It was late 1972, and NWA wrestling and what was to become the Tri-State Region was at its apex. One of the top tag teams in the organization at this time was a third or fourth configuration of the gimmick known as “The Hollywood Blondes”, with Terry Garvin and “Gentleman” Jerry Browne filling the roles of the dastardly and much hated pretty boys.

It was later revealed that Garvin actually was a “pretty boy” after some of the allegations that surfaced during a sexual harassment scandal in the WWF, but at the time Garvin was traveling with a woman that was billed as his wife, LaVerne.

On the afternoon of the weekly matches, the Garvin entourage had blown into town early and a new department store had opened in a fairly new shopping center that same week. Garvin, Brown and Miss LaVerne wanted to go shopping at the new Woolco, but being the heels that they were, the local promoter was concerned about them going out in public so he appointed my dad and I to take them to the store.

It didn’t take long for this traveling circus to draw a crowd at the department store. With kayfabe being what it was in 1972, Garvin wasn’t about to break character and was acting the part of a flamboyant gay man to the max, and the show didn’t play well with the Arkansas fans at the store.

Sensing that things might quickly get out of hand, my dad was trying to maintain a buffer between the wrestlers and the marks. Garvin refused to back down from the heel heat he was generated with the crowd and was being blasted with jeers of  “fag” and “homo” to which he replied “well, why don’t you come to the matches at the Sports Arena and watch this fag whip some ass tonight.”

Browne and Miss LaVerne was laughing so hard at this point that they couldn’t breath. But the ploy worked like a charm, because by the time the first bell rang at the Sports Arena that night, the crowd was about twice what usually attended the weekly matches, with just about every ringside seat full.

The local show in Fort Smith usually was a five match card, utilizing eight wrestlers. The first four matches would be one-on-one affairs, and the combatants from the first two matches would usually come back and work a tag match for the fifth pairing.  More...