I started watching wrestling in the mid 1960’s on TV. in Johnstown, PA.   I first recall my dad having it on every Saturday night.  Studio Wrestling on Channel 11 live from Pittsburgh , PA.   My dad was a casual fan.  My step-grandfather on the other hand was a big fan.  He spoke broken English, but I would sometimes go over to my grandparents house and join him in watching Studio Wrestling.  He’d curse and get  out of his chair and yell at the TV.  I became intrigued.  I remember watching Bruno Sammartino, the world champ, the Battman, Chief White Owl, and Mr. Kleen battle the villains Waldo von Erich, Killer Kowalski, Prof Tanaka, Hans Mortier and Ivan Koloff. My step-grandfather, John Safko, passed in Jan 1969, but by then I was hooked.

I was a little sketchy on the details of my first live wrestling event.  I knew it was in February, but thought it was 1969.  After getting on the Kayfabe message board and later some research at the Johnstown Library, I stood corrected, the date was Feb. 27, 1970.  I thought it was a Saturday night but upon further racking my memory and talking with my dad, I learned that fell on a Thursday night.  I do remember waiting for my dad to get home from work so we could hurry through dinner so I wouldn’t be late.  I remember parking across the street from the Cambria County War Memorial Auditorium, at the G-Bee’s grocery store parking lot.  My dad got PO’ed because for the night they were charging a parking fee to use the lot.  I recall the doors were already open, and the place was filling up.  We bought seats on the side of the ring off the floor, maybe 6-7 rows up, but dead center.  My cousin Joey Martin came with us.  I bought a program or rather the Tri State Wrestling photo album as soon as we got inside the arena.   My dad let us go up to the ring before the show and touch the ring.  Boy that’s hard I thought.  This can’t be fake like some of the kids at school told me.  The lights went down and the first wrestlers made their way to the ring.  John L Sullivan, a guy I remember from TV was the first out.  All the kids ran to ringside and after he got in the ring, spent several minutes signing autographs.  I asked my dad and he allowed me and Joey to run down to ringside.  I got John L Sullivan (who later became a heel and changed his name to Luscious Johnny Valiant) to sign the back cover of my program.  I don’t remember if Joey was successful.  His opponent that night was Tony Angelo, an out of shape bald guy who I knew as a manager (of Ivan Koloff) but did not know he was a wrestler as well. 

The light went down and they played the National anthem while both wrestlers were in the ring.  When the lights came on, Tony Angelo attacked John L Sullivan as he took off his jacket.  To my surprise Tony Angelo held his own against the younger and much more in shape John L Sullivan.  Despite all his dirty tricks, Angelo could not beat him and the match went to a fairly exciting 15-minute draw.  The next match was a ladies tag match, the crowd seemed pretty excited about it, I never heard of any of the girls, I remember 3 of the 4 names and had made assumptions over the years of the 4^th girl being Donna Christenello (who lived in Pittsburgh) but it wasn’t.  Vicki Williams & Kathy O’Day took on Toni Rose & someone who turned out to be a girl named Fran Gravette.  It turns out that in the first 2 falls Vicki Williams and Toni Rose traded pins both using airplane spins.  I recall the finish of the third fall, when Vickie Williams came off the ropes and just dove on Fran Gravette for the third and deciding fall.  Toni Rose went wild and attacked the winners (this set up a return match the next month with the Fabulous Moolah as Rose’s tag partner against O’Day & Williams).