Ed Capral and Paul Jones on Wide World Wrestling

 

Host Ed Capral and U.S. Champion Paul Jones
on the set of Wide World Wrestling in WRAL TV studio.

Wide World Wrestling - Opening Theme (1975-1978)


Wide World Wrestling - Closing Theme (1975-1978)


 
Thanks to Craig at Wrestling Media (wrestlingmedia.ws) for the audio.

Wide World Wrestling Theme Music

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

(Includes rare, exclusive audio tracks embedded below.)

When I first got "hooked" on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, one of the things (other than the great wrestling) that I liked most about both Crockett shows was the great theme music.

I'm not talking about wrestler's theme music. This was in 1975 and almost a decade before every wrestler had their own theme music.

I'm talking about the opening theme music that started off each show. It was a signature element of each of the two programs that Jim Crockett Promotion produced, and is today as much of the sentimental or nostalgic aspect of those shows. That's something long ago lost as it regards pro-wrestling on TV today.

Ed Capral with NWA champion Harley Race
on the set of "Wide World Wrestling" in 1977

Over the many years, I've enjoyed collecting theme music from the various wrestling shows I watched in the 1970s and 1980s. Some used edited versions of popular commercial music, some used "production" music written especially for that use.

My favorite wrestling TV-show theme of them all was the music for "Wide World Wrestling" in 1975-1978. "Wide World Wrestling" was Jim Crockett's "B" show. If a TV market only featured one of Crockett's TV shows, it would always be the "Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" show, which was the "A" show. If a traditional Crockett TV market featured both Crockett shows, then "Wide World" would be added as the second show in that market, or the "B" show.

The show began in October of 1975 and was hosted by longtime Atlanta wrestling broadcaster Ed Capral. When Capral left in 1977, he was succeeded by hosts Russ Dubuc and then the duo of booker George Scott and Tom Miller. In 1978, Crockett changed the name of the program to "World Wide Wrestling" as host Rich Landrum took over the show, and by the early 1980s, this was the show that started going into Crockett's expansion markets, as well as remaining the "B" show in Crockett's home markets.

"Truckin'" Tom Miller, host of "Wide World Wrestling"
for roughly 6 months in 1978

The opening theme music for this show was awesome! The opening video package that ran under the music was a quick montage of various wrestlers doing various wrestling maneuvers that flew by at quick pace that matched the upbeat tempo of the music. The music and video open had sort of a "Wide World of Sports" feel to it. ABC's "Wide World of Sports" was one of the most popular sports programs of the era and as much a part of Saturday afternoons as wrestling was in that era.

Recently our friend Craig at Wrestling Media (wrestlingmedia.ws) was kind enough to send us the original recording of the music used for "Wide World Wrestling." I got his very nice email on Thanksgiving Day - - what a wonderful gift on Thanksgiving! I was thankful indeed for his generosity and for remembering at all that this was something I had been looking for for years. He was able to identify it solely by the low-resolution recording I had of it on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway Archive site.

The music, titled "Diamond Head" was written and recorded by Walter Murphy, who had a #1 pop hit back in 1976 called "A Fifth of Beethoven." Murphy has an extensive resume of production music and there are several vinyl recordings of his still floating around. The album that has "Diamond Head" was titled "Major Production Music", Vinyl 6088 on Major Records (now known as Valentino.) It is track 3 on side B of the record and was recorded and released in 1975 (the same year "Wide World Wrestling" debuted.

The "Wide World Wrestling" theme was created by taking various segments of the original 1:30 recording and piecing them together to make the final 25 sec. version you heard each week to open the show. The tempo of the wrestling version was also a little faster than the original, although at the same pitch.

I took Murphy's original recording and edited a version together that is nearly identical (in arrangement and speed) to the classic 1975 wrestling theme, and happily present it here.

There are no known video recordings of the 1975-1978 "Wide World Wrestling" show, which is a very sad thing. The theme hasn't been heard in this arrangement since 1978, so only fans who are roughly in their mid-40s or later would even remember it. But for those that watched "Wide World Wrestling" every single weekend without fail as I did each week, this will be a wonderful trip down memory lane and a nostalgic reminder of a great era in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. And for those hearing it for the first time, this is what a real wrestling theme sounds like.

Wide World Wrestling - Opening Theme (1975-1978)


Wide World Wrestling - Closing Theme (1975-1978)


More on this album of production music on the Discogs website:
https://www.discogs.com/Walter-Murphy-Production-Music/release/3544026

Thanks to Craig at Wrestling Media (wrestlingmedia.ws) for his forwarding this information and for providing me the original track that resulted in my favorite wrestling theme music of them all.

Originally published December 2016 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.

Ed Capral Signs Off Wide World Wrestling

INCLUDES RARE VINTAGE AUDIO
Legendary wrestling announcer Ed Capral hosted Wide World Wrestling, a brand new program for Jim Crockett Promotions, from 1975-1978.

Capral was the longtime host for pro wrestling in Atlanta on channel 11 until the Atlanta wrestling wars of the mid-1970s, when he jumped ship to the upstart All South Wrestling promotion run by Ann Gunkle, the widow of the late Ray Gunkle, an amateur and pro wrestler who was a major star in the southeast. All South lost the war to the stalwart NWA wrestling promotion and Capral found himself without an announcing job.

Jim Crockett hired him to host their brand new program, and Capral brought his classic old-school announcing style to TV stations across Mid-Atlantic area.

Ed Capral with NWA World Champion Harley Race on the set of
Wide World Wrestling.

We present here a vintage audio clip from of Ed signing off an episode of Wide World Wrestling in 1977 and previewing the matches that would be seen on the show the following week. That line-up, by the way, was loaded with talent including a young Tully Blanchard going up against NWA World Champion Harley Race.

For the record, here is match list Capral announced:

• Harley Race vs. Tully Blanchard
• Ric Flair & Greg Valentine vs. Roberto Soto & Jimmy Garvin
• Dick Murdoch vs. Danny Miller
• Ricky Steamboat & Paul Jones vs. Scott Irwin & Ricky Ferrara
• Wahoo McDaniel vs. Charlie Fulton
  

And of course the familiar barter announcement and the classic Wide World Wrestling theme music plays along, one of my favorite TV wrestling themes of all time. (More on that music here.)

Enjoy this little audio blast from the past!

 

ED CAPRAL SIGNS OFF WIDE WORLD WRESTLING

 

 

Audio is courtesy of the collection of Gary Wray. 

 

 

Distant Signals

Some of you old folks out there (like us!) will remember the days when you stayed up late at night and tried to maneuver your set-top or aerial antenna to pull in some distant station that had wrestling.

In this rough image, Mid-Atlantic champion Ric Flair and Blackjack Mulligan talk with Ed Capral on Wide World Wrestling from the WRAL television studios in December 1975. Ric wasn't back to wrestling yet at this point, still recovering from injuries suffered in the October 1975 Wilmington NC plane crash. But he was back doing interviews and color commentary by the end of December. In this image he is holding the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight championship belt (represented by the old Eastern Heavyweight title belt.)

Check out our article on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway for more about what we had to go through in the 60s and 70s to do pull in those distant signals.

Ed Capral with Mulligan and Flair on Wide World Wrestling (1976)

U.S. Champion Blackjack Mulligan and Mid-Atlantic Champion Ric Flair are interviewed by host Ed Capral on the set of "Wide World Wrestling" at WRAL. Sitting just off camera to the right is booker George Scott.

Blackjack Mulligan wearing the United States championship belt, with Ric Flair
in the ring on "Wide World Wrestling" 

Referee Angelo Martinelli seems anxious to get the match underway.

Ed Capral Profile

by Les Thatcher
from Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Magazine (Vol. 2 No. 3, 1976)

"Welcome ladies and gentlemen to Wide World Wrestling."

Ed Capral

The words are spoken and yet another program is being recorded in the studios of WRAL-TV in Raleigh. The tape machines are humming; the camera men are awaiting their cues; the director and engineers are giving instructions to the floor crews.

In front of the camera, however, away for all of this hustle and bustle stands a quite composed gentleman from Atlanta, Mr. Ed Capral. In a manner now familiar to wrestling fans throughout the southeast, Ed tells viewers what they are about to see. Then "Right after this word from our sponsor," cameras break away for a commercial and Ed makes his way to his desk where he will describe the action in a way that only he can.

All of this explanation sets the stage to answer the question "Who is Ed Capral?

Ed is one of the most experienced voices of wrestling beginning as a guest commentator 30 years ago. Ed was given the guest shot by Atlanta promotor Paul Jones and from that time has never looked back.

After attending the University of Georgia and serving a tour of duty in Korea, Ed returned to television where he would become the voice of Georgia Championship Wrestling for the next 20 years. Many wrestlers were to come and go but Ed remained vigile at his post.

In 1975 Ed joined Wide World Wrestling as the voice of this new program. Now the program is gaining popularity in the Mid-Atlantic area by leaps and bounds.

Ed may not go down in the annals of sports broadcasting history but his face and voice bring the same reaction from wrestling fans as Howard Cosell, Curt Gowdy, and Pat Summerall get from football fans.

"This is Ed Capral saying so long until next week." 

He wipes his face; shakes a few hands; packs his bag; and leaves for the airport for his trip back to Atlanta.

Television Wrestling History: WRAL-5 Raleigh, NC

WRAL TV in Raleigh is the studio location most closely associated with Jim Crockett Promotions and Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. Studio A at WRAL was the site of weekly TV tapings for over three decades. By 1974, all of the remaining regional taping locations (WFBC, WGHP, WBTV) had ceased, and all Crockett TV taping was consolidated into this location.

At that point, two versions of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling were taped, one hosted by long time Raleigh announcer Bob Caudle, the other hosted briefly by Sam Menacker and then regularly by Les Thatcher. The Thatcher-hosted "B" show replaced WGHP's Championship Wrestling in markets where it was also syndicated at the time. (Example: Asheville's WLOS-TV).  On October 8, 1975, a new program called Wide World Wrestling, hosted by long time Atlanta wrestling announcer Ed Capral, replaced the Thatcher version of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. Thatcher would continue to do the local promo spots to be inserted in the local broadcast of each show. (Thatcher also produced and hosted the Southeastern Championship Wrestling program for Ron Fuller in Knoxville, TN. during this period.) Capral left the promotion in late 1977 and was replaced by Tom Miller and George Scott. On the weekend of October 7, 1978, Rich Landrum became the permanent host of the show, which was renamed World Wide Wrestling.

Bob Caudle's main co-host was David Crockett through the WRAL period. Tom Miller filled in during the summer of 1976 when David Crockett was tending to another family business with sister Frances Crockett, the Charlotte O's minor league baseball franchise. Big Bill Ward, who hosted Championship Wrestling for Crockett Promotions in Charlotte on WBTV from the late 1950s through early 1970s, briefly co-hosted with Bob Caudle on the 2nd Mid-Atlantic show after TV tapings had been consolidated to Raleigh. Lord Alfred Hayes had a brief stint as co-host in 1980.  Landrum's regular co-host on World Wide Wrestling would eventually be Johnny Weaver.

Prior to this consolidation, in the 1960s and early 1970s, WRAL was actually the site of one show only, a one-hour taping with simultaneous "dual" audio tracks being recorded. As they taped the matches, they had two broadcasters calling the action separately. Nick Pond, a WRAL sportscaster, hosted the show that would be seen in the Raleigh market (with co-host Joe Murnick much of that time, who was also the local Raleigh promoter), while at the same time one desk over, Bob Caudle called the action for a tape that was sent out to other markets in the Mid-Atlantic area that didn't have their own local TV tapings. Both Pond and Caudle also did sports and weather for WRAL television. Elliot Murnick replaced Pond on the Raleigh broadcast around 1972-1973. For most of this time, the Raleigh show was called Championship Wrestling and the syndicated show was called All-Star Wrestling. When all of the other studio locations ceased taping by 1974, Caudle became the sole host of what was now titled Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling which was now sent to all of Crockett's TV  markets including the home base of Raleigh.

Wrestling first debuted on WRAL on January 31, 1959 at 5:00 PM. The show at the time was titled Championship Wrestling. In the earliest days of wrestling on WRAL, the legendary broadcaster Ray Reeve called the wrestling action before turning over the duties to Pond, who was Reeve's assistant early in his career at WRAL. Reeve was the long time radio voice of the North Carolina State Wolfpack and was the first broadcaster inducted to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. (On a side note, Charlie Harville, the long time host of wrestling taped at WGHP in High Point NC in the 60s and 70s, was the 2nd broadcaster inducted into NC Sports Hall of Fame.) 

But the voice most associated with WRAL wrestling will forever be the one and only Bob Caudle, a long time employee and on-air personality at WRAL, who continued to do TV for the Crocketts when they moved production to WPCQ in Charlotte and then took the production out to the arenas. Caudle is still loved by wrestling fans today, recently receiving a standing ovation at a wrestling legends show in Spartanburg SC. He was an inaugural inductee into the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Hall of Heroes in August of 2007. Fans still call for his trademark show closer, "We'll see you next week fans, and until then, so long for now."

  - Dick Bourne

BASIC INFORMATION
Call Letters:	WRAL
Channel Number:	5
Network Affiliate:	ABC  (Originally NBC, now CBS)
Began Taping Wrestling:	Late 1950s Earliest known broadcast: January 31, 1959
Ceased Taping Wrestling:	July 29, 1981 (Final Taping)
Play-by-play Hosts:	MID-ATLANTIC WRESTLING: Raleigh telecast (1960s - approximately 1972): Ray Reeve, Nick Pond, Elliot Murnick Syndicated telecast: Bob Caudle, Les Thatcher, Sam Menacker (briefly) WIDE WORLD / WORLD WIDE WRESTLING: Ed Capral, Tom Miller, George Scott, Russ Debuq, Rich Landrum
Color Commentators:	MID-ATLANTIC WRESTLING: David Crockett, Tom Miller, Joe Murnick (Raleigh version only) Short term: Lord Alfred Hayes, Big Bill Ward. (There were brief runs by several others including Sandy Scott, Roddy Piper, and Sir Oliver Humperdink) WIDE WORLD / WORLD WIDE WRESTLING:: Johnny Weaver, George Scott, Tom Miller (There were brief appearances by several others.)
Ring Announcers:	Joe Murnick, Carl Murnick, Elliott Murnick, David Crockett, Jim Crockett
Local Promos:	Bob Caudle, David Crockett, Rich Landrum, Ed Capral, Les Thatcher, Bill Connell, a couple others yet identified. The famous commercial bump "Let's take time for this commercial message about the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling events coming up in your area..." was voiced by WRAL weatherman Bob Debardelaben.
Taping night:	Wednesday nights
Show titles:	Championship Wrestling, All Star Wrestling, Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Wide World Wrestling, World Wide Wrestling

Ring Introduction by Carl Murnick

If you're as old as I am, you will remember back to when Carl and Elliot Murnick did the ring introductions on Mid-Atlantic and Wide World Wrestling from around 1976-1978. They are the sons of Raleigh promoter Joe Murnick and were involved in several of the family businesses. Mr. Murnick did the ring introductions for years at WRAL, but by early 1976 had mostly turned it over to the boys.

As part of our Mid-Atlantic Gateway "Sound Bytes" series here on the Studio Wrestling website, we'll present a few sample of ring introductions from those years.

This one is from August of 1976 from Wide World Wrestling hosted by Ed Capral, who you will also hear in this clip, pitching to Carl Murnick in the ring.

Ring Introduction by Carl Murnick



The Death of Introductions from the Ring

In 1978, Bob Caudle and Rich Landrum started doing the ring introductions from the floor near their announce position using blue-screen chroma-key composting on the studio backdrops to show the wrestler being introduced in the ring. I always found this highly annoying and missed the introduction form the ring form the moment they were gone. Ring introductions should always be done form the ring. It's as if WRAL had this new chroma-key technology and just looked for any way to use it, rather than a useful way to use it. Fans never got the hang of it, and usually couldn't hear the intros that well anyway. Bob and Rich would be looking at the monitor off-screen (sort of like the weather people do when they use green-screen chroma key today) rather than looking at the ring or at the fans, so the fans sort of watched the monitor, too, and never reacted to the introductions. Those introductions most always fell flat.

TV wrestling mostly eliminated their ring introductions when they moved out of the studio to the arenas anyway, except when there was a main-event level match. But I digress.

More Sound Bytes to come.

Ed Capral in Atlanta (1972)

From the January 1972 issue of Wrestling Revue magazine. Ed Capral is at the broadcast desk with Bob Armstrong at the studios of WQXI-11 (now WXIA) in Atlanta. The photo was taken by Gene Gordon.

Capral came to Jim Crockett Promotions in 1975 to host the new program "Wide World Wrestling", and stayed there until 1978.

Thanks to Carroll Hall at All-Star Championship Wrestling for sending us these photos from his Wrestling Revue collection.

Ed Capral interviews NWA Champion Terry Funk (1976)

"In the Tiger's Den"

On the February 14, 1976 episode of Jim Crockett Promotions' "Wide World Wrestling", host Ed Capral interviews NWA world champion Terry Funk. Funk was frustrated with the fact that Paul Jones held a victory over him which took place only a few weeks before Funk won the NWA title from Jack Brisco.

Funk calls out Paul Jones and a brief confrontation occurs. Jones had indeed defeated Funk for the United States Championship less than three months earlier and was the top contender in the Mid-Atlantic area for Funk's title.

This is classic audio and a classic Terry Funk promo.

Originally posted on October 12, 2012 on The Domed Globe website.