- Jeff Luce

Welcome back Southeastern Championship Wrestling fans for this month’s Pick-A-Region story. This time around we’ll look at the two faces of Jerry Stubbs. The ultra-popular babyface “Mr. Olympia,” and the super heel Jerry Stubbs.

I know Jerry Stubbs has a long history before I had the opportunity to see him wrestle. His previous work has been written about before on Kayfabe Memories in this region and the Knoxville region. I won’t write anything about that because I did not personally see it. I will, however write about the memories I do have of Mr. Olympia/Jerry Stubbs. 

“Mr. Olympia”:  When I first began watching Southeastern Championship Wrestling, I think Olympia was splitting time between Southeastern and Bill Watts’ Mid-South promotion. The Mid-South area is the only time I can recall Olympia working for an extended period of time as a heel. In Southeastern if he turned heel, the mask came OFF.

Mr. Olympia’s popularity, in my estimation, was rivaled only by Austin Idol’s.  It was not a secret that the man behind the mask was indeed Jerry Stubbs. The mask was almost like a Clark Kent/Superman situation. The mask “forced” Jerry Stubbs to be a good guy, at least in Southeastern. Mr. Olympia, in fact, did the one thing Austin Idol could not do: he unseated Wayne Ferris as Alabama Heavyweight Champion. He held the Alabama title until he was defeated by Norman Fredrick Charles III. He won the title back months later by defeating Black Bart, and this would be the last gold Mr. Olympia would hold in the area for awhile, because the Alabama Heavyweight title would lead to Olympia losing the mask and going to the bad side, which I will hit on in just a bit.

Mr. Olympia also did stints in the tag team ranks as a partner with the legendary Ken Lucas, his “best friend” Austin Idol, Robert Fuller and finally the man from “Drop in U.S.A.” Col. Buck Robley.

Mr. Olympia had a good feud going with “The Dirty White Boy” Tony Anthony in mid 1987. This occurred after Anthony turned on Stubbs, when they were a tag team. The mask came back on and the bad guy Stubbs returned to the good guy Mr. Olympia. 

Mr. Olympia went on to work for Rip Tyler’s W.O.W. promotion after his Southeastern/Continental days.   More...