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that it
was real and would run you out of the house if you said anything to the
contrary. If anyone dared interrupt her during "wrasslin’"
she was apt to reply with her own version of Friday Night Smackdown. She
shook her fist at the villains, jumped up in a tizzy (faster than she
otherwise ever moved), to jiggle the wires on the back of her set if the
picture got fuzzy and became incensed when one of her favorites got
whooped. I do believe if Dick the Bruiser and Crusher Lisowski were
being telecasted fighting anyone at all, she very well could have missed
the Second Coming.
In
the eighth grade a couple of my classmates, Larry and Wiley, became
obsessed with the theatrics of their TV heroes and mimicked their
athleticism; trying a few tricks they’d read about in the wrestling
magazines of the day. They found headbutts can lead to concussions and
your classmates will make fun of you for as long as the stain remains on
your face if you bite a balloon containing red food color in a bloody
pile drive routine. They found getting body slammed on a dirt schoolyard
instead of a flexible canvas floor could make you cry uncontrollably in
front of all your friends and it was a rumor that real wrestlers cut
each other with double edge razors during matches that caused Wiley to
nearly lose an eyebrow.
Then
there was the Kaufman/Lawler incident. During the late ‘70s and into
the ‘80s, Andy Kaufman was cast on the hit TV show Taxi as a
naïve little cab driver named Latka Gravas. But, as part of his regular
stand-up club routine, Kaufman shocked everyone with his nasty wrestling
persona modeled in the likeness of his flamboyant boyhood idol and
villain, Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. Dressed in boots, tight insulated
underwear and a large belt buckle, he declared himself the Intergender
World Champion of wrestling (he fought only women).
Kaufman’s
obsession with the sport soon landed him in Memphis with real-live
wrestling fans. He offered any woman in the crowd $1,000 if they could
beat him. After a while, local wrestling hero, Jerry "The
King" Lawler got tired of Kaufman humiliating the ladies and pushed
him. Kaufman threatened to sue, but instead accepted a challenge from
Lawler to a match.
During
the fight, Lawler allowed Kaufman to put him in a headlock. He then gave
Kaufman a suplex and two illegal piledrivers. Lawler lost by
disqualification. Kaufman was in the hospital for several days.
In
July of ’83, Lawler and Kaufman appeared on Late Night with David
Letterman where Lawler slapped Kaufman so hard in the face that it
knocked him out of his chair. Other than Larry and Wiley beating on each
other behind the cafeteria, I’d never paid much attention to
"wrasslin." This could be interesting.
I
knew that a local couple, Josie Biles and his wife, Minnie, went to
wrestling matches nearly every weekend at a civic center in a larger
town in the next county. I told Josie I might be interested in seeing a
match and he jumped on the idea with both feet. Without asking me, his
wife even got me my first and only blind date; a friend of hers she had
known since childhood.
Now,
Josie and Minnie were what folks in some circles might call a little
squirrelly. Minnie was about a foot taller than Josie and did nearly all
the talking. Josie had a habit of rubbing his left forearm with his
right hand when he got excited and he was very excitable. Disco was in
pretty big then and they attended every Thursday night at the community
recreation center in the County Seat with matching leisure suits and
shiny patent leather shoes. Their powder blue get-ups were my favorite.
I’d seen the duo on the railroad track rabbit hunting; Minnie would
flush them out of the brambles and Jose would try to pop them with a
boat paddle (I don’t think either of them were allowed to own
firearms). They’d hang out some Saturdays on the bench in front of
Bard’s Store chug-a-lugging belly-washer RC colas and then try to out
burp each other. They were a hoot!
The
comic adventure of my first night of wrestling began when I walked from
their foyer to the living room. My date for the night had her foot
pulled to her mouth and was trimming her toenails with her teeth. Let
the barbarism begin.
We
got to the civic center two hours early to get a good seat. While we sat
there a large, pale green car pulled up with two linebacker-sized men.
"It’s the Dawg! And that’s Bam Bam with him!" stuttered
Josie, rubbing the few remaining hairs from his left arm. I later
figured out that he meant Junkyard Dog (the good guy) and Terry
"Bam Bam" Gordy (the bad guy). They had ridden in together
from Louisiana to fight each other that night…and boy did they. The
Dog put his famous crawling headbutt on Bam Bam. Some other villain with
a cape and crown jumped in to help double-team him only to have his
royal blue tights pulled down to reveal his bright red bikini drawers.
The crowd went wild! Josie nearly fainted with excitement. His giant
wife was barking and howling like some sort of werewolf to cheer the Dog
on! My date stared at the ceiling most of the night. I still don’t
know about her.
Toward
the end of the night, the muscled-up (surely there weren’t steroids
back then) Van Zandt brothers nearly got whooped by a half-dozen midget
wrestlers (I do apologize, ‘little people wrestlers’ just doesn’t
sound right). The brothers sustained multiple bites to the calves and
ankles before eventually picking one of the mini-maulers up and throwing
him out of the ring onto the guy with the crown! Pandemonium ensued with
every wrestler in the house jumping in to get in on the action.
Some
guy with long, bright blond hair, aquamarine colored tights and a tan
like a raisin got smashed with a folding metal chair and had to be
hauled by paramedics from the arena (I saw him later in another large
car, driving off with the same paramedics). There were trips, punches,
gouges, powder to the eyes, flames to the eyes, corner slams, body
blocks, flying body slams, powerslams, facelocks, elbow drops,
backdrops, chokeholds and one sleeper hold.
You
just can’t find good wholesome, family entertainment like that
anymore!
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