Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives!
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Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives! |
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- Talmugin Ed. Note: Some of you may notice a different byline for this column. After 40 straight months, KM's Memphis writer, Tim Dills, has stepped down. Tim was one of two writers that I initially contacted when I had the idea for KM. Month in and month out, Tim had a piece for me, whether I reminded him or not. It has been my pleasure to work with Tim, to learn from his exhaustive and enthusiastic knowledge of Memphis wrestling, and I'm proud to be able to call him friend. So, on this personal note, I'd like to extend to Tim a huge thank you for all his hard work, dedication and support of KM. While he won't be writing here on the Memphis territory, he will be writing something somewhere for us, and I look forward to his continuing contribution. With that, I welcome our new Memphis writer, Talmugin, who many of you will recognize from the Memphis board on the KM message board. My First Monday Night Yes. The answer was yes.
Finally my father had agreed to take me to the matches on a Monday night.
I had been pestering him about it for 6 months, since I had become
addicted to that magical ninety minutes that came every Saturday at
11:00AM. Lance and Dave would call the action, Jerry Lawler and Sam Bass
would wreak havoc on the studio, and I would sit enthralled watching these
burley men beat the heck out of each other. And finally, we were going to
go see a live wrestling show at the Memphis Mid-South Coliseum. The year was 1976, the
year I became a wrestling fan. Oh, I had tried to watch it a few times in
previous years, but I always found it to be just interference to my main
interest as an elementary school boy, which were of course Saturday
Morning cartoons. But somehow in late 1975, I became fascinated by a brash
talking, sneaky, cocky wrestler by the name of Jerry Lawler. I just
couldn’t believe the dastardly things he and his manager Sam Bass would
do every week to such nice men like Bill Dundee, Tommy Rich, Tommy
Gilbert, and Bob Armstrong. I quickly picked up, though, that many times
the good guys finally gave Lawler his just desserts on Monday night, so I
dreamed of being there in person. And finally it was going to happen. I had just completed the
fourth grade, with good marks, and as a reward my Dad said he would take
me to the matches on the first Monday night after school let out. That
turned out to be Monday, June 7, 1976, and the card was advertised in the
Memphis paper as follows: MAIN EVENT 18 Man Blindfold Battle Royal Charlie Cook, Don Kernoodle, Bill Dundee, Plowboy Frasier The Dominoes, J.C. Dykes, Cowboy Frankie Lane, Jim Kent, Sam Bass, Dan Miller, Tommy Rich, Don Greene, the Scorpion, Jerry
Lawler, Don Anderson, the Bounty Hunters RETURN SOUTHERN TITLE MATCH – THREE REFEREES – 1 OUTSIDE & 2 INSIDE RING Don Anderson, Champion Vs. Jerry
Lawler, Challenger EXPLOSIVE SOUTHERN TAG TITLE MATCH Don Greene and the Scorpion, Champions Vs. Dan
Miller and Tommy Rich, Challengers
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