Georgia Wrestling History - the Home of Peach State Pandemonium: Features - Conversations

Tell me where you were born and raised.

I was born here, May 7, 1955, right here in Atlanta. I was born at the old Crawford Long Hospital downtown and been here all my life.

Crawford Long, huh? Me, too.

(Laughs) Crawford Long, yep.

You never left Georgia?

I never left Georgia – worked the Mobile territory for about a month in 1977. Other than that I was right here. Right place, right time.

So that’s your tie to Gulf Coast Wrestling.

I left here in April 1977. I decided I wanted to wrestle, and Gene Anderson called Rocky McGuire and got me booked down there, and I stayed about a month. I was used to making money, and I went in on the tail end of Gulf Coast, just before they sold out, and the money just wasn’t there.

It wasn’t what it used to be?

No. That territory made a lot of money years ago, but at that time it was on a downhill swing.

We’ll cover this later, but you were working in the Atlanta office at the time, right?

Right.

So how did you work that out?

At the time I was refereeing at night and working at the ticket office during the day. They were getting ready to make some changes. Gene and Ole Anderson were booking at the time. Gene was actually the booker, and Ole was the assistant. It never worked that way. (Laughs) Gene and I had a discussion. I told him what I wanted to do, and he said if you never try, you’ll never know. That’s how we worked that out.

Was anybody in your family involved in the business before you?

No, not specifically in the business. Going back to the 60’s when Live Atlanta Wrestling was on Channel 11, it was sponsored by the Columbia Sewing Machine Company. My dad was a sewing machine repairman, and he used to deliver the machines up to Ed Capral to do the live commercials. They used to actually do the commercials live during the show. Other than that no one was really involved.

What’s your first memory of having discovered wrestling?

In 1964 – I had an uncle I was very close to. I was probably closer to him than my own dad. There’s a lot of age difference between me and my father, and my uncle – my mother’s brother – we lived next door to them, and he took me to the wrestling matches one Friday night. I’d never seen it, didn’t know what it was, didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I was going with him, and that’s where we went. The only two people I remember wrestling on that card was Fritz Von Erich, and a guy called “Big” Bill Dromo. The Dromo thing’s been the source of many ribs over the years because me and Bill are pretty good buddies. That was my first experience and it was at the old City Auditorium in Atlanta.

What’s the rib about with Dromo?

Just because he was on the first card I was ever at. When I got into the business, everybody was always ribbing each other about their age and how long they’d been around.

Well you were only three at the time, right?

(Laughs) I actually thought I was six, but in 1964 I would’ve been eight or nine. Chuck Thornton actually sent me a copy of a program from that card.

When did you decide to get involved and how did you do it?

I think that first night I ever went I fell in love with something I didn’t understand. From then on I wanted to go every Friday night. I just fell in love with it. I started watching it on TV every week. I was fortunate that my uncle liked it and took me a lot. I went a lot more than I didn’t go. When I got a little bigger and older I would cut grass for our neighbors, and with that money I would pay my own way. When I was twelve or thirteen my mom would take me to the auditorium and drop me off if my uncle wasn’t going.

I had a buddy I went to school with named Bobby Nichols, and he had an older brother named Larry who worked for Charlie Harbin, who was the office manager around that time for Ray Gunkel. It was ABC Booking back then, and he put the TV ring up. I had gone to the studio to see the matches, and he asked me to help him set up the ring. I actually started getting paid $10 a week. I was about thirteen or fourteen at the time, and did that for about the next three or four years.

When I was fifteen I got a job through Charlie ushering at the auditorium, and that paid $10 a week. Sometime later Charlie gave me a weekly job in Griffin tearing tickets and selling programs, and that usually paid about $10, too. So now I was actually making about $30 a week to do something I’d been paying to do most of my life. (Laughs) That’s how I got associated with them.

So Charlie Harbin was key in getting you more involved over time.

Charlie helped me more than anybody in the early days because he would give me things to do. I lived close to the office. I’d go up to the Sports Arena and he’d send me to the store or the cafe – just whatever needed to be done. I’d run errands and hang around the office a little bit. Later on when I went to work with Ann Gunkel, he’s the one that hired me.

When did you become a referee?

Well, I graduated from high school in 1972, and my first full time job was with Southern Bell. I worked about ten days and quit. That’s probably as close to putting my mother in a grave as I’ve ever been because I told her I was quitting my job to go into the wrestling business. (Laughs) Charlie hired me full time in November 1972, which is when All-South Wrestling broke off. I was working with Charlie Smith’s brother Jack, who was driving the ring truck. I would travel with Jack three days a week for $65 putting the ring up.

The date’s very vague, but I refereed my first match in Murphy, NC, when the referee didn’t show up. I wasn’t smart – I just went in there and called what I saw. That was a one-time deal, and I didn’t start as a full time referee until November 1973 for All-South. Tom Renesto was the booker, and by that time Jack had quit, so I was driving the ring truck and working around the office – whatever needed doing. At that time I got a raise – I think it was something like $175 a week. Back then we worked six days a week and we were off on Sundays.

Did anyone train you to be a referee?

When I first worked the ring, no one had done anything really. Back then things were a lot different than they are now. The first match I ever refereed as an employee who was smart to the business was between the Missouri Mauler and Wayne Cowan in Athens, GA, at the J & J Center. That was a nightclub three nights a week, and they had wrestling one night each week, and a really bad place. We went in the ring one night and Tom told me, “Just do the best you can – I want to see what you know.” Of course, I didn’t know anything. I just went out there and basically worked the match.

I guess the most training I ever got was from Charlie Smith. He taught me to always work to the left of the heel. He taught me how to be in the right place at the right time and how to stay out of the way. I’d go to a lot of towns where I wasn’t booked to be a referee. I’d just be there to set up the ring, but he’d always tell me to bring my stuff, and let me work a match or two on the card. Of course, now I know he was getting paid while I was doing the work, but back then I didn’t care. (Laughs) He’d always put me in the main event – meanwhile he’s halfway home. (Laughs) Charlie taught me how to referee, and how to do what I needed to do.

Let me ask you about something you said – “working to the left of the heel” – that’s the first time I have heard that.

As a ref you always work to the left of the heel because wrestlers work left-handed – except in Mexico where they work right-handed. When you’re working on a guy, it’s always on the left. In other words, if it’s an armbar, it’s the left arm. If you legdive him, you do it with the left leg. It’s just the way you work, reason being most people are right-handed. Therefore, if you grab a headlock and you’re going to punch the guy, you’re going to punch him with your left hand. If I’m to the left, I don’t see the fist or the choke. As I come around it gives him time to pull back. The heat needs to be – well, the business has changed so much and I don’t want to get on my soapbox – but the heat needs to be on the heel, not the referee.

Exactly.

I was taught, and I think it should still be taught, that the referee should call a shoot. He calls what he sees – if I can’t see it, I can’t call it. So if I’m working to the left of a guy, he can do anything he wants, but by the time I get around there, he’s turned loose. Then I just keep walking and get back to his left.

That way the fans hate the right person.

(Laughs) Yes. I am going to get on my soapbox a little bit. A few months ago, I went and refereed a show that Ted Allen was promoting with a lot of new guys, and some of them got mad at me. They would grab a guy and tell me to look at somebody in the front row. They’d want me to turn my head away at look at a guy in the front row while they punched or choked their opponent. Well, that doesn’t put the heat on the heel – it puts it on me, because I’m stupid by turning and looking. I told them, “if you can’t get the heat, don’t expect for me to get it for you.” The reason the business is in the state it’s in today – look at a baseball official – he calls what he sees. If they have an argument, the official doesn’t get ejected – the manager does. It should be the same in wrestling. The referee has to have some sort of authority.

Especially to keep it looking legitimate.

There it is. We were selling it as real. So I was that authority. You can put that white or striped shirt on, but you had to call it like you saw it. If the heel wasn’t smart enough to get away with it, it’s his fault not mine.

What was it like for you to now be working with the guys you had previously been watching on TV or from a ringside seat?

I lived out my dream. Some kids grow up wanting to be a baseball player or a football player, but I wanted to be a wrestler. I never thought of being a referee. It was like Alice in Wonderland to me. I was in awe of them. Bill Dromo is a great guy – I mean, he’s funny. He’s very laid back. He doesn’t get in a hurry. He was a guy I remember seeing as a kid, and it was just a pleasure. We traveled together a lot. He was my hero, and still is.

When you’re a kid, these guys are bigger than life, but when you get around them, they’re really no different than you or me.

God rest his soul, I sold pictures for Tim Woods when he was Mr. Wrestling. I used to meet him at the arena and he’d give me his pictures to sell. And growing up to work with these guys is just amazing. I tell people if you’ve got dreams go for them. I don’t care what it is, it can happen. With me, I was lucky I was in the right place at the right time. I came up in an era when – well, the business was what I dreamed it would be when I got there. We didn’t make the money these guys do now, but I wouldn’t swap places with them.

No regrets?

None whatsoever.

Based on what you said a moment ago, you got started a little bit later than I had thought, so you may not know the answer to this, but at one point Don McIntyre owned a piece of the Atlanta office, and even became the promoter when Paul Jones stepped back in 1962. Do you know the story there, and was McIntyre still involved after Jones came back in 1964?

I don’t know the whole story, but McIntyre sold out. He sold his part of the office up. He was the promoter when I first remember starting to watch. I remember them making a big deal about Paul Jones returning as the promoter. I met Don – he lived not very far from Ray Gunkel in Sandy Springs. When I started in the business, he wasn’t involved at all anymore. When I first started helping with ABC, the majority owner was Ray. There was a guy named William Hartman who was a shareholder.

He actually promoted in Atlanta back in 1940.

Yeah. There was a bunch of guys who were involved who had nothing to do with the business that you would know about. I can’t remember their names – just their faces. But Don didn’t have anything to do with it when I came along. He had gotten away from it.

How active was Paul Jones when you first started working with ABC part-time?

He was a figurehead.

Ray Gunkel was pretty much running the show by then, right?

Ray did run the show. I never worked directly for Ray. Everybody I’ve ever talked to said he was a real hard taskmaster. Charlie Smith was working in the ticket office back then, and he had to be in the office no later than nine o’clock, because Ray would call at 9:01 to see if he was there. (Laughs) That doesn’t sound bad – it’s banker’s hours – but take into account the night before he could’ve refereed in Savannah and not gotten back to Atlanta until four o’clock. And the ticket office didn’t close until five o’clock, and then he went wherever he was supposed to be that night. I think Charlie told me that he would get an extra $15 a week to work the office. So it might’ve been glamorous, but it sure wasn’t lucrative.

Who all owned percentages of ABC at that time? I know Jones, Gunkel and Buddy Fuller, but who else?

Jones was involved. Gunkel was involved. Buddy was involved. It’s very possible Lester Welch was involved. This is all speculation because I’m not sure. I believe Eddie Graham may have had a share of it, too. I know that later on when Ray died, Eddie Graham was very active in trying to take it.

You say Ray ran the show, even though Paul was still considered the promoter. Was Gunkel doing the booking?

Ray was just the boss. I don’t really remember who was doing the booking around that time.

Could Leo Garibaldi still have been booking at that time?

I’m not sure, but Leo was responsible for bringing in El Mongol. Dandy Jack. Leo invented the Mr. Wrestling gimmick with Tim Woods – that was Leo’s creation. He doesn’t get enough credit for that.

And he was still working as a ref, too, correct?

Yes he was. He was still refereeing.

And he worked some matches occasionally, too.

Yeah, he did that, too. He did some angles – one with Buddy Fuller.

But he was a good booker because he didn’t work too many matches.

(Laughs) I never worked for him. I never met him. But a man I have a great deal of respect for – Johnny Walker – told me that Garibaldi was one of the best bookers to probably ever work in this business. He said Leo did things from a fan’s perspective – always thinking what the fan would want. Anybody that watches wrestling knows this is true – most times on TV you would have a squash. You know, they’d put a star, some big guy in there against some guy you’ve never heard of and he’d kill him.

Johnny told me that Leo’s opinion was if you beat a nobody, you’ve gained nothing. He would actually have the stars lose on TV every now and then, and most owners would go crazy. But he felt like you had to make these people look human, too. Looking back, I can remember some of the matches I watched, and he was pretty smart – he did all the right things. One of the things I thought was mastermind booking was – well, I’m sure you know the story about Tim Woods’ fingertip being bit off in Columbus...

Yes...

Well, the Friday night after that happened, Tim Woods was going to fight Gene Kiniski for the (NWA World Heavyweight) title, and Mr. Wrestling was the biggest thing since the ice cube. He had lost very few matches and had been built up so much because they had been working toward this match with Kiniski for awhile.

I remember sitting in the second row for that match, and Woods was just dominating Kiniski. And you thought he’s actually going to beat this guy. I think everybody in the building thought he was going to beat him. And rather than working some kind of deal where they just screwed the guy, Kiniski grabbed his finger and just started working it. Everybody knew his finger had been bitten off the week before, so they thought this was real – and Leo stopped the match. So Woods never gave up, but he never lost either.

Garibaldi couldn’t let Kiniski lose, and he refused to let his top face submit or lose.

Yeah, he turned the heat around on himself. I look back on that and think it was a smart move.

And your face may not be the champion, but he didn’t lose to the champ either.

He’s still there – he’s still the man. He gets on TV the next night and says to Leo “man, I could’ve beat him – why’d you stop the match?” Leo tells him he was getting killed – just great booking. Anyway, when Leo left they brought in Tom Renesto.

Ray died in August 1972 and Ann Gunkel didn’t split and start All-South until November. What was the atmosphere like during those three months?

Ray died on a Tuesday night in Savannah. I woke up Wednesday morning at home, and for whatever reason turned on the TV, and it was announced on the news that he had died the night before. I called the office and Charlie Smith answered the phone. I asked him what was going on and he told me the story. So I go on over to the office and talked to Charlie Harbin. He told me there was nothing we could do today, that nobody knew for sure what was going to happen.

Things pretty much stayed the same that week – it was real glum around the office. I don’t remember exactly which day of the week it was, but after Ray was buried it was very uneasy around there because nobody knew what was going to happen – you know, how this was going to be handled. As far as I was concerned I wasn’t worried because I was naive enough to think nothing was going to change. But the tension in the office was very high because no one was real certain of their future.

There were probably two different emotions, whereas Ray was hugely popular and his friends had that loss, plus their careers kind of hung in the balance for a brief period.

He was popular with the fans – he wasn’t very popular with the wrestlers and the people around the office. Again, he was a taskmaster. I never had any direct dealings with him. You could just tell people were real concerned about their future.

We’re in an environment today where you can go to work tomorrow and your boss can tell you he doesn’t like what you’re wearing so he doesn’t need you anymore. But most people during the era we’re talking about had a little bit more job security. But even in the wrestling business your job could be gone tomorrow with very little reason. Back then if a promoter said you’d never work again, it was pretty certain you wouldn’t. So it was definitely a little tense around there for everybody.

A lot of stories have been passed around – some way off base considering what I know about it. After having conversations with you and Dick Steinborn, who were there firsthand, tell the All-South story, I have learned what to believe or not believe, and basically both of your versions are so similar there’s very little reason to dispute it. Share your perspective of Ann breaking off from ABC and starting up the All-South promotion.

Dick was more involved because I was more on the outskirts at the time, but from what I know, and mentioned earlier, all the guys were concerned about their future. When Ray died, the “good ol’ boy” network got hot in a hurry. You have to remember Buddy Fuller and Lester Welch were family. The Welch’s ran Tennessee for years. And, of course, the Fields’ were also related and had control of Alabama. And you had Eddie Graham down in Florida

Didn’t Lester also own a piece of the Florida group at the time?

Yes he did. And he was probably involved with Georgia, also. See, ABC Booking was originally supposed to be Atlanta, Birmingham and Chattanooga, but it never seemed to work out that way. When the news got out that Ray died, immediately it was like “okay, here it is, we’re going to move in, we’re going to take over, we’re going to run Georgia, we’re going to keep it going.”

With business back then there were weeks – I mentioned Kiniski and the Tim Woods thing – it was a big deal. When Kiniski first won the title, we had a Kiniski-Lou Thesz match – it was a big deal. But most weeks it was not impossible to walk up to the box office at the City Auditorium in Atlanta ten minutes before the card started, and get a general admission seat. They were not selling well at all. Business was fair, but it wasn’t great. So I’m sure the “good ol’ boy” network said “here we go.”

Well, Ann Gunkel was a very smart businesswoman. She came out of the business world – she was a beautiful woman – she came out of the hotel and hospitality industry. She had run top hotels in Atlanta. So she was not stupid to the workings of the business world. Somehow she got word of what was going to happen, and supposedly all the guys who owned a piece of the office had scheduled a meeting at the office up here on a Monday morning – Ann excluded. When they walked in the office that morning Ann was sitting behind Ray’s desk, and she said “boys, glad to have you all here. Business is going to be run as usual.”

That was the first conflict they had. I wasn’t there – I was told to stay away. (Laughs) The “good ol’ boy” network decided they weren’t going to have a woman running the wrestling business and they were going to take it regardless. They started talking to the guys about what they were going to do, and how they were going to do it – I wasn’t involved in any of that. I was just a gopher and errand boy at that time.

They had a meeting in – well, realize that what I just told you happened in August – anyway they had a meeting of the wrestlers on a Wednesday morning at a hotel in Atlanta somewhere. I’m not even sure where they held it. The only wrestlers who did not attend the meeting were Bob Armstrong and Rock Hunter.

Well, let me back up a little bit. Charlie Harbin was fired as office manager as a result of the meeting back in August with the partners. Renesto was sort of on the outs with them because Ray had wanted to bring Tom in as a partner and give him a piece of the business. They had discussed this before Ray’s death. Since Tom had had the book, he got the business to where it was starting to come up again. He had done such a good job that Ray wanted to bring him in. The “good ol’ boy” network didn’t want to do this – they didn’t want an outsider getting a piece of their action.

This brings us back to that Wednesday morning meeting at the hotel in November. Tom laid out the deal, Charlie laid out the deal – he had been working with Ann on putting this together – and Ann let the boys in on what was going on. I’ve heard the wrestlers all talk about it. They had all worked at one time or another for the Fuller’s and the Welch’s, and they had been a little stingy on the payoffs. Ann, I think, guaranteed a little more money at the time.

She laid out everything she had in mind. She had already been to WTCG to work out a deal for a TV show. She’d already been to Augusta, Savannah, Albany – got TV slots lined up. She told the guys we were going to shoot the TV in a house show environment, and basically do things differently.

This is all the stuff she was saying to the boys.

Yes.

And she’d already been lining up the loop, so to speak, even without a single commitment beyond Charlie and Tom.

Yep, she was setting things up. Everybody that was at that meeting that day – and I’m not sure of who all was or was not there – but they all decided right then and there to go with Ann – the only exception being Bob Armstrong. As for the other guys who were working here who didn’t make the meeting, Derrell Cochran was the only one who didn’t go.

There was a show that night for Fred Ward in Columbus. The only two people that showed up that night were Rock Hunter and Bob Armstrong. Rock didn’t know what went on in that meeting that morning. Fred went out and made an announcement that something had happened that kept the guys from showing up. Bob and Rock went out and worked a match, and I heard Fred took care of them very well, then gave the people their money back and they went home.

And that was the end of the guys working. Now, that’s the way I heard it all came about, and I’m sure what you have heard from Dick is a little more in detail than that, but this is what I know.

So Rock was there in Columbus that night just because he didn’t make it to the meeting that morning, but as soon as he heard, he was gone, too.

Yeah, once he found out, he came to All-South.

Just before the split, Renesto came out on TV and unmasked as the Assassin. Was that a shoot? Did anyone know he was going to do this?

Nobody knew. Jody Hamilton didn’t know. Harbin didn’t know. Gunkel didn’t know. I never talked to Tom about it and I wish I had. I spent about six hours alone with Tom at the Gulf Coast Wrestling reunion just before he died. I never asked him, but I wish I had.

I don’t really know what led up to it. Part of it, one time he told me, was personal. I think part of it was business related. He just walked out on TV and did it. Ed Capral didn’t know he was going to do it. I was standing as close to Tom Renesto as I am sitting here with you when he walked out and did that. I was standing behind the camera and I almost fainted.

He just walked up to Ed and made the comment “I’m tired of my family having to hide everything they do, blah, blah, blah, my name is Thomas Anthony Renesto”, ripped off the mask and walked off. And I remember Ed Capral saying “we’ll be right back”, and he looked behind the camera in shock – but nobody had a clue.

I was talking to Chuck Thornton about that one day, and he was trying to recall exactly what Tom had said that day. He seems to remember that Renesto had also said something along the lines of how he was promised something, but wasn’t getting it.

He could have – that rings a bell. That does ring a bell.

So at the time that was even more shocking – at least to everyone who was a mark.

Everything that Tom did had an underlying reason to it. But let me be abundantly clear what I am trying to say here. The man was good to me. Him and Jody Hamilton – well, they really took me under their wing, and helped me get started, and helped keep me from getting killed. My son, who will be 27 years old this year, is named Joseph Anthony Simmons. Joseph after Joe Hamilton, and Anthony from Thomas Anthony Renesto. I mean, they were good to me.

Tom was a very astute businessman. We called him the “silver tongued devil.” He’d lie to you, and you’d know he was lying to you, but you’d still want to believe it. (Laughs) He was a wonderful guy, but everything he did, he had an underlying reason. He was one of those kind of people who would look five steps ahead at what he did today, and how it was going to effect future days down the road.

We’ll probably never really know – he took to his grave why he did what he did. But I’m sure it was aimed at that “good ol’ boy” network for blocking him out and shutting him out. Sort of like saying, “hey, you may think you can control me because you own this business, but...”

“You just lost an Assassin”...

Exactly. And not only that, but “I’m going to survive, and I’m going to win no matter what you do.” So, yeah, that very well could’ve been part of the reason he did what he did.

Ann got a slot for All-South on WTCG, Channel 17, and that show and Georgia Championship Wrestling were not only aired back-to-back, but they were also taped back-to-back. Was there ever any animosity between the different groups?

None whatsoever – not between the boys. We were all making a living. The guys working for GCW at that time knew that everyone at one time or another worked opposition for somebody before they got a break with an office. Most guys were trained by somebody outside the realm of the “established business.” I do not remember any animosity between the boys. The bookers – yes. When Bill Watts was working for GCW...

Bill came in right after the split, correct?

Yeah, Watts came in. A lot of things were said, there were a lot of innuendoes being thrown around – it would happen during the shows. Ray Candy, who Tom helped train, was a wonderful guy, very funny guy, very mild mannered – he worked for the city of Atlanta in the Sanitation Department. Tom trained him, and it wasn’t too long after Ray got started that they put the All-South Georgia Heavyweight Title on him. He was the first black Georgia Heavyweight Champion. Ray was just a super guy. But Watts got on TV one time and made the innuendo about “we have real champions – we don’t have garbagemen wearing belts.”

So those sort of things happened, but unless you were in the business you didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. They would sling mud at one another. Watts said one time something to the effect of “we have real wrestling here.”

I went to do TV one Saturday and Renesto wanted to talk to me. We dressed in the reception area of the office – they would cover up the windows so no one could see in or out. Well, there was a little secretary’s closet there where they would keep supplies. It was about three feet wide and six feet deep.

So anyway I went to see Tom, and he takes me into this closet, and Rock Hunter’s in there, too, and Tom closes the door. He asked me did I hear what they said on TV today, and I told him I hadn’t really paid too much attention. Then he told me the remark Watts made about it not being real wrestling. So he told me he and Rock were going to go out on TV that day, and he was even going to have the TV camera poke the lens into the ring to get some good shots. He told me that they were basically going to beat the crap out of each other, and I was nervous, but I said, “okay.” (Laughs) Then he says “but, too, I want to disqualify Rock for hitting you”, and I said okay.

You have to remember, I’m eighteen or maybe just turned nineteen. He said it wouldn’t look right if they threw a working punch at me. (Laughs) He said “I don’t want to bust you open, but I want to blacken your eye.” (Laughs) And I must’ve had a scared look on my face because he said “now if you don’t want to do it, tell me. Be a man – if you don’t want to do it, tell me.” I told him, “if it’s for the good of our business, you just tell me what you want.” I don’t know if you remember, but Rock used to wear a bowling glove, it was part of his gimmick...

Yep...

I walked into a right hand with my eye that day – and I’ve seen the tape – he knocked my head clean off, and I took the bump and rolled out of the ring, and the guys hit the ring and broke them up, but they beat the crap out of each other. The funny part of the whole thing was after it was over my eye swelled up – it almost shut – but it never turned black.

So those kind of little innuendoes were thrown back and forth, but as far as the guys were concerned – we didn’t stand around and talk to each other because it would’ve been bad for business, but I don’t ever remember a bad word being said – not at that TV station. If there was I didn’t know about it.

All-South, to this day, is still remembered quite fondly by the fans. In contrast to some other “outlaw” promotions, All-South had a considerably successful run, going almost two years to the month. What made it so successful? Was it Renesto as a booker?

Number one, you’ve got to remember the talent we had. Everything that had been happening in Georgia, that the fans had been watching in the past months or years was what All-South had. If people were used to tuning into the TV every Saturday night to see the Assassins, Tommy Siegler, El Mongol, Rock Hunter, the Hollywood Blondes, Dick Steinborn, Argentina Apollo, the Missouri Mauler – we had this huge array of talent. They’d been seeing all of this already. We had all of the things they were used to. Friday nights cards after the split was like a “Who’s Who?” of wrestling.

Because they were having to call in guys from all over just to get through a card.

Jack Brisco, Hiro Matsuda, Bill Watts, Jerry Brisco...

Eddie Graham even came up...

Eddie Graham – I don’t remember all the names, but the guys in the business knew what talent they had over there. To astute wrestling fans that followed wrestling other than just what they saw locally – they knew what they had over there. They were at the auditorium on Friday night, which was the normal wrestling night. People were going over there, and I know this for a fact – these people are going to the matches, and they’re introducing these people, and they’re sitting there scratching their heads going “who is this and why am I watching this?”

When we first started running, we ran on Friday night directly opposite of them at the Oglethorpe Gym at Oglethorpe College. We ran on Friday nights directly against them. So while these people are at the auditorium going “who are these people?”, over there at Oglethorpe you’ve got Roberto Soto, Tommy Siegler, Apollo – all these guys they’d been watching that they know. So they go, “why don’t we go over there and watch the people we know?” That’s one thing that attributed to the fact that we had a great run.

Ann’s vision – trying to do things a bit differently helped. She started recording matches at the house shows. I think you've seen some of the matches that were taped over at Oglethorpe. We just went about normal business. We never missed a beat other than we just weren’t over at the auditorium.

I think the talent contributed to having a good run. I think the fact that Renesto was booking and he kept the continuity going – he was a smart guy. Harbin’s experience as an office manager, and he was good with people, and knowing how to deal with them. That helped.

So Harbin was playing a major role.

Oh, yeah. He went over there immediately almost. We had what the people were used to. I think that'’s why they kept coming.

You were saying earlier that it was kind of a “Who’s Who?” atmosphere at GCW, but All-South takes the talent and just puts on a different looking show. I have seen where Ann would also bring in some major names from around the world.

Well, she tried.

Who would be her biggest coup? The one that gave the feeling that you’d kind of one-upped them. I believe Bruno Sammartino was booked, but no-showed.

Yeah, he was a no-show. Edouard Carpentier no-showed. Ernie Ladd was a tremendous asset. Big, huge, black star. He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, just a super guy. Thunderbolt Patterson, when he first came in here, was a tremendous kick in the fanny for us because he boosted attendance. I mean, people went nuts over him.

He was the originator of the Dusty Rhodes gimmick.

(Laughs) Yeah, Dusty’s gimmick came about after Thunderbolt came in here and started all his stuff, and all of a sudden our business is doing great. And we’re selling out on Tuesday nights in the auditorium. Then Dusty shows up as the “American Dream.”

Some of the big stars we tried to get in here – they were paid off. Say what you want, I don’t have any proof. Bruno agreed to come in here, and he just doesn’t show. I met Bruno years later and saw him work. It was probably to our benefit he didn’t show up. They think he’s a god up north, but he never impressed me. Carpentier, I never met, so I don’t know, but somebody probably got to him.

What about Mil Mascaras?

He came in here a couple times. The worst match I ever saw was him and the Missouri Mauler. (Laughs) I say that jokingly because I love Larry Hamilton to death. (Laughs) Mil, I believe he’s still alive, I guess – he was a big star in Mexico, and a big movie star down there...

More of a showman than a wrestler...

Yeah. I went to pick him up at the Ramada Inn at the airport when he first got here. Renesto had called me and asked me to get him to the show. I asked Tom “how will I know him?” Tom told me he would be sitting in the lobby, and you’ll figure out who he is. Four o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon – they want me to get him there early. Our office used to be on Ivy Street across from the auditorium. They wanted me to drop him off at the office. So at four o’clock I walk into the Ramada Inn – here’s this guy sitting in the lobby with a mask on. (Laughs) I walked over to him and introduced myself.

He’s lucky he wasn’t arrested.

(Laughs) The guy rode in my car all the way downtown – he never took the mask off. He met with Renesto in the office for over an hour – he never took the mask off. We’re at the auditorium – never took the mask off in the dressing room. I couldn’t believe it. He had a small waist, a huge chest – he looked like a Greek god when he took his jacket off. He was huge, and he could fly a little bit, but as far as just having a match, I wasn’t impressed.

Late that night we’re through, the matches are over, and we’re all heading out and I heard the shower running. So I walk back to the shower to see what’s up, and he’s in the shower...

And he still had the mask on...

(Laughs) No, he had it off, and it was such a letdown because I knew then why he wore it everywhere. (Laughs) I mean that face doesn’t go with that body. (Laughs) He was not the tremendous draw everybody thought he was going to be here, but he did show, and he was here for a few weeks.

You told me a story awhile back about Jody Hamilton as the Assassin, in a cage with Tommy Siegler that went wrong quickly. Share that story with our readers.

We were at the auditorium one Tuesday night, and Jody’s working as Assassin #2 with Tommy. The cage we had at the time Steinborn had had built, and it was in ten foot sections, I guess – ten feet tall. And it formed a 19-½ foot square and sat around the ring on the floor. A marvelous concept, but it just wasn’t tall enough.

Charlie Smith was refereeing and my position was by the cage. I was to lock the cage and hold the key until I was instructed by Charlie to unlock the cage. So I’m sitting in a chair at ringside while the match is going on, and it hadn’t gotten to a point where the match was really hot at this point. They were still building the match. Did you ever get down to the auditorium?

No, I’ve only seen pictures of the interior.

Well, it had a stage at one end of the building, and it was a horseshoe shape. The main entrance was opposite the stage. Now, where I was sitting was with my back to the stage, and I noticed this guy come over the balcony wall, and drop down. It wasn’t a forty-foot drop or anything – when he hung and jumped it was only about a five-foot drop or so. And he had caught my eye and I’m watching him.

Well, when he landed he started running down toward the ring. And I didn’t really think a lot about it – I mean, there’s a cage around the ring, what’s he going to do? I stood and pulled myself toward the cage, so that I was leaning up against it. I heard a cop yell, and I looked over to my left to see what he was yelling about – when I turned back to my right...he didn’t hit me with his fist – he actually got me with his elbow to the chest. When he did, he knocked me on my butt. It was a concrete floor, and by this time there’s Coke and popcorn all over the floor. I remember landing on my butt and sliding about four feet. (Laughs)

The guy grabbed the cage and he pulled the door, bent the latch on the cage and snatched the door open. He dives through the door, under the bottom rope. Well, I screamed up at Charlie – “you’ve got a mark in the ring!” And Jody and Siegler just happened to be separated at the time. Well, this guy didn’t try to hit Jody or blindside him – he tried to tackle him, which would be like me trying to tackle a telephone pole. He pushed him back about four steps into the corner.

The guy had Jody wrapped around the waist with his head to the right of Jody. And I’ll never forget this – I looked at Jody and he winked at me. (Laughs) So I knew the guy wasn’t hurting him. Now, Jody wore his blade on his right hand, and he worked with a Band-Aid.

A lot of guys wore white tape on their fingers. But Jody thought that stuck out too much, so he used a Band-Aid because you can’t see it since it’s skin colored. Well, after he had winked at me, he looked at his finger, and he stuck it in his mouth and used his teeth to remove the Band-Aid. And he reached down and started slicing on this guy’s forehead. Now, it’s not a deep cut, but it’s very sharp. He proceeded to slice this guy up like a surgeon. It was so bad Charlie was begging him to quit, but Jody just kept going.

The cops finally get in the ring and they get the guy off Jody. One of the cops was named Ferguson – I don’t recall his first name, but he always did the shows with us. He was about seven feet tall, the tallest guy on the city of Atlanta force. There was a guy standing on a chair in the front row behind me and the guy standing in that chair was about as tall as Ferguson.

When the cops got the guy out of the ring, his eyeball was just hanging there, just out of the orbit. He’s cut up all to pieces. And the guy was screaming the whole time, “they’re killing my man!,” talking about Siegler. The guy in the chair looks at Ferguson and gives him a little push, and tells Ferguson “why don’t you turn the guy loose?” Ferguson grabbed the guy by the shirt, and yanks him down with one hand and says, “why don’t you go to jail, too?” (Laughs) Now he dragged this guy by the shirt all the way to the stage, while he was pulling the other guy with his right hand.

Siegler just laid in the ring and sold the whole time. There was nothing he could do. If he had gotten up and helped Jody he would’ve exposed the business. He saw that the guy wasn’t hurting Jody. It was one of those things where nobody could do anything, but you knew our guy wasn’t getting hurt, so it wasn’t that much of a concern. It was the worst I’ve ever seen a mark get from one of the boys. And to this day I bet the guy doesn’t know what he got cut up for. (Laughs)

What led to the demise of All-South?

If you’ve got a watermelon and you sit it on the table, and you’ve got a very sharp knife, there’s only so many ways you can slice it. Once you’ve sliced it every way you know how to slice it, you need to throw it away and get a new watermelon. We had exhausted the talent.

Some guys had left – (Jerry) Brown and (Buddy) Roberts had gone back to Florida to work with the NWA, and I think that’s when they hooked up with Sir Oliver Humperdink, and he became their manager. The talent that we had tried to bring in, as we talked about earlier – big name talent – they were getting bought off, paid off, scared off. I think we just reached a point where we had exhausted all the avenues we had. We were still drawing decent houses in the spot shows, but we weren’t selling out anymore.

I hate to say this, but it’s out there already, and nothing I created. It’s purely conjecture – a gentleman took it to his grave with him, so if it happened I don’t know it as a fact. If you ask me if I think it happened, yes I do. I think Renesto was gotten to, and I believe he was paid off. I saw Tom do things in his booking, and I saw some of the talent he used, and he would’ve never done it under normal circumstances.

I even went to him one time and offered to work at a reduced rate to keep him from using some of the guys he was using because they were horrible. It adds to the theory that Renesto showed up over at Georgia Championship Wrestling about a month or two after the shutdown. I know (Dick) Steinborn has even told you this in some of your conversations, so if you ask if I think they got to Tom, yes I think they did. I don’t know for a fact, it’s just my opinion based on what I saw. I think that was a great deal of it.

We had a contract with the Bell Auditorium in Augusta on Monday nights, and when it expired it was not renewed for us, it was given to the NWA. We went from the Bell Auditorium to an old bowling alley on Monday nights, and we couldn’t compete because people were used to going to the Bell Auditorium. By this time, Georgia Championship Wrestling had had a two-year run, and they had developed some talent and a permanent roster, so people knew who they were now. We just couldn’t compete there.

The huge building in Savannah that we had been running, I think that building sold out one time during our two year run, and that was the night Ray Candy got married in the ring. The Columbus Auditorium – we had some good nights there, but again, a huge building with high overhead, and crowds were going down. I think we just hit the end of the run and unless you can refurbish your talent and keep it fresh...that was a great deal to do with it.

Continued

FEATURES: CONVERSATIONS - BOBBY SIMMONS

WRITERS

This interview was conducted by Rich Tate in May 2003.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Bobby Simmons in April of this year, and we talked about his career in the business. Bobby started out doing odd jobs for the main Atlanta office while still in high school, and went on to be the office manager for many years after returning from having worked for Ann Gunkel’s All-South Wrestling. In this interview, you will find that Bobby witnessed one of the most remembered promotional wars in wrestling history, and possibly one of the favorite eras of wrestling in the state. I met Bobby about two years ago over the phone, and for the first time face-to-face about eight months ago. He has turned out to be one of GWH’s staunchest supporters, and we are proud to include him as our first featured guest.