Pro Grappling:
Punches, Pulls and Holds Attract Snarling Zealots
The Daily Tar Heel – January 29, 1975
By: Marty Lagod
The inviting smell of popcorn and pepperoni pizza fills the
air in Dorton Arena. Concession operators busily hawk their wares as fans file
into the arena. Married couples have brought their children; bespeckled
grandmothers, their grandchildren; and college students, their dates. Blacks,
whites, young, old, blue collar and businessmen have all paid their $3.50 to
see the same thing – Championship Wrestling.
Some of the best will be there – Paul Jones, Tiger Conway
and the Super Destroyer. Big time
wrestling. The same stuff that draws capacity crowds once a month to
Madison Square Garden and holds attendance records at large arenas all over the
country.
Tonight’s crowd of 2,000 will be treated to three single
bouts and a special main event – a “Texas Tornado” tag team match.
Ric Flair and the Super Destroyer, two of the bad guys in
the Tornado match, stalk about nervously while the crowd warms up watching
Kevin Sullivan and Tim “The Outlaw” Dillinger battle in the ring. Sullivan, the
crowd favorite, is being beaten to the apparent brink of death. He groans
loudly every time The Outlaw resorts
to illegal hair pulling and leaping from the top of the ring ropes.
“We’ve got names for guys like you,” yells a rotten-toothed
spectator in a monogrammed service station shirt, “but we can’t say ‘em cause
there’s a lady present.” With this encouragement, Sullivan recovers from his
scrape with death to make a lightning comeback and win the match with the
feared “Japanese Sleeper Hold.”
Meanwhile, a young girl approaches the 270 pound Flair and
asks for his autograph. “I don’t sign
nothing for nobody,” the Super Destroyer growls.
Back in the ring, the crowd is cheering madly as Mike
Paducis, a former University of Tennessee football player, makes a brilliant
comeback to defeat his opponent with the lethal “Boston Crab” submission hold.
The stage is set for the main event.
A fan jeers, “Ric Flair, you’re nothing but a long-haired
hippie. Look at them flowered pants! Paul Jones is going to clean this place up
– all these sissies.” Flair glares at the fan. His partners are greeted with
similar niceties.
On the other side of the ring, Tiger Conway and Sonny King
are welcome as conquering heroes, but the standing ovation is reserved for Paul
Jones, 1974s most popular wrestler.
Jones bounces into the ring looking like Captain America,
complete with a red, white and blue jacket boasting stars on the sleeves.
The fans look worried as the wrestling begins and the Super
Destroyer beats all three of the good guys to the mat. He pokes Conway in the
eyes and is about to stomp on Jones head when the Tiger stages a comeback by
smashing the Destroyer and his two partners with his rock-hard head.
The crowd is now on its feet screaming, snarling, cursing
and moving closer to the ring. The frenzied are about to rush the mat when
Conway finally rescues the subdued Jones from the Super Destroyer who is
choking him with the cord of a ring-side microphone and pounding his head with
the mike itself. Renewed, Jones fiercely throws the Russian to the mat and
holds him for the three count.
Justice, good, America and apple pie have prevailed as the
three seemingly groggy losers are escorted away in disgrace by the police. The
fans, limp and emotionally drained, file out quietly.
The man behind all this wrestling extravaganza is Joe
Murnick, the “M” of C&M Promotions. Murnick has been promoting professional
wrestling for the past 17 years in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
He has promoted everything from stock racing to rock concerts.
Murnick also produces the syndicated television wrestling
program for the same three state area.
The television program is one of the most successful locally produced
programs, despite the fact that it is shown at 11:30 on Saturday nights.
“We have to be constantly aware of the demands of the fans,”
Murnick says. “The fans are the key to this business. If we don’t get the fans, we don’t make any
money, and that’s what it’s all about – making money.”
“We have good, regular fans. Some have been sitting in the
same seats for years. You would play
hell trying to move them somewhere else.
There’s the story of the guy with two broken legs that was brought here
every Tuesday night by an ambulance while he had his casts on. He still claimed
his regular front row seat.”
“People want to see plenty of action and lots of excitement.
A good class A wrestler (one who
wrestles in main events) can make $70,000 to $80,000 a year, depending on how
often he wrestles and whether or not he gets hurt. Guys in the preliminary matches make
$15,000-$20,000 a year if they wrestle often enough.”
“Ken Patera and Chris Taylor were both Olympic performers
before they started wrestling. To make money, these guys must wrestle as often
as possible. If you think that this stuff is fake, just sign the waiver of
liability and get into the ring. Any
wrestler would be very happy to show you just how fake it really is. We’ve had
to carry many a wrestler to the hospital for treatment after a tough
match. We’ve had some wild matches. One
policeman told me he didn’t consider it to be really wild until people start
throwing chairs, but that only happens once or twice a year.”
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Thanks to Carroll Hall for providing this article and to Peggy Lathan for transcribing this article for us.
