Random Thoughts

 - Jeff Luce

I want to do something a little different this month. There were a lot of great angles, wrestlers and moments in Southeastern Championship wrestling. This time out, I want to just give my two cents on things I seen or wish I seen. I think that some of the stuff will make for great discussion on the Kayfabe Memories Southeastern Forum. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Money up for grabs: I always loved how the money that was up for grabs in Southeastern was a realistic figure, not too low, not too high. For instance, in 1981 Jimmy Golden put up a $15,000 bounty on the head of Ron Fuller. That’s a great incentive for any wrestler to try and take Fuller out. It caused the extremely popular Norvel Austin to come back to the area as a bad guy, so that he could collect on the bounty. Mr. Saito and Ron Bass both took cracks at Fuller to get the money. If the figure was too low, why would anyone try and go against a wrestler the caliber of “The Tennessee Stud?”

Prize money was another figure that was right in line with what one would expect it to be. Triple-Chance Battle Royals were a staple of the Southeastern promotion. Prize money would be $10,000 up to $25,000, as inflation rose. These special types of battle royals we different in that 20 wrestlers would start in ring one. The goal was to send your opponents into ring two. From ring two, you want to throw your opponent out of that ring onto the floor. The last two wrestlers in ring one would form a tag team to take on the last two wrestlers in ring two. The winning team would then split the prize money. This led to many unusual teams, and most of the time this type of match was used to further an angle. This special event was never shown on television, probably because the TV studio was too small. Then again, why give away one of the best drawing matches away for free on TV? One of my biggest regrets is that in all the cards I attended, I never seen one of these types of matches live: only the highlights that were shown on the television show.

Family feuds: I can not say for certain, but in all my years of watching wrestling, I never saw a true family feud, except in Southeastern. Good guys Ron and Robert Fuller went to war against their first cousin Jimmy Golden. They had previously feuded back in 1980 in Southeastern, and I guess Ron ran Jimmy out of town. Then in late 1980, Jimmy returned to the area with a new attitude. Jimmy was wrestling cleanly in his matches and didn’t have the same cocky attitude he displayed before. Charlie Platt and Les Thatcher spoke of this for a few weeks. Neither Ron nor Jimmy acknowledged the past and seemed to just let bygones be bygones. Ron was teaming with John Valiant against Ron Bass and his various partners. As expected, Valiant turned on Fuller. Golden jumped at the chance to team with his cousin. Obviously this wasn’t the same Jimmy Golden the fans remembered. Cut to a double bull rope match in Mobile, Alabama’s Expo Hall, Jimmy Golden and Ron Fuller versus Ron Bass and John Valiant. Fuller had Valiant locked in the Fuller toehold in the center of the ring. Golden and Bass were outside of the ring fighting. Golden and Bass then removed the bull rope from their wrists and began attacking Fuller. They strung him up between both sides of the ring and beat “The Tennessee Stud” unmercifully. Subsequently, Golden came on TV telling all the fans thank you for telling Ron Fuller that Jimmy Golden was OK; go ahead and be his partner. Golden began calling himself the “Super Stud.” Fuller announced that he could no longer be in the Southeastern area because of the embarrassment, and he vacated the Southeastern Heavyweight Championship. (In reality, this was so Ron could go work in Georgia for a few weeks) Fuller came back and the feud was on: cousin versus cousin; a real family feud.  More...