Starship Coyote
Original Gangster!
If you've never seen this site: http://www.obsessedwithwrestling.com/profiles/index.html
Then take time to go through the profiles...it's fascinating reading.
Looking at some of these older guys made me think about how much more fun wrestling was in the 70s when I was a kid. I was born in '66, so I remember all the 70s...both good and bad...and I have fonder memories of those studio-taped wrestling shows then as opposed to the crammed arena matches of today.
When I was a kid in rural Arkansas, the only real wrestling you could watch on TV was Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling out of Shreveport LA...about a three hour drive from my home. If you knew someone who lived in a city and had that shitty excuse for cable back then, you could watch Georgia State Wrestling. Both were promotions under the NWA. WWWF (as it was then)...you had to read about it in wrestling magazines.
Mid-South would hold wrestling cards in small town gyms back in the 70s and early '80s. You could pay $5 for a ringside seat...which was rows of folding chairs...or $3 for a bleacher seat. My parents and I went to several of these events, and I have autographs a helluva lot of wrestlers: Paul Orndorff, The Junkyard Dog, Killer Karl Kox, Ted Dibiase, Skandar Akbar, Dick Murdoch, Little Tokyo (a midget), Steven Little Bear, Ron Simmons (better known as Farooq), and many others.
My most vivid memory was the night my mother kicked a wrestler in the nuts.
What happened was: my dad bought the first three tickets that went on sale...you got them from the local Optimist Club. That gave us ringside seats 1, 2, and 3. My dad sat in #1, my mom in #2, and I sat in #3. The final match of the card was Skandar Akbar vs Ray Candy (you might remember Candy as Kareem Muhammed of the Zambouie Express back in the late 80s).
^Skandar Akbar
^Ray Candy. Ray would come to the ring throwing candy out to the kids. I liked him.
My mom despised Akbar with a seething passion and heckled him for the entire match...the entire match...and you could tell it was getting on his nerves. Finally, Akbar dragged Candy over to the ropes near us and started choking Candy while staring at my mother.
To this day, I don't remember exactly what words my mother used to taunt him with, but I do know that "raghead" was in there somewhere. Akbar picked Candy up and threw him at my mom.
My dad dodged one way, I dodged the other. I heard all the seats behind us empty out, but my mom sat there paralyzed as a 250lb nigger flew through the air in her direction. Candy landed on her feet...she jumped up, screamed, and kicked Candy in the nuts.
Now, wrestlers are used to bumps, so Candy was probably ok before my mother planted her toes in his crotch.
In those days, tossing someone over the top was an automatic DQ by NWA rules, so the match was over. My dad reached over and grabbed me by my collar, grabbed my mom by her arm and hustled us out. I guess he thought Candy might take that sort of behavior personally.
In any case, anyone else have any close encounters with wrestlers of any kind worth talking about? I might coax Blondie in her little story.
Then take time to go through the profiles...it's fascinating reading.
Looking at some of these older guys made me think about how much more fun wrestling was in the 70s when I was a kid. I was born in '66, so I remember all the 70s...both good and bad...and I have fonder memories of those studio-taped wrestling shows then as opposed to the crammed arena matches of today.
When I was a kid in rural Arkansas, the only real wrestling you could watch on TV was Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling out of Shreveport LA...about a three hour drive from my home. If you knew someone who lived in a city and had that shitty excuse for cable back then, you could watch Georgia State Wrestling. Both were promotions under the NWA. WWWF (as it was then)...you had to read about it in wrestling magazines.
Mid-South would hold wrestling cards in small town gyms back in the 70s and early '80s. You could pay $5 for a ringside seat...which was rows of folding chairs...or $3 for a bleacher seat. My parents and I went to several of these events, and I have autographs a helluva lot of wrestlers: Paul Orndorff, The Junkyard Dog, Killer Karl Kox, Ted Dibiase, Skandar Akbar, Dick Murdoch, Little Tokyo (a midget), Steven Little Bear, Ron Simmons (better known as Farooq), and many others.
My most vivid memory was the night my mother kicked a wrestler in the nuts.
What happened was: my dad bought the first three tickets that went on sale...you got them from the local Optimist Club. That gave us ringside seats 1, 2, and 3. My dad sat in #1, my mom in #2, and I sat in #3. The final match of the card was Skandar Akbar vs Ray Candy (you might remember Candy as Kareem Muhammed of the Zambouie Express back in the late 80s).
^Skandar Akbar
^Ray Candy. Ray would come to the ring throwing candy out to the kids. I liked him.
My mom despised Akbar with a seething passion and heckled him for the entire match...the entire match...and you could tell it was getting on his nerves. Finally, Akbar dragged Candy over to the ropes near us and started choking Candy while staring at my mother.
To this day, I don't remember exactly what words my mother used to taunt him with, but I do know that "raghead" was in there somewhere. Akbar picked Candy up and threw him at my mom.
My dad dodged one way, I dodged the other. I heard all the seats behind us empty out, but my mom sat there paralyzed as a 250lb nigger flew through the air in her direction. Candy landed on her feet...she jumped up, screamed, and kicked Candy in the nuts.
Now, wrestlers are used to bumps, so Candy was probably ok before my mother planted her toes in his crotch.
In those days, tossing someone over the top was an automatic DQ by NWA rules, so the match was over. My dad reached over and grabbed me by my collar, grabbed my mom by her arm and hustled us out. I guess he thought Candy might take that sort of behavior personally.
In any case, anyone else have any close encounters with wrestlers of any kind worth talking about? I might coax Blondie in her little story.
