Episode 130 - Some Jackets Required

Don Fargo and his new Fabulous Fargos (Ken Timbs and Pat Rose) with host Christopher Love (Bert Prentice) from a 1987 episode of World Organization Wrestling

We’re happy to welcome back Al Getz (@AlGetzWrestling) to discuss the latest edition of his Charting the Territories books, this one covering 1971-1973 Gulf Coast Wrestling. We talk about the main players in the territory at this time, including Cowboy Bob Kelly, Bobby Shane, Don Fargo and Rip Tyler, as well as future stars like Kevin Sullivan, Steve Keirn, Ron Bass and Greg Valentine, wrestling as Don’s brother Johnny Fargo. We talk about the towns the promotion ran and some of the interesting ways they crowned champions there (not with belts or trophies).

Then, as we did recently with Beau James, we talk about the travails of being a wrestling historian, covering a business that’s built on a lie. How hard is it to get “accurate” data on things like shows, box office and the like? And Al talk us through his methodology, both online and boots on the ground research.

We chat about Al being inducted into the Tragos/Thesz Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo, Iowa, getting the James C. Melby Historian Award.

The show ends with some quick baseball chat, with the season just a week old and Al’s Atlanta Braves being the only National League East team with a winning record. He also tells us about his first road trip of the year and dealing with weather issues with early spring baseball in the Midwest.

And the next episode of the Charting the Territories will look at Dick the Bruiser’s WWA in Indianapolis coming next week.

Episode 116 - It's a Family Affair # 4 - La Vie en Rose

The Natural Blonds, Ken Timbs and Pat Rose, with Chris Love (Bert Prentice) from WOW TV. in 1987.

It’s been a while, but this is episode number four of the It’s a Family Affair episode of the podcast. We’re very happy to welcome to the show for the first time, and hopefully not the last, veteran wrestler Pat Rose.

We go over a good chunk of Pat’s career, starting with Nick Gulas in Chattanooga in 1979, working most of the territories in the 1980s and then retiring in the mid 1990s.

Of particular note for us here on this pod is both his time in Southeastern and Continental, teaming with first his boyhood idol Mr. Wrestling II and later Randy Rose as the Rose Cousins and, more importantly, his time in the short-lived independent promotion World Organization Wrestling (WOW).

You’ve heard us talk about WOW here on the pod with Armstrong Alley, who has about 8 months of the promotion on his YouTube channel and on Between the Sheets, when we talked about the week in December 1987 when Nick Gulas showed up on set with Christopher Love (Bert Prentice) and had a showdown with Don Fargo, Ken Timbs and Pat himself.

We talk about the promotion’s start, who was in charge and a number of the wrestlers who came in and out of the territory, including Bob Sweetan, Bob Holly, Marcel Pringle, Bad Company, Samu and Kokina (Yokozuna) and others.

There’s also talk about his time in Memphis with Dr. Tom Prichard and Sherri Martel as the Heavenly Bodies, how they got put together, the run’s premature end and the “Dear John” letter Pat read on live Memphis TV when Tom and Sherri left the area.

We also talk to Pat about working with people like Lord Humongous (Jeff Van Camp), Sid Vicious, the Master of Pain (The Undertaker) and how important it was for guys like him to make those guys look like stars.

To wrap up, Pat tells us about his fishing show Set the Hook, how it got started, where you can hear it and also his son’s country music career.

We had a great time talking to Pat and hopefully he will be back on the show with more stories from his time in the business.

Episode 111 - Let's Go to the Videotape

The American Ninja from Texas Championship Wrestling.

We’re happy to welcome for the first time to the show, Kris P Lettuce (@krisplettuce), the man behind the Armstrong Alley You Tube channel. We discussed the treasure trove of found footage he has been posting on his channel featuring independent wrestling from the 1980s., 1990s and 2000s.

First up, we talked about his channel and the origins of all this footage, including a subject we’ve been talking a lot lately on the show, tape trading. Just how big was the list of footage from which he was choosing?

From there, we talk about a number of short-lived promotions, including: Austin Idol’s 1993 USA Wrestling, the 1987 Alabama promotion World Organization Wrestling, the 1990-91 Texas Championship Wrestling, the 1991 Nashville International Wrestling Alliance, the 1990 Arkansas International Pro Wrestling, The 1990-91 North American Wrestling Assocation/South Atlantic Pro Wrestling and more. There’s a littany of people we mention here: Idol, Junkyard Dog, the Bullet and the other Armstrongs, Bob Holly, Bill Ash, Stunning Steve Austin, Paul Jones, Robert Fuller, Willie the Wrestling Clown and even Nick Gulas.

There’s also chat about Southeastern/Continental, missing and found footage, Ron Wright and Ron’s Championship Wrestling, wrestling fan subcultures, Kris’ new Patreon, wrestling books, what footage he hopes to get next and more.

Note: The next episode of The Plot should feature two spy-themed Silver Age comics and should be out in a week or two. Thanks for listening.

Episode 105 - Tyger, Tyger

A 1912 T202 Hassan Triple Folder tobacco card featuring Hughie Jennings and Ty Cobb.

We’re happy to finally have filmmaker, journalist and author Greg Klein (@JYDbook) on the pod for a chat his new book, his old book and more..

To start, we discuss Greg’s new book, The Paper Tigers, a fictional account of a real-life incident in baseball history. After Ty Cobb was suspended in 1912 for going into the stands and attacking a fan, his teammates refused to play a game in Philadelphia, leaving manager Hughie Jennings to find replacement players. The novel tells the story of some of those players, including two con men and a seminary student., with the central character being a local barmaid who was the sister of one of the con men and married to the other. We talk about how Greg got the idea for the book, which was originally a screenplay, balancing facts and historical fiction, the truth behind Cobb’s attack on the fan, the connection to the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, baseball movies and more.

(22:20) - From there, it’s mostly wrestling chat. We talk about Greg’s book The King of New Orleans about the Junkyard Dog, Sylvester Ritter. We talk about Greg’s fandom growing up in suburban DC but also getting to see Houston wrestling, the rise of JYD in Mid-South Wrestling for Bill Watts, his popularity in New Orleans and the rest of the territory, his leaving for the WWF, Watts trying to replace him with other black wrestlers, Greg meeting JYD in later years and more. We also talk about our shared love of Mid-South as a whole, some of its more famous angles, the transition to the UWF, studio wrestling vs arena wrestling and lot of other wrestling topics.

There were a lot of planned topics left on the table, including Greg now living in Cooperstown and how the Baseball Hall of Fame was effected by the pandemic and past and present work stoppages in the sport, his wrestling career and being trained by Adrian Street and lots of other fun stuff, so we will definitely try to get Greg back on in the future.

Note: We had some Skype issues during recording, so hopefully the editing was not too egregious and the flow of the conversation was maintained.

Thanks for listening.

Episode 100 - Family Affair #3 - Caged Heat

The sons vow to avenge their father.

We had such great plans for episode 100. Unfortunately, life gets in the way sometimes. We had lined up a bunch of folks to discuss the night that changed Continental Championship Wrestling, when Robert Fuller turned on Bob Armstrong in a steel cage and joined the Stud Stable with his brother Ron and cousin Jimmy in August 1985. But, due to all the sad wrestling news from this week, we were left with the only piece of the show that was recorded before the deaths of Jody Hamilton, Bert Prentice and Bobby Eaton.

So, we welcome back Karl Stern (@WIWCool) from When It Was Cool to talk about the fateful evening. We discuss the build-up to the cage match, not just from the start of Continental in June, but seeds that had been planted for years in the long-running Armstrong family feud with the Fuller/Golden/Welch clan. Then we analyze the match and the angle, including one part of the story that bugged Karl for many years.

We follow that up with a more general discussion of Continental and Southeastern, including why some parts of the wrestling community have overlooked or ignore the contributions made by Roy Welch, Buddy Fuller and Ron Fuller over the years.

The show wraps up with some comic book talk, as Karl had been gushing online about the first issue of the new Moon Knight comic, so we chat about that and whether this version will tie into the new Disney/Marvel TV show featuring the man of many personalities.

We have some shows lined up in the future, so hopefully those will materialize. Given all the problems we have had with guests lately, we don’t feel confident giving a timetable anymore. But thanks for listening for any and all of the first 100 episodes.

Episode Ninety-Eight - The Warrior of the Wasteland

The Lord Humongous (Jeff Van Camp) from his Mid-South debut in 1985.

The It’s a Family Affair podcast makes its return with a very special guest, Jeff Von Camp aka Lord Humongous (Continental/Mid-South version). We discuss how Jeff was broken into the business by Jerry Lawler, cutting his teeth in Indianapolis teaming with Dick the Bruiser, being given the Humongous gimmick, working in Southeastern/Continental for the Fullers, joining the Stud Stable, turning babyface, wrestling Ric Flair for the NWA World title and some of his opponents in Pensacola, including Porkchop Cash, Bob Armstrong and The Flame (Jody Hamilton). We then go over his move to Mid-South, where he could have gone at the time, his debut angle with Dick Murdoch, being managed by Sir Oliver Humperdink, teaming with Nord the Barbarian and his memorable feud with Jake Roberts. We end by talking about why he left the business after such a short time and his career after that.

Amazingly, I forgot to ask about the thing I was most curious: the Mid-South Lord Humongous music video,, set to War Machine by Kiss (see below). Jeff was nice enough to tell me after the show that it was Bill Watts’ idea and it was shot at a body shop in Watts’ hometown of Bixby, Oklahoma.

Thanks to Jeff for talking about his brief-but-memorable time in the business. We hope to have more wrestlers from that era on the podcast in the future so stay tuned. Thanks for listening.

Episode Ninety-Seven - Nothing Could be Finer

Jim Crockett Jr shakes hands with Paul Ellering at the 1986 Crockett Cup as Bill Watts and Elizabeth Crockett look on.

We’re happy to welcome back Beau James (@kingofkingsport) to the show for another history lesson.

First, we discuss the recent passing of Jim Crockett Jr, who ran Jim Crockett Promotions from 1973 until selling the company to Turner Broadcasting in 1988. JCP promoted in the Tri-Cities, when Beau saw his first live shows in the early 1980s. We talk about how Jim Crockett Sr promoted there before moving to North Carolina in the 1930s, the history of the Crocketts promoting the area off and on over the years, including once the Knoxville War ended in 1979 and eventually taking over the territory when it was sold by Ric Flair and Blackjack Mulligan. We also talk about them running in the late 1980s there, including a record-setting show in Kingsport in 1987.

After that, we spend a good while talking about Ron Fuller’s Southeastern Wrestling in Knoxville and Pensacola and Continental Championship Wrestling., including the 1977 time period Ron is currently discussing on his podcast and the 1980s stuff that will be part of the It’s A Family Affair project, which you can find elsewhere on the website. All the names you would expect to hear are brought up: Ron Wright, Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden. Ron Garvin, the Mongolian Stomper and many more.

Of course, plenty of other stuff too, as you would expect when Beau is on the show, including some baseball chat and an update on Beau’s health issues. It’s always great to talk to the King of Kingsport.

Episode Ninety-Five - New Math

Danny Hodge on the cover of the April 1, 1957 issue of Sports Illustrated.

We’re happy to have the debut on the pod this week of Al Getz (@AlGetzwrestling) from Charting the Territories for a wide ranging conversation.

First, we discuss the life and times of Danny Hodge, who passed away last week at the age of 88. One of Al’s main areas of research is the Leory McGuirk territory, Hodge’s home for most of his career. We discuss Hodge’s amateur accomplishments in both wrestling and boxing, his transition to pro wrestling and his career highlights. Al has a number of great stories about Hodge, both in his younger days and the unfortunate end of his in-ring tenure following a car accident.

After that, we talk about an article Al wrote about the early career of pod favorite Buddy Landell. We talk about his start in Poffo’s ICW and his journey up the card until becoming a main eventer in Memphis, during his infamous run in 1986 teaming with Bill Dundee. We talk about his time in Mid-South, Mid-Atlantic and Puerto Rico. This leads to a wonderful digression about the journey wrestlers go on in finding the right persona to adopt in the ring.

We also talk about the statistical-based Al uses on his website and podcast to evaluate wrestlers, how it was inspired by baseball sabermetrics and the folly of using traditional sports metrics to try and analyze pro wrestling. There are also some fun stories about indy wrestling, involving folks like King Kong Bundy and the Honky Tonk Man.

Thanks for listening. Work is slowly continuing on our new It’s A Family Affair project, with a few weeks of Continental TV recapped on the website. We hope to have the next episode of the podcast up soon with a former wrestler as guest. Stay turned for more information. We hope you enjoy the show.

Episode Ninety-Four - It's a Family Affair Number One

Ron Fuller on the Continental Championship Wrestling set.

We are happy to debut the first episode of the “It’s A Family Affair” Podcast, the companion piece to the website project of the same name examining Continental Championship Wrestling. And for our first show, it’s great to welcome back Karl Stern (@WIWCool) to the show. Not only is Karl a wrestling historian, but an Alabama native who grew up watching Southeastern Wrestling and saw its transition to Continental.

In a very wide-ranging discussion, we talk about the transition of the promotion in June 1985, the logistics of the change, why they changed names, format and even announcers, bringing in Gordon Solie to replace longtime host Charlie Platt. We talk about where the promotion was in terms of angles they were running at the time and what they did on the debut show, including bringing in world champion Ric Flair to kick off the first episode.

After that, quite frankly, we just all over the place, talking about just about everything related to the company, including their start in Knoxville in 1974, Ron Fuller acquiring the Gulf Coast terrritory and renaming it Southeastern in 1978, the towns they ran and where the TV show was seen in that part of the country. We talk about Ron Fuller’s career as a wrestler and promoter, including whether we think buying Knoxville cost him the change of being NWA World Champion .

And we discuss just about every name you can think of from this era: Robert Fuller, Jimmy Golden, all of the Armstrongs (Bob, Brad, Scott and Steve), Adrian Street, Rip Rogers, Austin Idol, Tommy and Johnny Rich, the Nightmares (Danny Davis and Ken Wayne), Tom Prichard, Tony Anthony, Jerry Stubbs, The Flame (also known as the Assassin), Roy Lee Welch, Bill Ash, Lord Humongous and more.

We also talk about Karl’s When It Was Cool website, a wide ranging popular culture site, very akin to our own. We even find time to talk about Southern Basterds, then now missing in action comic set in the part of Alabama Karl knows very well.

The goal of the podcast is not only have wrestling journalists and historians on the show, but also the wrestlers were that is possible.

Note: You can also hear me on an upcoming episode of Ron Fuller’s Super Stud Cast, where I can to ask Ron about the creation of Continental and hear how it happened from the man himself.

Be sure to check out the It’s A Family Affair section of the website for a look at the Continental television shows and other articles about the promotion. Thanks for your time.

Episode Ninety-One - Long and Lean and the color of the sun

The Tennessee Stud, Charlie Platt and Bob Armstrong. Not pictured: Ron Fuller.

We are beyond thrilled to welcome The (original) Tennessee Stud Ron Fuller (@RonFullerWelch) to the podcast for the first time (hopefully not the last) to discuss a wide variety of topics.

First, we discuss Ron’s new novel Brutus, about a cunning and deadly man-eating lion that gets loose in the Smoky Mountain National Park. We talk about how long ago Ron wrote the book, how it got published, some (but not all) of the plot, the characters involved, how writing can be like being a wrestling booker, comparing Brutus to the Mongolian Stomper and more.

From there, we pay tribute to the late Bullet Bob Armstrong, who passed away a few ago as of recording. Ron talks about his long friendship and business relationship with Bob outside the ring and some of the famous angles with and against him in the ring. We talk about how Bob excelled at being a heel for the first time and discuss the psychology of heels growing mustaches.

This segues into a chat about Ron’s promotions in Knoxville and Pensacola and some of the folks he worked with in those places, including some Ron Wright stories.

Lastly, we talk about how Ron ended up in hockey, owning teams in Nashville and Cincinnati, bringing wrestling showmanship to the ice and the resistance that entailed and how he helped pave the way for the successes the NHL has found with the Nashville Predators.

There’s also talk about doing the Studcast, the Super Studcast, the largest wrestling family in American history, playing against Artis Gilmore in college, watching his dad stretch Elvis in the family barn, and so much more. You can buy Brutus from Amazon or you can get it from Ron directly at tnstud.com, where you can get an autographed copy.

This might be one of my favorite episodes, getting to talk Southern Rasslin’ with someone so important to its history. We didn’t get to talk about so many topics that we can’t wait to have Ron on again.

Episode Eighty-Eight - Let Loose the Cannons

Ron Wright, Dennis Condrey and Phil Hickerson from a 1978 episode of Southeastern Wrestling.

We are thrilled that today’s episode featuring what we hope is the first of many podcast appearances by the longtime wrestler/announcer/trainer/promoter Les Thatcher (@LesThatcher). The main reason we invited Les to come on the show was to talk about the just-passed 20th anniversary of the 2000 edition of the Brian Pillman Memorial Show, which featured a famous match between Chris Benoit and William (then Steven Regal). We talk about that match, the creation of the Pillman Memorial Shows, the Mark Curtis (Brian Hildebrand) Fantasy Camps and some great news about how people will soon be able to see many of those matches.

Speaking of lost footage, we talk about the 1978 episode of Southeastern Wresting that was just posted to Youtube (see link below). Les explains his part in getting that tape out to the wrestling watching public, the creation of the revolutionary television program with Ron Fuller (@RonFullerWelch), working Knoxville for at least five different companies, teaming with Whitey Caldwell vs the Wright Brothers and more.

We only scratched the surface of Les’ 60 year career, so we definitely want to have him back to talk working in the Maritimes, characters like The Mongolian Stomper and Kevin Sullivan and too much to list here. And don’t forget Les is still doing wrestling seminars with folks like Dr. Tom Prichard (@drtomprichard).

Episode Eighty-Five Splendid Isolation Four

Jerry Lawler, Dave Brown and Scott Bowden. RIP Scott.

First off, condolences to the friends and family of Scott Bowden, who died earlier this week. We had been talking to Scott the last couple weeks about returning to the podcast to talk Memphis wrestling and even were Tweeting with him a few days ago.

On the show we are finally to nabbed The King of Kingsport Beau James (@kingofkingsport) to be on the show. We start by remembering Scott, as Beau had just done his Kentucky Fried Rasslin’ podcast not that long ago. As one of the foremost experts on East Tennessee wrestling, we pick Beau’s brain on all things about the Knoxville/Southeastern/Continental/USA territory, so plenty of stories about Ron and Don Wright, Whitey Caldwell, Les Thatcher, Ron and Robert Fuller,, Jimmy Golden, Ron Garvin and many more folks. We also talk about Memphis, including the angle (see below) when Robert Fuller brought back Nick Gulas to do an angle about the control of the promotion. There’s way too many stories to listen here, including Beau’s long friendships with Buddy Landell and Jimmy Valiant, starting in the business at 16 years old, indy wrestling horror stories and so much more. Easily one of my favorites podcasts, as Beau is a master storyteller. If you want more, be sure to check out his new Patreon and his King of Kingsport website.

Episode Eighty-Four - Splendid Isolation Number Three

They Buried The Cowboy Under the Russian Flag!

We’re back with an extra-special edition of the new Splendid Isolation podcast series, as we welcome back Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) from Wrestling Observer Live and the Mid Atlantic Championship Podcast (@midatlanticpod).

We kick if off with a long chat about Bill Watts and the UWF, discussing how hot the promotion began after the name change from Mid-South Wrestling and its expansion outside its home region into places like Baltimore, where young Mike and slightly older Mark watched it in the spring of 1986. We reminisce about the initial title switches, promoting the Jim Crockett Sr Memorial Cup and one of the greatest angles of all-time, one so good we named a spin-off magazine after it: Eddie Gilbert and the Russians burying Watts under the USSR flag. We bracket that with the UWF TV show after the promotion was bought by JCP and just how quickly the show changed.

One of the other big topics covered is Mike’s new Mid-Atlantic Championshop Podcast, which he co-hosts with Roman Gomez. We talk about how the show started, why they chose 1982 as a starting point, some of the main players in the territory at the time and plenty of other JCP topics, including the Final Conflict show in 1983 and play WHAT IF? with various wrestlers (What if Gino had come in 1986? What if Buddy Landell had shown up for that TV taping?).

There’s plenty of other chat for the rest of the podcast, not limited to: the state of the territories by the mid 1980s, the hidden gem that was Southeastern Wrestling, the greatness of Ron Fuller’s Studcast podcast, classic 1980s TV and a brief chat at the end about sports uniforms.

Mike is always a great guest, so big thanks for him for giving so much of his time. We have more shows planned for the future, branching out in topics, so keep an eye out for them. Thanks for listening.

Episode Seventy-Nine - Handsome

Did anyone put more bounties on their opponents than Harley?

We welcome back Wrestling Observer Live’s Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) to the pod, to discuss the life and times of former NWA champion Harley Race, who passed away on August 1 at the age of 76. We discuss the amazing obstacles Harley overcame to become one of the most admired and respected wrestlers on the modern era. We also look at some of his career highlights, opponents and angles. In addition to the appreciation of Handsome Harley, we chat about wrestling history, the greatness of the @RonFullerWelch podcast, the place of the Welch/Fuller dynasty in wrestling history, Jim Barnett, Jerry Jarrett, Ron Wright, Les Thatcher, the Knoxville 5 tape, the old school Wrestling Observer newsletter, watching wrestling in the pre-cable era and much more. An extra-sized show this episode, fitting to discuss the greatest wrestler on god’s green earth.