Asking Jim about his memories of backstage events he told me   “I remember the first time Pedro Martinez ran the show after some buyout or something. It was rough being the first time and we were literally minutes from going on the air and no match had been set. Now that I think of it, Beach and I worked on TV and it may have been that day. Not sure, but they sent somebody out to put in time so they could figure things out in the back room.  

Pittsburgh TV was always my favorite TV situation to work. I loved the live aspect of it and when it was over it was over. It seemed to go good all the way through. I wish I had been there for The Battman deal with Marino.  . When taped, they could shut down and take a break, but not there. DeNucci, Geeto Mongol and Scicluna seemed to be some of the nicer guys also. Nice to work with, didn’t have to fear for your body. In other words, the way the business should be. ´ When I asked him about who he didn’t like to work it was the Fargo’s, Johnny (Greg Valentine) & Donnie.  This stemmed from an incident during a TV match where Jim & a partner he couldn’t remember were working the Fargo’s, Donnie held the kid as Johnny hit him hard in the jaw it made a sickening sound and the kid went limp.  Donnie rolled him over and pinned him, Johnny grabbed Jim and held him but before Donnie could hit him, Dominic DeNucci and Johnny DeFazio ran them off.  As they headed through the hallway, past an irate Baron Scicluna, fellow jobber Bob Richards went after the Fargo’s and Jim wasn’t far behind, Baron Scicluna got in the case as well, DeNucci stopped Scicluna, and Rudy Miller & Ace Freeman came back to cool things down.  There were wine bottles all over the Fargo’s dressing room.  The kid never said a word, kept and ice pack on his jaw and got out of the business. 

In the early 1970’s Pedro Martinez of the NWF took over and we saw more of an influx of the Detroit, Buffalo, Canadian guys than ever before.  Al Hayes (not Lord Alfred), Al Schiller, Bull Johnson, Terry Yorkston, Golden Boy Apollo, Pretty Boy Billy Fontana and others.  Always short on jobber’s masked guys like Joe Abbey (the Red Demon) or Dino Nero (the Ram) would work several times if needed.  With too much TV time left and not enough wrestlers George Steele once worked Rick O’Toole in an as many falls until curfew match.  Many of the matches would be 2 of three falls, guys like Jim Dillon (TV commentator Bill Cardille called him Swayback) would work jobber Jerry Dorsi (Billed as the Ukrainian Champion) in a less than thrilling match of jobbers (way before Dillon was a star).  Frank Durso would job to Frank Holtz, Bobby “Hurricane’ Hunt or any number of other jobbers or mid carders, week after week. 

Over the years the jobbers were too many to recall, this is just a glimpse at some of the enhancement talent that made Pittsburgh’s Studio wrestling a place where “Anything can happen, usually does and probably will”.  Without the Frank Durso’s, Ramon Lopez’s, Johnny Furr’s, Jerry Dorsi’s, Al Schiller’s,   Terry Yorkston’s,  Walter Rujah’s and yes the  Jim Lancaster’s, those of us who were kids would not have been scared of Baron Scicluna, Ivan Koloff or Prof Tanaka, or believed that The Battman, Johnny DeFazio or Dominic DeNucci were the greatest baby faces around.   Thanks guys for the memories.

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