As professional wrestling’s biggest yearly event “WrestleMania” approaches Sunday, Joe Rutland looks back fondly at a time where “sports entertainment” was a welcome diversion.
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Working in newspapers has been a trip many times. Many years ago while working a solo Sunday night shift on the sports desk at The Beaumont Enterprise (where I learned about journalism and the newspaper business from a lot of incredible men and women), the phone rang:
“Enterprise Sports, this is Joe. How can I help you?”
“Say, who won at WrestleMania?” the obviously drunken voice on the phone said.
I paused.
“What sir?”
“Who won at WrestleMania tonight?”
I thought for a second.
“Hulk Hogan did, sir.”
“Ah, OK.” He hangs up.
This call came in the late 1980s, years after Hulk Hogan’s first big run in the World Wrestling Federation took place. Well, he did spotlight the first WrestleMania main event and became Vince McMahon Jr.’s initial breakout superstar after Vince Jr. took over the business from his father, Vince Sr. Then Vince Jr. started breaking up the territories all across the United States, put the WWF on cable television across the country thanks to the USA Network and . . .
Wait a second.
You probably think I’m going to talk about WrestleMania here?
C’mon man. I have better things to talk about … like old-school professional wrestling. Just writing that phrase reminds me of the line in “Slap Shot” when The Hansen Brothers talk about playing “old-time hockey, Eddie Shore style.”
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As a young boy, many weekends were spent at my grandmother’s house in Madisonville, Texas, a city located halfway between Houston and Dallas just off Interstate 45. My mother, grandmother and elderly cousin would go to bed on Saturday nights around 9 or so … maybe a little earlier.
I’d get the chance to stay up and watch TV late, then go to sleep. I remember that before we had cable television in Beaumont, my grandmother was able to get Houston TV stations. Saturday nights were, for me, special as I stayed up and watched “Houston Wrestling,” (embed link over “Houston Wrestling”: a staple for many young and old Houstonians in the 1950s, 1960s and ’70s. This really old-looking guy named Paul Boesch would host the show each week, doing “play-by-play” of matches involving the likes of Johnny Valentine, Jose Lothario, Ivan Putski, Boris “The Great” Malenko, “The Golden Greek” John Tolos, El Gran Marcus, Ernie Ladd, Blackjack Mulligan, Tiger Conway Sr. and his son Tiger Conway Jr., and many others. I mean, this became Escapism 101 for me. Talk about suspending reality! Well, OK.
There always was this sense of watching a good guy overcome a bad guy that made me feel great.
Lord knows, some of you probably are thinking “um, dude, it’s fake.” Yes, it was planned out as to whom would win and lose. It still is today. I’m not going to get involved in that debate right now. I’m too busy watching Paul Boesch, who was the longtime promoter in Houston, call a match with Bruiser Brody or do a commercial for I.W. Marks Jewelers (and for man with serious cauliflower ears like Boesch, well, it is one you have to see to believe). Remember, this was back in the day where the wrestlers themselves had to really be great talkers. They were the “drawing cards” for fans to make Friday nights at the Sam Houston Coliseum must-see appointments. These “interviews” were where you could have guys like legendary manager “Playboy” Gary Hart talk up a storm. You could have Valentine growl at the screen and talk about tearing someone’s head off in the ring. You could have Lothario talk not only in English but in Spanish, too … a great way to encourage the Hispanic community to come out on Friday nights.
Just the sheer excitement of watching pro wrestling, at least for this young boy’s imagination, was definitely a way to deflect myself from inner pain and discomfort. I could lose myself in this drama for 90 minutes and it was safe. Better this “drama” than all the real-life emotional drama that I was around way too much.
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I was going to throw the bitter, cold water of reality on this business right now … but I’m not quite ready.
A few years ago, I was working in Laredo, Texas, at the city newspaper there and interviewed Les Norton, one of the town’s longtime businessmen. Back in his younger days, Norton was a promoter for rock music shows and – wait for it – pro wrestling cards. It was one of the most enjoyable and fun interviews that I’ve done because, for two-plus hours, we talked and he shared some really great stories.
Norton brought up Lothario’s name and, well, I admit that he was my favorite pro wrestler as a kid. He was a good guy (a “face”) who, as Norton told me, helped a young kid named Shawn Hickenbottom of San Antonio learn the business. Guadalupe Robledo (Lothario’s real name) had Shawn Michaels, a future superstar, as his protégé.
Sitting there and doing a story about pro wrestling’s history in Laredo did take me back to those growing-up years. By the way, I also had the great chance to do phone interviews with a few of the then-World Wrestling Entertainment “sports entertainers” before their appearances in the border city. They were always real, always fun and I made sure they got a couple of “mean words” in about their opponent, too.
But the little boy in me loves to suspend reality here and there. . . . drift back to kinder and tender memories. Even if they were in front of a television set, filled with a squared ring, and watching men (and women on occasion) duke it out to have referee Bronco Lubich raise their hand in victory.
You can douse me with reality now.
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Photo Credit: Associated Press/Jonathan Bachman