| THE NIGHT TIM WOODS LOST A FINGER
March 2004 – Rich Tate Note: This article first appeared in a print edition of Peach State Pandemonium. In the January 2004 issue of Peach State Pandemonium, we published a close-up photograph of Tim Woods following a match where he suffered a loss worse than any typical run of the mill defeat. That picture spurred quite a bit of interest, as there have been mentions of it in the past on various message boards, but no one has ever really offered up an in depth look at the events of that evening. We decided to do so in this issue, offering various newspaper reports of the incident, a brief offering by Dick Steinborn a couple of years back, and a snippet of a previous interview with Bobby Simmons. For the premiere issue of PSP, Bobby Simmons and I were discussing bookers – specifically Leo Garibaldi, who ran the show for most of the 1960’s in Atlanta. “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,” Bobby began. “Tim was going to fight Gene Kiniski for the 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.” Dick Steinborn, who would find himself working as Mr. Wrestling later in the year when Woods walked out without fulfilling commitments, posted this on the Wrestling Classics message board a few years back: “Tim personally told me what happened. Fred Ward had Tim Woods challenge people with a $1,000 going to anyone who could beat him. Spurlin suckered punched the mild mannered Woods, ripped his mask off and threw it to the audience. The mask was thrown back into the ring and the ref handed it to Tim. Tim took him down, but with Tim’s hand exposed underneath, Spurlin bit as hard as he could, to dislodge the tip of Woods’ finger from his hand.” The Augusta Chronicle offered this brief UPI report on January 5, under the title of Hope This Fan Wasn’t Really That Rabid: A masked heavyweight professional wrestler, who works under the name of “Mr. Wrestler,” had to be rushed to a hospital Wednesday night after accepting a challenge from a fan and having his finger bitten off. The match had been set up two weeks earlier when the unidentified fan, a pretty hefty fellow himself, dared “Mr. Wrestler” to take him on. During the Wednesday night match, the fan bit one of the professional’s fingers off at the knuckle. This article from the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer appeared on January 4, titled Two Charged After Melees at Matches: Participants in a Municipal Auditorium wrestling match Wednesday night were treated and dismissed at the Medical Center after both were injured in a special match. No charges were filed against the wrestlers, though two men involved in a melee among spectators were arrested on disorderly conduct. Witnesses said Arnold Spurlin of Phenix City, one of the wrestlers and a former Golden Gloves and professional boxer bit off the distal joint of the left ring finger of a wrestler identified at the hospital as George Herman, 33, of Atlanta. Spurlin, 27, of 2002 17th Place in Phenix City, suffered corneal abrasions to his eyes, according to authorities at the Medical Center. It was reported that Spurlin ripped a hood-style mask from the head of a wrestler billed as “Mr. Wrestling” here. Shortly after the incident. Witnesses said Wrestling then floored Spurlin, an act followed by the reported biting incident. It was after this that Spurlin suffered the eye injuries, witnesses said. The men arrested on charges of disorderly conduct were identified by police as Jerry Lee Steward, 24, of 1814 18th St., Phenix City, and Ronald Miller, 21, of 2643 51st St. Both were charged, police said, after they fought with officers and allegedly pulled a knife on a witness to the brawl, Leon Baxter of 2801 Cherry Drive. The wrestlers were treated and dismissed at the Medical Center, and according to police, almost resumed their match at the hospital. Several friends of Spurlin were reported in the waiting room of the emergency room at the time, and were ordered to leave by police. Following the match, several wrestlers milled around the ring and some entered the ring itself. Order was finally restored. On January 12, the day of the showdown between Woods and Kiniski, Teague Jackson had an article featured in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, titled Mr. Wrestling Defrocked?, which goes a little further than the aforementioned items, as it talks about the finger biting incident, as well as providing a bit of a preview (kayfabed, of course) for the title bout: A lot of people are convinced professional wrestling is a sham. Maybe, maybe not. But when Mr. Wrestling shows you what’s left of a finger on his left hand, it’s no sham, baby. There’s a stub now where once a whole finger was. He lost the tip when a mat opponent bit it off last week in a Columbus back alley brawl. That’s right, bit it off. “I’ve had a standing offer of $1,000 to anybody who could beat me in a match,” the white-masked Mr. Wrestling said Thursday. “So down in Columbus, this guy took me up on it. He was a pool room tough, a real hood, and he used every illegal tactic in the book. Then I was getting up from the mat and my hand was near his head. I saw him go down and there wasn’t anything I could do. At first I thought he was just biting me, but then he spit out the tip of my finger. That changed things a little.” Mr. Wrestling doesn’t like to admit what happened next because, in his words, “I’ve always tried to represent clean wrestling, tried to be fair to my opponents in the ring.” But he added, “then I put my finger in his eye. He could have lost it easy and I didn’t like to, but man, when he bit my finger off that was all. It had to stop somewhere. He learned a lesson he’ll never forget. I don’t think I’ll ever forget this,” he said, looking at his mangled finger. Mr. Wrestling, who wears a skin-tight, nylon mask exposing only his eyes, nose and mouth, in all public appearances wrestles Gene Kiniski for the world’s heavyweight championship Friday night in the City Auditorium. “This is the big one for me. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever wrestled for. I’ve aimed my life at this chance.” His sincerity is no sham, and he’s no “duh, yup” athlete either. This mild, soft-spoken man with a build that’d be at home on a Super Bowl linebacker, comes on more like a college graduate – which he is. He attended Cornell and Oklahoma A&M before graduating from Michigan State with a mechanical engineering degree in 1959. He holds one national AAU wrestling title and was a member of the 1959 Pan American team. He mentioned, “seventy-five percent of the young professional wrestlers coming along these days are college graduates with extensive backgrounds in amateur wrestling.” He bridles at the suggestion that pro wrestling bouts are “arranged” in advance. He said, “for example, how can you believe that tomorrow night’s bout for the world championship is fixed? I’d estimate the title could mean between a quarter and half a million dollars to me and my career. Do you think a pro athlete would hold still for a set-up when that kind of cash is on the line? You don’t think the Dallas Cowboys had the fix on when they lost to Green Bay do you?” |
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