Studio Wrestling: WFBC-4 Greenville SC

WFBC channel 4 (now WYFF) in Greenville, SC, was first home to locally produced and televised professional wrestling in the mid-1950s. In fact, it was apparently the very first location for TV wrestling production ever for Jim Crockett Promotions out of Charlotte.

Research by Carroll Hall at the "All Star Championship Wrestling Blog" has unearthed newspaper evidence of live studio wrestling broadcasts as early as June 1956 at WFBC channel 4, a full 18 months earlier than the first wrestling tapings at WBTV-3 in Charlotte. WBTV previously had been thought to be the first TV production location for Jim Crockett Promotions. These early televised events in Greenville took place for only three months, ending in early September of 1956. The name of the show was, appropriately enough, "Carolina Wrestling" and the host was WFBC personality Claude Freeman. (See newspaper ad and photo of Claude Freeman.)

Live studio wrestling would return to WFBC-4 on March 26, 1960 with channel 4 personality Bob Poole calling the action on a broadcast taped during mid-week and airing that following weekend. Documentation for this includes a small mention in the "TV Highlights" section of the Greenville News on 3/26/60 that read "Debuting at 5:00 PM, Championship Wrestling with Bob Poole as host."

Poole hosted from 3/26/60 until WFBC-TV sports director Bill Krieger took over as host in February of 1961. Billy Powell served as color commentator during some of this time with Krieger. Powell continued doing local Greenville area promos for many years. Channel 4 started carrying the Raleigh-produced "All Star Wrestling" / "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" tape in late 1961 and continued doing so for the next 25 years.

No photos of the ring set-up in the WFBC studio are known to exist, but both Krieger and Billy Powell report in separate interviews with the Mid-Atlantic Gateway that it was a very small studio with two small bleachers on two sides of the ring, accommodating roughly 50-60 people.

"Wally Dusek would bring the ring each week and set it up," Krieger told the Gateway. "Some of the big names at that time that I remember wrestling at channel 4 were George Becker, Mike Piadousis, Gorgeous George, Ivan the Terrible, and others. Jim Crockett (Sr.) would come by regularly as we got started, but wouldn't stay for the whole taping."

Bill Malendoski was the director for the studio wrestling show," Billy Powell told the Gateway. "The small studio also hosted cooking shows and the weather broadcast, all of which was in a different studio than the news broadcast."

Billy Powell, who was an institution for wrestling fans on WFBC TV and radio, was also the long time ring announcer for Jim Crockett Promotions at the weekly Monday night cards at the Billy Greenville Memorial Auditorium and was also ring announcer at the old Textile Hall which was home to many Greenville cards. Powell also did two 1-minute local promotional spots during "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" from 1975-1985 that were in addition to the two 2:20 promotional spots that were taped each week in Raleigh. The Raleigh-produced spots featured the wrestlers, but the two WFBC spots simply featured Billy Powell's friendly voice on top of a very old-school wrestling graphic (see below.). Billy would remind fans of what happened last Monday night at the Auditorium and would invite you down for this coming week's event. Promoter Paul Winkhaus called Billy "the golden voice of channel 4."

For fans in the Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville market, Billy Powell's voice was as much a part of the experience as the voices of TV hosts Bob Caudle and David Crockett. His was the voice that those fans trusted the most. When his local promos were discontinued in the mid-80s, wrestling on WFBC lost that personal touch that Powell had given it. Several years later they tore down the Memorial Auditorium and "local" wrestling was gone forever in Greenville.

*This article was updated in 2018 to reflect the first studio wrestling tapings in 1956.

BASIC INFORMATION
Call Letters:	WFBC
Channel Number:	4
Network Affiliate:	NBC
First Period (1950s):	06/02/56 - 09/08/56
Second Period (1960s):	03/26/60 - December 1961
Play-by-play Host:	Claude Freeman, Bob Poole, Bill Krieger
Color Commentators:	Billy Powell
Ring Announcer:	Host
Night Taped:	Saturday (1956), Tuesday, Wednesday (1960-1961)
Show Name:	Carolina Wrestling, Championship Wrestling

Greenville promoter in the 1960s and 1970s Paul Winkhaus with Billy Powell. Despite what the caption indicates, promoter Paul Winkhaus is on the LEFT, Billy Powell is on the right.

Special thanks to Billy Powell and Bill Kreiger for speaking with the Gateway for this feature. Thanks also to Don Holbrook, Carroll Hall, Kent Smith, Greg Price, Mark Eastridge and Steve Bomar (Business Manager at WYFF) for their assistance with this feature.

MP3 Audio Clips

Billy Powell Promotional Spot Sample from the Early 80s

1974 Inserted Spot

This second MP3 audio clip is an actual 30 sec. inserted spot voiced by Billy Powell for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling on channel 4. Billy is promoting an 11/4/74 card in Greenville featuring a fence match between former partners Swede Hanson and Rip Hawk. Notice how Powell puts a great local touch to his promos, reminding people of the turn-away crowd at the last show and to get their tickets early for the show on Monday night. Powell sold lots of tickets over the years for Jim Crockett Promotions.