Memphis Wrestling Presentation At the Memphis Library Tue NIght

Memphis Wrestling History Presentation

July 14, 2009 - Tuesday Night at 7pm

Benjamin L. Hook Central Library

3030 Poplar Ave.

Shelby County Room

4^th Floor

They contacted me a back in April and I thought it might be fun. Now I'm in the process of writing the entire thing up and hoping it's interesting, lol.  The presentation will cover the history of Memphis Wrestling (1920s through the 1980s), the fall of the regional wrestling promotion system and finally a "Where are they now" segment. Anyway, feel free to come and listen. The last part of the presentation will be a Q&A so think up any questions you've got and I'll do my best to answer them. I'll be bringing some old pictures, some old wrestling card posters from the 1960s and my Southern title belt if anyone wants to take a picture with a real belt.

Be sure to come up and say hi after the event.

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

Let's talk about 1982

For the past month, I’ve been working on getting my next book done, (Memphis Wrestling History Vol 3: Programs of 1982). The time I’ve been spending on researching 1982 Memphis Wrestling has given me a much better appreciation of that year. You had AWA world champion Nick Bockwinkel here a half a dozen times. On the other hand, you had NWA World champ Ric Flair who went as far as to defend the NWA world title on the Sat morning show, (against Jerry Lawler on Aug 14, 1982).

Probably the biggest news from Memphis Wrestling in 1982 was the match/feud between Jerry Lawler and Andy Kaufman. I’ve mentioned Andy here before, but it really brought Memphis Wrestling to the forefront of the wrestling world. When the two continued their feud on the David Letterman show, Memphis Wrestling was pushed into the national spotlight. Some have said that the reason Ric Flair came to Memphis that August was because Memphis was red hot.

For the next few weeks, most of my post will focus on Memphis Wrestling in 1982. It was a year jammed with tons of wrestling, feuds, craziness, etc.

By the way, if I haven’t mentioned it before, if anyone has any Memphis Wrestling related questions, please shoot me an email and I’ll post the answer here. If you’ve got any old Memphis Wrestling photos, programs, videos, (or whatever), please feel free to shoot me an email about them as well. I’ll be glad to post pictures of them on this blog and give you full credit!

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

I'm Back

Sorry for the lack of updates the past few weeks. Between vacationing in Las Vegas and then a backlog of work when I got back, I’ve really been missing in action. I promise that updates will now be back to normal.

A quick flashback pic from 30 years ago.

If anyone is interested in either of my Memphis Wrestling books, just go to Amazon.com and do a search on Memphis Wrestling History and my 2 books come up first.

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

CAC Convention Starts Monday

This Sunday I'm flying out to Las Vegas for the CAC's reunion. I've mentioned them before, but the CAC stands for the Cauliflower Alley Club and they bring together retired wrestlers and long time fans. Some of the wrestlers who are confirmed for the reunion are: Terry Funk, Nick Bockwinkel and Harley Race.

The reunion kicks off Monday at noon and I hope to be able to take a lot of pictures and maybe even a short video or two. Be sure to check back all next week because I'll post whatever I get here, (as time permits).

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

Photo Flashback: April 9, 2008

Today's photo flashback features the incredibly popular Memphis tag team of Rick and Robert Gibson. They teamed in Memphis from around 1977 thru the early 1980s.

Rick passed away in 2006 at the age of 53. In the mid-1980s, brother Robert went on to become a member of the even more popular tag team, the Rock n' Roll Express, (along with Rick Morton).

Here's a link to a great story about the career of Rick Gibson.

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

Photo Flashback: April 8, 2009

The Photo Flashback will be a regular part of this blog. This photo flashback is of the very successful Memphis tag team of Dennis Condrey and Phil Hickerson, way back in 1976.

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

April 7 Update: Maclin, Koko, & Minglewood Show

Saw this blurb on the Memphis Daily News website. Apparently Corey Maclin is throwing his hat in the ring and going to be running for Shelby County Clerk in the next County elections.

Not going to talk about the worthiness of his inclusion or not, but Koko Ware was inducted into the WWE’s Hall of Fame this past Sat Night. I’m really happy for Koko, I know he feels he was used and abused by wrestling promoters over the years and I hope this brings him some type of peace and happiness.

Also heard that the next Memphis Wrestling card will happen at Minglewood Hall on next Thursday, (April 16). I believe the main event features Doug Gilbert and Tommy Rich against Brian Christopher and Jerry Lawler.

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

Photo Flashback: March 30, 2009

Here's a quick photo flashback to the 1970s, featuring Tojo Yamamoto and Eddie Marlin.

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

Tigers Out, Remembering 1985 (MSU Tigers, Memphis Wrestling, etc)

Well, Tigers made it to the Sweet 16 before getting knocked out of the tournament Thursday night. Needless to say I didn’t get to sleep until after 3am Friday morning. What can I say; I’m a hopeless Tiger fan.

As I stewed after the Missouri loss, I’m not sure why, but it made me think of the Final 4 loss we had to Villanova all the way back in 1985. Like lined up dominoes, I went on to think about what else was going on 24 years ago. I was nearing the end of my senior year at Bartlett High School. It had to have been almost time for my senior. prom. That’s whole other story that I won’t get into, (even though I’m sure the statute of limitations has expired on all of it.)

This is a “Memphis Wrestling” blog and looking back on March 1985 (in my opinion and even though many disagree with me), I feel this time was starting the last year of what I call the “Glory Days” of Memphis Wrestling.  If you look at the attendance numbers, as well as the star power of the cards and the new talent coming up, the change can be seen clearly now. Even though it’s an unofficial thing, my view of the glory days in Memphis Wrestling start in the summer of 1974 and end somewhere in 1986, (the start of Jeff Jarrett).

Looking at March 1985, some of the big names were still here: Jerry Lawler, the Fabulous Ones (Steve Keirn & Stan Lane), Randy Savage, Eddie Gilbert, Tojo Yamamoto, Adrian Street, the Rock n Roll Express (Rick Morton & Robert Gibson), Plowboy Frazier and AWA World champ, Nick Bockwinkel.

One of the bigger names missing from the list is that of Jimmy Hart. In Feb of that year, Hart lost a loser-leaves-town match with Jerry Lawler. What really happened was Jimmy had signed a big contract to work for Vince McMahon and the WWF. An interesting tidbit to the story, (from an interview I did last year with Jimmy Hart) is in that Hart wasn’t even in that final match with Lawler. Vince wanted Hart to come to New York immediately and Jimmy was afraid that Lawler was upset with him for leaving. In the past, whenever Lawler had some “issues” with Jimmy, the King was known to throw a realistic punch or two, (that ended up breaking Hart’s jaw.) Jimmy lined up a guy up for the match that looked just like him and left town before the match.

Speaking of the WWF, they weren’t done with Memphis. Just 3 months later Vince McMahon signed Randy Savage to a big contract and made him a big star.

Back to March, Jerry Lawler and Randy Savage were trading the Southern title back and forth. The Fabs were still the top team in Memphis and were feuding with a new version of the 1970s team, the Interns.

Even though the decline was at hand, 1986 had an amazing feud with Bill Dundee and Buddy Landell against Jerry Lawler and Dutch Mantell. At one point, Dundee slapped announcer Lance Russell, who in turn walked off the show. Dundee and Landell took over the Sat morning show and renamed it the “Bill and Buddy Show”. Even though he wasn’t anywhere near the biggest guy in the ring, Dundee was a very convincing heel.

Looking back on the Tigers Final 4 loss of 1985, the ending of my high school years on top of the impending decline of Memphis Wrestling, 1985 was a big year in my memories.

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History

Tigers get a win in the first round of the NCAA tourny

Tigers had a tough first round battle against Cal State Northridge, but got the win behind Roburt Sallie’s 10 – 3 pointers. Sallie, who scored a total of 35 points, scored the most points ever by a Tiger in the NCAA tournament. It’s a good thing he did, because the other Tigers, some of who are reportedly coming off of the flu (Evans, Taggart), played way below their normal levels.

I know this is a “Memphis Wrestling” blog, and I’m now talking about the Tigers. There is a tie-in, I promise. In my youth (1981-1985), there were 2 things that helped me sleep well at night. The first involved Memphis Wrestling. As I’ve mentioned before, the truly devoted Memphis Wrestling fan, who never missed a show, actually cared who the Southern title was on. We bought into it, (hook, line and sinker.) I remember watching the channel 5 newscast every Monday night at 10pm just to hear Jack Eaton give the results to that night’s wrestling card. If Jerry Lawler victorious and still champion, I could lay my head down and sleep easy that night, knowing all was well in my small corner of the world. If Lawler lost, there was trouble in my world and endless time was spent pondering what went wrong that week.

The second thing that could guarantee a good sleep was the Memphis State Tigers winning the big games. Back in those days, the Tigers were in the old Metro Conference and if they were facing the Louisville Cardinals, or Virginia Tech, etc, it was considered a big game. Almost a quarter of a century later, the names of those players still roam around my brain, (Keith Lee, Otis Jackson, Andre Turner, Bobby Parks, Vincent Askew, Doom Haynes, William Bedford, Dwight Boyd, Baskerville Holmes, etc). In later years, I was never a fan of Coach Larry Finch, Dana Kirk, (problems and all) was more to my liking.

With the Tigers winning their first round game on Thursday, I had no problems sleeping last night. Knowing the Tigers have their second round game against Maryland tomorrow afternoon, I’m sure there’s already some grumblings going on deep within my subconscious. Here’s hoping they live up to their record.

Mark
Memphis Wrestling History