Brisco eventually worked his way up the ladder in various territories, getting one of his first big opportunities in Australia for Jim Barnett after meeting Killer Karl Kox while wrestling in Dallas for Fritz Von Erich.  Out of the hundreds of wrestlers who worked for Barnett over that promoter’s storied career, nearly all of them do impressions of him.  Brisco’s is probably one of the worst, but that’s nitpicking when compared to the other stories he has from that time.  Jack has good recollections throughout the 60s and 70s, culminating in winning the NWA title in Houston from Harley Race (who had defeated Dory eight weeks earlier) in 1973.  Around this time, he started buying 5% and 10% interests in the Florida & Georgia territories.  Buddy Colt sold his interests to the brothers after his 1975 plane crash.  Six years later, the Georgia territory exploded nationwide via cable, while Jack and Jerry were still wrestling in Florida and the Carolinas, both as singles and a tag team.  Jack had his first true heel run at this time, feuding with Rick Steamboat & Jay Youngblood, culminating with a title match at the first Starrcade.  Behind the scenes, Jack & Jerry were pushing Jim Barnett to expand nationwide (GCW was already in Ohio & Michigan).  Barnett refused, saying he didn’t want to hurt other promoters, who were his friends, and sold to Ole Anderson.  All of this led, through several channels to the infamous “Black Saturday” on TBS.  This is probably the first documented inside story of what happened, so I won’t give any of the tape away.  But it’s not nearly as black-and-white, as “evil Vince McMahon empire” as the smart marks and hardcores want to make it sound. 

The highlight of this tape, though, is definitely stories of the parallel career that Brisco had with Dory Jr., a feud for over 20 years.  The roots of the feud are ones that spawn many societies: Oklahoma v. Texas, greenhorn v. born into the business, great amateur v. purely pro background.  Jack was in the first match on the show in 1969 in Tampa, when Funk beat Gene Kiniski for the World title (the spinning toe hold that ended the match is one of the clips on this tape).  Jack wrestled many hour-long draws with Dory, both as the challenger and champion.  According to Jack, they sold out Tampa thirteen straight times, with Terry Funk putting Brisco over to lead to Jack’s initial title shots.  All of their success in Florida was broadcast via syndication of their TV show across the country.  They sold out the Charlotte Coliseum in one day, with neither wrestler ever having worked in the Mid-Atlantic territory before.  They toured the country and the world.  But Dory Sr. was adamant that Brisco would never take the title from his son, something that still stings Brisco thirty years later.  Pro wrestling may be predetermined, but never tell me that it isn’t real.  This was the feud of the 70s, and maybe the best feud pro wrestling ever produced, both in the ring and out. 

I wouldn’t be a critic if I didn’t have some, well, criticisms.   The first, and it’s small, is that there’s a reason that Jerry Brisco did most of the interviews when the brothers were a team.  Jack isn’t the liveliest of speakers, and leans towards one-sentence answers throughout the tape (and I’ll bet, throughout his life).  Nulty does a good job of leading Jack through two hours of conversation…which leads to my other suggestion that could improve future WrestlingClassics.com interviews, assuming there are more.  There isn’t a lot of other video accompanying the interview.  I’m not suggesting following the “RF” style, where entire matches are often interspersed with the conversation.  But two hours is a long time to look at two men sitting around talking.  There are some brief clips of some of the wrestlers that Brisco references, including very rare footage of Danny Hodge and Harley Race.  More of this would be appreciated, with the interview continuing over the top of the video.  This would have been doubly nice on the Jack Brisco tape, since there isn’t a lot of his matches available on video in the first place, and WrestlingClassics.com has one of the largest libraries of high-quality wrestling video available anywhere.  There’s a number of classic Brisco matches available on other WrestlingClassics.com tapes.   The shoot interview is a welcome companion to them, and would be a welcome addition to any collector’s library.  I’m really anxious to see who their next subject is…Jack Brisco was a solid first effort.

To order the Jack Brisco shoot interview, click here.