My Love Affair with Pro Wrestling (Part 1)

There was a time in my life when I was a big fan of professional wrestling. The same thing may have happened to you. If so, see if your story is similar to mine.

Bruno (photo courtesy WWE)

From roughly 1975 to 1985, pro wrestling had me hooked. It started with a wrestling magazine that someone had brought to school. I was around 12 years old at the time, and I asked if I could look at the magazine.

The magazine had lots of pictures of all the top wrestlers. There was Ivan ‘The Russian Bear’ Koloff, Dick ‘The Bruiser’ Afflis, Superstar Billy Graham, Chief Jay Strongbow, and of course, the living legend of professional wrestling, Bruno Sammartino.

Later that year, I discovered I could watch pro wrestling on local Channel 47, a UHF channel. It had reasonably decent reception–provided you could get the ‘rabbit ears’ set just right. For those who didn’t grow up in the 1970s and haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, rabbit ears are what we called the antenna on the television.

UHF was primarily a Spanish channel. If you weren’t Spanish, the only reason you would search UHF was for the wrestling (Lucha Libre in Spanish). That’s when I first saw Bruno Sammartino wrestle. He was the champion of the World Wide Wrestling Federation.

Back then, the three most popular federations were the National Wrestling Alliance, which covered most of the Southern territory, The American Wrestling Association, which covered the Midwest, and the World Wide Wrestling Federation, which covered the area where I lived, the East Coast.

Mascaras (photo, The Wrestling Universe)

While staying up late one Saturday night, I discovered a new federation had sprung up named the International Wrestling Association. It was televised on Channel 9 (WOR) out of New York City and it didn’t come on until midnight. The champion of that federation was a very athletic Mexican wrestler by the name of Mil Mascaras. He wore a mask that his opponents were always trying to take off but, of course, never could.

Mascaras was one of the few wrestlers who had an unlimited array of moves, and he would usually finish off his opponent by diving off the top rope. He quickly became one of my favorites. The chief villain of the IWA was Bulldog Brower, who had a heated rivalry with the Mighty Igor, who later became a very popular wrestler using the name Ivan ‘Polish Power’ Putski. The IWA didn’t last very long, so most of the wrestlers joined one of the other three federations.

Then the WWWF started televising their shows on Saturday afternoon. The show attracted many fans, including me. But Sammartino rarely, if ever, wrestled on these televised shows. He was the main attraction and wrestled at big venues like Madison Square Garden and the Spectrum in Philadelphia.

In April 1976, Bruno wrestled a relative newcomer named Stan Hansen. Hansen had been a college football star at West Texas State. A huge man at 6’4 and 310 lbs, his favorite move was “The Lariat.” He would hurl his opponent into the ropes. Then when the guy bounced off and headed towards him, he would “close line” him. A body slam usually followed.

But while bodyslamming Sammartino, Hansen accidentally dropped him on the back of his head and broke his neck. No one in the pro wrestling business was ready to let the secret out that the matches were scripted, so the storyline was that it was Hansen’s lariat that broke Bruno’s neck.

Thankfully, Sammartino made a full recovery and returned to the ring. By now, I was questioning whether pro wrestling was “fake.” That’s what everyone was telling me. I resisted, though. I was only 14 years old at the time, and I didn’t want to believe pro wrestling was phony.

In 1977, I met someone who was an even bigger wrestling fan than I. My friend was more than a fan, actually; he photographed wrestling as a side job. The big benefit for me was that my friend knew some of the wrestlers personally, and he was able to get tickets to just about any show.

One day he asked me if I wanted to go with him to an upcoming show. “What’s the ticket price?” I asked. “They’re free,” he said. “All I ask is that you help me sell my photos before and after the show.”

How could I turn down a deal like that?!

(Part 2 coming soon)