Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Time for the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: We've got lots and lots of things to talk about and to do today.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Covering the territories from the 1940s to the 1990s.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: It's the best thing going today.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: Interviewing wrestlers, referees, authors and other media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: The cream. Yeah, the cream of the crop.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: And now here's your host, Tony Richards.
[00:00:36] Speaker C: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another personalities, territories, Towns and buildings. I'm Tony Richards and we're back in the state of Georgia again this week, the Peach State.
And helping us with our trip back in the time tunnel is Bobby Simmons, coming to us from his home in Georgia. Bobby, how you doing tonight?
[00:00:56] Speaker B: I am doing absolutely wonderful.
Pleasure to be with you again. I always enjoy this.
[00:01:03] Speaker C: You bet, man. Well, I want to.
One of the things I like about going back in this particular time period, and I like looking at these town by town because the guy who's booking this, Tom Rinesto, is just a master at manipulating and scheduling and matching guys up. So we'll kind of go through this town by town this time, and I want to ask you about some specific, specific things. Okay, let's start out. You used to go to Macon on Tuesday nights. And so let's, let's start out here. And there's a name in, in Georgia at this time that might not be familiar to people as far as association with Georgia, and that's Jerry Lawler. He's in Georgia in the summer of 75. Do you remember much about Lawlor being there?
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Yeah, 1975.
I went to work for the NWA office in November 74. So this was actually my first full year working for the NWA and Jim Barnett. Yeah, Jerry was here. He never was main event talent here in Georgia. He was generally middle of the card.
Sometimes he would be in a tag team combination.
One I can think of is Don Green, another wrestler from Tennessee. They would team up and, you know, maybe have a run at the Georgia title. I don't think they ever got it, but, yeah, he was Jerry. Matter of fact, there was. There was a few times that somebody would not show up at a town and they would send me under a mask and I had the privilege of wrestling Jerry Lawler. And I did it without a mask. Come to think of it, that particular night, because I got some pictures around the house here of me and him in a match from Griffin, Georgia. I can remember where it was, but, yeah, it was pleasure to work with, pleasure to work with, pleasure to be around. He was super nice guy and he's also, you know, he's so talented in so many different ways. You know, he was a commercial artist before he got in the wrestling business and he did, in some of the programs. He did some. Especially when Les, before I started, Les Thatcher was doing the program and he drew a lot of pictures to put in the program for Les.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: Well, Jerry was a very good interview.
And at this point, at this point in his career, the first three or four years in Tennessee and then also, I believe, here in Georgia, he was a heel. So he, he had that smart alec heel Persona that really got under fan skin or whatever.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: And yeah, Jerry, Jerry was a. His face, his.
How do I say this?
He had a baby face. Even though he had a beard sometimes he had a. He was very young looking and he right on up.
Last time I saw him, he was still that way. He looked very young and he had an arrogant attitude and man, it was just, it was instant heat. Yeah, he was a heel the whole time he was here.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: And Don Green, he's. He's only there like in the first part of 75. He leaves right at the beginning of the summer and he comes back to Tennessee. And another guy that grew up in the Tennessee territory like I did, we were laughing about it the other day because Don Green came back to Tennessee as Mr. Wrestling and he was under a mask and everybody knew it was Don Green.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Well, Don's, you know, Don's run started in Georgia. When I first went to work in November, he was under a hood as one of the Infernos. Him and Curtis Smith were the team of the Infernos with JC Dykes and they had.
That was done. And then when he. They did away with the Inferno gimmick and Curtis left, they took the mask off Don and that's why he stayed here for a while. But yeah, that was, that's how he got started here, man.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: Is that, Is he one of the guys? He and his brother Al were big in Tennessee, but I mean, he's one of those guys that just isn't talked about very much anymore. But what a phenomenal wrestler.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Wonderful piece of talent Al was. Of course, you've been growing up with Tennessee. Al was it. I love their gimmick when they were the Heavenly Bodies because Al was a big heavyset guy and he. But yeah, he was the brawler and the stomper and chopped meat guy and Don was the wrestler.
[00:05:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it was just one of those.
If you had to point to a gimmick where a heel was bragging about something, they actually weren't heavenly bodies. They weren't but that got it over. I mean that's the things that infuriated people.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Guy you've never heard of, probably Kenny Arden, God rest him, he left us way too early. But Kenny was, Kenny weighed about 400 pounds. He was huge. But his gimmick was he wore a T shirt that said I hate fat people.
And it just instant heat. He worked the independent circuit around Georgia for several years and he might have worked a few, few shots for the office but yeah, that was just you use what you got and you go with it.
[00:06:09] Speaker C: So in making in June, Jerry Lawler and wrestling too, they've got a thing going. And Lawler teams up also with Abdullah the Butcher in in the making Tuesday night programs. Then on the 19th of June, Dick Slater beats Bob Armstrong for the Macon city title. And this sort of kicks off in June and this is going to go on all summer where Renesto just, I mean puts a rocket on the of Dick Slater and Bob Orton Jr. I mean.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Well, you know one thing, let me say this now. Macon, Macon and Columbus.
Mr. Ward had a lot of input into booking.
He had his son in law, Leon Ogle, you'll see that name periodically as wrestling in those towns, in Fred's towns. But he refereed a little bit too. But Leon had a lot of input in the booking but he generally followed suit with what Tom was doing in all the other towns. Yeah, but yeah, that's, yeah. Slater and Orton, when they team them up, when. And I can't remember if it was this was all these years run together on me now. So you have to help.
[00:07:20] Speaker C: Yeah, but they brought.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Was Gary Hart was here at the time.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: Did he come. He, he's going to come in toward the end of the year. Right now they're with Rock Hunter.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Okay. Well, I mean they really took off when Gary Hart got him. But Rock Hunter is a.
Rock Hunter is a manager that, that is.
I think he's very underestimated.
[00:07:42] Speaker C: And Rock Hunter still gets in the ring from time to time too.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Yes, they would, they would use him from time to time and they would work angles with him off of his managing whoever. I learned, I learned more about crowd psychology from Rock Hunter than anybody has ever around.
[00:07:57] Speaker C: Oh my gosh.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: He could manipulate a crowd just with his looks, with his. You know, most managers, especially when they're working a house show, you know, they're up and down and beating on a ring and Rock was never that way. He sat in a chair in a corner, made hand motions at his guy and if he ever got out of that chair, it meant something.
And just.
He could. He had him in the palm of his hand. It was just a great guy. He's. He's gone now. He settled here in Georgia after he. After he got out of business. He lived over in Carrollton, Georgia. But Rock left us several years ago.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: So, boy, that's something that you brought up right there that I haven't thought about in a while. But younger fans probably don't have any concept of it, but back probably before the late 70s, anyway. I don't know when we stopped doing it in the business, but back at this particular time, managers were confined to a chair at ringside. Right.
And also in television. And so when a manager would get out of his chair, it was heat because usually the ref was distracted or something like that. But they were supposed to be seated, right?
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
They were to not interfere in the match at all. JC Dykes used to blow a whistle as a signal to his guys.
People would bring whistles to the match and they'd all be blowing their whistles so that, you know, supposedly confusing what JC was trying to do.
But yeah, they.
If they got up, the referee usually would go to put them back in their chair. And that, of course, that gave the Hill opportunity to do whatever they wanted were going to do. But, yeah, I don't know what happened to the manager thing. It just.
There was a string of managers through that came through Georgia. You know, I was a fan. I grew up here.
Dandy Jack Crawford came in with El mongo in the 60s, man.
Homer O'Dale was here.
J.C. dykes, Rock Hunter, Gary Hart, just. There was a host of them toward.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: The end of June, we. There's a British fellow that comes in named Dudley Clements, and a friend of mine just wrote a nice piece about Sir Dudley not long ago, just a few days ago. And I really enjoyed reading that. And a lot of fans don't remember him because his career was kind of short. You remember Dudley coming in?
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Yep. Steve Clement, his name was Steve Clemens. He wrestled. Wrestled in Tennessee.
He came. Came here as Sir Dudley Clements.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: He actually had Don and Al Green, as a matter of fact.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen pictures.
He was there again. Good guy, good talent. And he wrestled, too, while he was here. But he was.
I think his managing abilities was great because he was short, he wasn't very tall.
He just had that British accent he used when he was doing the Sir Dudley thing. And it was.
He got a lot of heat.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: He's a. He's In a match actually here in Macon on June 24th with Bearcat Brown. And I don't remember Bearcat being in Georgia that much.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Bearcat was from Georgia. He was from Atlanta.
[00:11:18] Speaker C: Oh, was he?
[00:11:19] Speaker B: His name was Matt Jewell.
As a kid, I'm talking. When I first started going to matches, I was eight. That would have been 1963.
They did not have segregated matches or integrated matches. They were all segregated.
And if you had black wrestlers on a card, it was generally the first match on Friday night in Atlanta. And they billed Matt Jewell, which was Bearcat Brown, as the black Georgia heavyweight champion.
But, yeah, he was originally. He's from Atlanta.
He has a brother that wrestled a little bit that went by Bobcat Brown.
Bobcat, he still lives here in Atlanta and his name's Harvey Jewell. He visits my church periodically. I see him pretty regular and talk to him quite often. But he's.
[00:12:07] Speaker C: Oh, that's wonderful.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: That's. Yeah, Bearcat was here. He would come in and out when he had to come home for something or whatever. They would use him whenever he was here.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, of course, in Tennessee, I remember him with Lynn Rossi.
They were a huge tag team when I first started being a fan, early 70s.
So at the end. Go ahead.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: I was going to say, I give you a funny story about them, too, and this come out of Lynn Rossi's mouth. They left Birmingham one night, and they were in separate cars, and Lynn left early. And he's riding up the road and he was speeding and he got pulled over by a state trooper. He got out and told a state trooper, he said, I'm glad you stopped me. He said, there's a black guy in a Cadillac chasing me, and I think he's got a gun.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: He said, that's why I was running so fast. And he told what color the car was. Anyway, he took off. So you know what happened? Here comes Bearcat and his car ain't bothered. Nobody got pulled over. And he's out on the side of the road and they're frisking him and got him threatening to handcuff him. But it was. You know, that was a. That was Lynn getting out of a speeding ticket, using him as the goat.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: And putting a rib in on us.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Getting the rib in, too.
[00:13:13] Speaker C: On the 22nd of July. This is where they really put the fuel on. So they've got wrestling one and two. They're the big babyface team this summer.
And so they beat Lawler and Norton Jr. For the making tag team belts.
And. And you mentioned Leon Ogle, he, he shows up here, he's in a no disqualification, no time limit match with Jerry Lawler.
So what was Leon like?
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Leon, Leon was a good guy. He. I like Leon, we always got along. He was, he was not. He was, he was a fair worker. He wasn't great, but Leon was.
He would, they would, he would intermingle himself. He might have, you know, he would referee or something and get into it with a heel or whatever instead of. He was. But that's the way that, that come about. Probably they would set up the deal using him as a referee and then he would.
But yeah, he was, he worked pretty regular there, you know, when he was working for Fred's towns, but he was okay, Good guy Fairbrook, he was a pretty good booker. He just, you know, he was limited in the towns, but he would put the TVs together for this for Fred and he would book the house shows.
He worked in conjunction with Tom, but eventually down the road a little bit, they just made it all one big thing. Tom booked everything.
[00:14:41] Speaker C: Did Leon, was he more involved in Macon and Ralph more involved in Columbus, or were they both equally involved with both?
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Well, they both worked in the office, they were both son in laws, but Ralph was more the businessman.
Leon was the one that was kind of hands on with the wrestling.
They both did different things, but Leon was the one that usually did the booking. I don't. Ralph never did any booking. Leon did the booking and worked the angles and came up with things to do, but much more so as far as wrestling was concerned than Ralph.
[00:15:18] Speaker C: So as happens a lot of times, the babyface team only keeps the titles a short time. So A week later, July 29, Slater and Orton beat Wrestling 1 and 2 for the Macon belts.
Then they pretty much hold those for a while and then they start putting them in singles matches. In August, wrestling 2 beats Slater in a cage match.
And then the very next week on the 19th, he beats him in a cage match with no referee.
Do you remember them doing many angles with no referee in a match?
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
It wasn't a lot, but it was periodically that the referee would be outside the ring. But in that case you had to. They generally said the first one out of the cage won the match because you had no way to count the guy out. You couldn't hear if he gave up.
They would just work the deal until somebody could get out of the cage and the referee would be outside manning the door.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: And it was just to heighten the stakes of the match. Right, right, right.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Just Something different.
I mean, those two guys worked so many matches that summer and they did anything conceivable. One of the things, and I think Gary Hart came up with it. First time we'd ever seen it in Georgia. They came up with the I quit match where the referee would have the microphone, would get the microphone from the announcer and hand it to whoever was on top at the time and they'd shove it in the guy's face and he'd either quit or he wouldn't.
But yeah, there was all sorts of things they did. But yeah, the cage was. With no referee. It wasn't very often, but it was done really for a blow off because that's pretty much the last step.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Was Gary or. I know it came from Texas and I don't know if it was Gary or Terry Funk, but one of them. I first I quit. I tried to track down the first I quit match and it was back in the. In the early 70s for sure.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:20] Speaker C: Shifting gears over to Columbus, Bob Armstrong is the baby face here that gets put over in Columbus quite a bit this summer. And of course he's a Georgia legend.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: And wrestling one and two.
So tell me a little bit about wrestling one and two. So they brought in Johnny Walker back in 73, I think, to be Tim's partner. And then a lot of fans may not know this, but wrestling to actually turn heel for a little while.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Right. That was before I was in 73. I was before, of course, I was over there. But we knew about it. It was they. They turned heel. They turned him heel so that Tim had somebody to work with. I mean, they were.
When we were going through that war, talent was. You had to use your talent in different ways. And they. I don't remember. I don't know who was booking at the time. I don't know if it was Bill Watts or.
I really don't know who was booking for them.
But they turned that deal and they ran it for however many weeks they got out of it and they got a good bid out of it.
But one of the funny things that come out of that was it wasn't funny to them. But, you know, they're the best of friends. I mean, they were inseparable outside the ring. They both had boats, they both had motorcycles. I mean, they. But they were.
They were working the deal.
I'm assuming it was Atlanta. It could have been one of the other towns. But Two went to give Timmy the knee, and when Two give you the knee, he come in on the left side of Your face and hit you in the shoulder with it. And it was snug.
You didn't have any problem knowing he had hit you with it, but you had to keep your face turned to the right, because if you didn't, it'd hit you right in the face.
And Timmy, for whatever reason, didn't turn his head. And two, hit him with that knee.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: Oh, man.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: And it broke his nose. And both eyes were swollen. They never shut, but they were swollen and black. He looked like a raccoon. And of course, John was distraught. I mean, in talking about it, John told me. He said, I was so upset, I couldn't hardly eat or, you know.
And Timmy was laughing about it. He said, it's my fault, but. Yeah, it's.
But they were both.
They had a good run with him as a heel. And I can remember we always. You know, we come in after our TV came in after theirs on Saturdays, and we worked with Uncle. And I remember coming in that day. I was in the back. I'd come in early, and I was in the back or staying out of the way. And they did the interview. When they ended the feud, I remember they did it. They took a. John had a hatchet, and he went out on the desk there talking to Gordon. He said, I'm here to bury the hatchet. And he drove that hatchet into the desk and sticking straight up. And he said, this is over. And I thought, God, what an interview.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Unbelievable.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Just that was the way they ended. It was on TV in that interview when he buried the hatchet.
[00:20:38] Speaker C: Man, we just don't have moments like that anymore.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: No, no. And, you know, the thing is, the thing about that stuff is, you know, nowadays, they give you a script, and they said, this is what we want. Back then, they'd say, you got two minutes. We're talking about Atlanta, Carrollton, Griffin, whatever. You got minutes. They didn't have a point that they want to make, but the rest of it, you're on. You were on your own. I mean, the talent went out there and did the interviews.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: There's no telling how long Johnny thought about that. You know, he thought about that sometime, probably sometime in the middle of the program, he thought, oh, I know how I'm gonna end this.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: Just waited till that last. That last day, you know, until he.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Got there, and that was it. Yeah.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: And a booker like Renesto, not all bookers did this, but I've always kind of heard he was one that would work with the talent and take some of their suggestions.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Sure, he would. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
He would share his idea. This is where I want to go. This is what I want to do, you know.
Yeah, very much so.
You mentioned Bob Armstrong. In Columbus, there was two guys.
Well, it was actually four guys, I guess. Ted and Jerry Oates, they were from Columbus, so they were always local favorites there.
But Bob Armstrong and Bill Dromo were Mr. Ward's favorite people in the world, and he pushed them in all his towns.
Bill in Atlanta would be first, second match, middle of the card, sometimes semifinal. If he was involved with somebody in a specific angle, Bob. Same way Bob would, you know, Bob had his share of main events in Atlanta and up and down the card. But in Columbus, those two guys were like.
I mean, they walked on water and the people bought them. I mean, they were. If there was such a thing as a superstar in a town, in Fred Ward's towns, Bob Armstrong and Bill Dromo were that.
And if you look at all those cards, you'll find a lot of times where the top guys From Atlanta, Wrestling 2, Wrestling 1, they were in semifinals or a couple of matches from the top, but you'd see Armstrong and Dromo on top.
[00:22:59] Speaker C: Well, the thing that I noticed here is back at this era, your really big main titles like the NWA title or even like the Georgia title or the Georgia tag titles, in Atlanta, they only changed hands about every six to eight weeks, maybe once every three or four months.
But these tag belts in these towns and the singles belts in these towns changed every other week almost.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, well, they had.
[00:23:29] Speaker C: They had a title change every two weeks or so.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that was. That was. That was Leon and, you know, they. They like that, but they would. You're right, they'd put it on a baby face, but only for a short time because they want to see the baby face trying to beat the heel for the title rather than the other way around. And it's. But yeah, they swapped them a lot. And Fred and we talked about this before.
Fred had champions in every town that he ran.
And for Columbus and Macon, the tag belts and the heavyweight belts of that city, they were super belts. They were those. Nikita Mokovich with an eagle on them. I mean, he paid a lot of money to get those belts and he used them well in those two towns.
[00:24:15] Speaker C: So wrestling 1 and 2 and Slater, Orton Jr. That's the big feud in Macon, in Columbus. So why do you think Fred and Leon and those. Why did they like Orton Jr. And Slater so much here?
[00:24:29] Speaker B: They were young guys and they just.
It's one of those things where you Put two guys together and they clicked. You know, Bob had been.
You know, Bob's a heck of a wrestler.
You know, if you get two guys out in a row and they're going at it for real, you know, you got to put some money on Orton Jr. He was that kind of wrestler.
But him and Slater, they just. Slater was the interview guy to begin with. He could talk. You know, Bob had a little bit of a stutter, so he didn't do a lot of talking. But they.
Bob had been working preliminary matches and up and down, and they put these two guys together and they just clicked. They could do. They did things that other teams had not done. I mean, one thing in particular, and I don't know why this sticks in my head, but they would do a deal where Slater would do a back breaker where he drops the guy down across his leg, but they would hold him, and Orton would come off the top rope with a knee across the guy's throat, and the guy would flip over backwards onto the mat.
There was nobody else doing that sort of stuff.
They were. They could fly, they could wrestle, they could get on the mat. They could do the high spots. They could. And they, like I say, when they finally got them with Gary Hart, that's when they clicked.
And they were. They were doing well with Rock, but. But they really took off with Gary. It's hard to explain. It was just. They put them together and they clicked.
[00:25:57] Speaker C: Well, you. You know, you saw them in the 80s, you know, because we got videotape of that, right? That.
And they were a super team there. Going into the first starcade for Crockett, I mean, they were really good. But that was after Slater had had that terrible car accident.
I could only imagine how good he was before that.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Oh, when I first met Slater, when he first came in here, of course, we knew about him from Florida, but when he first came in here, he was phenomenal.
He was phenomenal. He had runs with just about everybody. He was a heel for a long time that switched to a baby face. I mean, he had runs just would. I mean, him and Wrestling 2 had a big run. Him and Timmy had a run.
They switched him to babyface him and Hanson had a run. Him and Jardine, as a spoiler, had a run.
Just. He was around here for a long time, and he was just a phenomenal talent.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: I know you weren't there during this time, but in 74, Harley race had booked an angle with Super A as part of the Anderson's tag team, and that was Mike McCord.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:08] Speaker C: And. And we learned later on, years later, he becomes the famous Austin idol. Right.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: But what was nominal change of a human being I've ever seen in my life?
[00:27:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Tell me about Mike McCord. Not. Not Austin Idol, but Mike McCord.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: I met Mike. Well, I did not. I did not meet Mike until after the plane crash.
He was here and then he was gone and then he was in Florida. Then, of course, he was in the. You know, he was in the plane with Gary and Bobby Shane and Buddy Colt and he tore his heel up. I mean, I mean, it just ripped the heel right off his foot. Well, they had to redo it. And when he first came in here, he was still in here as, you know, strong guy Mike McCord, but he was having to wrestle barefooted because he couldn't put boots on.
But he came back in and he was good guy, good hand, pretty good wrestler. I mean, he was limited because of the foot, but he was here for a while and I'm not sure how long he stayed, but then he was gone. And I'm telling you, when Austin Idle came back in here, whatever year that was, if I did not know who it was, I would have had no clue. I've never seen anything. He was. Mike probably weighed 2:65, 2:70, weightlifter, big bulky guy.
[00:28:24] Speaker C: And he went mustache or something too, didn't he?
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Yes, he had a mustache. It's part of the time. Yeah. And then he comes back as Austin idol with a waist probably 30 inches or less. I mean, I've never seen nothing like it.
[00:28:39] Speaker C: But blonde hair. He was blonde hair.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: And. And I. My opinion, I don't. The gimmick was over. The gimmick was good, but I don't think he worked. It was good a worker as Austin island as he was Mike McCord. But he, you know, he changed his style a little bit too, so.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: And for some reason, I. I don't know why, but when they need a special referee, they use him a lot. Like. Yeah.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Reason for that or just think. I know is the gimmick.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, so talking about towns here just a little bit, this is the first time in June that I see in 75. And it might be that we just don't have records for it, but this is the first time I see Athens pop up. So tell me about Athens as a wrestling town. It looks like it maybe was just a spot show town. Is that right?
[00:29:33] Speaker B: No, Athens ran every Thursday night.
[00:29:36] Speaker C: Okay, so Athens and Rome were the Thursday night towns.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: Well, this.
When. When in 1975 the first part of 75 Rome did not start until. And I can't tell you when it started, but we weren't in Rome. We were running Athens and Savannah on Thursdays.
You went to Macon TV on Thursday afternoon. And when you got through there, you either went to Savannah or you went to Athens. Athens was. We worked in the JJ center, they called it. They didn't call it sports center, they just called it the JJ Center. It was a country western bar on Friday and Saturday nights and. And they would bring some. Not arena quality talent, but they would bring some known talent in there, country western talent.
It was.
The building for wrestling would probably hold about 1500, maybe 2000.
The way it was set up. It was one of the only places we went to that sold beer, which made it a very interesting place.
The very first card I ever refereed on, my very first match with Gunkle was in Athens, Georgia.
And I seen a couple of pocket knives pulled before I got to the ring at night. I mean, it was crazy, but it was a good town.
Depending on if you had an angle going, you drew super houses in there and turn people away. And if. If you. If it was just a regular Thursday night card, you may draw thousand. 1500 people. But yeah, it was. It ran every Thursday night. Guy on the building's name was Jerry Farmer. And the promoter, there was a guy named Tip Allman and was.
[00:31:30] Speaker C: Tip live in Athens then.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Tip lived in Athens. He would. He. We lost Tip about three years ago. He was.
His day job was.
He sold jewelry for Josten's. Jostens. J O S T E N Jewelry.
That's who made my high school ring.
Because I used to laugh at him. I said, you probably sold my ring to my school. But he's. Yeah, that was the town we went to. We dressed in a. It was heels. Dressed in the little room where actually where the liquor bar was.
And they had it. They had locks on it.
And then you actually had one bathroom, one shower stall, and then the other side was the baby faces. They connected. But that was.
It was very bare minimum.
[00:32:28] Speaker C: I looked it up, right. I think the last census. Athens, 125,000.
So I don't know what.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Except on Saturdays during football season. And then it goes to 250,000.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: It's like Columbia goes to a million on the football day. Yes, but I don't know what it was in 75. But I mean, if you just were rounding that off, I mean, if you're drawing a thousand to fifteen hundred to two thousand people, that's 10 to 20% of the population.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. And they came.
The building was on Highway 441, which connected with Commerce, Georgia. It wasn't that far. I mean, you could. We drew from all over. I mean, it wasn't just. There was people from Atlanta that came up there. It was not just Athens, but it was a. It was close enough to Atlanta that people really wanted to go. The matches would come.
[00:33:21] Speaker C: So yeah, I think, I think in 75, Savannah went to a Sunday town.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Yes, we moved. They moved it to Sunday and it.
[00:33:32] Speaker C: Was monthly there for a little bit. But then later in the summer it goes back to being weekly on Sunday, which is not necessarily something Southern promotions did at this time, you know.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Well, that was the first. That's when we first started working on Sundays.
The first time we ran it on Sunday, I drove. Now that meant we were working seven days a week. Well, it was a four at the time. It was not interstate all the way. You had about 120 miles of two lane road.
So you would. It was a four, four and a half hour ride.
So after working all week and our busiest days, and I think we talked about this, but our busiest days was Saturdays. We did Atlanta TV Saturday morning. We did Columbus TV in the afternoon at 4 o', clock, which was live. And then when we got out of there, we either went to Carrollton or Griffin for Saturday night. So you'd worked all day and then I drove. The first time we ran it on Sunday, nine hours on the road plus three hours at the building. It was just, you know, no family time, nothing. It was, it was crazy. So the second week we ran on Sunday, I called Delta Airlines and Delta Airlines had a round trip to Savannah. And I want to say it cost $62 at the time. And the guarantee at that time was $55.
So I was going to lose $7.
But I didn't have to leave home until 12 o' clock to catch like a 12:30 flight. Get down there about between 1:30 and 2.
The show was at 3, you get out of there at 5. Flight left there at 6 and you was home by 7 o'. Clock.
So at least you had some time.
So I did that the first week. Well, the second week I did it, I'm sitting on the plane and Jim Barnett got on the plane and he come back and he goes, and he always called me Mr. Bobby. He said, Mr. Bobby, he said, why are you flying? And I told him and he said, okay.
So starting that Monday, he reimbursed everybody the $62 plus paytas for flying to Savannah.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: That makes sense. So he made it because he did that in Australia, you know, he flew guys in Australia.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: Well, it might as well more tolerable to do that than to.
[00:35:53] Speaker C: Yeah, and that's why he did it in Australia too, in the 60s is he flew guys, you know, between those towns. It was a long trip for one thing. But the other thing was he wanted guys to be happy, you know.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: Well, so we had to have some rest. That was the thing. That was the. That was my thing. I told him, you know, that Monday morning in the office. I was just, you know, I wasn't working in the back office then. I was just running errands. But he called me back there and he asked me, he told me what he did and I said, I appreciate it. And I said, I told him, I said, jim. And I said, I don't. I'm not home. I'm on the road seven days a week now. And I said, I got a small, you know, I got a wife. And I said, I need to be home some.
And so it was. Yeah, it was. It was a good deal. So it was a lot better. And then, you know, one thing about Savannah and that building, and I know we talk about this, I saw it sold out one time in my whole career, and that was when Ray Candy got married in the ring.
And other, other than that, you just.
[00:36:54] Speaker C: And talking about town size, it's the third largest town in the state. Is it?
[00:37:00] Speaker B: It's big. Yeah, it's huge.
Well, see, I've talked to Jerry Oates about this. Jerry Oates father in law was Aaron Newman, who was the promoter there for the NWA for years.
They used to run a building there called the sports arena. Mr. Newman owned it. It would. I don't know how many it seated, but they drew well there. I mean, they drew tremendous crowds there for the matches.
But the atmosphere of the building was conducive to wrestling.
This civic center we moved into, it was like wrestling in a barn. I mean, it was huge. It was cavernous. And when you're not drawing that, well, it makes it even more so.
And it just never had the atmosphere that. That was conducive to, I guess, people coming to the matches.
[00:37:48] Speaker C: I'm glad you brought that up because I want to shift to Atlanta. And of course, Atlanta. Atlanta was Friday nights And here in 75, you're running the Omni maybe once a month. And every week you're at the City Auditorium. Well, except the weeks you're running the Omni.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: But the art. But the City Auditorium, that's another building that as sort of faded into history.
And the Omni has become the big building for wrestling, not just in Atlanta, but in the South. You know, it's just got this legendary status with right. People in the wrestling business. But man, was there ever more a legendary building than the City Auditorium?
[00:38:27] Speaker B: No, I mean, it was. City Auditorium would hold about 5,500, maybe 5,700 people.
It was an auditorium. There was a stage on one end and if you're sitting on the stage looking out at the arena, the seats horseshoed around.
When I was a kid growing there, I mean, it was just matches started at 8:30.
It was just an air of excitement in that building because it was, you know, you had Atlanta tv. And back when I started, Ed Capell was doing the tv. It was live Atlanta wrestling. And you know, it was just. It was. I mean, that's where I wanted to be every Friday night.
By the time the main event came on, the place was. It was eerily smoky because people smoked in the building.
I mean, it was just. It was like there was a haze in the building and then, you know, it was just a great atmosphere.
Jim Barnett, when he came in and bought office, when I was a kid going, there was seats on the stage, they were on risers. There was probably eight rows that went across the stage and you couldn't buy those. Those were passes that they gave out for whatever reason. I remember a time or two I won the mystery wrestler in the program. I'd know who it was and I'd write in and if I got lucky and was one of the first two, I'd get two passes and they were always on the stage, which was always a great thrill for me because you could get autographs and you could be close to the wrestlers.
And it was. But Jim came in and Jim seen it and Jim said, we're not giving those away.
Jim was not one to give passes. He gave eight passes to Paul Jones every week for his.
So he had the front row, eight, ten seats, whatever. Two went to the doctor and eight went to Paul.
And he started selling those seats and they became some of the most sought after seats because number one, you were up on the stage, which elevated you to about the level of the floor of the ring. If you were on the front row and the back row, you were above it. And it didn't matter who stood up or who did what you could see. So it was. They became very coveted seats and it increased the. It Increased the revenue there when we went to 550 on the ringside tickets. And I think General admission was 3 and 2 or 4 and 3. No, it never wasn't a 3. It was 4 and 2. I guess a sellout in Atlanta was a little over $26,000 in order to them. And it sold out more than it didn't.
But we, and I'm speaking after I got in the office and knew this, I didn't know all this before, but we rented the City Auditorium for every Friday night that we could get it during the year in February. Now, this is before the was built in February. Every year, the Holiday on Ice show came in.
They were there for like 10 days. So you missed two Fridays in April, the Shrine Circus came in. You missed two Fridays.
And then in middle of May to the middle of June, you had high school graduations and you lost it.
Now, before the Omni was built, they used to run the matches at the sports arena, which was owned by Paul Jones. It was over where the wrestling office was for years.
And then, of course, after they built the Omni, that's when you started seeing shows at the Omni. And the reason you were only seeing them once a month, once every six weeks, once every two months was because something was in the auditorium. We couldn't get the building.
[00:42:20] Speaker C: Otherwise. You would have just been at the auditorium, right?
[00:42:22] Speaker B: Would have been at the auditorium, yeah. I mean, you might have ran the Omni as a special super attraction or something, but the cost. The cost of running the Omni was so much greater.
This the City Auditorium in Atlanta, because we agreed to take it every Friday night of the year. The rent on the tour for Georgia championship wrestling was $500.
Wow, imagine that, $500. The.
We agreed for that 500. We agreed they got the concessions. We agreed to furnish our own security.
We had about 25 City of Atlanta policemen that we paid, and we worked a deal out with them that we paid their.
We paid them a flat fee, which I think they got. I think we gave them $35 a night, but we paid their Social Security.
So nothing came out of that 35. They got the whole 35.
We had a Lieutenant Charlie Wright, that was in charge of our security. We took care of him.
And then we furnished the ushers.
That's one of my first jobs there at the auditorium was as an usher.
I was putting the TV ring up and Charlie Harbin called the guy there that was in charge of the ushers and said, put him to work. But they paid the ushers, $10 apiece.
So there was probably.
I'm guessing there was 15 ushers, maybe at the most, 20.
And some of them were doors, side doors or whatever, you know, just kind of working, watching.
So even if it was 20 of them, that's 200 bucks. That's what the ushers cost us.
Of course, we had to pay the security, but the security was catered to us and they worked well for us. But, yeah, that's opposed to going to the Omni, where the Omni gets a percentage of your gross, plus you've got to pay for all their ushers. And they got more than $10 a night.
You had to pay for. Still had to pay for security.
We brought our own security over there, but they had security on staff there that we had to pay. I mean, it was on a. I'm doing this off the top of my head so that you can't swear by this in a court of law, but on a hundred thousand. I can remember we did $100,000 on Thanksgiving. That's the first time we'd ever done it. And I don't remember what year that was. 78, 79. Maybe they would own $100,000 house. It would cost you 22, $23,000 to run that building. I mean, it was expensive, but it.
[00:44:58] Speaker C: Became the main building. Like, why did it go from the city auditorium to more running the regular show at the Omni? How did that happen?
[00:45:10] Speaker B: The city of Atlanta decided that the auditorium was too. Too expensive to maintain. And the property is right. Was right adjacent to Georgia State University.
Georgia State wanted that property.
We were offered. I say we. Jim Barnett, Georgia Championship Wrestling. We were offered that building for.
It wasn't much, you know, some ridiculous $100, $150 for a year's lease, but we would have been responsible for upkeep, maintenance.
It was just. It was.
There was no way. It was totally cost prohibitive. You couldn't do it. If city of Atlanta couldn't do it, we certainly couldn't have done it because they. You had a staff at the auditorium that was probably seven, eight, ten guys that were responsible for cleaning it up, setting chairs up, doing whatever had to be done, and unless you had other shows coming in to create revenue. And by now the Omni is built so the Holiday on Ice is no longer coming to the auditorium. The Atlanta Civic center is now in operation. So you got high school graduation going to the big new Civic center to graduate.
[00:46:20] Speaker C: You guys were probably their big. I was just going to say, you guys are probably Their biggest client at that point.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Well, we were the one that. We were the most regular. Yeah, I can remember we were the last event ever held in the building. I can remember how emotional it was for me. I sat in the dressing room that night. I mean, I. You got to remember, first wrestling match I ever went to was in that building.
[00:46:41] Speaker C: And for what year was that?
[00:46:44] Speaker B: That was 1963.
The main event that night was Lorenzo Parente, Tennessee guy against Fritz Von Erich.
The semifinal, I think was Joe Scarpin's Tennessee. I'd have to go. Look, I've got a. I've got a window card from that first match I ever went to. Hanging in my hallway here.
My buddy Chuck Thornton had it and he gave it to me and I had it framed. It's back there. But, I mean, I can't tell you how many matches I went to over the years there. And then when I got in high school and of course I got the job running errands, I was putting TV ring up. I started ushering there and eventually working for Gunkle. We did not use the same dressing room. We had separate dressing rooms. Heels on one side, baby faces on the other.
The NWA use the same dressing room and they come out the same door. And I cannot tell you what it did to my heart when I. The first Friday night I ever worked for NWA and I came out that door and walked to that ring. I mean, I went, I got in the ring and the first thing I did was look up there where I used to sit, and I thought, man, this high in the world did a kid, you know, Just right place, right time, good Lord, bless me. The next night we were there. I sat in the dressing room and everybody had left. I was there by myself. There wasn't nobody left. And I walked out on stage and I looked and it was smoky, just like when I was a kid. And I reached over and I knew where the switch was. I turned the ring lights on and I walked down the steps and I got up and I climbed in that ring and I just. And I can remember standing there crying because I knew this was it. This was the last time I was going to be there. And I stood. I don't know how long I stayed there. I stayed there a long time. Wasn't nobody in the building but me. And then I left. I left the building. Now the facade of the building is still there. What was the lobby and the concession area and a room off to the side that was like an exhibit hall. It's all still there, but it's been remodeled. The auditorium portion of the building is now a parking lot. It's no longer there, but. But the facade still there. It's. It's. You go by there and I mean, you know, for people that know, you know, what it was.
Yeah, but it's still there.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: I'd still like to go by with a facade, you know.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's on Cortland street in Atlanta. It's still there.
[00:49:07] Speaker C: I've seen old pictures of crowds there, you know, and it just looks like. Of course, I'm looking at it, thinking to myself, this is an awesome, legendary building. But I mean, it just looks like. You said, it looks smoky and kind of the building you'd go see wrestling in.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: Yep, it was. I mean, it was a great, great part of my life. And I. And I miss it. I sit here sometimes on Friday nights and I think, man, sure do. I could get car and down there.
[00:49:38] Speaker C: Now, you mentioned Jerry Oates just a few minutes ago. Jerry and I were just talking the other day, and he was telling me, and we were talking about a.
We were talking about a building in Wichita, Kansas, but we got off on talking about the Omni versus the auditorium. And he said that he just never felt the wrestling crowd. And the Omni just didn't feel the same because he was used to the auditorium.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: There were so many more of them. And I don't know, there's just me and Jerry. When we were. We used to do Peach State Pandemonium every Thursday night. Me and Jerry and Michael Norris.
And we did it for nine years. And one of the things that came up a lot was the atmosphere of the buildings, these big arenas, you know, and I know that's where you make the money, and I know that's, you know, that's all people know today is these big buildings, but they're just. I mean, it's like wrestling in the Grand Canyon. But the auditorium, you had 6,000 people on top of you.
Bell Auditorium in Augusta, 3,500 people. They're on top of you. When they built the Richmond County Coliseum and they went from Bell over there to that Coliseum, it's like wrestling in a barn. I mean, it was huge. I mean, it would hold 10,000 people, but it was just cavernous. It was. I mean, I don't know, there was just making the Macon. We started out talking about Macon, the Macon Coliseum, and it probably holds 9,000 people, 8,500. I only saw it sold out one time, and I know they've had some good crowds there, but there, again, it's a big, huge building. It's not, the atmosphere is not, you know, Columbus City Auditorium had that great atmosphere.
Now they wrestle. They got a big coliseum there now. And it's. It's totally different.
[00:51:25] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's like once you get over the 4,000 or 5,000 mark, I think that's when it starts to change, maybe.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you want to, you want to draw big crowds. I mean, I have refereed in the Omni with 18,000 people there, and when the lights, when the ring lights are on and the lights are down, you can't see past the first 10, 12, 15 rows at ringside. The rest of it is dark. It's oblivious to you.
You can't see them.
[00:51:56] Speaker C: Abdullah is the big killer heel here at this time. And the first Omni show of the summer. In June, Jack Briscoe comes in to defend the NWA title. Abdullah. And if you just think about this from what, you know, from video and all, you'd think, oh, man, this is kind of a mismatch. But in 75, Abdullah, he's a lot lighter and can move around and he's a lot more mobile.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: Right, Abdullah? I mean, he. Yes. Yeah. The answer to the question, yes, Abdullah was good.
He was going to do what he was going to do, and I don't care who he was working with.
And Briscoe was a great champion. So, you know, Briscoe, I can't remember, I don't know if I refereed that or if Ronnie west did, but whenever we had omnishow, it was always me and ronnie there through 75, most 76, but we were.
Yeah, he was, you know, he was going to have a pencil or a fork or, you know, I mean, you knew all of this. That's just when you knew that you had to work to what he could do. I mean, Abdullah wasn't going to take body slams and he wasn't going to do backdrops, and he wasn't going to, you know, take a. I mean, he just, he couldn't. But he, yeah, he was, he was much more mobile. He could get around and he had some man. He was. When he came in here, we had never had anything in Georgia like him. I mean, not even remotely close.
And when he did, people went crazy when he got here. Yeah, I mean, he would. I mean, I'm there, of course. I guess he was crazy. Still is.
I love Larry, he's a good guy, but, I mean, I never seen nobody unscrew a light bulb out of a wall socket and take it out on TV and chew it up and bite it and chew it up.
[00:53:41] Speaker C: I always wondered if, you know, because he. He got over up north in the sheik territory, and the sheik and Barnett went back many, many years. And I always wondered if that's how Abdullah maybe got to Georgia, was through that relationship.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: I'm not sure.
I don't know. I can remember here again, I wasn't working in the back office. I was running errands, But I was there. They had a meeting one day, and the discussion was, you know, Barnett. Barnett was leery about bringing him in here. He knew he was money, but he also knew, evidently he, you know, Larry. Larry loved the limelight.
And they had the conversation. Well, anyway, supposedly. And this is. I wasn't there, but this is kind of what I heard, and I'm pretty sure it's true.
Barnett told him, we'll bring you in here, but this is the conditions.
Number one, we put you in a big hotel downtown. We'll put you in a place and you stay there.
You order your food in. You don't walk the streets, you know, as far as everybody's concerned, you're a wild man from the Sudan that can't speak English.
[00:54:54] Speaker C: And he said, you got to live the gimmick.
[00:54:56] Speaker B: In other words, yes, we will make more money than you can spend if you will do this.
So I remember the first day he got here, and he walked in the office.
They had the meeting.
Doug Smith, who was office manager at the time, took Abdullah and went to the bank that we did business with, this is Georgia Championship Wrestling, to open him a checking account where we could. Where we could, you know, he had a place to put his money. So we go to the bank. They go to the bank. And Doug. Doug told me this story, so I know it's true. They're sitting in there, and he's sitting in a chair next to Doug, and he's picking his nose and looking around. And Doug explains to the lady down there, we dealt with, look, I'm sorry, this is, you know, he's. He's from Sudan. He don't speak English. I got to get him an account open. We'll do it, you know, Georgia championship stand, good for it, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she said, well, how's he going to sign checks? Said, well, he'll make his X. So Doug give him some mumbo jumbo.
So Abdullah took the pen and held it some funny. And he did it with his left hand instead of his right, and he made a little X on there. And he handed it back to Doug.
And he went back to picking his nose again. And while they're talking, he would holler. Pardon my French. He would holler, shit, loud as he could holler in the middle of this bank. And people would stop and look. But anyway, that was. And we put him in a place downtown on Peachtree Street.
It was a small hotel, but it was very, very exclusive. And we put him in it.
And for the first month, everything went good. And then he went crazy. The next thing we know, he's at the airport going flying out. And we found out he was out there handing out eight batons and signing autographs.
[00:56:40] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: This is the absolute honest God truth if I've ever told it. I'm driving to Augusta one Monday night. This is when he flew home. He brought his car back. He had a blue Lincoln Continental Town Car. I'm driving down I20, going to Augusta, and I see his car, and I. Now, listen. I had a Dodge Demon, which was the Dodge version of a Duster. I didn't have a big, nice, fancy car. I was trying to save on gas.
[00:57:07] Speaker C: I don't remember that car, but I remember that model for sure.
[00:57:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I go by. I go by Abby. And when I go by him, he's got a telephone receiver up to his ear, driving.
And I can see the cord, you know, one of those like you had in your kitchen. The little curly phone cord.
[00:57:23] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: Running down toward the steering wheel. So I thought, well, this is crazy. Here's this guy from the Sudan. He can't talk, driving a Lincoln, talking on the phone. I stopped somewhere. I got gassed up and got a drink, did something. Anyway, he got to the building before I did. So I walked by his car because I'd never seen a car phone. I wanted to see what it looked like. I go by there, his car phone was, a phone receiver that he'd had to his ear with that curly cord running to the ashtray, with the ashtray closed on it, where it would stretch. He didn't have a phone, so he was doing that. That was the kind of stuff he was doing, you know, that. I mean, he still drew a lot of money, but it would have been so much better if he had married a little. We had a cop that worked for security at the TV station on. A little female cop. She was the first officer that ever made the SWAT team in the city of Atlanta. He wound up marrying her, and they had a nice house, and they divorced. I think he remarried, but I don't think he's married now, but Larry's still around. He's still making some appearances at these little independent shows. It'll pay him. And he's not in good health as he was. He's using a walker now, but he's still getting around. People still come see him.
[00:58:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I saw him in St. Louis at the St. Louis hall of Fame in May, and he. I talked to him there for five, ten minutes or whatever.
He seemed. He seemed good.
I thought maybe you were gonna say that Mr. Barnett was a little shy about bringing him in because of blood. How did Barnett feel about blood?
[00:58:58] Speaker B: We. He didn't care.
Whatever drew that.
[00:59:02] Speaker C: That's what I was wondering, because we were very.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: We were very. You know, we couldn't do anything on tv. You know, tv. TV just shut us down. We couldn't do New Blood, no blood on TV at all. But. Yeah, and he's. These house shows and stuff. Yeah, it didn't matter. Whatever.
[00:59:15] Speaker C: No, I didn't know because in Australia, when he was at the tail end before he sold it, Mark Lewin and King Curtis were there, and they. They kind of overdid it and kind of hurt the territory. So I didn't know if he was a little shy about it, but.
So the other great thing about having Jerry Briscoe in the territory is after the title match with Jack, you know, then you got a coup weeks. You can run with Jerry and Abdullah.
How was Jerry Briscoe back in these days?
[00:59:46] Speaker B: Jerry was a. Jerry was a prince. He was a great guy to be around, great guy to work with. And he also had some points in the Atlanta office. So he was a boss. He never acted like a boss. And I never had. Felt like I had to do anything around him because he was a stockholder. But, yeah, he was. Jerry was good, very easy to work with, and he just won the boys.
I love Jerry Briscoe. I don't get to see him much, but kind of swap messages with him every once in a while. But he. Yeah, he's. He's a. I can tell you a couple funny stories about him if you want to hear a couple of things he did.
[01:00:21] Speaker C: Yeah, let's hear it.
[01:00:23] Speaker B: One thing we did on him, they had. They made. They made Rocky Johnson and him the Georgia tag team champions whenever Rocky was here. So we're in a spot show. Lorenzo Parente and Don Green is working with Rocky and him, and we're in some little spot show somewhere, and it's hot, middle of summer, and I don't remember exactly where we were, but you know, Jerry was a great amateur wrestler. I mean, him and Jack were, you know, Oklahoma State. They were top dogs. So we're in a ring, and somehow or another, Jerry grabs a headlock on Lorenzo. Perenni and Perenni whispered, crisscross.
And they started crisscrossing. Well, Jerry dropped down, and when he did, Lorenzo pounced on his back like a cat. And just as. Just sometimes, you're in the right place at the right time. I was right there, and I dropped down on my stomach, and I was nose to nose with Jerry laying on the mat with Perennial on his back. I just held up two fingers with two points.
[01:01:22] Speaker C: Oh.
[01:01:23] Speaker B: So that Indian went on the war path. He went crazy.
We wound up Don, Lorenzo, myself and Rocky were all standing on the floor, and he was running around screaming, oh, boy. So we did that to him. But I'll tell you what he did to get it. Rocky. One night, again, another spot shows some little old high school somewhere. Whatever Don and Lorenzo, they found a frog. Just a little frog. It probably wasn't 2, 3 inches. It was a little bitty thing. But they found out Rocky Johnson was scared of frogs. I mean, he was literally terrified of frogs for whatever reason.
So Don and him told me what they wanted to do, and I went and buzzed Jerry, and Jerry, of course, went along with it. Now, here's a boss. They're the Georgia tag team champions. Don and Lorenzo get in the ring, and Don has got that frog in his trunks.
And Jerry come out of the dressing room first. Him and Rocky come out, and Jerry broke in a run to the ring, and he dives in. He gets in the ring, and Lorenzo and Don jump on him. And they are just stomping a mud hole in him. And the people are screaming, rocky, Rocky. Rocky. So Rocky goes running to make the big save. He takes two steps up the little stairs to get in the ring. And Don pulled that frog out and showed it to him.
[01:02:38] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[01:02:39] Speaker B: And when he did, he jumped back off himself like a cat. And he's standing there terrified, and the people are screaming, why ain't you helping him? Why ain't you helping him? And Jerry's laying on the mat, getting stomped and laughing.
And every time Rocky tried to come in a rink, they'd pull the frog out. And this probably went on for maybe 60 seconds or so, but it had to seem like a lifetime to Rocky. And them fans were getting very discouraged. So finally they threw the frog down. Rocky come in, made the big comeback, and everything was good. But, you know, that's.
That's the kind of guy Jerry was.
[01:03:12] Speaker C: So in Atlanta, what you've got. One thing that's different about Atlanta, that's different from the other towns, Macon, Augusta, Columbus, is that you have guys that are coming in just for one show, or they're just coming in for. Maybe they just have a program that just runs in Atlanta. Like you've got. In August, you've got Dusty coming in, you got Bill Watts coming in, you've got.
Well, actually, this guy comes in for the. To the territory. We got a couple of new guys coming in the territory in August. Bobby Duncomb comes in, Nikolai Volkov comes in, and Mr. Fuji comes in. But then you've got in in Atlanta, just for like one show. You've got Harley comes back, Harley Race, you've got the chic comes in, Bill Watts comes in, Dusty comes in. So those guys just.
They're coming in for just that one payoff or what's the strategy there, bringing those guys in?
[01:04:12] Speaker B: Well, they would fly Dusty in because Dusty was over. Dusty. Dusty was here. He was here on Friday's morning. He was in Florida. Very seldom did he make tv. Every once in a while, but most time he was just here for Friday nights.
[01:04:25] Speaker C: And actually during this time. Sorry to interrupt you, Bobby.
At this time, he's in the awa. He's. He's actually had his baby face turn in Florida and then he got so hot he had to leave for a while. So he's. He's actually tag team partners with superstar Graham in up for Vern.
[01:04:43] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[01:04:44] Speaker C: And then he's coming in every Friday to Atlanta.
[01:04:47] Speaker B: Well, Vern and Barnett were big buddies, so, you know, they, I'm sure they worked together on whatever they had to do. But yeah, Dusty was a lot. You know, he ran a program with Koloff and Oli that ran for months.
Dusty was coming in to have a new partner every week and, you know, different things. But yeah, Bill Watts. Bill would come in periodically. Bill was a. Was a stockholder in Georgia Championship Wrestling. Bill would come in sometimes. They'd pick his brain on booking things and, you know. But Bill would. Would come in the Sheik. Sheik was just.
He was.
They'd bring him in for the, you know, try to draw a dollar or two.
[01:05:30] Speaker C: He was never an Abdullah. They'd have him and Abdullah in a cage match.
[01:05:35] Speaker B: Oh, geez. Yeah, I refereed many of those things, cage matches. And they would.
We did one time.
One time we did the cage and put barbed wire on it and just, you know, we did all sorts of stuff. With him, too. And.
But yeah, he would bring him in. That's.
I'm not sure when Hanson got here, but you know.
You know more than I know as far as when guys was coming in. But. But yeah, yeah, Fuji came in. Fuji. Fuji and Tanaka, they teamed him up when Tanaka was here.
They were here for a while.
Fuji was a heck of a guy, but you never wanted to cross him because he was the greatest ribber in the business, and he was cruel, man.
[01:06:19] Speaker C: You didn't want him to write your name down for a future rib.
[01:06:21] Speaker B: Well, let me give you. You mentioned Dudley Clemens. Let me give you a little Dudley Clemens and Fuji story.
Fuji was leaving to go to New York, and he gave his notice, and a lot of the guys lived in a trailer park down on the south side of Atlanta and Jonesboro. And Fuji had cleaned up his trailer. He wanted to get his deposit back, so he had cleaned it up. He had to make Atlanta tv. And Fuji. Fuji being a good businessman, he. You know, he did a job on Atlanta tv. He was going to Columbus to put somebody over and then work the.
Whatever spot show that night or the Griffin or Carrollton. And he was leaving. He was actually leaving on Monday.
So Clements, for whatever reason, didn't have to make Mexican tv, Columbus TV that day. So when he knew Fuji was gone, he went over there and he trashed that trailer. I mean, he just went over there and throw stuff down, you know, I mean, just made a mess. Well, don't know how.
I have no earthly idea how Fuji found out about it, but Fuji found out who did it. So the next morning, on Sunday morning, he gets up and he calls Steve and he says, how about coming over and having lunch with me today? It's the last day we'll be together. Come on over here and eat. So Steve hasn't, you know, he don't know nothing. He's pulled a rib. He's happy. He goes over and he eats lunch. And just as they're finishing up lunch, Fuji pulls a dog carcass out.
He had. He had got a dog and barbecued it and fed it to Clements.
So that's the kind of ribs he did.
[01:07:55] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't want him to write my name down.
[01:07:57] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no. You know, Fuji, we, like here again. We lost him, you know, last year. Year before he. He retired. Was living working in a movie theater as an usher, a ticket taker. He just. They said that he. He just loved talking to people.
But. But, yeah, he was.
Yeah. I didn't want to get on the bad side. But, yeah, he was good. Nikolai came in. Nikolai was good. You know, he had a pretty good run here. Big guy.
I had met him when he was one of the Mongols, and he was.
He had a good deal. Matter of fact, I installed a CB radio in a car for him. But he was.
He was. He was a good guy.
[01:08:40] Speaker C: It's funny how guys do one side of a.
You know, one side, either baby face or a heel in one territory, and then they do the opposite in the other. Like, Bobby Duncomb had just come off a big heel run in New York with Bruno, and. And he comes in here as a baby face in Georgia in the summer.
[01:09:01] Speaker B: He just.
He had been. He had had a run here as a heel prior to that. And then when he come in, they needed a baby face, just. And, you know, back then, of course, you know, before cable or satellite went crazy and the Internet, you know, you could do those things, you know, be impossible now, and it was just a different era.
[01:09:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So I wanted to ask you about one more thing, and then I'll let you go. You've been a lot of great time with me again tonight.
But how much did. People from Columbus and Macon, of course, they were going to matches in their hometown, but were they coming to Atlanta?
[01:09:43] Speaker B: Sometimes not regularly, but yeah, sometimes they would.
I had a buddy that was. Me and him were partners in a. We owned an umpires association for several years, but Eddie was living in lagrange at the time. And Eddie would go to Columbus every Wednesday night, and he'd come to Atlanta every Friday night. So I know he was going to both.
But there again, there again, there was. With Leon booking in Columbus, he was doing things different than Tom was doing here in Atlanta. May have the same match.
I mean, every once in a while they'd do the same thing, but it wasn't very often, and there wasn't enough people that you really gave that a lot of thought to. Well, we can't do this because they may be here and they may not.
[01:10:25] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:10:25] Speaker B: I mean, you had some of the Die Hards. Some of the Die Hards went three nights a week. They'd go to Athens on Thursday, Atlanta on Friday, Saturday, they'd be at TV Saturday morning, and then they'd go to Carrollton, Griffin Saturday night. So, you know, you had those Die Hards that did that. But Tom was smart enough that he didn't, you know, overlap stuff so.
[01:10:45] Speaker C: Well, we need more Die Hards in today.
[01:10:48] Speaker B: I miss those days. Those people.
I love those people. They put food on my table for a lot of years.
And, you know, it's funny, of course, not as much now.
I just turned 70.
I started in the business when I was 17 on the road. That's 53 years ago.
I just.
I used to get recognized a lot. Not as much as now as I used to, but, man, it was just. It was such joy for people to say, hey, man, I used to go watch you.
The radio show that we. Like I say, or the podcast that me and Mike and Jerry did for so many years.
I had to have a cataract removed. And I went to my eye doctor and did all the preliminary. And I'm sitting there waiting on him to call me back to do the procedure, and this guy opens the door and he goes, you don't know me. But he introduced himself, and I can't tell you his name now, but he goes, I used to go to the auditorium when I was a kid, and he said, I just want you to know how much I enjoyed watching you work.
I wanted you to know how much I enjoy your radio show. I listen every week. He said, you helped me relive my childhood. And those kind of things just. I mean, those are priceless.
Talking to you about this stuff, man, brings back so many memories and so many things that. That. That we did, and.
And I just. I love it. I love it. I'm the product today. I don't care nothing about, but back then, I loved it.
[01:12:21] Speaker C: Well, I appreciate you spending some more time and sharing your memories with us. Bobby Simmons, everybody. Bobby, we'll do this again, man.
[01:12:29] Speaker B: Thank you, sir. You got my number, buddy. Anytime. I love it.
[01:12:33] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. Tune in for another great episode next next week, interviewing wrestlers, referees, and media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. Be sure to follow us on Facebook at Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. We'll release a new episode soon. Don't you dare miss it.
