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Nick Gulas, Roy Welch &
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Looking back, some 27 years later, I realize now what a stacked card that was. Maybe not the best match-ups I’ve ever seen, but look at that roster. It is just filled with southern wrestling legends. Don Greene wrapping up a 20+ year career with one of his last runs with a title. Tommy Rich in his first full year, establishing himself as one of the best young baby faces the south had ever seen. The legendary Bounty Hunters in the opening match. Bill Dundee in his initial baby face run after burning up the territory the year before with George Barnes as the hated Australians. And three mat men who would leave us within two months after a fiery car crash on Interstate 40 – Sam Bass, and Pepe Lopez and Frank Hester wrestling as the Dominoes. 

And then there was Mr. Lawler. If ever a wrestler had his time in the sun, it was Jerry Lawler in 1976. That was the year he really came into his own as a singles star in the old Gulas/Welch territory. He had come back into the area after being away for most of the first half of 1975 while working in Florida and Georgia. In his absence, The Mongolian Stomper had taken over the Southern Heavyweight title, and Lawler came back to his hometown for a series of epic matches with the Stomper over the summer of ’75. Wrestling as a baby face against the Mongolian, Lawler finally disposed of him in a loser leaves town match, and then continued to wrestle the “right way” through the fall. But a November attack on teammate Bob Armstrong and a subsequent re-alliance with manager Sam Bass put the King back where he belonged – as the heel King, King over all jabronie wrestlers, redneck fans, and banana nosed announcers in Memphis. 

So we’re off to the matches, my father and I. I remember going west on Central Avenue, and when we get about two miles from the Coliseum, traffic starts backing up. There’s something going on up there, and it’s the sight of 3,000 cars all piling into the Fairgrounds parking lot for a night of action. We get up to the ticket window and my Dad asks for two $2.00 tickets (hey it was 1976) and I’m a little disappointed, because I know that a $4.00 ticket would put us ringside, but who’s to complain. We get up into the balcony and I see that there’s not a bad seat in the place. I also see that there aren’t many other 10 year old kids around. Saturday morning wrestling may have had its time slot to attract kids, but this Monday night stuff was for adults. My ears were burning from the profanity and the matches hadn’t even started yet. And the smoke was so thick up there you could cut it with a knife (again 1976 folks). Yes I had entered into another world. I was scared, excited, intimidated, but mostly, as Jimmy Hart put it so precisely years later, I couldn’t wait ‘till they climbed in the ring! 

It is 8:00 by the big clock in the arena, and the bell sounds. And they ring the bell again. And again. Finally at about 8:15 the first wrestlers make the long walk to the ring. What I can remember from the actual action that night is very little. I remember being surprised at how much comedy was put into the matches. Every tag team match that night featured a lot of the routines where the two heel partners would accidentally hit each other, and as a result the baby face team would get the advantage. Even up in the balcony I was a little scared of Don Greene and the Scorpion – I guess I somehow thought that even though I was 50 rows up, ol’ Don might hear me boo him and come up there and put that vice-grip head lock off his on me. The blind fold battle royal I remember as being mostly just silly, and it came down to Greene and Scorpion vs. Cowboy Frankie Lane. Of course, the tag partners eventually eliminated each other in an oft-seen routine, and Lane takes the prize, but it was a fun ending to a good night of action. I think we got our $4.00 worth. 

I got up early the next morning to read the official results in the paper and this is what I found: 

Anderson Retains Title

Don Anderson, NWA Southern Heavyweight Champion, retained his title last night at the Mid-South Coliseum by beating Jerry Lawler on a disqualification. In other bouts, before 6,831, the NWA Southern Tag Team champs, Don Greene and the Scorpion, whipped Dan Miller and Tommy Rich; Charlie Cook and Don Kernoodle beat The Bounty Hunters; The Dominoes whipped Plowboy Frasier and Bill Dundee; Cowboy Frankie Lane won the handicapped match over Sam Bass, J.C. Dykes and Jim Kent, and Lane won the blindfold battle royal. 

I would go to the matches one other time during that summer of 1976, two months later to see the great Jack Brisco defeat Jerry Lawler for the Southern title. And I would go many of other times over the following years, seeing some of the greatest grapplers to ever work the ring, and some of the most memorable matches in Memphis wrestling history. But most special to me would be that night in June when we went to see them live for the first time.

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