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REMEMBERING JACKIE NICHOLS
– Dick Steinborn
April 17, 2008
I remember Jackie Nichols very well. In 1949, while living in New York at age 15, my dad brought home an 11-inch TV set. We were the
only family in a six-story apartment building in Queens that had a TV set.
TV wrestling was the highest rated show in New York. Jackie Nichols was a smooth-moving athlete on the mat. Somehow his moves
just seemed to flow. I did learn to copy one of his moves. Not too many of the wrestlers accomplished it, but yet it was exciting to see.
When someone would get a standing wristlock on Jackie, he would arch back to the mat, dragging his opponent with him, landing on his
head in a bridge position. Then he kicked those feet and scooted on his head across the ring in great speed, and then kick up to boot.
He arrived in New York from Al Haft Promotions in Ohio, where the middleweights dominated the gates in those days.
Jackie only weighed 190 pounds, but really got over in New York, so much so that I wrote him a fan letter. I told him who my dad was and
how I enjoyed his style of wrestling, and hoped to meet him one day.
Sure enough, in about 1954, I walked into McMahon’s arena in Washington, DC, to appear on live TV that night and was surprised to
see Jackie in the dressing room. What happened next taught me a lesson in life about putting things down on paper.
Evidently Jackie had told all the boys in the dressing room about that fan letter he had received some years back. And of course I was
open to being ribbed the rest of the evening, with questions like, “Hey Dickie, can you write me a fan letter�?, and then another
statement such as, “If you write me, I will write you back.�
Some years later the pleasure was all mine to step in the ring to face Jackie Nichols on one of his trips to Florida to vacation with his
family. Our twenty-minute draw in West Palm Beach, Florida, was one of my early highlights of tussling with an idol I had created in my
mind.
– Dick Steinborn
April 17, 2008
I remember Jackie Nichols very well. In 1949, while living in New York at age 15, my dad brought home an 11-inch TV set. We were the
only family in a six-story apartment building in Queens that had a TV set.
TV wrestling was the highest rated show in New York. Jackie Nichols was a smooth-moving athlete on the mat. Somehow his moves
just seemed to flow. I did learn to copy one of his moves. Not too many of the wrestlers accomplished it, but yet it was exciting to see.
When someone would get a standing wristlock on Jackie, he would arch back to the mat, dragging his opponent with him, landing on his
head in a bridge position. Then he kicked those feet and scooted on his head across the ring in great speed, and then kick up to boot.
He arrived in New York from Al Haft Promotions in Ohio, where the middleweights dominated the gates in those days.
Jackie only weighed 190 pounds, but really got over in New York, so much so that I wrote him a fan letter. I told him who my dad was and
how I enjoyed his style of wrestling, and hoped to meet him one day.
Sure enough, in about 1954, I walked into McMahon’s arena in Washington, DC, to appear on live TV that night and was surprised to
see Jackie in the dressing room. What happened next taught me a lesson in life about putting things down on paper.
Evidently Jackie had told all the boys in the dressing room about that fan letter he had received some years back. And of course I was
open to being ribbed the rest of the evening, with questions like, “Hey Dickie, can you write me a fan letter�?, and then another
statement such as, “If you write me, I will write you back.�
Some years later the pleasure was all mine to step in the ring to face Jackie Nichols on one of his trips to Florida to vacation with his
family. Our twenty-minute draw in West Palm Beach, Florida, was one of my early highlights of tussling with an idol I had created in my
mind.
