1968 

1967 Recap

1967 was another big year in the area. Tag teams continued to dominate the top of area cards. Such teams as The Masked Blue Infernos, Billy Hines & Jimmy Hines, Rip Tyler & Tim Tyler, Joe Sky & Bill Sky, Don Carson & Ron Carson and others were top teams during the year. Jackie Fargo and Len Rossi continued to be lead faces in the area for the promotion. 

1968 Preview

Len Rossi would have a banner year in 1968 holding tag titles right and left with various partners. A trio of young stars consisting of Dennis Hall, Les Thatcher and Ken Lucas had successful stays in the area in 1968. In the absence of a masked lead heel team after the Blue Infernos were unmasked, another masked team, the Mighty Yankees, popped on to the scene. Meantime, Don Carson returned and brought with him The Masked Red Shadow. Carson and the Shadow would work near the top of area cards much of 1968. 

January-March 1968

Len Rossi & Tamaya Soto begin the year billed as World tag champions. Briefly, Rossi & Gene Dundee are billed as champions, although it is not clear why this occurs. In March, the Masked Mighty Yankees defeat Rossi & Soto to lay claim to the titles.

The Southern tag titles appear to be dormant for the first few months of 1968. Uncovered title lineage suggests Len Rossi & Tamaya Soto held the titles in October 1967 but the lineage is broken from that point until later in 1968. The Southern Junior Heavyweight title is not very prominent at this time although there is evidence to suggest Len Rossi, who won the title during the summer of 1967, held it the rest of 1967 and most of 1968.

Wrestlers working the territory for promoters Nick Gulas and Roy Welch during the first three months of 1968 included Whitey Caldwell, Rip Tyler, Don Greene & Al Greene, Frank Martinez, Joey Corea, Bobby Whitlock, Akio Yoshihara, The Mummy, Dr. Frank (unmasked as Nick Adams), Don Carson, The Masked Red Shadow, Jose Morella, Mitsu Katayana, Rocket Monroe, Corsica Joe, Antonio Marino, Jackie Fargo, Tony Lazzari, Chief White Eagle, Motoshi Okuma, Shinya Kojika, Jack Dalton & Frank Dalton with manager Kenny Mack, Rip Collins, The Sundown Kid, Buddy Wayne, Bill Sky & Joe Sky, Herb Welch, Buster Guillotine Gordon, Darrell Cochran, Bob Armstrong, Rowdy Red Roberts, Ken Lucas, Dennis Hall, Tom Drake, Randy Tyler, Treach Phillips, Billy Hines, Sarah Lee, Sylvia Hackney and more.

In Chattanooga , a young man named Pez Whatley turns heads on the amateur high school wrestling scene. A few years later, Whatley would matriculate to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and gain some notoriety in the amateur wrestling ranks on the collegiate level, along with George Weingeroff the son of area managerial legend, Gentleman Saul Weingeroff. Whatley would eventually begin a lengthy pro wrestling career which would include his return to this area in the mid and late 1970s.

Much of the 1960s had seen the area terrorized by heels Kurt & Karl Von Brauner with manager Gentleman Saul Weingeroff and also by Tojo Yamamoto. As 1968 began though a new crew of heels were in place creating havoc. The Von Brauners, Weingeroff and Yamamoto left the area and began working in the Amarillo , Texas territory.    More...