WDBJ-7 in Roanoke Builds Its Own Wrestling Ring (1961)

Wrestling Ring Is Homemade
Roanoke Times, September 23, 1961

Ch. 7's new regulation-size wrestling ring is a masterpiece of sturdy, yet intricate building engineering.
Built to professional specifications, the ring measures 18 feet square, with flooring of three-quarter inch plywood, covered with a foam rubber cushion one inch thick, and with a finished surface of canvas.

Support for the ring is provided with 2x10-inch timbers spaced two feet apart, with eight-foot corner posts of white oak eight inches square.

The ropes enclosing the ring are cable, covered with a good grade of rubber hosing tightened by means of turnbuckles which are fastened to the corner posts.

The ring is designed for easy disassembling, since it is connected with five-eighths-inch bolts, and can then be placed on dollies and rolled to storage in the adjoining prop room. Each Saturday evening after "Wrestling From Roanoke," the ring is disassembled and stored until the following week's match.

The construction of the ring is the handiwork of Charles Verna, of the WDBJ-TV staff, with the help of an assistant.

All-Star Wrestling Cancelled on WDBJ-7 (1967)

  

 

Roanoke, VA's "All-Star Wrestling" program debuted live from the studios of WDBJ-7 in mid-1960. The popular program ran for nearly seven years until an ugly on-air incident led to its cancellation by the station.

Johnny Weaver told us that WDBJ pulled the show following an ugly on-air racial incident between Ike Eakins and Luther Lindsay. This took place in early January, 1967.

For nearly six months, Roanoke promoter Pete Apostolou was without television wrestling to support his  weekly cards in Roanoke, as well as surrounding towns including Salem and Lynchburg, VA. Gates suffered during this time.

Roughly six months later though, in July of 1967, Apostolou was able to get the Raleigh version of "All-Star Wrestling" (later known as "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling") on to another Roanoke station, WSLS channel 10. Taped in the studios of WRAL channel 5 in Raleigh, the show was hosted by Bob Caudle. For many years, well into the 1970s, WSLS ran the old familiar Roanoke All-Star Wrestling logo over the Raleigh opening. It featured two cartoon wrestlers and the announcement that the program was presented by the Roanoke Sports Club.

Crockett TV Broadcast Map 1960

 

This information flyer was apparently given to local event promoters throughout the Carolinas and Virginia in hopes of JCP to expand their "spot shows" in the region. It touted the burgeoning television presence of Jim Crockett Promotions professional wrestling television shows that would help these promoters build their gates. The local promoters would book their talent from Jim Crockett out of Charlotte.

At the point in time this graphic was published (late 1959 or very early 1960), Crockett had live TV already being taped and aired in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Roanoke, with High Point NC and Greenville SC soon to follow. What isn't clear is if Crockett hoped to have additional live or live-to-tape locations at the other stations listed on this flyer, or if they were to simply carry a tape from one of the other live shows.  

Some notes on the television stations featured here:

WBTV Charlotte NC
Jim Crockett began airing live wrestling on Channel 3 in Charlotte in January of 1958. The program, called simply "Championship Wrestling" was live at first and later would be taped and aired on a slight delay.

WFBC Greenville SC
Channel 4 in Greenville actually began airing live wrestling from its studio in 1956, nearly a year and a half before WBTV did in Charlotte. That first foray lasted only 3 months. It appears it was the very first television for Jim Crockett Promotions wrestling.  WFBC's second attempt at live wrestling came in March of 1960, just a month later than this graphic indicates the start date would be for TV wrestling in Greenville. That second stint of live studio wrestling ended in December 1961. At that point, WFBC began carrying the tape from Raleigh.  

WRAL Raleigh NC
Channel 4 in Raleigh began airing its own live studio wrestling in January of 1959, one year after the WBTV tapings began. Most other TV stations in the growing JCP network carried the tape from Raleigh, titled "All Star Wrestling." Fourteen years later, WRAL would be the site where all JCP televison production would be consolidated. 

WDBJ Roanoke VA
Channel 7 in Roanoke began airing live wrestling from its studio in 1960, where it lasted for local promoter Pete Aposolou for seven years, when they began carrying the Raleigh tape.

WFMY Greensboro NC
While live wrestling may have been planned for WFMY channel 2 in Greensboro in June of 1960, it appears it never came to fruition. In fact, it appears WFMY never carried a Crockett tape at any point. (We welcome new information.) Another TV station in that same DMA market, WGHP channel 8 out of High Point, began airing its own live-to-tape studio wrestling for Jim Crockett in February of 1964. That lasted until the great consolidation to Raleigh in 1974.

Richmond VA
At the time of this information flyer, it seems clear JCP wanted to have a live TV presence in Richmond, similar to WBTV or WRAL, to support the work of long time Richmond promoter Bill Lewis, now working with Jim Crockett in Charlotte. No doubt Lewis was working to secure an arrangement with a station there, but it never happened. Lewis died in 1961. WTVR channel 6 eventually became the station that would carry the wrestling tape from Raleigh NC on its airwaves for decades. By that point, both Raleigh and Richmond were promoted by Raleigh promoter Joe Murnick, working for Jim Crockett.

WNCT Greenville NC
WECT Wilmington NC
Apparently both of these stations were to begin carrying a tape from JCP in 1960, with the tentative date being that June. By the 1970s though neither station would be carrying a Crockett tape. The Wilmington station would eventually be carrying the Championship Wrestling from Florida show. More information is needed on these two stations listed here.

We are also looking for information on Jack Partlow and Hal Van Horn listed as contacts in Charlotte on this information flyer.  

Thanks to Scott Teal for originally sending this image to us.  

 

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Saturday Wrestling Smorgasbord in 1974

This TV Sports listing from an August 1974 edition of TV Guide (East Tennessee/Carolina edition) is chock full of wrestling shows from several territories, including Mid-Atlantic, Knoxville, Memphis, and All-South Wrestling.

 

Here are some specifics and context:

At 1:00 PM on WFBC-4 from Greenville, SC it was Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, hosted by Bob Caudle in the same traditional time-slot in appeared in for decades. Up until recently, the show had been named All-Star Wrestling until promoter John Ringly (a top lieutenant for Jim Crockett, Sr.) came up with the Mid-Atlantic name.

At 2:00 PM on WKPT-19 in Kingsport, TN, was likely an edited version of the Memphis show hosted by Lance Russell, simply titled Wrestling as I believe Kingsport was run by the Jarretts at this time.

At 2:30 PM on WBTV-3 from Charlotte, NC, was Championship Wrestling with Big Bill Ward from the WBTV studios. Just a month or two later, all of Jim Crockett's TV wrestling would be consolidated to Raleigh in the studios of WRAL-5.

At 2:30 on WJHL-11 out of Johnson City was likely the old Knoxville show Wide World of Wrestling hosted by Big Jim Hess, which was promoted by John Cazana, just prior to Ron Fuller's buying of the territory, which was in late 1974.

At 3:00 PM on WRET-36 from Charlotte, it was Mid-Atlantic Wrestling hosted by Bob Caudle, (a rare time when the show was identified as such in TV guide!) This was the Raleigh show, since channel 3 was still producing their own studio show, which, as mentioned above, was soon to end. 

At 6:30 on WTVK-26 from Knoxville was Wide World of Wrestling hosted by 'Big" Jim Hess, the locally-taped Knoxville show promoted for years by the Cazana family until purchased by Ron Fuller in late 1974. It was loosely affiliated with Gulas promotions out of Nashville, from where they booked a lot of talent. Soon after buying the territory, Ron Fuller would move the taping of his show to WBIR-10 in Knoxville, rename it Southeastern Championship Wrestling, and hire Les Thatcher to host.

Also at 6:30 on WRET-36 in Charlotte was All-South Wrestling, the non-NWA "outlaw"show promoted by Ann Gunkle and hosted by Ed Capral, the previous longtime host of Georgia wrestling in Atlanta. All-South would soon go out of business, and Capral was hired by Jim Crockett, Jr. to host his brand new Wide World Wrestling syndicated show out of Raleigh in 1975.

Finally at 11:15 on WLOS-13 from Asheville was Championship Wrestling with Charlie Harville, which was a Jim Crockett Promotions show that originated from WGHP-8 in High Point, NC.  Similar to the WBTV Championship Wrestling show from Charlotte mentioned above, this show was soon to end when all of Crockett's TV would consolidate to Raleigh. At that point, WLOS would switch to the Mid-Atlantic "B" show hosted by Les Thatcher out of Raleigh. This time slot (soon to move fifteen minutes later due to the local news expanding to a half-hour) was the traditional WLOS time slot for many years.  

 

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Studio Wrestling and The Great Bolo

To A Sixth Grade Wrestling Fan, No one Could Top the Great Bolo
by Vince Staten
Kingsport Times News (Kingsport, TN)  April 8, 2007


There comes a time in every young man's life when he falls in love.

With wrestling.

My love affair with professional wrestling came in late grade school when I was too old to play cowboys and not old enough to be interested in girls.

I was reminded of this boyhood fascination when I drove past the Civic Auditorium this week and saw "Championship Wrestling" posted on the signboard. I went home and dug around till I found my old wrestling sheet.

Not only did I live and die with each week's matches that sixth-grade year, I came up with my own highly scientific rating system based strictly on whether I liked a wrestler or not.

The Great Bolo (Publicity Photo)

I had rank ordered 40 wrestlers from Argentina Rocca, Billy "Tarzan" Darnell and Buddy Rogers to my favorite, The Great Bolo. (He was seventh; I was fair and balanced.)

We've had professional wrestling in Kingsport as long as we've been a town. 


I've seen ads for wrestling matches in old newspapers from the 1920s. In the 1950 and 1960s Ron Wright and Whitey Caldwell ruled the ring at the Civic Auditorium.

I wasn't allowed to go - too dangerous, my mother said - so I fell in love with that other form of professional wrestling, studio wrestling.

The "studio" of studio wrestling was the television studio. And because the Kingsport cable system in the 1950s imported stations from Knoxville and Charlotte and Asheville, we had our choice of Saturday afternoon studio wrestling.


There was a filmed show called "Texas Rasslin' " that featured Gorgeous George, a bleach blond who preened as much as he wrestled. (It was my grandmother's favorite wrestling show.) I preferred "Championship Wrestling" from WBTV in Charlotte because it featured the greatest variety of wrestlers, from "scientific" types like George Scott to out and-out thugs like Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers who had a standing offer of $1,000 for any fan who could break his Figure Grapevine Hold.

And no one ever did.

It was a different era for wrestling. Today wrestling prides itself on being "entertainment," but in those days it called itself a sport, and questioning whether wrestling was fake - a popular question, incidentally - was asking for a poke in the nose.

In my neighborhood, we always made sure our Saturday baseball games were over by 5 p.m. so we could all gather around Mr. Brickey's Philco to watch studio wrestling from Charlotte.


The announcers were just as famous as the wrestlers. Calling the action was Big Bill Ward, a debonair fellow with a mustache in a time when almost only debonair men had mustaches, and the commentator, who was also the promoter, Jim Crockett. He was the one who should have had "Big" in front of his name. 

Each Saturday show had two matches, an individual match and a tag team contest. It was always good versus evil, which is blood-sport for a sixth-grade boy. Evil P.Y. Chung, he of the famous "Claw" hold, might take on good guy Sandy Scott, of the wavy blond hair.

I, of course, always rooted for Good. Except for one, The Great Bolo.

It started with the name. How could you not love a wrestler named Bolo?

And then there was the costume. The Great Bolo was the first masked wrestler I had ever seen. He wore a skin-tight mask that laced up the back. It had dark shading around the eyes and mouth that would have made it almost clown-like if Bolo hadn't been so ferocious.

He could be wrestling along, working his Sleeper Hold on an opponent, when he would hear a disparaging remark from Big Bill Ward, and he would leap the top rope, race over and challenge the announcer. Blows were never exchanged, but it was exciting anyway.


Even that wasn't the greatest appeal of The Great Bolo. No, what we all watched for and hoped for was a Bolo defeat. Anyone who defeated The Great Bolo would get to unmask him. Right in the ring.

And that's what we all really wanted to know: Who was The Great Bolo? Was he secretly a good guy like George Becker who flirted with the dark side? Was it Nature Boy Rogers moonlighting for extra cash? Hmm, you never saw them together.

There were weeks when The Great Bolo's opponent might get his mask halfway off. I seem to recall Mike Paidousis had it up over his chin once. But Mike was too concerned with the mask, and Bolo managed to grab him and do the Pile Driver.

The Great Bolo was never unmasked on "Championship Wrestling.”

I later heard that he had been defeated in Toronto or someplace like that and his real identity was revealed. Some kid had read about it in "Boxing News/ Wrestling Illustrated."


By then I didn't care. I had discovered girls.

Vince Staten's blog can be found at vincestaten.blogspot.com.

 

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