You had a program with Ed Wiskowski for awhile. He had a heck of a career several times over.
I really liked him. I had seen him in Georgia before. I first met him there. I ran into him in Kansas City and he was a great worker. He
was a sweetheart of a worker.
Is he still around?
You know, I heard he was in Portland. I think his mother in law owns some big business out there. I thought the world of Ed.
I show your St. Louis debut as August 8, 1975, in a win over Bobby Heenan. Does that sound right?
What year?
1975.
Yeah, that’s about right.
One thing I’ve always been curious about is the relationship between St. Louis and the Central States territory. How did Sam
Muchnick run St. Louis? Did he build it around existing programs and have them come in for a few weeks?
I know that Pat O’Connor and Bob Geigel owned a piece of St. Louis, but Sam ran the town. That was the greatest wrestling town I
ever worked in. You could snatch a headlock on me and I’d push you off and hit you with a tackle and they would come unglued.
(laughs) They loved the business. That was a town that prided itself on bringing in top guys from different territories. O’Connor was
the booker.
Did a lot of Kansas City guys also work the cards regularly?
Yeah, but just because you worked Kansas City didn’t necessarily mean you would always work St. Louis.
Okay.
It was a funny place. They’d mix the card up pretty good. I worked with Bill Miller there, later on Ox Baker. Eventually they had me in
main events with Harley Race. Dick Murdoch would be against Bruno Sammartino. They’d bring in the Bruiser and Wilbur Snyder.
Let me give a rundown here of some of your St. Louis matches. I see where you, Wilbur Snyder and Bob Geigel in a six-man over Bill
Miller, Ed Wiskowski, and Bobby Heenan. Then a few weeks later you and Pat O’Connor over Ox Baker and Dick Murdoch. Then
later it’s you and Rocky Johnson over the Valiant Brothers. Down the road you and O’Connor against Murdoch and Harley
Race. Two weeks later, I’ve got you losing to Harley Race. That’s just amazing matches, and anytime I see a full card from
St. Louis, it’s a loaded card from top to bottom.
It was. Oh, God, they paid good, too.
You know, St. Louis, I believe, was the first NWA town where McMahon put his TV on the air in 1983.
I wouldn’t doubt that.
More or less, it’s been considered that it was him thumbing his nose at the top NWA city shortly after dropping his ties with the
alliance. Shortly thereafter I think he started running live shows there, and of course, the next year he buys out Georgia.
You know what? I’ve made this statement many times, but there’s three deaths that caused what we have in the business
today. The first was Ray Gunkel. The second death was McMahon’s father. The third was Eddie Graham. If they had lived, I donâ
€™t think this stuff would have ever happened. I really don’t.
You might have a good point there.
They were powerful in a lot of ways.
Eddie pretty much just about had his way with the NWA for awhile.
He was a genius.
Well, he ran the best overall promotion for twenty years.
Yeah, but he didn’t pay. (laughs) I was talking to Bob Roop. Roop had a hell of a run down there, and I said, “you must have been
making a fortune down there.� He said, “shit, man, I was starving to death.� (laughs) If you look back, nobody – nobody
messed with Gunkel. Eddie Graham – I have to be careful because you’re taping this (laughs) – but nobody would mess with
him. When they died and that kid in New York – anyhow, that’s just my belief. They could have pulled everybody together and it
wouldn’t have happened.
That does bring up an interesting point. I had never put any thought about how Gunkel might have played into that if he were still
around. If he had been around twelve years later, maybe you’re right that things could have been different.
He was a powerful man. St. Louis was strong, and Geigel and O’Connor – that was a different world out there. It was kind of like
the old guard was gone and the young bucks didn’t know what to do about it.
Ole Anderson told us one thing he proposed to the other promoters was that they work together and try to ‘out-McMahon’
McMahon, but nobody had the nerve to stand up to him even in large numbers. From there he went to McMahon and said, “if you
want to own it all – fine, but don’t put all of these guys out of work and don’t close the territories.�
And he was right. Even today, there’s as much talent sitting at home than he’s got.
Probably so. Let’s get back on the timeline – in February 1976 you and Ted came back to Georgia for your first run here
together. You guys ended up with the Georgia Tag Team Title. You had a series of matches with Les Thornton and Tony Charles –
there’s a couple of underrated legends.
They were great to work with. We also worked with Gordman and Goliath.
Another team that falls into the Ken Lucas type situation, whereas if they had traveled more they wouldn’t be so underrated
these days when fans look back.
Exactly. We had good matches with them.
I also see where Mantell came back under his real name and you and Ted worked against him in a match in Griffin. Why didn’t
they try to revive that program between Ted and Dutch from All-South?
I have no idea. It would have been huge. They had a heck of a run with that.
Jos LeDuc was in here at the time. Was he anything like the gimmick, and was he really as strong as they made him out to be?
Jos was a character. I never traveled with him or anything, but he was a little different. I liked him, but he was different. (laughs) He was
a pretty powerful joker, yeah. He was pretty strong.
I remember the video of…
…pulling a bus…
…yeah, that’s it. Did he really do that?
He sure did.
I see you handcuffed to Rock Hunter outside a cage with Dusty Rhodes and Pak Song in the cage.
Okay, that’s when I had knee surgery.
Yeah, I was going to ask because I show a gap of nothing for a couple of months.
I was out for two months.
That explains it.
Then we went to Japan in – I think, October 1976.
The next thing I show is one date on Thanksgiving in Atlanta.
That’s right. I was headed to Louisiana after that show. That’s a story, too. My brother was with me in Japan and we were
supposed to go to Korea next, but he came home. They were going to put the All-Asian Tag Team Title on us and have us go to Korea,
but Ted didn’t want to do that. It kind of screwed that deal up, but I went anyway.
Ted was waiting on me at the airport here when I got back. I’m dog tired and got off the plane and Ted says to me, “we got our
notice. We’ve been fired.� Barnett had brought Ole Anderson in here, and Barnett didn’t really want us here anymore
because we were local boys and close to Fred Ward.
Well, before I left to go to Japan, Barnett told me, “I talked to Dory Funk (Jr.) and got you boys booked in Japan. When you get back
things are going to be real good for you. We’ll have a job waiting on you when you get back.�
And you have a match on Thanksgiving and you’re gone. (laughs)
Right. So when I get to the Omni, they tell me Bill Watts wants me to call him. I didn’t want to go to work for Watts. The next day
Ralph Freed calls me and says, “man, Watts has been calling every day. He wants you to come down there and work.� I told him,
“hell, Ralph, I don’t want to go to Oklahoma and drive all those miles I hear about.� He convinced to call him just so he would
stop trying.
So I called Bill, and he said, “just fly out here and watch us do TV on Saturday. If you come out here, I’ll put the North American
Title on you, I’ll use you on top and help you with trans.� So he sent me a ticket and I flew out there that Saturday and watched
them do two tapes. He went back with me to the hotel and asked what I thought. I told him I liked the talent. He had Murdoch, Killer Karl
Kox, Ken Patera – and he said, “I’ll give you all those things if you’ll come out here.� So I told him I would and he gave
me a starting date for two weeks later.
I came back here to Columbus for a break, and then I was gone for a year. He did everything he said he was going to do, and I respect
him for that. He didn’t have to, but he treated me with nothing but kindness.
A lot of guys hated working for him. A lot of guys hated working for Ole. But I enjoyed working for those two guys more than anybody I ever
worked for because I always knew where I stood with them. I always knew what I was supposed to do and did it. I didn’t miss
shows, or come in late, or come in drunk. I did my job. As long as you did your job, you had no problem with them. I loved them.
When you went out, he did put the title on you and you got a lot of matches with Harley Race.
Some of my best singles matches were with him. He was a class act.
You know he’s running a training camp now with Les Thatcher and Ricky Steamboat.
Really? Where?
Well, I believe they do it as a traveling camp kind of thing. Sort of like seminars.
Yeah, Les has talked to me about doing something.
Did you stay out there for Watts for all of 1977?
Yeah.
I was wondering because I don’t have much other than a few shots here in Augusta and Columbus late in the year.
Let me tell you about that. Me and Harley Race were in the ring in St. Louis getting our instructions, and he leans in and says, “hey,
daddy, Don Owens wants you in Portland.â€� (laughs) I said, “what?â€� He said it again. I didn’t want to go out to Portland. Iâ
€™d already been working for Watts for a year.
All you wanted to do was go home. (laughs)
That’s right. Harley calls me on the phone the next morning at the hotel and tells me again. I asked him, “how does he know
me?â€� He said, “he knows who you are. He wants you out there.â€� I said, “I don’t want to go out there.â€� He says, â
€œaww, it’s a great place, blah, blah, blah.â€� He got Don Owens on the phone and got me booked in Portland. I went to Watts
and told him about Portland and he told me it would be the biggest mistake of my life leaving there. And it probably was. But I went to
Portland and stayed there for six months.
And I understand you had the tag belts with a future governor. (laughs)
That’s right.
What was Jesse Ventura like in 1978? I don’t remember anything of him before the AWA days.
He showed up in Kansas City when me and Ted were there. He used to travel with us. He was always so broke he never had gas
money. We had to cover his trans.
Did he have that crazy look already?
Oh, yeah. It wasn’t as bad yet, but he tried to emulate the Superstar – Billy Graham.
Right.
Jesse – we became very good friends. He would come work out with us every morning. In Kansas City everything’s got a
basement because of all the tornadoes. I had some weights down there and he’d come over every morning and work out with us
and travel with us. He went on to Oregon from there. It was awhile before I saw him again.
And after he left Portland he went to work with Verne, didn’t he?
He left Portland probably about a month before I did. We had a great crew out there, man. We had myself, Jimmy Snuka, Jesse,
Wiskowski, Buddy Rose…
…was Piper out there at that time?
Piper wasn’t there yet. I ran into Piper the first time when we were in Kansas City.
Yeah, I forgot he was still in California when you were in Portland.
As a matter of fact, that’s right – he was in California – because when I left Portland, Leo was booking in Los Angeles…
Garibaldi booked L.A.?
Yeah.
I didn’t know that.
Leo was booking there when I left Portland, and I called him when I was close to leaving there because I wanted to work in L.A. and work
my way back across the country to come home. So I called Leo and he said, “sure, come on down.� I only worked Los Angeles
that one time, and he put me in the main event with Piper. Then I left Los Angeles and I called Watts and I worked Shreveport and
Jackson before coming home for a break. Then I went to the Carolinas.
Yeah, I show you arriving there in July 1978.
That sounds right.
And Ted was there with you.
Well, Ted was already there. He’d been trying to get me in there. That’s when it was on fire – that place was on fire.
George Scott was a great booker.
Yep, and he had it on fire.
We all know what Scott’s done in terms of booking, but what was he like to work for? Was he easy to get along with?
George?
Yeah.
Yeah, to me, he was. I had no problems with him. He treated me good.
What about the Crocketts?
I don’t have too much nice to say about them. (laughs) They paid good – they did do that.
Now they ran about three towns a night, right?
Yeah. I was up there for a long time and still never made some of those towns. They sure did, though – three towns a night.
They had you work one loop this week, then another, and so on?
Yeah. That way they keep you fresh. I made more money up there than anywhere I ever went.
Their roster was huge.
Oh, it never quit. I mean, some of the guys – you’d never see them. But man, God, Rich – Greensboro, Charlotte – those
towns – they had spot shows that would make $20,000 – on spot shows in little towns.
And they already had Aaron Newman and Savannah by that time. What kind of town was Savannah in regards to houses?
Yeah, they were sending super talent down there.
Yeah, I show you guys going over every time you worked Savannah. A little bit of a coincidence there. (laughs)
Well, you know, that’s the way it works.
Sometimes it’s who you know (laughs) …
That’s what it’s all about.
Now I see around the holidays you were back in Georgia working some shows.
Yep.
I show you working against Frank Dusek on one of those shows. I hear Franks’ quite a character.
God, I haven’t seen him in years. Where is he?
I’m not sure, but I think he’s in Texas. Mark Nulty started a website several years ago called Wrestling Classics, and I know
Frank was involved in that at the beginning, but I don’t know that he is still associated with it. Mark had been a ring announcer in
Texas for awhile and they met and put the site together. You guys went back to the Carolinas for awhile in 1979 for what appears to
only be a week. I’ve got a match where you worked in Toronto at that time for the Crocketts. Did you like working in Toronto?
I worked in Toronto?
That’s what it says.
I don’t remember them running Toronto when we were there. (laughs)
The card here shows you and Ted going over Ken Patera and John Studd – all of which were working for the Crocketts at that
time.
Me?
Yeah.
Toronto, Canada?
That’s the one in question.
Aww, come on, Rich.
I’m sitting here looking at it. (laughs)
I’ve never been to Toronto.
Okay. (laughs)
I swear. I’d like to see it, but I don’t remember that at all.
Maybe it was Randy Colley and Bill Howard under hoods that resembled the Oates Brothers. (laughs)
Could have been.
I see you back in Georgia in February and March of 1979, but after that, I don’t see anything for the rest of that year.
I know I was in Detroit in 1980 or so.
Was that for the Sheik?
Yeah. I can claim that I wrestled one of the first matches they ever had at Joe Louis Arena, and I was in the main event with the Sheik, if
that tells you anything. That’s my claim to fame in Detroit. (laughs) Then I used to go up with Dave McKigney in Windsor, Ontario. I
went up there several times with Haystacks. Then I went to Kansas City to team with Ted again.
I do have a February 1980 match with you and Ted…
…a tag team tournament…
Yeah, for the Central States Tag Team Title. You guys lost in the finals to Bruiser Brody and Ernie Ladd.
The night before I was in Detroit. We’re getting instructions in the dressing room. The Funks were there, the Bruiser was there –
everybody was there, man. I was exhausted. I had wrestled in Atlanta for TV the Saturday before that for two tapes, then Detroit that night,
and got up at four o’clock in the morning for a flight to Kansas City because the show was a three o’clock show on Sunday, and
we wrestled something like three times in that tournament.
So we wind up with Ladd and Brody in the finals. We’re getting instructions and Brody looked at Ted and said, “I don’t work
with midgets.� (laughs) My brother didn’t know him before that so I had to tell him he was just fucking with him. (laughs)
Let me run down the names of the people in this tournament – talk about a loaded card: Dick Murdoch and Dusty Rhodes, the Funk
Brothers, Brody and Ladd, Bob Brown and the Bruiser, you and Ted, Bob Sweetan and Takachiho, Rock Hunter and the Assassin, Ed
Wiskowski and the Avenger – I assume the Avenger was Reggie Parks…
…I believe it was, yeah…
Then the Briscos, and Eddie and Tommy Gilbert.
Yeah, that’s pretty loaded.
To say the least.
We were over big out there, man.
In March 1980 I have you guys back here in Georgia, but back out to St. Louis the next month, back here in April working a TV shot
against Jimmy Powell and Jim Nelson. Whatever happened to Nelson?
Jim Nelson – I think he is driving a truck in – is it Mobile? I think in Mobile. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s doing. It
seems like he told me himself, but I don’t remember where I saw him or where he said he was at.
In July of 1980, you came back and stayed here full time for awhile.
Who was booking then, Jake?
Jake Roberts booked here?
Yeah.
If he did, it wasn’t in 1980. In July I think it would have been Watts because this was around the time they were working toward
doing the expansion into Michigan and Ohio, and that was his baby.
I thought Jake was here at the time, but that may have been a few years later.
Yeah, he was here in 1983 and 1984.
Okay. I just remember him calling me up and asking me if I wanted to work Atlanta.
I never knew Jake booked when he was in Georgia.
Yeah. When Jake was straight, man he was good.
I see you worked a few matches in 1980 against Ted Allen, who is a good friend of yours and mine.
Really? Ted’s always been a good hand.
1980 seemed more or less a time where you were getting a mid card push at best, but probably a good chance for you to be at
home for awhile.
Yeah.
I show a March 1981 match with you and Charlie Cook against the Freebirds on TV about a week before the infamous piledriver
angle with Ted DiBiase.
Yeah, I remember that angle. That was brilliant.
You also had a few matches with Frank Morrell doing the Angel gimmick. I’ve heard a ton of great stories where his name was
included.
Oh, he was funny as hell. Oh, God, he was a hoot.
Somebody else I want to ask you about: Steve Olsonoski.
He got hurt.
Yeah, he had to take a break from the ring for awhile because of a wrist problem.
Yeah, he wound up refereeing a bit and working with Gordon Solie a bit. I don’t know what happened to him after that.
He looked to be a good worker, but a lot of people say his mic skills held him back.
Oh, he was great in the ring.
He had the look and the skills, but just never got that extra push.
I guess that injury messed him up pretty bad.
He went back up to work for Verne, but he faded away because they had him on the under card.
That’s too bad.
I see where you worked against Jimmy Snuka. How was it to wrestle him?
Where, in Augusta?
Yeah. How did you know that?
Because that’s the only time I ever worked with him. (laughs) It was unbelievable. He was such a great piece of talent, man.
He’s one of the few guys I ever saw who could find the perfect balance of the mat wrestling and aerial stuff.
That’s right, he never overdid it.
In April 1982, you disappear from Georgia, and I can’t find anything on you again until March of 1983. Where were you around
that time?
I don’t remember where Ted went. I think he went out to Kansas City. I did go to Japan again that summer.
I also don’t show a lot in 1983 for you except the occasional shots in Georgia.
Do you have anything from when I went to Puerto Rico?
Nope.
I don’t remember exactly when that was, but it may have been around this time. I was in Japan with Carlos Colon and he asked me
to come down there. I went down there, but I never went back again.
You didn’t like it down there?
Oh, God, no.
I’ve always heard from the guys that it was pretty rough, and of course, Brody being killed there didn’t make it any more
appealing.
The guy that killed him – Jose Gonzales – used to work here as Sabu Singh.
Right.
Carlos wanted me to come back again, and I told him I was going to help Jerry Blackwell start up his thing in north Georgia (Southern
Championship Wrestling). I just more or less used that as an excuse. I didn’t like it down there. It was too dangerous.
I know the crowds were rowdy – after all, Flair dropped the belt because he thought he heard gunshots (laughs) – but was it
brutal behind the scenes, too?
No, it was just the crowds, really. My first night down there, I had gotten through wrestling and I took a shower. I started out the dressing
room and a guy stopped me and asked me where I was going. I told him I wanted something to drink. He said, “no, you don’t
leave this dressing room. If you want something to drink, we’ll get it.� They met us when we pulled up to the building and had to
use nightsticks just to get us into the building. I told them, “I don’t need this shit.� (laughs) They’d throw stuff – it was
just crazy.
I see you went back to Kansas City in the spring of 1984.
Ted was out there.
Right, and you had a program with the Grapplers – Len Denton and Tony Anthony.
Exactly. I was going out there pretty regular again.
I show you coming back here just before Black Saturday. You were here when all of that went down.
I was there the day George Scott walked into the studio while we were doing TV. You know, he was working for New York then.
Right.
He walked in and said, “I want all of you guys here next week. New York will be doing this and that.� Not a damn one of us
showed up. That was the farewell of WTBS for us.
And, of course, Freddy Miller and McMahon show up on TV the next week showing tapes from the World Wrestling Federation.
Right.
Now you came back and worked for Ole Anderson’s offshoot Championship Wrestling from Georgia. You were in a program
against your brother Ted. How was it to be on opposite sides of the ring?
Well, we’ve been that way outside the ring for most of our life so it wasn’t that big of a deal really. (laughs) That’s when he
was teamed up with Rogers, right?
Yeah, Rip Rogers as the Hollywood Blonds.
Was that after the New York deal?
Yeah. It started up late that summer and early fall.
I thought that happened before.
No because when it all went down, you and Ronnie Garvin were working as a tag team and won the National Tag Team Title from the
Road Warriors.
That’s right. That’s when Jake was booking.
Okay. And it’s after Black Saturday that you and Ted were having your program. After that, I don’t really have anything. Did
you stay with Ole until the merger with Jim Crockett?
Yeah.
Were you offered an opportunity to stay on?
Yeah, but I had my gym by then.
When did the gym open? I know you ran that for about twenty years.
Twenty-three years to be exact. I opened it in 1979.
Okay. Did you still work regularly after that?
Well, I kept going to Japan, and I made some shots for Bill Watts and in Kansas City. I’d go down to Dothan now and then.
You worked for Jody in Deep South Wrestling, right?
God, yeah, I forgot about that.
And you worked for Blackwell’s group.
Right.
When did you first get involved with running your own promotion?
We tinkered with it down here a little bit a few years back, but we didn’t have a good building for it. We were running at the Comer
Auditorium, but it wasn’t anything that would have turned into anything. We had some great matches, but it was just the wrong place
at the wrong time.
Let’s talk a bit about what you have going now.
Okay.
I think you have the best thing going, and I think the reason is you have a good building, there’s experienced people running it,
and most importantly, you’re based in a great traditional town like Columbus. You have guys like Erik Watts and Sonny Siaki,
who work regularly for NWA TNA and draw a nice paycheck, still willing to come here week after week because they want to be a
part of something special. Erik once told me that he likes coming here for the old school feel. There’s guys clamoring to come
here to work for you. How does it make you feel to have guys like that saying they want to be involved?
That’s what makes it all worth it. I started thirty-four years ago, and I know things change and I can’t promote wrestling exactly
how it was when I started, but I try to keep it on that – I don’t really like the term ‘old school’ – but we try to keep it as we did
it many years ago. It’s a little faster paced than when I got started.
The guys like coming here because I try to treat them well and run a professional organization. They know if we agree on pay, they’re
going to get it.
A lot of groups, as you said, have no one from the business running it. They see something on TV and think they can do it. I think to be
good at this, you have to have been in it at one point or another, or at least surround yourself with people who have. They also know I
don’t intend to build this around myself. I’m just blessed to have the guys we have, and that we have more still trying to get in
here.
What are the long term goals of the company, if I may ask?
We want to venture out, but we want Columbus to be the hub. We’re not going to try to run in Florida, or Alabama, or the Carolinas.
We just want to maybe run in places like Macon, or Albany, or…
Douglasville…
…huh?…
Douglasville (laughs) …
We want to get Columbus firmly established. There’s a lot of things we want to do. We need to get our TV around first to build it up
before we move out there to those towns. It’s a lot of hard work to make this all happen. I’m working harder now than I ever have
in my whole life – even more so than when I had my gym, but I love it. The chase and the passion is great. I love what I’m doing.
Well, I wish you continued success on making this thing grow, and I want to thank you for giving us an interview.
Well, I thank you for even considering me.
I really liked him. I had seen him in Georgia before. I first met him there. I ran into him in Kansas City and he was a great worker. He
was a sweetheart of a worker.
Is he still around?
You know, I heard he was in Portland. I think his mother in law owns some big business out there. I thought the world of Ed.
I show your St. Louis debut as August 8, 1975, in a win over Bobby Heenan. Does that sound right?
What year?
1975.
Yeah, that’s about right.
One thing I’ve always been curious about is the relationship between St. Louis and the Central States territory. How did Sam
Muchnick run St. Louis? Did he build it around existing programs and have them come in for a few weeks?
I know that Pat O’Connor and Bob Geigel owned a piece of St. Louis, but Sam ran the town. That was the greatest wrestling town I
ever worked in. You could snatch a headlock on me and I’d push you off and hit you with a tackle and they would come unglued.
(laughs) They loved the business. That was a town that prided itself on bringing in top guys from different territories. O’Connor was
the booker.
Did a lot of Kansas City guys also work the cards regularly?
Yeah, but just because you worked Kansas City didn’t necessarily mean you would always work St. Louis.
Okay.
It was a funny place. They’d mix the card up pretty good. I worked with Bill Miller there, later on Ox Baker. Eventually they had me in
main events with Harley Race. Dick Murdoch would be against Bruno Sammartino. They’d bring in the Bruiser and Wilbur Snyder.
Let me give a rundown here of some of your St. Louis matches. I see where you, Wilbur Snyder and Bob Geigel in a six-man over Bill
Miller, Ed Wiskowski, and Bobby Heenan. Then a few weeks later you and Pat O’Connor over Ox Baker and Dick Murdoch. Then
later it’s you and Rocky Johnson over the Valiant Brothers. Down the road you and O’Connor against Murdoch and Harley
Race. Two weeks later, I’ve got you losing to Harley Race. That’s just amazing matches, and anytime I see a full card from
St. Louis, it’s a loaded card from top to bottom.
It was. Oh, God, they paid good, too.
You know, St. Louis, I believe, was the first NWA town where McMahon put his TV on the air in 1983.
I wouldn’t doubt that.
More or less, it’s been considered that it was him thumbing his nose at the top NWA city shortly after dropping his ties with the
alliance. Shortly thereafter I think he started running live shows there, and of course, the next year he buys out Georgia.
You know what? I’ve made this statement many times, but there’s three deaths that caused what we have in the business
today. The first was Ray Gunkel. The second death was McMahon’s father. The third was Eddie Graham. If they had lived, I donâ
€™t think this stuff would have ever happened. I really don’t.
You might have a good point there.
They were powerful in a lot of ways.
Eddie pretty much just about had his way with the NWA for awhile.
He was a genius.
Well, he ran the best overall promotion for twenty years.
Yeah, but he didn’t pay. (laughs) I was talking to Bob Roop. Roop had a hell of a run down there, and I said, “you must have been
making a fortune down there.� He said, “shit, man, I was starving to death.� (laughs) If you look back, nobody – nobody
messed with Gunkel. Eddie Graham – I have to be careful because you’re taping this (laughs) – but nobody would mess with
him. When they died and that kid in New York – anyhow, that’s just my belief. They could have pulled everybody together and it
wouldn’t have happened.
That does bring up an interesting point. I had never put any thought about how Gunkel might have played into that if he were still
around. If he had been around twelve years later, maybe you’re right that things could have been different.
He was a powerful man. St. Louis was strong, and Geigel and O’Connor – that was a different world out there. It was kind of like
the old guard was gone and the young bucks didn’t know what to do about it.
Ole Anderson told us one thing he proposed to the other promoters was that they work together and try to ‘out-McMahon’
McMahon, but nobody had the nerve to stand up to him even in large numbers. From there he went to McMahon and said, “if you
want to own it all – fine, but don’t put all of these guys out of work and don’t close the territories.�
And he was right. Even today, there’s as much talent sitting at home than he’s got.
Probably so. Let’s get back on the timeline – in February 1976 you and Ted came back to Georgia for your first run here
together. You guys ended up with the Georgia Tag Team Title. You had a series of matches with Les Thornton and Tony Charles –
there’s a couple of underrated legends.
They were great to work with. We also worked with Gordman and Goliath.
Another team that falls into the Ken Lucas type situation, whereas if they had traveled more they wouldn’t be so underrated
these days when fans look back.
Exactly. We had good matches with them.
I also see where Mantell came back under his real name and you and Ted worked against him in a match in Griffin. Why didn’t
they try to revive that program between Ted and Dutch from All-South?
I have no idea. It would have been huge. They had a heck of a run with that.
Jos LeDuc was in here at the time. Was he anything like the gimmick, and was he really as strong as they made him out to be?
Jos was a character. I never traveled with him or anything, but he was a little different. I liked him, but he was different. (laughs) He was
a pretty powerful joker, yeah. He was pretty strong.
I remember the video of…
…pulling a bus…
…yeah, that’s it. Did he really do that?
He sure did.
I see you handcuffed to Rock Hunter outside a cage with Dusty Rhodes and Pak Song in the cage.
Okay, that’s when I had knee surgery.
Yeah, I was going to ask because I show a gap of nothing for a couple of months.
I was out for two months.
That explains it.
Then we went to Japan in – I think, October 1976.
The next thing I show is one date on Thanksgiving in Atlanta.
That’s right. I was headed to Louisiana after that show. That’s a story, too. My brother was with me in Japan and we were
supposed to go to Korea next, but he came home. They were going to put the All-Asian Tag Team Title on us and have us go to Korea,
but Ted didn’t want to do that. It kind of screwed that deal up, but I went anyway.
Ted was waiting on me at the airport here when I got back. I’m dog tired and got off the plane and Ted says to me, “we got our
notice. We’ve been fired.� Barnett had brought Ole Anderson in here, and Barnett didn’t really want us here anymore
because we were local boys and close to Fred Ward.
Well, before I left to go to Japan, Barnett told me, “I talked to Dory Funk (Jr.) and got you boys booked in Japan. When you get back
things are going to be real good for you. We’ll have a job waiting on you when you get back.�
And you have a match on Thanksgiving and you’re gone. (laughs)
Right. So when I get to the Omni, they tell me Bill Watts wants me to call him. I didn’t want to go to work for Watts. The next day
Ralph Freed calls me and says, “man, Watts has been calling every day. He wants you to come down there and work.� I told him,
“hell, Ralph, I don’t want to go to Oklahoma and drive all those miles I hear about.� He convinced to call him just so he would
stop trying.
So I called Bill, and he said, “just fly out here and watch us do TV on Saturday. If you come out here, I’ll put the North American
Title on you, I’ll use you on top and help you with trans.� So he sent me a ticket and I flew out there that Saturday and watched
them do two tapes. He went back with me to the hotel and asked what I thought. I told him I liked the talent. He had Murdoch, Killer Karl
Kox, Ken Patera – and he said, “I’ll give you all those things if you’ll come out here.� So I told him I would and he gave
me a starting date for two weeks later.
I came back here to Columbus for a break, and then I was gone for a year. He did everything he said he was going to do, and I respect
him for that. He didn’t have to, but he treated me with nothing but kindness.
A lot of guys hated working for him. A lot of guys hated working for Ole. But I enjoyed working for those two guys more than anybody I ever
worked for because I always knew where I stood with them. I always knew what I was supposed to do and did it. I didn’t miss
shows, or come in late, or come in drunk. I did my job. As long as you did your job, you had no problem with them. I loved them.
When you went out, he did put the title on you and you got a lot of matches with Harley Race.
Some of my best singles matches were with him. He was a class act.
You know he’s running a training camp now with Les Thatcher and Ricky Steamboat.
Really? Where?
Well, I believe they do it as a traveling camp kind of thing. Sort of like seminars.
Yeah, Les has talked to me about doing something.
Did you stay out there for Watts for all of 1977?
Yeah.
I was wondering because I don’t have much other than a few shots here in Augusta and Columbus late in the year.
Let me tell you about that. Me and Harley Race were in the ring in St. Louis getting our instructions, and he leans in and says, “hey,
daddy, Don Owens wants you in Portland.â€� (laughs) I said, “what?â€� He said it again. I didn’t want to go out to Portland. Iâ
€™d already been working for Watts for a year.
All you wanted to do was go home. (laughs)
That’s right. Harley calls me on the phone the next morning at the hotel and tells me again. I asked him, “how does he know
me?â€� He said, “he knows who you are. He wants you out there.â€� I said, “I don’t want to go out there.â€� He says, â
€œaww, it’s a great place, blah, blah, blah.â€� He got Don Owens on the phone and got me booked in Portland. I went to Watts
and told him about Portland and he told me it would be the biggest mistake of my life leaving there. And it probably was. But I went to
Portland and stayed there for six months.
And I understand you had the tag belts with a future governor. (laughs)
That’s right.
What was Jesse Ventura like in 1978? I don’t remember anything of him before the AWA days.
He showed up in Kansas City when me and Ted were there. He used to travel with us. He was always so broke he never had gas
money. We had to cover his trans.
Did he have that crazy look already?
Oh, yeah. It wasn’t as bad yet, but he tried to emulate the Superstar – Billy Graham.
Right.
Jesse – we became very good friends. He would come work out with us every morning. In Kansas City everything’s got a
basement because of all the tornadoes. I had some weights down there and he’d come over every morning and work out with us
and travel with us. He went on to Oregon from there. It was awhile before I saw him again.
And after he left Portland he went to work with Verne, didn’t he?
He left Portland probably about a month before I did. We had a great crew out there, man. We had myself, Jimmy Snuka, Jesse,
Wiskowski, Buddy Rose…
…was Piper out there at that time?
Piper wasn’t there yet. I ran into Piper the first time when we were in Kansas City.
Yeah, I forgot he was still in California when you were in Portland.
As a matter of fact, that’s right – he was in California – because when I left Portland, Leo was booking in Los Angeles…
Garibaldi booked L.A.?
Yeah.
I didn’t know that.
Leo was booking there when I left Portland, and I called him when I was close to leaving there because I wanted to work in L.A. and work
my way back across the country to come home. So I called Leo and he said, “sure, come on down.� I only worked Los Angeles
that one time, and he put me in the main event with Piper. Then I left Los Angeles and I called Watts and I worked Shreveport and
Jackson before coming home for a break. Then I went to the Carolinas.
Yeah, I show you arriving there in July 1978.
That sounds right.
And Ted was there with you.
Well, Ted was already there. He’d been trying to get me in there. That’s when it was on fire – that place was on fire.
George Scott was a great booker.
Yep, and he had it on fire.
We all know what Scott’s done in terms of booking, but what was he like to work for? Was he easy to get along with?
George?
Yeah.
Yeah, to me, he was. I had no problems with him. He treated me good.
What about the Crocketts?
I don’t have too much nice to say about them. (laughs) They paid good – they did do that.
Now they ran about three towns a night, right?
Yeah. I was up there for a long time and still never made some of those towns. They sure did, though – three towns a night.
They had you work one loop this week, then another, and so on?
Yeah. That way they keep you fresh. I made more money up there than anywhere I ever went.
Their roster was huge.
Oh, it never quit. I mean, some of the guys – you’d never see them. But man, God, Rich – Greensboro, Charlotte – those
towns – they had spot shows that would make $20,000 – on spot shows in little towns.
And they already had Aaron Newman and Savannah by that time. What kind of town was Savannah in regards to houses?
Yeah, they were sending super talent down there.
Yeah, I show you guys going over every time you worked Savannah. A little bit of a coincidence there. (laughs)
Well, you know, that’s the way it works.
Sometimes it’s who you know (laughs) …
That’s what it’s all about.
Now I see around the holidays you were back in Georgia working some shows.
Yep.
I show you working against Frank Dusek on one of those shows. I hear Franks’ quite a character.
God, I haven’t seen him in years. Where is he?
I’m not sure, but I think he’s in Texas. Mark Nulty started a website several years ago called Wrestling Classics, and I know
Frank was involved in that at the beginning, but I don’t know that he is still associated with it. Mark had been a ring announcer in
Texas for awhile and they met and put the site together. You guys went back to the Carolinas for awhile in 1979 for what appears to
only be a week. I’ve got a match where you worked in Toronto at that time for the Crocketts. Did you like working in Toronto?
I worked in Toronto?
That’s what it says.
I don’t remember them running Toronto when we were there. (laughs)
The card here shows you and Ted going over Ken Patera and John Studd – all of which were working for the Crocketts at that
time.
Me?
Yeah.
Toronto, Canada?
That’s the one in question.
Aww, come on, Rich.
I’m sitting here looking at it. (laughs)
I’ve never been to Toronto.
Okay. (laughs)
I swear. I’d like to see it, but I don’t remember that at all.
Maybe it was Randy Colley and Bill Howard under hoods that resembled the Oates Brothers. (laughs)
Could have been.
I see you back in Georgia in February and March of 1979, but after that, I don’t see anything for the rest of that year.
I know I was in Detroit in 1980 or so.
Was that for the Sheik?
Yeah. I can claim that I wrestled one of the first matches they ever had at Joe Louis Arena, and I was in the main event with the Sheik, if
that tells you anything. That’s my claim to fame in Detroit. (laughs) Then I used to go up with Dave McKigney in Windsor, Ontario. I
went up there several times with Haystacks. Then I went to Kansas City to team with Ted again.
I do have a February 1980 match with you and Ted…
…a tag team tournament…
Yeah, for the Central States Tag Team Title. You guys lost in the finals to Bruiser Brody and Ernie Ladd.
The night before I was in Detroit. We’re getting instructions in the dressing room. The Funks were there, the Bruiser was there –
everybody was there, man. I was exhausted. I had wrestled in Atlanta for TV the Saturday before that for two tapes, then Detroit that night,
and got up at four o’clock in the morning for a flight to Kansas City because the show was a three o’clock show on Sunday, and
we wrestled something like three times in that tournament.
So we wind up with Ladd and Brody in the finals. We’re getting instructions and Brody looked at Ted and said, “I don’t work
with midgets.� (laughs) My brother didn’t know him before that so I had to tell him he was just fucking with him. (laughs)
Let me run down the names of the people in this tournament – talk about a loaded card: Dick Murdoch and Dusty Rhodes, the Funk
Brothers, Brody and Ladd, Bob Brown and the Bruiser, you and Ted, Bob Sweetan and Takachiho, Rock Hunter and the Assassin, Ed
Wiskowski and the Avenger – I assume the Avenger was Reggie Parks…
…I believe it was, yeah…
Then the Briscos, and Eddie and Tommy Gilbert.
Yeah, that’s pretty loaded.
To say the least.
We were over big out there, man.
In March 1980 I have you guys back here in Georgia, but back out to St. Louis the next month, back here in April working a TV shot
against Jimmy Powell and Jim Nelson. Whatever happened to Nelson?
Jim Nelson – I think he is driving a truck in – is it Mobile? I think in Mobile. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s doing. It
seems like he told me himself, but I don’t remember where I saw him or where he said he was at.
In July of 1980, you came back and stayed here full time for awhile.
Who was booking then, Jake?
Jake Roberts booked here?
Yeah.
If he did, it wasn’t in 1980. In July I think it would have been Watts because this was around the time they were working toward
doing the expansion into Michigan and Ohio, and that was his baby.
I thought Jake was here at the time, but that may have been a few years later.
Yeah, he was here in 1983 and 1984.
Okay. I just remember him calling me up and asking me if I wanted to work Atlanta.
I never knew Jake booked when he was in Georgia.
Yeah. When Jake was straight, man he was good.
I see you worked a few matches in 1980 against Ted Allen, who is a good friend of yours and mine.
Really? Ted’s always been a good hand.
1980 seemed more or less a time where you were getting a mid card push at best, but probably a good chance for you to be at
home for awhile.
Yeah.
I show a March 1981 match with you and Charlie Cook against the Freebirds on TV about a week before the infamous piledriver
angle with Ted DiBiase.
Yeah, I remember that angle. That was brilliant.
You also had a few matches with Frank Morrell doing the Angel gimmick. I’ve heard a ton of great stories where his name was
included.
Oh, he was funny as hell. Oh, God, he was a hoot.
Somebody else I want to ask you about: Steve Olsonoski.
He got hurt.
Yeah, he had to take a break from the ring for awhile because of a wrist problem.
Yeah, he wound up refereeing a bit and working with Gordon Solie a bit. I don’t know what happened to him after that.
He looked to be a good worker, but a lot of people say his mic skills held him back.
Oh, he was great in the ring.
He had the look and the skills, but just never got that extra push.
I guess that injury messed him up pretty bad.
He went back up to work for Verne, but he faded away because they had him on the under card.
That’s too bad.
I see where you worked against Jimmy Snuka. How was it to wrestle him?
Where, in Augusta?
Yeah. How did you know that?
Because that’s the only time I ever worked with him. (laughs) It was unbelievable. He was such a great piece of talent, man.
He’s one of the few guys I ever saw who could find the perfect balance of the mat wrestling and aerial stuff.
That’s right, he never overdid it.
In April 1982, you disappear from Georgia, and I can’t find anything on you again until March of 1983. Where were you around
that time?
I don’t remember where Ted went. I think he went out to Kansas City. I did go to Japan again that summer.
I also don’t show a lot in 1983 for you except the occasional shots in Georgia.
Do you have anything from when I went to Puerto Rico?
Nope.
I don’t remember exactly when that was, but it may have been around this time. I was in Japan with Carlos Colon and he asked me
to come down there. I went down there, but I never went back again.
You didn’t like it down there?
Oh, God, no.
I’ve always heard from the guys that it was pretty rough, and of course, Brody being killed there didn’t make it any more
appealing.
The guy that killed him – Jose Gonzales – used to work here as Sabu Singh.
Right.
Carlos wanted me to come back again, and I told him I was going to help Jerry Blackwell start up his thing in north Georgia (Southern
Championship Wrestling). I just more or less used that as an excuse. I didn’t like it down there. It was too dangerous.
I know the crowds were rowdy – after all, Flair dropped the belt because he thought he heard gunshots (laughs) – but was it
brutal behind the scenes, too?
No, it was just the crowds, really. My first night down there, I had gotten through wrestling and I took a shower. I started out the dressing
room and a guy stopped me and asked me where I was going. I told him I wanted something to drink. He said, “no, you don’t
leave this dressing room. If you want something to drink, we’ll get it.� They met us when we pulled up to the building and had to
use nightsticks just to get us into the building. I told them, “I don’t need this shit.� (laughs) They’d throw stuff – it was
just crazy.
I see you went back to Kansas City in the spring of 1984.
Ted was out there.
Right, and you had a program with the Grapplers – Len Denton and Tony Anthony.
Exactly. I was going out there pretty regular again.
I show you coming back here just before Black Saturday. You were here when all of that went down.
I was there the day George Scott walked into the studio while we were doing TV. You know, he was working for New York then.
Right.
He walked in and said, “I want all of you guys here next week. New York will be doing this and that.� Not a damn one of us
showed up. That was the farewell of WTBS for us.
And, of course, Freddy Miller and McMahon show up on TV the next week showing tapes from the World Wrestling Federation.
Right.
Now you came back and worked for Ole Anderson’s offshoot Championship Wrestling from Georgia. You were in a program
against your brother Ted. How was it to be on opposite sides of the ring?
Well, we’ve been that way outside the ring for most of our life so it wasn’t that big of a deal really. (laughs) That’s when he
was teamed up with Rogers, right?
Yeah, Rip Rogers as the Hollywood Blonds.
Was that after the New York deal?
Yeah. It started up late that summer and early fall.
I thought that happened before.
No because when it all went down, you and Ronnie Garvin were working as a tag team and won the National Tag Team Title from the
Road Warriors.
That’s right. That’s when Jake was booking.
Okay. And it’s after Black Saturday that you and Ted were having your program. After that, I don’t really have anything. Did
you stay with Ole until the merger with Jim Crockett?
Yeah.
Were you offered an opportunity to stay on?
Yeah, but I had my gym by then.
When did the gym open? I know you ran that for about twenty years.
Twenty-three years to be exact. I opened it in 1979.
Okay. Did you still work regularly after that?
Well, I kept going to Japan, and I made some shots for Bill Watts and in Kansas City. I’d go down to Dothan now and then.
You worked for Jody in Deep South Wrestling, right?
God, yeah, I forgot about that.
And you worked for Blackwell’s group.
Right.
When did you first get involved with running your own promotion?
We tinkered with it down here a little bit a few years back, but we didn’t have a good building for it. We were running at the Comer
Auditorium, but it wasn’t anything that would have turned into anything. We had some great matches, but it was just the wrong place
at the wrong time.
Let’s talk a bit about what you have going now.
Okay.
I think you have the best thing going, and I think the reason is you have a good building, there’s experienced people running it,
and most importantly, you’re based in a great traditional town like Columbus. You have guys like Erik Watts and Sonny Siaki,
who work regularly for NWA TNA and draw a nice paycheck, still willing to come here week after week because they want to be a
part of something special. Erik once told me that he likes coming here for the old school feel. There’s guys clamoring to come
here to work for you. How does it make you feel to have guys like that saying they want to be involved?
That’s what makes it all worth it. I started thirty-four years ago, and I know things change and I can’t promote wrestling exactly
how it was when I started, but I try to keep it on that – I don’t really like the term ‘old school’ – but we try to keep it as we did
it many years ago. It’s a little faster paced than when I got started.
The guys like coming here because I try to treat them well and run a professional organization. They know if we agree on pay, they’re
going to get it.
A lot of groups, as you said, have no one from the business running it. They see something on TV and think they can do it. I think to be
good at this, you have to have been in it at one point or another, or at least surround yourself with people who have. They also know I
don’t intend to build this around myself. I’m just blessed to have the guys we have, and that we have more still trying to get in
here.
What are the long term goals of the company, if I may ask?
We want to venture out, but we want Columbus to be the hub. We’re not going to try to run in Florida, or Alabama, or the Carolinas.
We just want to maybe run in places like Macon, or Albany, or…
Douglasville…
…huh?…
Douglasville (laughs) …
We want to get Columbus firmly established. There’s a lot of things we want to do. We need to get our TV around first to build it up
before we move out there to those towns. It’s a lot of hard work to make this all happen. I’m working harder now than I ever have
in my whole life – even more so than when I had my gym, but I love it. The chase and the passion is great. I love what I’m doing.
Well, I wish you continued success on making this thing grow, and I want to thank you for giving us an interview.
Well, I thank you for even considering me.
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