The 1976 wrestling season started off with a whimper after the fine turnout of the Christmas ‘ 75 show. The main event was another encounter between Ox Baker and Dick the Bruiser in a Brass Knuckles match on January 17th. The crowd was approximately 4,500, and that was probably being kind. The match itself was a plodding affair, with Ox coming out the winner after Johnny Starr and Chuck O’Connor interfered. The throng sat mostly quiet, and filed out peacefully after the main. In the semi main, Pepper Gomez kept his WWA title on a reverse decision over Chuck O’Connor (see earlier installment). The February 21st card had Bruiser and Crusher defending their belts against Ox and Chuck O’Connor which had one referee getting knocked out and a standby making the count, only to get knocked out himself and the original ref making the opposite decision. The match was ruled a draw, and the tag belts were held up. Gomez gained a draw to retain his WWA title. This show marked the end of the 2/3 fall tag team title match (other than special occasions). From this time on, all WWA tag team title bouts were one fall. The March 13th show saw B&C paired again against Ox and O’Connor, with Starr barred from the building. In actual fact, he was getting married on this date. At any rate, Ox and O’Connor annexed the straps from the brawling cousins in one of the lamer finishes seen. Ox hit Crusher with a plastic chair that couldn’t break an egg at full force, and he only grazed him with the edge of the seat. Crusher went down as if hit by a sledge hammer, and Ox got the win. Many people in the crowd shook their heads in disbelief. 4,900 was listed as attendance. The March 27th show saw Bruiser against O’Connor and Crusher against Ox in singles bouts. At this time channel 6, WRTV, couldn’t get down to tape the matches, so Dick had a film crew come in and film the two main bouts on 16mm,and they were later inserted onto other footage Dick had in the can. Bruiser won over O’Connor in a match that saw the still green O’Connor struggle to get a few drops of blood from a poor and apparent juice job. He struggled for several minutes, but just couldn’t get it done. A big foot from the ropes brought this one to an end. (This footage was shown on the first David Letterman afternoon show that Dick guested on years later. Dick then demonstrated his "claw" on the then ample girth of one up and coming Roseanne Barr, who complained that it tickled.)  More...