All-Star Wrestling #4 Page #2
Jerry Morrow the master of the
head butt/ coco butt had some bad blood with Tomko’s buddy Bob Steele. Dean
Ho challenged Timothy Flowers after Flowers laid out the midget wrestler
Cowboy Lang; Flowers taunted Ho on T.V. calling him pineapple. All Star
wrestling continued to run shows almost nightly hitting all the small towns
like Hope, Campbell River, Nanaimo, Williams Lake, Prince George and Kamloops
in the month of May.
The All Star promo was the site of
some early matches by two of the top wrestlers of the 80’s. Young Ricky Rudd
later known as Ravishing Rick Rude brought his impressive physique to British
Columbia. Rudd, billed as a 1st year pro out of Charlotte North
Carolina, teamed with several of the All Star veterans in tag matches and was
very popular with the fans. Another future star was Moose Morrowski protégé
Crusher Von Haig who was billed to be from South Africa. Von Haig was a huge
man who claimed to have used his claw hold all over the globe to cripple
opponents. He would go on to fame in just a few months as Hawk, one half of
the tag team the Road Warriors in Georgia. Haig had challenged young Rudd on
TV promising to send him packing back to the Carolina’s. They both left for
Georgia after their brief stop in British Columbia.
Buzz Tyler and Bob Brown returned
to the promo off and on looking for title shots with Adonis and Flowers. They
were often interviewed from the States cutting promo’s for upcoming matches
in Vancouver and Cloverdale. The two succeeded in winning the International
tag titles from Flowers and Adonis on May 30/83 in Vancouver. They feuded with
Tomko and Morrowski in Vancouver defending the International titles against
the rule breakers several times. Tomko became a target of many of the
wrestlers when he managed to secure the Canadian title for himself in may of
1983 and held it for the balance of the year.
In mid 1983 Tomko managed to turn
himself fan favorite of all things. The newly formed Memphis Mafia had
attacked his son Rick Davis while Tomko was introducing Davis to the B.C fans.
Honky Tonk Man and Tim Flowers attacked the 16 yr old Davis and cut open Tomko
who tried to save his son. Tomko recruited David Shultz, Dean Ho and
eventually even archenemy Bob Brown to try and exterminate the Mafia. The
Memphis Mafia became the focus of the territory as the flamboyant Honky Tonk
Man came to town. The master of the shake rattle and roll battled his former
tag partner Dr. D David Shultz all over the territory in June wrestling in
chain and cage matches. The Mafia was comprised of Diamond Timothy Flowers the
“People’s Champion”, “Pretty Boy” Rick Patterson, Terry Adonis,
manager Michael W. Allen and the ring leader the Honky Tonk Man. The Memphis
Mafia managed to drive Shultz from the area and veteran Bulldog Brown replaced
him. Brown an already huge fan favorite came in to battle Honky Tonk as a
replacement for Shultz in the grudge taped fist match. The feud between these
two became a long distance affair when Honky Tonk man was banned from
Vancouver after being suspended for hitting referee Verne Siebert. The two
would hook up when the company traveled to Calgary in August of ’83. HTM
also feuded with Dean Ho defeating him in a cage match in Calgary. Flowers
eventually took over as head of the Mafia and they inflicted damage on
opponent after opponent. The Mafia also vowed to stop any wrestler from using
the sleeper hold, specifically Al Tomko and Dean Ho, claiming the hold was
nothing more than an illegal chokehold that should be banned. To strengthen
there already powerful team the Mafia also recruited the Hollywood Hippie who
was billed as an eight-year veteran of the squared circle and Flowers cousin
Sir Joseph Cagle. Tim Flowers and Rick Patterson two mafia regulars were able
to win the Canadian tag titles only to lose them to Bulldog Brown and Al Tomko
July 24 1983.
An interesting angle took place
when Tim Flowers supposedly left B.C. and the masked Mr. New York showed up in
his place. The masked man looked identical in physique to Flowers and the fans
all thought they had him pegged as Mr. New York. To prove this theory Al Tomko
challenged Mr. New York to a match in which he promised to unmask the wrestler
in the ring. Tomko managed to defeat the mask man only to pull off the mask
and find a bleach blond Kip Kelly. Kelly claimed Flowers had promised to pay
him if he wrestled the match and took the heat off of Flowers as the masked
wrestler. The plan backfired when Kelly, disgruntled at not receiving the
promised money, revealed the scheme on TV The two New Yorkers, Kelly from
Buffalo and Flowers from Fire Island, feuded briefly with Kip the 245lb former
football star getting the worst of the exchanges.
Another new face was Randy Rich, a
dead ringer for Tommy Rich, this bleach blond was billed as from Macon Georgia
and a former NAWA rookie of the year. Rich had a tremendous flying dropkick
and almost won the B.C TV Pacific Coast title in a match with Tim Flowers
coming up just short in one of his early matches for the promo. The two also
had something else in common both introduced cousins to the area in 1983.
Timothy Flowers brought in his cousin Sir Joseph Cagle a former AWA southern
tag holder and a very capable wrestler at 225lbs. Rich introduced Mike
“Wildfire’ Dupree as his cousin hailing from Sioux City Iowa and weighing
210lbs.
Timothy Flowers was never shy when
it came to headlining in B.C. The Fire Island New York native made waves in
August of 1983 battling World champ Tiger Jeet Singh at Kerrisdale arena. The
two incited a small riot and the result was the banning of All Star Wrestling
almost six weeks by the NWA until October of 1983. This happened to fall right
before a tour of the Middle East by All Star Wrestling. Al Tomko wanted to
show the fans of B.C that his promotion was a world-class operation and they
toured Amman, Jordan. On the tour were Tomko, the Flowers brothers, Moondog
Moretti, Rick Patterson, Randy Rich, Spoiler, Mike Dupree, and the 465lb
behemoth Big John Baker. Baker would come back to B.C. to battle Moose
Morrowski for much of October in a battle of two of the promotion’s biggest
men. Big John also teamed with Al Tomko to battle Tim Flowers and his
cohorts.
Just when the fans thought one
Flowers was enough Diamond Tim introduced his brother Precious Peter Flowers.
Precious Peter would later gain some International recognition as the
Mongolian Mauler. Peter Flowers had the Mr. T style hair cut and mimicked him
by calling himself “Mr. P”. Some of the other wrestlers in the territory
in 1983 were veterans Jerry Morrow and Moondog Moretti. The Mad Mongol who was
Tiny Anderson under a mask, Chief Red Eagle a 12 year veteran wrestler from
New Mexico who wrestled ala Chief Jay Strongbow complete with the big chops
and war dance. Dave Petro came to the area from the Canadian Midwest billed as
265lb former three-time Canadian tri area champ and Tri area tag champ in the
Winnipeg area. Wrestlers the Zodiac at 221 lbs and hailing from Parts Unknown,
the masked Spoiler, “Beautiful” Jerry Bryant from Newfoundland and veteran
Bobby Bass all made appearances in the promo in 1983.
NEXT MONTH:
The Hulk, Snake and the Warrior all come to town in 1984 reviewed.