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

When and where were you and your brother Larry born?

St. Joe (Joseph), Missouri.

You want to give a date?

(Laughs) Oh, yeah. I was born August 28, 1938, and my brother was about six and a half years older than me.

Okay. I didn’t realize you guys were that far apart in age. Were any other family members involved in the business, besides Nick?

No.

What first sparked your interest in wrestling?

Well, we grew up watching local wrestling there in the St. Joe area. As small of a town as it is, which was about 75,000 people, it produced some pretty well known talent out of there. Harley Race came from Savannah, which was real close to St. Joe. Then there was Larry and myself, Ronnie Etchison, Sonny Myers – even a guy you’ll remember, Dandy Jack Crawford.

Yep.

There was Mike George, a guy named Jim Lake – he had a pretty bright future in the business, but he had a wife and children. The travel schedules and the rigorous routines that were required by wrestlers back then was just too much for him, and he was going to have to spend too much time away from his wife and family, so he opted for something else.

So he was a talent not too many people got to see, huh?

I’m not really sure how far he would have gone, but he was pretty good – he never developed it further. There were a lot of old timers around there, too – a guy named Tex Cashman – he was a real old, old timer and he wore the cowboy outfits, and he was actually a real good guitar player and country singer. Leo Houseman – he was an old timer. He was one of the guys when I was about twelve or thirteen who worked with me at the YMCA.

There were a few other old timers there working out, and I’d go there and they’d take me out on the mat and beat the shit out of me. (Laughs) It pissed me off because they were taking advantage of me. I kept coming back, and they’d try and hurt me every time, but I kept coming back because I was interested. There were no amateur programs or schools around there at the time, so I kept hanging around and finally they got to where they’d start teaching me a few things.

After about two years of intermittent training, it got to the point that I got smart enough that when they’d try to rough me up, I wasn’t so easy to beat on. Those guys were getting up there in age, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for them to snatch and grab the holds and stuff so that’s where the education ended and they weren’t so anxious to work with me anymore. That’s when I started boxing.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah. As a matter of fact, when I was fourteen I went to the nationals as a middleweight. I was a strapping 157 pounds. (Laughs)

So how did that go?

I lost in the championship fight. I got beat by a guy from Lackland Air Force Base in the final match.

What made you want to be a professional wrestler?

Well, I had always wanted to be a wrestler. You know, when you’re growing up some of your idols are aviators, firemen, policemen, actors or whatever, but mine were always wrestlers and boxers.

Who were some of your heroes at that time?

Well, the guys that were around – Lou Thesz – I’ve had the opportunity to work with Lou hundreds of times. Killer Kowalski – when I first saw him I thought he was the most magnificent specimen of a human being I’d ever seen in my life. He was working out at the gym and was six feet six and about 280 pounds, and he was ripped and just looked phenomenal. You know, back then they called him Tarzan Kowalski, and he looked like Tarzan should look like – big and powerful.

Then there was Sonny Myers and Ronnie Etchison. In my opinion, Sonny was probably the best pure all around worker I’ve ever seen. And, of course, Bob Orton, Sr., was around at that time.

My brother had been boxing golden gloves, too, and the local promoter, Gust Karras – he owned the midwest territory for years – and he had a carnival called Gust Karras Promotions. He saw my brother fight, and he had won the heavyweight division championship in a big tournament in St. Joe. They had a big boxing tournament every year there. He won that three years in a row, then went to Kansas City and won there a couple of years. So Gus wanted him to get involved in wrestling. While he was boxing he was still in high school.

Gust was running the AT shows – you know, where they challenge all comers – and he had Larry working those shows one summer. Then he got into the business after that, and it was only natural for me to follow him.

What was it like working the AT shows?

Oh, it was horrible. (Laughs) I worked one summer as a fighter. By the time I got off the carnival circuit I was a light heavyweight. Sometimes you’d run into those old raw-boned farmers out there – you could hit them with a baseball bat and they’d probably just stand there and look at you funny. (Laughs)

There were some big, strong rugged guys out there. I was real fortunate in that I never got beat, but I had some hairy calls. So did my brother. He was a tough S.O.B. He could put your lights out with either hand, and could also take a shot. He ran into some pretty heavy duty guys out there as far as strength and endurance. They weren’t that great on ability, but they were sure hard to handle.

They could lay in some shots, huh?

Oh, yeah. They were just big old strong raw-boned farmers, you know? Some of them probably used to get whipped by their daddies with a plow line. (Laughs) Hell, getting punched in the jaw wasn’t anything to them. (Laughs)

When was your first professional match, and do you remember any of the details?

Rip Hawk. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was the summer of 1956 at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. That was for Gust Karras Promotions.

I didn’t realize that territory was that large at that time.

Oh, yeah. You could really rack up some miles working for him. It was a pain in the ass. I helped pull the ring up there as a matter of fact, and I had no idea I would wrestle that night.

I wasn’t booked to wrestle, but I took my gear around with me and worked out a little bit with a couple of the guys because I was still trying to learn. I remember the old spot show promoter there was named Bob Craddock. He ran spot shows for Gus – they had been friends for years. He comes up to me – and he always talked in carny – he said, “Hey, Slick, you got your gear?” And I told him I did and he said, “Well get it on because we’re taking your cherry tonight.” (Laughs)

Who failed to show that you wound up subbing for?

It’s been so long I don’t remember.

What was Rip like to work with?

Well, I wasn’t really a good judge of anything at that time because it was my first match. Even though I was in terrific shape I was so nervous I blew up on the way to the ring. (Laughs) And there were no steps so you just had to hop up onto the ring. When I got there, the apron of that ring looked twelve feet high. So I’m thinking to myself, “how the hell am I going to get up there?” (Laughs) But I made it up there and we had a passable match. We went forty minutes.

That’s a long debut.

Yeah! I was in shape to do it at the time, and after the first few minutes of the match I was able to settle down and wasn’t as nervous and blown up. I got my second wind and everything went alright. Hell, I didn’t have time to be blown up – I had to be thinking of what I was doing the whole time because he was shooting things at me in the ring and it was tough. I’d have to say everything went well.

You went to New York to work with Larry in a program with Antonio Rocca and Miguel Perez for Johnny Doyle in the fall of 1957. This was pretty much your first full time pro gig, right?

Yeah we debuted up there at Madison Square Garden on September 3, 1957. We stayed there through Christmas and came home to St. Joe for the holidays. After Christmas Larry went to Texas and worked as Danny McShain’s brother Casey McShain. I stayed around St. Joe trying to get work, but unsuccessfully because Bobby Bruns was the booker and he didn’t like to use local guys. He didn’t like me worth a damn, period, so it was very difficult for me to get any work around there.

You had gone from just getting into the business to having a pretty impressive run in New York that fall...

When we left there and went back to St. Joe it was pretty much dried up again. Larry didn’t particularly like the area of Texas he was in – which was Houston – so he came on back. In the first of April we went back to New York, and Kola Kwariani was the booker at the time.

They had been having some problems with crowds in Madison Square Garden. Vince McMahon, Sr., didn’t want to use my brother and I at the Garden. He wanted to use Dr. Jerry Graham in a program with Rocca and Perez at the Garden in the main event. And he wanted to bring in Roy Shire to work with Graham against Rocca and Perez. Two shows before that they did Rocca and Perez against the Fabulous Fargos, and that drew $30,000 or so. Then they had Mr. Moto and Kinji Shibuya with them and that made about $32,000 or so. So they were doing a little less than half houses, and they needed to bump that up.

Well, we were billed at that time from Savannah, Georgia, instead of St. Joe, and this was right in the middle of integration. Every day in the New York papers they’d have pictures of the troops bayoneting people in Arkansas, Mississippi and all over the south. So it was a natural heat thing, and Kola was smart enough to realize we were getting incredible heat – we were having riots every night.

When we went back in there in April of 1958 he pushed real hard to get us the Garden shot. Like I said, Vince, Sr., wanted those other guys, but he finally said, “if you’re going to use them at the Garden, I’m not going to put them on TV and I’m not going to promote them because I don’t think they’re going to draw.” Then Kola called us in his office and said, “here’s what I want to do. I want to open up the five boroughs and run spot shows and you guys will never leave the city. We’re going to build up to the Garden out of these five shows. You’re going to go in and beat the shit out of two Puerto Rican kids every night.” (Laughs)

When it was over they’d be lying in the middle of the ring and we’d step on their prone bodies and raise our hands and do the rebel yell. (Laughs) And after about two weeks of that we were having riots just going to the ring. About ten days before the Garden show where Larry and I are going to work with Rocca and Perez, they had a $48,000 advance sale, so everybody knew it was going to be a sellout.

Then Vince admitted he made a mistake, and I’ll give the man credit – he was a very honorable man. He was as good as his word. The man, to my knowledge, never broke his word to me or to anybody for that matter that I know of. Anything he told you, he would do his dead level best to keep up with his obligations. His word was his bond. So he decided to put us on TV before the Garden show – we did one or two shots on TV leading up to it. We didn’t need it because it was already going to sell out.

The day of the Garden show we hired a photographer to go down and take a picture of our name on the marquee for some publicity. He went down there and at two o’clock they had announced all the tickets were sold out. They had Puerto Ricans lined up eight deep down the sidewalk for two blocks in both directions. They started rioting and they had to bring in the mounted police. So the photographer got pictures of that, but they all got lost in a fire we had at the house. But there was this one picture of one of those big horses raised up on his back legs and he bumps into this guy and his nose got all mashed up and looked like a bicycle seat. (Laughs) The night before the Garden show we were working in White Plains, New York, against Arnold Skaaland and – oh, what’s his name? There were a bunch of brothers...

The Baillargeons?

No – they were weightlifters...

The Stanlees?

That’s it – Steve Stanlee. I picked him up for a slam and I heard my ankle crack. I knew it was broken. The pain shot through me and we finished the match and got back to the dressing room. They had to cut the laces off my shoes to get it off it was swollen so bad. In those days we didn’t know about ice so I put heat on the S.O.B. (Laughs) Well, it worked for the pain, but it didn’t do anything for the swelling at all. (Laughs)

Larry kept checking me in my room the next day, and I was keeping my leg elevated with hot compresses on it. He asked me if I was going to be able to work, and I said, “if they cut it off, I’m not missing this one.” (Laughs) You dream about working a place like the Garden your whole life, you know?

Anyway, we got to the Garden, and I had some slip on shoes, and I had to make a cut in the heel of the shoe just to get it on, my foot had swelled so bad. We got out of the cab and the crowd was twenty deep and they were cussing and spitting at us. One thing I hated about Puerto Ricans in New York – they loved to spit on you. My God, I hated that.

We finally get into the building and tears are about to get in my eyes because of the pain, and I was doing everything I could not to limp so I could hide the fact that I was hurt. In the dressing room I had to hide it from the commissioner because they were all boxing fans and they hated wrestling. It’s funny – boxing wasn’t drawing shit at the Garden, but wrestling was, and they’d still want to bite the hand that fed them.

Anyway, I managed to hide it from the commissioner and the commission doctor. About ten minutes before we know we’re going to go to the ring, Larry comes in with this roll of tape. He taped up my ankle and it was like being in a cast. We got my shoe on, and, of course, it hurt like a bitch.

They had an intermission right before our match, and now its time to head down to the ring, so we go to the curtain. They started playing music and we walked out. They turn the house lights down and shine the spotlight on us, and the cops escort us down to the ring. On the way to the ring you can’t see anything because you have the spotlight blinding your eyes. My ankle was killing me, but we get down to the ring and get in and they turned the spotlight off.

Then they turn the house lights back up until Rocca and Perez are ready to come to the ring. Well, when they turned those lights up I could finally see the crowd and there’s over 20,000 people there and I said to myself, “Jesus Christ, what am I doing here?” (Laughs) But the adrenaline started going and I don’t even remember my ankle hurting the rest of the night. Of course, when we got back to the hotel and got cooled off I knew it was there.

After working in New York, I know Larry went to the Carolinas and wound up working with Tom Renesto as the Bolos.

Right.

Didn’t you head to California to work?

I went to San Francisco, yes. That’s where I met Buddy Rogers. Buddy was booking San Francisco at that time. I was a middle of the card guy. That’s where I first met Nick Bockwinkel, too. He and I became good friends. Nick was stationed at Fort Ord out there and he was still working part time in the business. I met Don Manoukian – an All-American football player out of Utah. He tried to make it in the pros, but they said he was too short – he was only about five foot nine, but weighed about 270 – he was a little fireplug. Gene Dubuque was out there – he was a good friend of my brother’s. George Drake was there, too.

Did they try to bank off of your recent success in New York?

No. At that time nobody knew what the hell was going on in New York anyway. There wasn’t that kind of publicity coverage with the media. The promoter out there was Joe Malcewicz, and I guess he knew, but he wasn’t impressed with anything happening in New York and Madison Square Garden. I was used as a mid card guy and I did reasonable well and I learned a lot because there were some good guys out there to work with.

I went out there in September and stayed until about the 20th of December and came on back to St. Joe for Christmas because I always wanted to be with the family around Christmas time. Then Bobby Bruns, who was my biggest nemesis there – he did me probably the biggest favor that anybody’s ever done for me in the wrestling business, and he did it inadvertently. He did it to get rid of me – he got me booked in Amarillo. (Laughs) So I went to Amarillo and that’s where I really fine-tuned my skills because I was working with a great worker on a nightly basis.

Was Dory Funk, Sr., already running Amarillo?

No, but he had some pull with Doc Sarpolis who was running it at the time. Sarpolis ran it and booked it. Well, he liked me and took real good care of me. It’s funny because I was working there in Amarillo as a babyface, but when I would go over to work shows for Mike London in New Mexico – Albuquerque, Farmington, Santa Fe, and all the towns Mike London ran – I would be a heel. (Laughs)

It was such a pleasure to work that territory. It was a lot of fun and there were so many good guys down there. I was in the ring with guys like Mike DiBiase, Sonny Myers, Nick Roberts – I was working in the ring with those guys nightly. Tony Morelli, who was a hell of a worker, but very underrated – he made a little money in the early 1950’s out in California, but never really did much of anything else. I learned so much from all those guys in the five or six months I was there. It was a tremendous education, and it had a lot to do with me developing my skills in the ring, probably more so than anyplace I’ve ever been.

You were billed as “Silent” Joe Hamilton there. What was the reason for that moniker?

Because I couldn’t interview worth a shit, so they wouldn’t let me talk on TV. (Laughs)

From there, I believe you returned to work in Oklahoma.

Right. Tulsa, Oklahoma.

What kind of run did you have?

I had a good run there – a real good run. There were a lot of long trips and a lot of travel. After that I went back to Amarillo for awhile. As a matter of fact, then I went back to Tulsa again.

In the meantime, Nick Roberts and I had become good friends. He and I were driving back from Lubbock one night, and that’s when he found out that his wife had committed suicide in their trailer. Of course, Nick was all broken up about it and he left there to get away, and went to Florida to work. He had a little dog – a dachshund named Mitsy – and he asked if me and my wife would watch the dog for him, and we did. Well, we started having problems with the dog when we had our son because it was jealous of the baby. (Laughs) My wife would be holding the baby and feeding it and the dog would jump in her lap. If the baby would happen to stretch or move or something, the dog would snap at the baby. (Laughs)

We were in Tulsa at the time and I was going to call Nick about the dog becoming a problem, but he called me first. He asked me what kind of money I was making there and I told him. He told me I could make a hell of a lot more down in Florida. It was the first summer they had run down there, and they had also started running TV.

So I gave my notice to the Tulsa office and we packed up all our stuff in a luggage trailer and our car and away we went. We got to Florida and I did extremely well. I started a little higher than middle of the card and got a few main events. I worked a few boxing matches with some of the guys for some gimmick shots because they found out I had a little bit of a boxing background.

Like I said, overall I did extremely well there, but like everything else back in those days after you spent five or six months in a territory working the same towns every night – unless you are the top guy, you’re going to burned up quick. After six months I knew I had done all they had planned for me there, so rather than just hang around and get gutted down to doing opening matches and jobbing to the incoming talent, I decided to get out of there.

You had decided to head back to Oklahoma, but got invited to Georgia at the last minute as the Iron Russian, only to find out upon your arrival they changed it to the Assassin.

Well, actually I was going back to St. Joe. I had given my notice and they accepted it with their blessing. You know, I was taught to never burn a bridge, and I didn’t want to burn that bridge anyway. I wanted to come back there when I could be fresh again. At that time the office was in a hotel in downtown Tampa – I forget the name of the hotel, but I think it’s still there.

I was living in Clearwater, so I left and went over the bridge to the house. When I got there my wife told me the office had called and wanted me to call them back. I did and they said they wanted to talk to me about something and needed me to come back to the office. So I went back over, and they said I had to go through Atlanta to get back to St. Joe anyway, which was true. They were in desperate need of some new talent up there since they’d just finished a six or seven month run with (Freddie) Blassie that ended up killing the territory. He had been doing all the nut job finishes like having the referee deliberately screw the opponents. The business was in terrible shape in other words. And whether he was guilty of it or not, Blassie was getting the blame for it.

I believe Chief Little Eagle was booking at that time, right?

Not yet – that was a little bit later.

Oh, okay.

Anyway, they gave me a $300 a week guarantee, and it was a short trip territory, and I could try it for a few weeks and if I didn’t like it I could leave and wouldn’t have lost anything. So I came up to Atlanta and lived on Stewart Avenue back when it was a pretty nice area. (Laughs) It was over at the Alamo Plaza.

So I started working the territory and when payday came – you know, (Ray) Gunkel and (Don) McIntyre ran the area at that time. I guess Paul Jones promoted at one time or another, but by this time it was all Gunkel and McIntyre. They had given Paul a small percentage of the office to keep him involved because he was a popular figure throughout Atlanta, and was really well liked by a lot of people.

Anyway, come pay day they’re short – back then they paid you cash every night, and I went in to ask for the rest of my money – and Gunkel was a cheap S.O.B. He hem hawed around and I said, “look, if you don’t want to pay me, don’t. It doesn’t make a shit to me, but if you’re not going to pay me what we agreed on, I’m gone right now.”

Well, he came across with the money, but every week it was like pulling teeth to get what you were owed on the guarantee. Since Eddie Graham was the one that sent me in there I called him. I said, “I like it here and everything, but trying to get money out of these S.O.B.’s while we’re trying to rebuild this thing is a pain in the ass.” Eddie told me to try and stick it out because they were trying to buy into the territory and were going to get their TV put on in Atlanta. So I decided to stick it out.

Your first match, both in Atlanta and as the Assassin was on October 13, 1961, against a big guy called the Country Plowboy, Stan Frazier. Any memories about the kind of heat you managed to draw that first night?

Well, coming into a new territory with a new gimmick as the Assassins, I was a complete unknown, so there was no initial heat. Anybody back in those days that wore a mask was always considered the villain, so I got the normal boos when I came out, and of course, the Plowboy got his usual round of applause. I remember it was a stinker match – every match with the Plowboy was a stinker – but we got through it. I knew what I had to do so I just got aggressive to get over, and he was just a big fat piece of shit. I stayed on him and he blew up in about two minutes, and we went about two or three more minutes and had our finish.

So your debut was relatively a short match.

Well, it went about ten or twelve minutes, but that was way much too long.

Did you have any real indication that night that the gimmick would get over?

No. You couldn’t tell too much of anything at that time because the crowd was way too small. It wasn’t a hot crowd, but they hadn’t really had anything lately to get real hot about. The Plowboy wasn’t really over so the crowd didn’t give a shit about the match one way or the other. He was just a big, sloppy hillbilly looking guy, you know? The Assassin gimmick never really started to catch heat until I started working with some better workers.

You got involved quickly in a feud with Don McIntyre and Ray Gunkel, and you and Jerry Graham challenged them for the Southern Tag Team Title just a few weeks after you arrived in Georgia, but lost. First, what was Graham like, and secondly, do you have any memories you can share of Don?

At one time Jerry was a hell of a worker, but by the time he migrated to Atlanta he had gotten so big and so heavy that he couldn’t do anything. He’d take an occasional bump, but that’s just what it was – occasional. It was almost like a stand up routine they could do in New York, and that shit didn’t get over here in the south, so he never really got over here. You had a mixture of guys who would travel up and down the east coast from New York to Florida, with intermittent stops in Atlanta – he was just one of those people. He never really did get over here and was not much of a tag partner.

As for Don, I had known him long before I came to Atlanta. Well, I shouldn’t say before, but I knew him through his brother Red. They were from Sedalia, Missouri, and that’s where I had met Don. Don was living and working here in Atlanta, but had come to Sedalia to see Red work one night, and that’s where I met him for the first time. I had no more contact with him until I came to Atlanta to work. He was a very astute businessman and threw money around like it was glued to the palm of his hand. When he died, I do know that he owned a lot of real estate and apartments on the north side of Atlanta, which was the high rent district.

Who made the decision to bring in Tom Renesto?

It was McIntyre, Gunkel and Jim Crockett. Tom had been a hell of a draw for Crockett up there and he left when Buddy Rogers came in, because he could see the writing on the wall about Rogers. So he wanted to get out of there because Rogers was going to get the top run there over everybody locally.

Tom had a deal up there that if he ever lost two straight falls he would have to automatically unmask, and that was a hot issue because he wanted to protect that mask. Back then we protected the damn mask and our identities. He wanted to get out of there before Rogers could talk Crockett into letting him beat him and take the mask off.

So Tom was in Texas at the time, and Crockett didn’t like the idea of him being so far away – he wanted him closer so he could pull him back in when he needed him to help draw. Crockett was worried that Rogers was going to get over so much he would try to pull a power play. So Crockett got Tom to come into Atlanta to work with me and help Gunkel and McIntyre.

The first match you ever worked with Tom in Atlanta was on December 1, 1961, and you took the Southern Tag Title away from Gunkel and McIntyre. The two of you would go on to team until 1974. A truly great team was born that night. Did you have any idea that first night you would last so long together?

We did after the match, yes. We became aware at points during the match. It was clear Tom knew what I was going to do before I did it, and I knew exactly what he was going to do. So we would set each other up to do what we anticipated each other wanted to do. There was no stumbling over each other getting in and out of the ring.

A lot of times you see guys who aren’t used to working in tag team situations or aren’t used to each other, so when they go to tag their partner, they stand right in front of them so that they can’t get into the ring smoothly. None of that happened to Tom and I that night or ever.

The stars were all perfectly aligned that night.

Yeah. I say this with some humility and a great deal of pride – I think that Tom and I were the best-oiled tag team the business ever had.

Unfortunately I have never seen footage of you working with Tom.

Well, unfortunately back in those days they didn’t save that stuff.

A week after Tom came in, and two weeks after you and Jerry Graham had teamed against Gunkel and Fuller, Tom had a handcuff match with Jerry. What brought that about?

You know, I don’t really remember why they turned Graham, but I don’t think it was much of an angle. They were desperately trying to make anything work. So a lot of what was going on then was just an effort to piece something together that would work and draw money.

In January 1962, you and Tom won the US Tag Team Title from Eddie Graham and Dick Steinborn in Atlanta. You would have several meetings with them over the next few months. I’ve seen some tapes of Steinborn in the ring, and consider him one of the more underrated workers, but I have never been fortunate enough to see Eddie work. What were they like as a team?

They were actually complete opposites as a team. Steinborn could do some aerial stuff. The only thing they really had in common as workers was that they both could sell. Graham never took a whole lot of bumps. He never threw a dropkick in his life or anything in the air. He would get his opponent down on the mat and just grind it out that way. At that time, Eddie was really a good solid worker.

Steinborn was a hell of a worker – a good looking, flashy guy. He had a hell of a body. He had big moves, and great charisma. The girls loved him, and the guys did, too. So between them they had the best of both worlds. He probably wasn’t, by any stretch, one of my best friends, but he and I had some of the most classic matches I ever had in the business.

The match we had in Augusta was one of the most outstanding things, and one of the things I managed to achieve in this business that I’m most proud of. We had a match in Augusta that went two hours and forty-five minutes with no falls in front of a sellout crowd. The crowd stood up yelling, “we want more!” when it was done. They were thoroughly entertained. Augusta was always a tough crowd, but to entertain a crowd with a match like that was a hell of an accomplishment.

The following month, you and Tom met the Von Brauners in a draw while defending your US Tag Team Title at Ponce de Leon Park. Who had the fan support for that show?

Well, we did, because we weren’t going to fight the crowd for it. They killed themselves off here by trying to do that. The Ponce de Leon Ballpark was the big show with them.

Ponce de Leon Park was known as a place where quite a few riots broke out. Was there one there for that match?

No because we were practically babyfaces there at the time because of them. They tried to pull a power play. They didn’t like to go out and do an hour with us. They wanted to beat us and there was no way that was going to happen. They got in the ring and tried to out wrestle Tom in a shoot, and Tom stuffed both of them. Then that little prick Jimmy Brawner tried to out punch me and that didn’t work. I gave him a right cross in his solar plexus, and I think my knuckles touched his spine, and cured that hound of sucking eggs. (Laughs)

Of course, Doug Donovan and I had been friends for quite a while, so I never really had any problems with Doug, but Saul (Weingeroff) and Jimmy kind of kept him stirred up. Saul was an asshole and so was Jimmy Brawner. Doug Donovan and his brother Red – I liked them both. What happened in the match was they were calling high spots like we’re babyfaces. Well, I could do all that shit – I could dropkick and head scissor with no problem. Well, after awhile, the fans at ringside are starting to chant, “come on Assassins, beat those S.O.B.’s whenever you want! Quit playing with them!” (Laughs) Well, they got so infuriated by that that they tried to turn it on.

That’s when they started the shit with Tom, but Tom snuffed them. Then Tom tagged me in and Jimmy started the shit with me and found out it wasn’t going to work. Then they got pissed and Saul and them left the ring and walked all the way back to the dressing room. Gunkel went into the dressing room and told them he was going to beat the shit out of them if they didn’t get back out there. So they came back to the ring, but weren’t real enthused about it.

After that they had them on top one more time a week or so later, but they left after that. I think they went back to Florida and got crossed with Eddie and Cowboy (Luttrall), and then they just faded into oblivion because nobody wanted to work with them anymore.

So they burned a lot of bridges...

Well, it was their attitude. I think they may have gone up to Memphis. I believe Jimmy was from there anyway.

I heard there was a magazine article published in 1962 claiming the Assassins were Joe Hamilton and Jim Burke. Obviously, they had the part wrong about Burke, but pretty much had you pegged. Did that claim hurt the gimmick at all?

No because at that point, not too many people knew who Joe Hamilton was anyway. I hadn’t been that well known around the country. The only places where I had worked main events outside of New York and may have been remembered was in Amarillo, Tulsa, and Florida. The general consensus around the country at the time was they didn’t know who Joe Hamilton was anyway. Back then hardly anybody believed anything they read in those magazines anyway. So it didn’t hurt at all. And who the hell was Jim Burke? I’ve never heard of a Jim Burke in this business.

There was a Jim Burke. He even worked here in Georgia in 1961. Other than that I know nothing of the guy.

Oh really? I’ve never met him that I can recall.

Continued

FEATURES: CONVERSATIONS - JODY 'THE ASSASSIN' HAMILTON

WRITERS

This interview was conducted by Rich Tate in August 2003.

Thus far I have only met Jody via the telephone, but he proved to be a very cordial and extremely candid person. I enjoyed speaking with him about his career, his partners and his friends. Jody had a long career as a wrestler, with most of his career working under a mask as the Assassin, operated his own promotion called Deep South Wrestling, and even trained many of today’s top workers in the business while working for World Championship Wrestling’s Power Plant. Jody tracked us down after finding our website. All he wanted to know was what he could do to help us. For that, we truly appreciate Jody giving us this interview, which I am certain will be the first of many things we do with him in the future.