I live in Jackson, Tennessee. There is an arena in Jackson known as Oman Arena that seats about 5,600 people. It has been used for a variety events over the years including basketball games, rodeos, concerts and professional wrestling. In the 1970’s it was known as the Jackson Coliseum and they held professional wrestling matches regularly. I was a big wrestling fan and watched the local program on TV practically every Saturday. It was a treat to go to the occasional live show at the Jackson Coliseum. My first trips to see Wrestling were memorable just because I was getting to see these “stars” live. By the time I was in high school, I had seen enough live wrestling that the wrestlers on the card didn’t make as much difference. It would take a BIG star to get me to spend extra money for a ringside seat. Andre the Giant was big enough to make that difference.
I knew Andre the Giant from the covers of various wrestling magazines. He had also made an appearance a Bigfoot on a famous two-part episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. He was making a few appearances in the Memphis wrestling territory and Jackson was one of the stops. My friends and I went just to see him. He was impressive just as we expected. He entered the arena from behind us. We didn’t realize that he was there until he was at the ring. Nothing outstanding happened during the match but it would be something just to say we had seen Andre the Giant. It was right up there with seeing the wrestling bear and the McGuire Twins.
After seeing Andre the Giant you might think that nothing could top that. But Andre wasn’t even in the main event of the night. The last match of the night was a tag team event. The “bad guys” in the match were a team of “Australians” named George Barnes and Bill Dundee. Barnes was the only one in the team from Australia, Dundee came from Scotland. I don’t remember who the “good guys” were but the match had a special referee who would was a “good guy” wrestler. The good guys were destined to win.
As the match was coming to an end, Bill Dundee was thrown into the ropes. When he bounced off the ropes, he was “accidentally” flipped over the top rope and out of the ring. He was supposed to lay on the ground outside of the ring until George Barnes was pinned and the match ended. Today at most professional wrestling matches, there are usually padded barriers or iron railings around the ring to help keep the audience away from the ring. This match was so long ago that they just used a rope with posts in the corners to keep the audience out of the ring area. When Dundee landed outside of the ring, he fell over the rope, laying on the ground just outside of the ring space. There was an old lady in the front row and Dundee was right at her feet. She also had an umbrella. She started hitting Dundee with the umbrella. Instead of lying still until the match ended pretending to be semi-conscious, he quickly rolled away from the old lady to keep from taking a beating.
The night after this match, a bad storm came through Jackson. Tornadoes hit the Coliseum and blew the roof off.
