers (Laughs). That was the beginning of
the tide, as it were, because when Gene and Ole left, we went through some bookers.
I think Bill Watts came in for another run...
Watts came back, Buck Robely, Robert Fuller – a host of assistant bookers like Louie Tillet, Jody Hamilton. Ron West also worked in the
office and was an assistant booker a lot of the time. He never got a lot of credit. He was one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met and he
got very little credit. A lot of the ideas we came up with that weren’t mainline were not Ole’s ideas, they were Ronnie’s. It was like a
revolving door there for awhile.
Barnett had become involved with Georgia Championship Wrestling in 1974. Do you know how that came about? Perhaps it was to
put the final nail in All-South’s coffin?
I’m not sure who sold what, but Barnett was offered majority ownership of the company. So he got fifty-one percent of the stock. He also
owned part of Florida, which probably led to it. They were running it by committee at that time. This was prior to my going back over there,
so this is just my outside view of the situation, and I believe they were running it by committee.
Jarrett had booked some, Harley had booked, and Watts had the book for awhile. Harley didn’t want to live here and be the booker. He
was really just helping out. They had Harley aimed for the strap. He was also part owner of the office in Kansas City, and that was his
home and where he wanted to be. Jarrett was only here helping out – his main interest was in Tennessee. They needed some
stabilization. They needed somebody to come in here and make it their own company. Barnett had come out of Australia and I think it
was a right place at the right time deal. That’s how he wound up here.
I guess Paul Jones took even more of a backseat than he already had prior to Barnett’s arrival.
Paul hadn’t been real active for a long time before that.
He would just show up on television now and then to put his face in front of the fans, right?
Paul was strictly the promoter. Ownership had changed a lot over the years. The old owners had sold out, and a whole new group had
come in. Percentages of ownership had been swapped around. At one point in time there were a couple of minority owners who had
two and a half ownership points apiece.
Paul Jones initially stepped out in 1962, and gave way to Don McIntyre to become promoter, as well as a brief run by Les Wolfe. Is it
safe to assume when Paul came back in in 1964 that it had become Ray Gunkel’s promotion?
Without a doubt it was Gunkel’s promotion. Paul had just become a figurehead. He had a certain percentage of the office, but he had no
say as to how they ran the business. He owned the Sports Arena – that was his building, and where the office was, but he was just a
figurehead by then.
Ted Turner – this guy came out of nowhere. He inherited his dad’s billboard company, and he came to Atlanta and bought a little
independent local channel called WJRJ. (Turner purchased WJRJ in 1968, and in January 1970, changed the call letters to WTCG.) Of
course, the rest is history as far as that is concerned. I always heard he was a huge wrestling fan, and when he put it on his station, it
became the anchor.
He owned a station in Charlotte as well. It was a little independent station. Live Atlanta Wrestling had been on Channel 11 for years.
That station began to jack Gunkel around on the time slot. For years it had been on at 6:30 live every Saturday night. Now all of a sudden
they shift it around every week, sometimes the regular time, but sometimes as late as 11:30. Then it would be on at four o’clock in the
afternoon.
They just kept moving it around, and Gunkel got really fed up with it. I’m not sure who approached who because I wasn’t in that loop at
the time, but it was announced to everybody that we were going to Channel 17. They were going to give us a set time every Saturday
night at six o’clock.
Me and Larry Nichols, the guy that was setting up the TV ring – he went on to referee at All-South – we went to move the ring in the middle
of the night. Sort of like the Indianapolis Colts deal. We went down in the middle of the night and moved the ring down to this little
independent station, and at that time it was located on West Peachtree Street.
The week we moved, Ted went on his TV station in Charlotte and told people he was broke, and asked all his viewers to send him a
dollar apiece to help him keep the cost down so he could stay on the air. Gunkel found out about that and about had a stroke (Laughs).
He had put the business in this guy’s hands. And as you say the rest is history.
The first Saturday we went to tape the first show at WTCG, the door was locked and I couldn’t get in. I rang the buzzer but nobody
answered. I can’t get in and don’t know what to do.
And you were supposed to tape in just a couple of hours?
Right. Here I am by myself, and I had gotten a ride with my dad, and he’d left. I can’t find a phone to call anybody. So I took my
pocketknife out and jimmied the door, and I got in. It’s only the second time I’ve been in this building in my life.
I had been there the night before to put up the ring, and so I know where the studio’s at, but I know I need to tell somebody I’m in there. I
went through the place and found the control room. There was a guy sitting in the control room, and he was the only guy in the place. He
had long hair down his back, he’s barefooted, sitting back with his legs crossed and playing a guitar and smoking a joint (Laughs). It’s
eight o’clock on a Saturday morning and he’s just strumming. And he sees me and says “hey, man, how’s it going?” I told him I was
there to set up for the wrestling show and he’s in a daze and says, “Okay.” (Laughs) So that was my first experience with WTCG.
As the years went by it got much more professional, but that was just when the station was getting started. As far as Turner’s concerned
– there was a catwalk in the studio above the lights and the wall was jet black. There was a door that was on that wall, which was where
his office was. There were many Saturdays I would look up and he’d be watching us tape.
He was notorious back then for having a drink or two, and there were times you’d hear him up there after a long night where he’d
probably not even ever left the office. As far as I know he liked wrestling. I know he did later on because we were his highest rated show
for a long time. We outdrew the Braves for a long time on TV.
You were the anchor of his station...
Yeah. I’m sure he was at least somewhat of a fan. Maybe a closet fan, but he was a fan.
Did he ever help in anyway financially or offer input? Was he ever around when any of the booking ideas were being planned?
No, he didn’t really get involved at all.
What about Freddy Miller? When did he become involved and what did he do in the promotion? I know he was actually credited in
later years as producing the TV show, as well as hosting some of the programs.
Freddy had been in broadcasting for years.
He had been in radio...
Exactly, and he had actually done the Georgia Tech games on radio when they were sponsored by Texaco. He was working for GCW
before I went to work over there. He was in charge of the TV program. He made sure the tapes got shipped to the towns on the loop. He
made sure they aired when they were supposed to.
Freddy owned an advertising agency named Freddy Miller Enterprises. When you call a TV station to buy advertising time, they quote me
on rate. If I call and say, “this is Bobby Simmons Advertising,” they quote me a better rate because they know I’ve got to make money. So
Freddy was responsible for buying all the time slots, as well as the advertising spots on TV and radio. He was the on air voice for the
promos. If he had been smart enough to copyright that “don’t miss it, be there” line, think about how much he could’ve gotten from NBC
years later.
He gave the office x amount of dollars a week to produce the program and then whatever he made was his money. He would be back in
the control room with the director when we taped making sure everything was timed out properly. He was responsible for typing out the
formats that got shipped with the tapes.
On Tuesday mornings we would go to the studio to tape the interviews for all of the other shows for being shown around the loop. When
we taped that show on Saturday mornings, fifty-seven minutes after we started the show was in the can. There was never any post-
production. When we were through, it was done. Whatever we had was ready to go. Tuesday mornings we would go back in and take
that same tape, and cut new interviews for those interview slots, and we’d cut the promos for whatever shows were coming up, for
example, Augusta, Savannah, and so on. But each tape was unique to whatever station it went to in regard to what was going on there.
Freddy did all those interviews. So, in effect, he was the producer.
He was responsible for whatever people saw when they watched. He would only be in the office a couple of days a week and it was just
to make sure that sort of stuff got done. He had his own things going on and he was still involved in some radio spots and other things.
Gordon Solie came in shortly after the split and became the new voice of Georgia Championship Wrestling, replacing Ed Capral. Do
you have any specific memories of Gordon you want to share?
What you saw with Gordon was pretty much what you got. To me he was always very professional and businesslike. I dealt with Gordon
a lot. He worked more in the Florida office than here of course. He came in and did the show and was very professional. You’d tell
Gordon what you wanted and he just went out and did it without a hitch.
He was very believable – he wasn’t a rah-rah cheerleader – he just went out and called it. If something called for him to get excited, he’d
get excited. I heard Les Thatcher say one time “I’m an ex-wrestler, why should I get excited over a hammerlock?” And I agree, and that’s
how Gordon was.
I heard that near the end of Gordon’s life he had become a little bitter because he felt like he maybe had been done wrong because he’d
sort of been put out of the business. I don’t know anything about that. My dealings with him were always professional and I got along
with him fine. I never had any problems with him at all. As far as I’m concerned he was a good guy.
To me, and most of the fans, he was arguably the best. A lot of people around the south bring up Lance Russell’s name a lot, Ed
Capral and Les Thatcher, but from my era, in particular, Gordon was the man. My take on him was he made it feel like a legitimate
sport when he called it.
He sold it that way. Ed was good, too. Before Ed, there was a guy here named Ray McCay. Ray was good for his era. But after you got
used to Ed, Ray came back and did some ring announcing and a little TV work with Ed. Ray came off as corny compared to Ed. Then
after you had worked with Gordon, Ed came off as corny. Lance Russell, out of Memphis, he was very good. There again, I don’t think
Lance would’ve fit in in Atlanta. He would’ve come off as corny compared to Gordon. It’s just what you’re used to.
I think it’s the market you’re in.
Very much so.
Was it true that Gordon wanted to be in the dark so he could sound surprised when something big took place that would require him
to get excited?
No, Gordon knew everything in advance. He attended the production meetings. Of course, when I say production meetings, you have to
realize these happened about five minutes before we went on the air (Laughs). It was “here’s what we’re going to do – this match, that
match, this interview, that interview” – that was pretty much it. We didn’t meet on Thursday night to discuss what we’d be doing on
Saturday morning.
Nothing like what goes on today where you’re hiring Hollywood scriptwriters and such.
No sir.
I started watching in the mid-seventies, and one thing I’ve noticed doing research for the website, there was a huge boom of great
young stars in here that went on to bigger and better things. Guys like Bob Backlund, Rick Martel, Ricky Steamboat, Gino Hernandez
– why didn’t Georgia try to hang onto them? Was it a matter of too much talent to hang onto at one time? Or was it just not obvious
that these guys had what they eventually became?
I think it was obvious, but you have to remember it depends on when you get the push and how you’re used. I look back at all those guys,
and I refereed some of their very first matches. They’d probably never admit this, but some of the guys you named I would call the
matches for them because they didn’t know how to do it at the time.
Ricky Steamboat was just getting started. Tito Santana was there around the same time frame, and he was just starting out. Paul
Orndorff – same time frame. Scott Irwin – later became the Super Destroyer and one of the Long Riders. All of these guys...and you take
the fact they were just starting into consideration, and talk about what big stars they became. Then you look back at some of these guys,
at that time they were just getting started and really didn’t know what they were doing. You think they have what it takes to be big, but as a
promoter and a booker you look at them and have to do something with them.
Maybe its not the right place and time for some of them. And you can’t hang onto everybody. If you take the list of guys we’ve mentioned
and you’ve got them all in one territory at the same time, how do you keep all of them happy? They all want to be on top.
Then you get the complete opposite. We had a guy in here in the late seventies – his name was Sterling Golden. He lasted two weeks.
Ole says “I can’t do nothing with the guy. He can’t work – he’s big, but he can’t work.”
And at the time nobody knew that a few short years later that wouldn’t matter anymore.
Right place, right time, Sterling Golden becomes Hulk Hogan and starts making millions of dollars. The funny thing about that now is he
still can’t work (Laughs). He never really has been able to. He just found the right niche and the right push, with the right kind of booker,
all things that were necessary to get him over. Lou Thesz was eighty-seven years old when I talked to him one time and he summed it
up perfectly. He said, “the guy doesn’t know a wristwatch from a wristlock. I’ll wrestle him right now.”
And beat him...
Not a doubt. You just can’t keep all of them and make them all happy at the same time. Sometimes you get lucky with the ones you keep,
and sometimes you don’t. I’m sure you’re going to bring up Tommy Rich sometime in this interview, but one thing about Tommy is he
was brought in here to be a piece of hamburger meat for Abdullah the Butcher. Barnett took one look at him and saw his future.
Around this same time, Ole Anderson had really become heavily involved in running things in the promotion. You said Gene was
supposed to be booking and Ole was just supposed to help out. Did either one of them ever actually own a piece of the business
during that time? I know Ole did years later, but did they have that much of a stake back then?
At that time no. Gene was brought in to be the booker, and Ole was going to be his assistant. They stayed here awhile and they left.
When Ole came back, Ole came in as the booker.
Ole came back after the revolving door we spoke about earlier...
Right.
And it was him and Barnett pretty much in control the rest of the way...
Barnett at that time still had some input, but Ole was the man. As far as the talent and the booking, what Ole wanted was what
happened.
You stepped into the ring on occasion as a stand-in. Is it safe to say they were squashes, or were you actually adept as a wrestler?
(Laughs) No, I wouldn’t call of them squashes. I knew what I was doing. If a guy couldn’t make it, I would fill in for the first match, for
example. I worked with Tom Prichard, Bill Dromo – a lot of guys.
Did you always wear a mask?
I always did here because I was a referee and everybody knew me. They weren’t always squashes – I went to Athens once and the main
event had the Assassins against Ole and Lars Anderson. Jody Hamilton was double-booked and they sent him to Knoxville and I took
his outfit and worked with Randy Colley against Ole and Lars. Nick Patrick, who was Jody’s son, was the referee for that match. I
remember during the instructions I looked at Nick and told him, “if you call me daddy one time I’m going to whip the referee.” (Laughs)
Do you remember any of the names you used under the hood?
Sometimes the Invader or the Enforcer – it didn’t matter what they called me so long as the check cleared on Monday (Laughs).
I have seen your name in some of the results as Bobby Simmons, so you weren’t always under a mask.
I worked some like that if we didn’t have a mask, and it was usually a small town and I’d have to do a fill in. I worked Griffin some that
way. I haven’t thought about this for years, but there was a time when I worked as myself. I worked with Jerry Lawler in Griffin. I ran into
Lawler a few years ago in Conyers and showed him some pictures from that and he couldn’t believe it. I sit here now and that’s thirty
years ago. That’s hard to even say. (Laughs)
When we talk about referees in the Georgia territory during the seventies and eighties, most people probably think of Ron West
immediately. He told me he had been here about thirteen years.
Yeah, he came here in about 1973 working for Ann Gunkel, and stayed about ten days and left. He came back about two or three weeks
later working for the NWA office, and I would pass him and he’d act like he didn’t know who I was. Of course, that was the nature of the
business at that time. Anyway, he never left. He was here a good twelve or thirteen years, and was the best I’ve ever seen, without a
doubt.
Turner was beamed through satellites for the first time in December 1976, and in late 1979 with the cable boom, things really
exploded. When did it first become obvious that the territory had grown in popularity beyond the territorial borders due to the WTBS
exposure?
Barnett was a facts and figures guy, and he was always interested in the ratings. When the quarterly ratings books were released and
issued to WTBS, he was always given a copy. It was never a secret that we were the top program for Turner. We had even maintained
more of a following than the Braves, who were his second highest rated program.
I had birthday parties that drew better than the Braves back then (Laughs)...
If the Braves schedule conflicted with our time slot, people would call and complain. We knew that it was growing. People see stations
like WTBS and WGN, and they see that they’re called a superstation, but a lot of people don’t realize what a superstation really is.
A superstation is a station that has two separate transmitters. One transmits over a satellite or cable system, nationally or globally
depending on how big it is. The second one transmits locally. When you were seeing a show in Atlanta or out of the Atlanta area you
were seeing commercials for ‘Joe Bob’s Siding Company’, but if they were watching it in Cincinnati they were seeing Budweiser or Delta
Air Lines ads.
Turner’s people knew that we had something when we started selling those kind of spots to that kind of sponsor. Not only did Turner
know what we had, but so did the FCC. I don’t know how it is today with McMahon’s (WWE) shows, but we were the most tightly
regulated wrestling program in the history of wrestling at that time. You're only allowed x number of minutes of commercial time per hour.
I don't remember what the figure is, but if it’s twenty-two minutes, and they have sold sixteen minutes of commercials to sponsors, that
meant we only had six minutes where we could physically get on TV and go “Rich Tate, I’m going to be in Columbus tonight and I’m
going to kick your butt.” Because if I mention this promotion will be in Columbus, that’s a commercial. And once you say that, that
segment, however long it may be, goes against the commercial time – that whole promo spot is a commercial.
So the FCC came in and told us we had too much commercial time in our shows. So we knew we had something and we really didn’t
know what to do with it because at the time you’re talking about territories and good ol’ boys.
Just to give you an example of how popular our show was – Tony Atlas was booked by Paul Boesch in Houston to work with the
champion out there. Tony had never been to Houston in his life. They flew him in on a Friday to work off of our TV show. They sold out
the coliseum and Tony got the biggest pop of the night and made $3,000 for one night. That was rare at the time and it was from the
popularity of that satellite. So we knew we had something – we just didn’t know where to take it.
Amazing. There were many memorable story lines and feuds throughout your time. All of the message boards have covered them
many times, but if you had to narrow down to one angle from either All-South or GCW during your employment, which one stands out
as the best executed in your opinion?
Dropping Ted DiBiase on his head on television (Laughs). The piledriver on the floor that put him in the hospital.
Tell me about that day. You and I have talked about this before, but share your story with our readers.
At any show you did you were required to have a doctor in attendance. We had one that worked at the studio, but I don’t recall his name.
He may even still be practicing. He was a little naive, and had no idea the business was a work. He was a good fellow, and he enjoyed
being around there, and actually got into it quite a bit.
Anyway, he was on call on that particular weekend, and we knew that. I got called into the office on Friday because they had the plan and
we needed extra time to work out the details, and they wanted to be sure I would be at the station the next morning. The deal was that we
were going to shoot the angle the way you saw it, with the piledriver on the floor, and we were going to call 911 to have him hauled out of
the studio.
Now as I told you before, we never broke tape – once we started something it ran. This was the idea – we didn’t smarten up WTBS or
anybody. The only people that knew what we were doing were the Freebirds, DiBiase, the Junkyard Dog, Gordon, Ole, Jim Barnett and
myself. We didn’t even tell the rest of the guys what we were doing.
So everything’s going well and everything’s going smooth and I’m just walking around shooting the bull. And they got the match in the
ring and bing-bing-bing-bing-bing, do the deal and out on the floor and they hit him with the piledriver. As soon as they land him I dial
911. We wanted them on the way, but we wanted some time with him just lying there.
What we didn’t expect was the WTBS people, the film crew, thought it was a waste of time to keep rolling tape, and they decided to stop
the tape. Nobody knew they stopped it. Gordon’s doing his thing, you know, he’s talking, and I’ve walked over to Ted and I’m looking at
him and talking to him and people are buzzing.
All of a sudden one of the TBS guys comes over to Gordon and tells him he can calm down, meaning that they had stopped rolling the
tape. Well, we couldn’t go ballistic because we would have given ourselves away. Gordon came over to me and told me they had
stopped the tape, and I went back and told them, “I know this sounds gross, but we need you to turn back on that tape. We need a record
of this. There may be some lawsuits that might come out of this.” (Laughs) I said, “we need some proof of what’s going on. We won’t do
any commentary, but you need to turn the tape back on and have your guys shoot this.”
Well, if you remember seeing this, you recall that you could hear the sirens as they pulled in, so we got some of it on tape. But they take
him to the hospital, and I went with him. I’m walking around over there, and it turns out they can’t find anything wrong with him (Laughs).
So I pulled the doctor over to the side and I said, “you know, we may get sued over this deal. This guy’s one of our big stars and I’m
scared to death. If he gets out of here today, he may go and try to whip that guy tonight. Is there anyway you can hold him for observation
for a day or two, just to be sure he’s okay?” And he says, “yeah, we can do that.”
So that’s how I got him admitted to the hospital (Laughs). They shut the switchboard down at the hospital because so many people were
calling. There were death threats – it was really bad, it was awful.
Where was he?
At Crawford Long. I called up there on Sunday and told the lady who answered that I needed to speak to Ted DiBiase. She told me she
was sorry and that he wasn’t taking anymore calls. So I told her that I sign his paycheck and felt pretty sure that if she told him it was me
he’d answer the phone. She says. “hang on a minute,” (Laughs) So I got on the phone with him and he told me he had to lock the door
to his room because it had gotten so crazy.
So he’s just on a boring vacation...
(Laughs) Yeah...he just laid there and watched TV for two days. He told me, “man, it’s crazy. They’ve shut the switchboard down and
locked my door.” But that was the most well conceived thing we put together while I was there. There were a lot of angles we did that you
could mention like Mr. Wrestling #2 and the Superstar, the Spoiler, Roddy Piper – but that was probably the best executed thing we ever
put together.
To this day it’s still probably top three to most people...
People are still talking about it today. It’s funny, you know, I walk into people who say, “aw, man, I knew that stuff was fixed,” and those
are the same people who tell you, “but I was there the day they dropped DiBiase on his head and he really got hurt.” (Laughs) When I
look back at that, I do so with a sense of pride because...
Because you pulled it off...
Because we were that good. We had people sitting as close to it as I am to you, and they didn’t know.
I’ll admit I... (Laughs) ...I was about thirteen and I knew wrestling was a work, even if I didn’t know that term at the time, but I bought
it... (Laughs) So Ole booked that angle, which is funny because a lot of people knock his work outside the ring, but I think he did
some really great stuff.
Ole was a perfectionist. He was outspoken, and he would tell you what he thought. People didn’t like that, but I’d rather deal with
somebody like that. At least you know where you stand...
Exactly...
He was such a perfectionist, and he protected the business to the utmost level. That’s why he got fired from Turner, because he told the
pack of guys who were over there that they were drug addicts and they couldn’t work and were exposing the business. Finally, McMahon
comes right out and says, “hey, we’re sports entertainment and it’s all a work.” But to this day – and you’ve met a lot of the guys – we
protect our business. And that’s just the way it was.
What about George Scott, the booker? He and Ole traded places for about a year in the early eighties.
He was a serious businessman with a brilliant mind. He’s the one that made the North Carolina territory (Mid-Atlantic) what it was.
The Thanksgiving Tag Team Tournaments were a huge draw. They were probably some of the most stacked cards you guys had. I
didn’t think much about it at the time, but in hindsight, I can’t believe it never occurred to me how it just so happened that the titles
were always conveniently vacant around that time of the year. Did it ever occur to anyone back then that people would catch onto
that fact?
No, it just became a tradition. We drew our biggest house of the year every Thanksgiving when we started those. The first time we ever
drew over $100,000 was on a Thanksgiving night. Our top ticket price was $8 and general admission was like around $4 in an 18,000
seat building. That’s a lot of money back then. Today it wouldn’t be because they’re selling ringside for about $300. It just became habit
to put those together each year. And we were competing against football games, family get-togethers, so it was never an easy draw.
After lunch on Christmas Day there’s nothing for people to do. They’re always looking for something to do, so Christmas night became a
top draw. Thanksgiving was a tough sell, but once we established it as a big card, it was “get dinner over with early and go to the
matches.” The only thing my family didn’t like about it was I had to go to work every Thanksgiving, but it was what we did for a living.
What were your favorite places around the loop, and in contrast, your least favorite?
I never liked Augusta.
Why is that?
I just hated the ride. I hated the trip. The first time I ever went to Augusta I was about fourteen years old and I couldn’t drive, so I rode with
Rocket (Monroe).
You’ve probably heard the story about Mr. X, - Doug Scoggins – we called him ‘Kissie’. He got killed on the way to Valdosta one Monday
night. Him and Wayne Cowan were roommates. I was with Rocket and Wayne the night he got killed. We were going to Augusta and
they were on their way to Valdosta when it happened.
But I never liked Augusta – don’t know why. People were always nice to me and I never had any problems there, I just didn’t like the
drive.
It is a pretty boring drove out that way.
(Shudders) Columbus and Macon were always good towns for me. Athens was a good town. Anyplace where the trip was shot was
good. Atlanta was always fun. I never liked Savannah. It was such a long trip and we never drew anything there.
Is that one of the reasons it eventually became a (Jim) Crockett town?
It was 262 miles one way, a four-hour ride no matter how you made it from Atlanta. At the time we didn’t have an interstate all the way. It
even got to the point when we running it at the end we were on Sunday afternoons. Barnett started flying everybody down there and back.
I mean, we were killing ourselves working a seven-day week. And coming off of Saturdays where you had two TV’s and a house show –
it was tough.
We would fly out of Atlanta on Sunday about twelve o’clock, work a three o’clock show and the last plane out of there was at six o’clock.
You killed yourself just to get back to the airport for that flight home or you’d have to spend the night there or rent a car the next day to get
back to Atlanta. It was never good – it just never clicked down there. I don’t know why. They had a huge civic center right in downtown,
seated about 8,000 people. It just never clicked for us.
How did the transfer to Mid-Atlantic happen for Savannah? You say it didn’t draw. Did you guys just stop running there, and
eventually Crockett picked it up?
I’m not sure of the details, but it was sold to Crockett. It was actually closer from Charlotte to Savannah than it was from Atlanta to
Savannah. Besides the people in Savannah were getting Crockett’s show out of Charleston, and they were seeing ours, too, so it wasn’t
a big stretch for them (Mid-Atlantic). I’m not sure if they ever made a lot of money over there either.
Was there ever anyone who came through Georgia you felt deserved more of a push than they received, or less than they actually
got?
Nobody pops into my head. There’s a lot of guys I would’ve liked to have seen make more money. I would’ve liked to have seen Ted and
Jerry Oates do better out of here. Not blowing smoke, and I’ve said this to his face, but I think Dick Steinborn would’ve made an excellent
World Champion. (Technically, Steinborn did win a World title, but on a local level – the previously named WWA title that had been
brought in from California by Freddie Blassie.) He’s the best babyface worker I’ve ever seen. He knew how to sell. I wish he had gotten
a shot at it if he wanted it. Some of the top guys you kind of look at and wonder how they got where they are.
How much input to this sort of stuff did you have?
Talent wise, none, I didn’t have any. The only time I would get involved was if they were doing something stupid that was affecting the
business name. I was office manager. I ran the office for Barnett. As far as talent was concerned that was totally out of my hands. You
know, if a guy went out and did something stupid and got arrested then sometimes I’d have to help them out. It was my job to find out
what went on, but nothing I said got anybody hired or fired.
Let’s talk about Thunderbolt Patterson – practically invented the gimmick Virgil Runnels turned into Dusty Rhodes.
Yep.
To this day, I understand he’s bitter toward the business, and he claims he was a victim of racism and always thought he should’ve
been bigger. But when I look back, he was pushed as hard as anybody else, even Ray Candy, Tony Atlas or Butch Reed were in
Georgia. What are your feelings on how he was used?
I did an interview one time on a radio station here in Atlanta, and I was asked this same question, and I’m going to answer you the same
way I did them. I don’t care how good you are at what you do. I could be the best logistics guy you’ve ever met (a reference to my real
job), but if you come ask me for a job and you can make me tons of money yet your attitude is disruptive to everybody else in the
company, it gets to a point where you’re not worth having around no matter how much money you’re making for my company. That’s
pretty much what happened in my opinion.
Yeah, the race card was played, but I never saw it. He was a heck of a worker and a nice guy to me. I never had a problem with that man
– not one problem. All of that started with Ann. That’s where he started using the race card, but I never saw it.
When Ole was booking GCW, he came to work here and it wasn’t too long before the same thing started up. We all want to think we’re
worth more than we are, and we all want to be the top dog. It’s like I said about that watermelon – you can only slice it so many ways
before you’ve got to get a new watermelon.
I think that’s basically what happened. Yes, he’s bitter toward the business and he feels like he should’ve been treated more differently.
So did a million other people. I wish I’d have made a million dollars, but you know...
We talked about memorable angles before, and which ones stuck out as still over. There were many before my time, and after we
talk about these specific ones I am going to ask you about, please feel free to bring them up. I know feuds such as the (Bob)
Armstrong-(Bobby) Duncum feud were huge, but from the era when I was watching there’s a few in particular I’d like to touch on.
We talked about the DiBiase piledriver story, but another one that still seems to hang with the fans is the Austin Idol flat tire angle.
How can something so simple have made such an impact and burned itself into the brains of fans?
It’s all in how you sell it. It made perfect sense. The things that didn’t work in the wrestling business were the things you tried to make
too complicated. We were talking about Thunderbolt – do you remember the deal where he bought the new Cadillac?
Yeah...
And the hub cap deal?
Continued
| CONVERSATIONS |
