Going to the Mid-South Fair at the Fairgounds in Memphis, TN was a yearly trip for my family. In addition to the rides, we would also visit all of the buildings with a variety of exhibits. In 1977, we were going though one of these exhibit halls when we came up to a booth with …
Category Archives: Wrestling
Fight Breaks Out at Wrestling Match
A coworker who knows that I occasionally watch professional wrestling recently asked me if I had seen a program on the Discovery channel called Big Little Brawlers. It is a reality series about a little person wrestling organization based in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Next, he mentioned that they were going to do a show soon …
Checking on Grandma
I was fortunate to grow up living close to relatives on both sides of my family. My aunt and uncle on my father’s side of the family lived in the houses next to ours and my paternal grandmother lived around the corner. Even at a relatively early age, I could walk to her house without …
Wrestling – Real or Fake?
In the 1970’s, professional wrestling was supposed to be “real”. The people involved in the shows never let on that it was anything but a legitimate sport. The wrestlers would violently angry at the suggestion that it was fake. The was well before they coined the term “sports entertainment” to keep it from being regulated …
Jerry Lawler Wrestling Anniversary
2015 was the 45th anniversary of Jerry Lawler wrestling professionally. In the Memphis area, there were several celebrations of this anniversary at various events. I had been on a business trip but was returning home in time to see the event in Jackson, Tennessee, where I currently live. It had been many years since I …
Cheering for the Bad Guy
In the 1970’s, Jerry Lawler became the biggest name in Memphis professional wrestling. His impact was big enough on the weekly Monday night live events at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, that having him on the card could double the attendance and guarantee a sellout crowd. This was a time when professional wrestling was made …
Wrestling with Dr. Frank
At some point in the 1970’s, the Memphis wrestling promotion introduced a character named Dr. Frank. Dr. Frank was a wrestler in Frankenstein monster makeup. When they introduced his character on the television program, Jerry Lawler brought him out in an upright wooden box with padlocks on it. They referred to this box as a …
Tojo in Jackson
I have talked about watching professional wrestling from Memphis in previous blog posts. The Memphis wrestling programs were always on at 11 AM on Saturday mornings. While I watched these shows practically every Saturday, I never went to a live taping or the Monday night shows they were promoting. I occasionally went to the Thursday …
Blowing the Roof Off the Wrestling Arena
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 …
The McGuire Twins
The McGuire Twins were in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world’s largest twins. Most of the pictures of them in the record book showed them riding motorcycles. When I was growing up, we thought they were riding minibikes, but I think they were just that much bigger than the bikes they …