Hi and welcome to my first installment of Southwest Championship Wrestling, the promotion first began in 1978. At the time SWCW was a member of the NWA and the early talent in SWCW included Tully Blanchard, Dale Valentine (Buddy Roberts), Dory Funk Jr., Tom Jones, Frank Dusek, El Gran Markus, The Von Erich's (Who made a few appearances), Gino Hernandez, Jose Lothario, Cowboy Bob Ellis and from WWA LA came these wrestlers Mil Mascaras, Chavo Guerrero, Colosso Colosetti, The Twin Devils, Bull Ramos, Al Madril, and Black Gorman and Goliath.

The early days of SWCW the cards were held at the Municipal Auditorium and the Hemisphere Arena, all TV taping were held at the Municipal and the Announcers were:
English - Joe Blanchard and Spanish - Rapido Rodriguez. Al Madril was the first SWCW champion but was defeated by Tully Blanchard a short time later, at this time Tully was the main Face of the promotion. Being a hometown hero made him even more popular, he lost the belt a short time later to Dale Valentine they would exchange the belt a total of seven times. This was once of the first hot feuds in the area, after a year long run as a face Tully stunned his hometown fans by turning heel in a series of matches versus Tom Jones who had taken the title from him earlier. In mid 1979 the Municipal Auditorium caught fire and at this time it was the home base of SWCW thus a new home was to be found. While the cards at the Hemisphere Arena were drawing good crowds many of the top stars came through San Antonio, one of the best cards of 79 featured a cage tag-team match. It pitted Tully Blanchard & Black Gorman versus The great Mil Mascaras & Wahoo McDaniel, the faces won the match and this showed the kind of great talent SWCW had at this time. Another feud that was red hot at this time was Gino Hernandez and Jose Lothario, Jose helped train Gino and with the help of Gran Markus attacked Lothario with a pencil after a TV match and help set up this feud. It was the classic Mentor vs. Student as their feud attracted large crowds whenever they wrestled.