Russ Dubuc: The Lost Voice of Wide World Wrestling

[Updated]
Longtime fans of Jim Crockett Promotions television will remember the popular syndicated program Wide World Wrestling (later known as World Wide Wrestling). The major hosts of that program over the years were Ed Capral, Rich Landrum, David Crockett, and Tony Schiavone. But even the most hardcore JCP fans may have forgotten a fellow who hosted that show in the late 1970s due to his relatively short tenure - - Russ Dubuc.

In the late fall of 1977, Jim Crockett Promotions parted company with host Ed Capral, the longtime Atlanta TV wrestling host who came to JCP after being pushed out of Georgia politically on the wrong side of the NWA/Gunkel wrestling wars of the mid-1970s. He became the inaugural host of  Wide World Wrestling when JCP launched the new show in 1975.  JCP replaced Capral with a local Charlotte radio and TV personality by the name of Russ Dubuc. 

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I've long thought of Russ Dubuc as the "lost voice" of Wide World Wrestling. He was only on the job with JCP for about five months. Since none of those episodes exist anymore, and it only aired in about 60% of the Crockett TV markets at that time, Dubuc is largely forgotten in the annals of Crockett Promotions television history. And it was, after all, over 46 years ago. 

Dubuc had been both a radio and TV presence in the Charlotte area for roughly a decade, most notably as an AMS-certified meteorologist for WSOC channel 9 television, where he appeared on both the 6 PM and 11 PM newscasts. At that time he was the only AMS certified meteorologist in the Charlotte demographic market.

1970 ad for WSOC's Eyewitness News featuring Russ Dubuc

Russ remembers it was Jim Crockett, Jr. who called him and offered him the job. Crockett was familiar with Dubuc's work at channel 9. 

In a telephone interview, Russ told me about some of his memories of his short time in the wrestling business. On Wednesday afternoons, the day of the week wrestling was taped at WRAL television studios in Raleigh, he would meet with others at a parking lot on highway 150 in Concord and carpool up to Raleigh for the day. He would typically travel with someone from the office, and that also occasionally included wrestlers. 

The wrestlers he remembered working with the most on TV included Ric Flair, Wahoo McDaniel, Blackjack Mulligan, Ricky Steamboat, and a few others. He loved the work, and had been a huge fan of wrestling himself before getting the gig, but did express frustration over how he was thrown right into the fire hosting the show without much preparation. He wasn't "smartened up" at all, and was told to simply call it as he saw it. He felt that limited his performance for them somewhat. 

But his most vivid memory of his time in wrestling wasn't in the television studio behind the mic. It had to do with traveling back and forth to Raleigh. His exact words: "Wahoo McDaniel was a maniac!" He laughed as he told about how Wahoo drove like a wildman and would often blow past the car Russ was traveling in at very high rates of speed.

AUDIO RECORDING
I recently came across an audio recording of an episode of Wide World Wrestling hosted by Dubuc from February 4, 1978. I was delighted to have the opportunity to document his contributions to Jim Crockett Promotions with a sample of his voice from that program.

In this clip, Dubuc is making fans aware of how they can get their very own free Wide World Wrestling bumper sticker. At the end of the audio clip you'll briefly hear the voice of Ricky Steamboat, his guest color-commentator for the week. The audio was recorded on a handheld cassette recorder and is pretty low fidelity, especially given the condition of the cassette when it was unearthed. But you should be able to make it out:




In the early spring of 1978, Dubuc was replaced as host of Wide World Wrestling by Tom Miller. Booker George Scott, Crockett's booker at the time, co-hosted the program. Russ thought they probably weren't happy with him. But the only explanation he was given at the time was that he was taller than most of the wrestlers and that wasn't a good look on TV. Oddly, "Truckin'" Tom Miller was nearly as tall.

No photos seem to exist of Dubuc on the job at the wrestling tapings at WRAL, but we were able to locate some video of him calling a water-skiing tournament for ESPN in the early 1980s, and captured this still image of him alongside ESPN personality Kevin Slaten.

Russ worked in many fields over the years. In addition to his work as a weathercaster for WSOC in Charlotte and his short stint as host of Wide World Wrestling, he also ran a water-skiing school in Davidson, NC and was a snow skiing instructor and worked ski patrol in Brekenridge and Vail, Colorado. He was the lead actor in a 1977 film shot in Charlotte called "Another Son of Sam." He was a top sales person for BG Distributors in Raleigh, NC, and later owner of the BG distributorship in Wichita, Kansas.  He now owns and operates his own travel business, RD Travel Limited, Inc., a Kansas City travel agency. 

Teacher, trainer, broadcaster, actor, salesman, business owner, travel advisor - - - add to that waiting tables, dirt track racing announcer, radio DJ, and wrestling announcer, and you have a very well-traveled and well-rounded individual. A very nice fellow, too. I enjoyed our telephone conversation. As fans, we are proud to call him a Jim Crockett Promotions alumnus.

- Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway
Thanks also to Carroll Hall
Updated April 2024
from an original post in April 2018

Wide World Wrestling Theme Music 1975-1978

Check out this post on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway with streaming audio of the "Wide World Wrestling" theme music used during the time Russ Dubuc was host of the program.

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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.