September 4, 2025 • 26 mins
🎤 Step into the ring with wrestling’s 1970s icons: Nick Bockwinkel, Michael Hayes, JJ Dillon, and Pat Patterson. 🏆 From AWA’s glory days to the birth of the Attitude Era, these legends spill the secrets of wrestling’s most transformative decade. 🔥 Raw details: Vince McMahon Sr.’s territory wars, the rise of factions, and how racial tensions shaped the industry. 💔 The untold stories of backroom deals, wild road trips, and the night wrestling changed forever. 💀 From tag team classics to solo stardom—these legends saw it all. ⚠️ Warning: Contains unfiltered tales of wrestling’s wildest era. 😱
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💥 Thanks for checking out Wrestling Shoot Interviews and Stories – where the legends speak and the stories hit harder than a steel chair.
📲 Stay connected: Facebook Mk-Ultra CAST | X @MkUltracast
💬 Share your favorite wrestling moments and story ideas with us online.
🎙️ Because every wrestler has a story worth telling.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wrestling-shoot-interviews-and-stories--5864462/support.
💥 Thanks for checking out Wrestling Shoot Interviews and Stories – where the legends speak and the stories hit harder than a steel chair.
📲 Stay connected: Facebook Mk-Ultra CAST | X @MkUltracast
💬 Share your favorite wrestling moments and story ideas with us online.
🎙️ Because every wrestler has a story worth telling.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, folks, Welcome to WWWE Legends of Wrestling. Our subject
for this episode the seventies. Oh my goodness, what a decade.
Remember was what was the wrestling culture like in the
decade of the seventies, And it was kind of an
age of innocence, if you will, before we made that
(00:25):
transition into sports entertainment. I'm Gene Okerland, our distinguished panelist,
six times AWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Buckwinkle, enjoying a
fine cigar. Yes, i am future Hall of Famer. I've
said this before, I'll say it again. I hope you're
voting the man that did it all on Bad Street
and other streets for that matter, and the fabulous free Birds.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Michael ps Hayes.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you, Gene.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
My very dear, close personal, longtime friend, the manager of
many a superstar and of course very prominent in the
nineteen seventies, James Jay.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Dylan.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Dylan Dylan is the last name, and our panel would
not be complete without the presence of often one of
our panelists joining us again, this time Hall of Famer,
former Intercottinental champion, the very first step real de Gennaro.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
My correct, that's the correct Patterson.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yes, very good on the subject of the decade the
nineteen seventies when I started, By the way, guys Nick Bockwinkel,
what was it like to be a wrestler in the seventies, Great?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Absolutely great. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
Why why if you were athletically inclined, so go back
even a little further, regardless of whether it was some
gym someplace, or in college or in school or whatever,
and you learn, and you learn the basic trade of
wrestling to then be invited into this fraternity of this
(01:57):
crazy off the wall group of people who, as far
as I was concerned, from the time I was a
little kid, was seeing them, was being in a dressing
room with them, and I mean it was just it
was just wild and I loved it, and I was
awed by it as a little kid.
Speaker 6 (02:17):
That's a really unique way and nailing the nailing it
right on the head a fraternity because it was such
a secretive, close knit brotherhood, if you will. And that
took took, you know, you moving heaven and earth to
get into.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I mean, you know, our career started in the late seventies.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
I started putting up the ring in nineteen seventy five,
but it was seventies wrestling that I fell in love with,
and for me to try to get in with no
family in there, no friend or something. You know, when
you got it, it was like getting in the mafia
and you weren't getting out.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Just about the truth, JJ Dillon.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I kind of view the seventies as a transition decade.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I don't know you talk about fraternity. Was there a
secret handshake?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
No.
Speaker 7 (03:05):
I actually broke into the business full time nineteen seventy one,
so I really got a chance to experience the whole
era of the seventies.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
And absorb it all.
Speaker 7 (03:16):
I started as a as a fan, and you know,
I talk about going to Madison Square Garden to see
the Chikh and Bobo Brazil and Haystacks Calhoun, and later
on as a referee before I had a wrestling or
managing career, I found myself in the ring with a
(03:36):
lot of these same guys, and I had to pinch
myself for a while with that. And then finally when
I broke into the business, I would you know, I
was get beat up on television, but I was in
the ring with the Sheikh, with Bobo Brazil, with Haystax Calhoun,
and so By the time I got to Charlotte, North
Carolina in nineteen seventy one, you know, I was I
(03:59):
had gotten over the initial excitement of being in the
ring with the stars titles, and now it was how
I was going to try to make my living, and
it was. It was a great era.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Pat Patterson, I'm very curious as an outsider looking in
in the nineteen seventies, how secretive was the industry, the
business back in the seventies, and how much did you
have to know before you were welcomed in to that fraternity.
Speaker 8 (04:28):
Well, you had to be respected by your peers, because
if you were not, you were out the window. And
all these old timers and they were wearing the main event,
and they said newcomers coming in and if you didn't fit,
you were out.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
You had to get along with everybody.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You know that you had to earn their respect. You
had to earn their was.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
One of the non wrestling promoters in the country at
that time, but I mean Bern Ganna, Paul Bosch, roy Shire,
Eddie Graham situation.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Of course of the shock territory was.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Le mc the.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Uncle's Le based Bob gel Rob Geigel in Kansas City.
Speaker 8 (05:10):
Based in those days you have you had to respect
the business you really had. And I was very fortunate,
you know. And years ago many guys would have to
go from one territory to the other two years here,
one year there, and they have to move the family.
And for me, I was in Oregon. I started in
the business when I was in nineteen fifty eight. So
in nineteen sixty five I come to San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It was twenty five years old, But in nineteen fifty eight,
how old were you?
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Eighteen years old?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, So I mean that had to be young.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
You talk about sixteen and setting up the ring at fifteen,
How old nick I was?
Speaker 5 (05:48):
I was?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I was nineteen years old.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Nineteen years old?
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Then, I you were born in the I was born
into the business. And when I think of the first
time after working out with my dad and losing my
football scholarship to college, and I was because I busted
both knees. I'm working out with my dad and at
the end of the workout, he said to me, he says, now,
he says, you got to learn how to take bumps.
(06:13):
And basically what bumps meant is if somebody picked me
up and body slammed me, and my body came down
and hit that mat.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
That was a bump.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
If I got hiplocked, if I got thrown over the
top ropes, landed on the floor or banged up against
the edge of the apron, that was a bump. And
a flying mayor a drop kick, a hip lock. And
so my dad said to me, he says, you gotta
learn how to take bumps. And we were all good
and sweaty, and he says, so, I'm gonna I picked you.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
He picked me up. Now he was holding me up.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
I only way to ten, So he picked me up
and he says, now, then he says, you want to
land flat, and I'm going to throw you down so
you hopefully will land flat, and he slammed me, and boom,
I hit the mat. Now I can hear the shower
and the guy I was working out with going, and
my dad and him are in the shower, a little
little arena in the San Fernando Valley, and I'm laying
(07:05):
in the middle of the ring and I'm going just
trying to suck air back into my lungs. So when
everybody has a tendency to want to make this look
like it's just going to be, oh, an easy thing
to do.
Speaker 7 (07:20):
Ballet as a learning process at the same time to
learn how to protect yourself.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Oh yeah, you learn how to talk to your back,
the back of your head.
Speaker 7 (07:28):
Sure, you learned how to so that your feet hit,
so that your kidneys.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
To reduce, to get the maximum amount of points down
so that the landing doesn't tear the wheels off.
Speaker 6 (07:40):
Now take the impact away. I mean, it is one
of the greatest art forms ever created.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, of course you were a student certainly of the seventies,
and take a look all the free birds eventually evolved.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
How much of that seventies influence did you take in?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Well, a lot of it.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
And you know, if I had to, you know, try
to put you know, one title to the seventies because
like when I was growing up and started to watch
you know, wrestling Saturday nights there in Pensacola, Florida, it's
Golf Coast Championship wrestling, and I'd go to school and
I was proud that I like wrestling, but nobody else
would admit that back then. And I think that's one
of the staples of seventies wrestling. Seventies wrestling drew great crowds,
(08:21):
unbelievable crowds. People don't realize that. They think the boom
started in the eighties, but it wasn't sociably acceptable to
admit that you watched wrestling and to say that you
went to wrestling.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
On that subject, I'm going to talk about something that
is all near and dear to our heart, the two hundred,
two hundred and fifty seat television arenas, the wrestling and
the production values with one two cameras at the most,
JJ Dillon.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You saw all of that change, because all of.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
A sudden in the mid eighties, we've got the WWE
and the highest production standards in the industry still today.
Speaker 7 (08:58):
Well a conceptually, and one of my first matches might
be my first match was in uh was in Ohio, Dayton, Ohio,
in a building just like you're talking about that was
so small they couldn't have seating on all four sides.
They only like an l they only had seating on
(09:19):
two sides and only two rows. And the commentator was
Eladie Off the Grand Wizard. Yeah, and this was like
nineteen sixty eight if you took a snapshot of that.
And then the concept where this company took it to
the big Arenas with the with the pyro with you know,
I mean it's like day and night.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
I remember Mike and Ben Sharp Brothers. This is back
in the early fifties, and in fact, I'm still in
high school and I have a picture where I'm standing
in a suit with my dad, who's wrestled that night
and got dressed Kyle Palace, San Francisco, and We're standing
(10:01):
in between the Sharp Brothers who were just getting ready
to go out to the ring, and I'm standing in
the middle like this. And that night, after the match started,
I don't know what or how, but the next thing
you know, there was a riot and the Sharp Brothers
were standing in the middle of the ring and people
(10:22):
were climbing through the ropes to come into the ring
thinking that they were maybe possibly going to do something.
And they did. They all took final final takeoff flights
over the top rope. The Sharp Brothers stood back to
back and were just as they were coming in, they
were just throwing them out.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
First version of air traffic control.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I because I always thought about this and when I
was working in the business breaking in the seventies, But
did you ever actually fear for your life.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
Oh many times from me off t mawny times I've
wrestled Peter McVey at the cow Palace and all of
sum Owing population would come to see their their chief,
and he is a real chief, and I would beat
the living hell out of Peter Mavea.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
I'm going to tell you something.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
I had a tough time getting out of the ring
and you were then you found out where I lived.
I got up one morning, my car was crash. I
had a brain new kindiac. The windows were all broken
and my there was eggs in my windows, rocked my windows.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
They ruined everything.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
That much passion people would become that vio.
Speaker 7 (11:37):
We talk about dangerous situations and I wasn't there, but
guys in the business talked about, you know, how how
close it could be.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Sometimes.
Speaker 7 (11:45):
There was a story in in uh Richmond, Virginia, Bob
Orton Senior and Boris Malenko.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I think where where one of them you was.
Speaker 7 (11:55):
Was hit and knocked unconscious in the island, and uh
they had a right and feared that one of them
was was gonna get get killed.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
And that happened. That happened more and more than once.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Oh yes, but no, wait a minute, was there not
an unwritten rule in in in wrestling that a fans
got into the ring.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
There was a.
Speaker 8 (12:20):
Game that was a fair game, but your chance of
winning in Courtworth, forget about it happened to be in
San Francisco. I'm just ready to go in the ring
before my match at the Cow Palace for the main event.
There's a knock in the dressing room door and it's
the police, and the police says where it.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Was the problem the Cow Palace.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Well, well that was a smaller building, right anyway, So
we're in the ring now.
Speaker 8 (12:41):
The referee brings it Sayuto and Fuji brings Patterson and
Steven give us the instruction, and all of a sudden,
we hear a pop boom. It was a kid in
the front road that turned a cup upside down.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Boom.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
We all jumped out of the ring.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Back then, ninety to ninety five percent of the audience
like the guy that was the good guy. You know,
you didn't have your heel, your villain fans back then,
and it was it was a ritual for people. I
think Jimmy Garvin stated it well in one of our
previous episodes that people they connected with the the their hero,
and all week long they thought about going to wrestling
(13:17):
matches because he needs my support. Without my support, he's
got less of a chance of winning off coach wrestling.
I had my own heroes, you know, Mike, the California
hippie boyet, Eddie Sullivan, Rip Tyler.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
You know, you had the late great Bobby Shane.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
But I wondered how people on top thought about people
on top in other places. In other words, you had
such a successful career in the AWA. What did you
guys think about Bruno sam Martino when you were in
Minnesota and learned his stories in New York? What did
you guys think about the Nick Bockwinkles and the vere
gania Is when you and Ray were in Frisco, and
(13:55):
or Bruno sam Martino? Because I know how everybody was.
You had this pride of your own area, your own
territory that you were probably the best wrestling going on.
So there had to be not animosity, but a friendly competition.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Would you say? Yes?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Another question?
Speaker 5 (14:12):
Absolutely, absolutely, you're correct. You read the magazines. They come
out once a month, they give the ratings, they give
the all of the lineups and everything, and you you
read what has been published about you and about say
your last match. And at the same time, if if
there's an article in there about me, there's an article
(14:32):
in there, maybe about Pat, there's maybe an article in
there about someone else. And I know that an arder
for my storyline or my picture to be in there.
I was respected enough by either the photographer or the reporter.
Ditto again, Ditto again. So that you you you all,
you knew, you knew who the other players, so to speak,
(14:56):
in the business were, but you.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Kind of dodged in my question.
Speaker 7 (14:59):
You in Amarillo, Texas, they don't had the population of
maybe a hundred and fifty thousand people, so you felt
that you had to just give so much to draw
enough people out of a population of one hundred and
fifty thousand. And in the dressing room, did I ever
hear well enough people would walk into Madison Square Garden
(15:20):
that just are lost in New York.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
They would fill the place.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
They don't have to do anything. And I think that
was a tongue in cheek comment.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
I don't think that it was mean spirited, but there
were people that thought, there are so many people up there,
they don't have as much trouble drawing.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
As we do, because look what we got to draw.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
We work harder.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, tell them, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to cut
your short here. We're gonna go to a break. But
when we reached did you draw more fans? Did you
draw more money? Were you a better champion in your eyes?
I would say yes, and I would I would say
I'd have to agree with that because I saw more
of you.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
But that's the answer I expected from him, of course.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
But I mean, you know, I mean, usually the miss
stick is but.
Speaker 6 (16:01):
To be on top that long and go through that
many people that Bruno did and continually.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Sell out and sell out, I don't care what you say.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
If he wasn't the greatest wrestler, that's some of the
greatest success.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But there was other stars that had different.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
I guess was very, very fortunate that he lived in
an area of this country that has a tremendous Italian following.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Well, now we are getting to what we started talking
about earlier, about the cultural support.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
And I'm maybe I'm going to be the loan one here,
and because I started.
Speaker 9 (16:36):
To own the territory, I'll give you an interesting and
you've heard I know you've heard this before that, a
lot of those territories, the top stars had either owned
the business outright or had an interest in it, and
they always had that thing in the back of their
mind that if I put so much stock in this
(16:57):
guy and he up and leaves, what I'm still here
and what do I have left?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Right?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I know I could trust myself.
Speaker 7 (17:03):
Yes I'm not I'm not going to leave because I
have a vested interest here. And that was always the
argument that you face. A lot of those guys stayed strong,
stayed champions. I mean, you can look at Fritz, you
look at the chic looking Eddie Graham to a degree
in Florida's much like they were in one sense protecting
(17:25):
their investment.
Speaker 10 (17:25):
Even in the Los Angeles market, pat What one name
that was well traveled that really made his appearance on
the scene in the nineteen seventies was a guy that
came from Hawaii and all of a sudden showed up
on the shores of the United States of America.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Is Jimmy Superfly Snuoker.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I believe.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I used to watch Warner Woolf on CBS television and
they would show Jimmy Snooker from Madison Square Garden did
that guy JJ make an impact here?
Speaker 7 (17:58):
And we go back to the thing that you keep
hearing repeated here is that the guys that had talent,
no matter where they went, where we're going to excel.
And Jimmy Snooker was certainly one of those.
Speaker 8 (18:09):
You're right, even when if you went back in the
seventies and some of the territories there was a click.
There was clicks in different territories. You could work every
night and make a good living, but your chance of
moving on top.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
I get it. There was so much politics, sure, but
you know, you know what happened.
Speaker 7 (18:28):
There were guys who, like Dusty Rhodes, would book and
he had people that he was successful with in other places.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Bill wats is another one.
Speaker 7 (18:38):
So part of it was bringing in the guys who
they had a tracker record of success with elsewhere.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
And if you want to call that a click, maybe
that's what it was.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
Their c but their crew, and that was part of
what made them more attractive in the eyes of promoter,
because when Dusty came in, you were going to pretty
well see black Jack Mulligan, you were going to see
some of the other guys that gravitated to him, and
boy then you look at what you got, I mean
instant success.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know, a couple of great stars in the seventies
and behind the scenes, I think it was a well
known and well documented fact the Dusty Rhodes and Rick
Player didn't particularly care for each other, but both rolls
out of the ashes of the seventies become superstars in
the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
Well, you know, it's funny if you study the history
of Dusty and Rick. I think at one time when
Rick was breaking in in the AWA, he thought that
he might be like Dusty's younger brother. With Dicky and
Dusty when they were a tag team up there, I
think there was a fondness there originally, and then it
did go it separate ways, and that it always had
(19:46):
become a competition to who was the greater entertainer. And
you could argue both sides. You could say, you could
say that Dusty could never wrestle like Rick. You could
definitely wonder did Rick drawl as much as Dusty? And
they both drew tremendous say when they were together.
Speaker 7 (20:01):
A big story in the seventies was the rivalry. Rivalry
between the Funks and the Briscoes. Oh my God, Yes,
and that folks drew huge money in West Texas, but
also they would go to Saint Louis and went to
other parts. And when I broke in in the early seventies,
story was the reigning end w another big one in
(20:22):
that era with Thunderbolt Patterson, Wow, Tommy.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Sawyer. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (20:29):
They and another guy who was big in Florida when
I was at big and Georgia was restless to wrestling
number two and actually was the wrestling number one.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Let me ask you something.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
It is Piper was legend, Yes, La, it is legend
that Dusty Rhoades took fifty percent, if not more, of
his stick if you will, from Thunderbolt Patterson.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Yes, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yes. Another name that I want to bring up because
he was so dominant in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
And in the n w A.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I don't think anybody is going to dispute the fact
that Harvey Race was one tough cookie.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Doubt.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
I don't know that you could argue that Harley won
the best and in his own way. I mean, I asked,
I asked, you want to do what?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Kid?
Speaker 5 (21:23):
I asked my dad one time, I says, what does
it take to be the world's champion. Now I'm like
eighteen nineteen years old, And he said, they look for
a man who can steer the entire boat just the
way promotion wants it and will produce a product that
(21:45):
is going to make all the people in that arena
contend to have spent whatever amount of money that they've spent.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
JJ Dillon. What made Harvey Race so special?
Speaker 4 (21:57):
First of all, he was he was tough, tough, really tough,
and feared nothing and started he started.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
He started as a young guy when when Harley Wood
would would would come in.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
For a week.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
Obviously they would fly and he would fly in and
he wouldn't wouldn't drive. He would come in and he
would have to hook up with somebody and he's like
to ride with me. And Harley drove fast. He would
drive fast car, his own car. If he would ride
with you, Harley's m O was, he would say, I'm
going to ride with you, but I want I want
to drive. And the first question he would ask you
(22:34):
is how fast can I go? If you told him
one hundred and twenty, Harley one twenty. If you told
him a hundred, he would keep it one hundred. If
you said seventy six. He would dry, he would respect
what you ask and after the matches the mo o
which we all saw in that era, he would stop
by the convenience store. He'd get the syropoone cooler, he
would get a case a beer, dump the ice on it.
(22:57):
He would get behind the wheel, you would talk wrestling.
Would be excited to be in the presence of Harley Race.
But after a while, you know this this, and Harley
was this, And only towards the end your kidneys can only,
you know, do so much and the bladder gets full
and you'd have to start pulling over.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
But he could do that every night and still go out.
And if you need to go sixty minutes, he could
do it.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
He was tough guys. Final question. We've had a pretty
good assessment here.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I think of the decade of the nineteen seventies, it
was a glorious time. It was also a time of transition.
Nick Bockwinkle, I know you had quite a roll, quite
a run in the nineteen seventies, has did Bruno San Martino.
Who do you think would be the top hand of
the nineteen seventies all territories.
Speaker 8 (23:47):
That's a question. Yeah, earlier. I mean different territories. Again,
the guys were famous in one place and were not
famous in the other.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Player.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Wait a minute, he asked Nick.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
He's saying, I'm asking.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Answer.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
I want to hear your answer.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
If you're stumped, I'll come back to you. Do you
want to think about it? Yeah, Michael P.
Speaker 6 (24:12):
Says, I'm going to say the most well known. That's
what I'm going to judge it by Andre the Giant
Wow J J.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Dillon.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I was breaking into that era and this it was
all new new to me.
Speaker 7 (24:29):
And Pat mentioned earlier a couple of matches that to
this day he remembers going out as a wrestler and
sitting and watching. And I experienced a series of matches
during that era. So it becomes two people in not one,
and that was Jack Briscoe and Dorrid Funk Jr. That
I would leave the dressing room when my match was
done and showered, and I wanted to sit in the
audience and I wanted to absorb that experience.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
To me, asked if who was the wrestler that was
most well known? I top hand that.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Really the demand that defined the era of the seventies.
Speaker 8 (25:06):
Well, I can only look at it one way, you know,
like I always say, the Briscoe were famous in Florida,
probably in Texas, the funct.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Were they were.
Speaker 8 (25:16):
Nick was Blackmancob was famous around Minneapolis, Chicago. But to
me in the seventy eight that we TV were all separated,
I didn't know how these guys worked.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
But I still got to say, Bruno, some Martino. Everybody
in every territory new brue s Martino.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Back to you. Nick.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
The ethnic element added to what he just said.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Bruno, all right, gentlemen, I want to thank you for
your time. The one thing I think will or about you.
You're not getting out of this. No, I'm gonna say
something here. I think we're all going to agree. It
was a decade of transition. It was before cable television,
it was before pay per views, but it was a
very exciting decade time. Yeah, Bruno, San Martino, ladies and gentlemen,
(26:03):
great choice.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
JJ. I gotta go with it.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
But there's so many and I know somebody's gonna bust
my rock somewhere sooner or later for making that call.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
You're gonna have to buy a drink. I will buy
a drink.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Nick Bockwinkle Michael Hayes, JJ, Dillon pat Patterson, Jan You,
thank you for joining us right here on the WWE
Legends of Wrestling.
Hi, folks, Welcome to WWWE Legends of Wrestling. Our subject
for this episode the seventies. Oh my goodness, what a decade.
Remember was what was the wrestling culture like in the
decade of the seventies, And it was kind of an
age of innocence, if you will, before we made that
(00:25):
transition into sports entertainment. I'm Gene Okerland, our distinguished panelist,
six times AWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Buckwinkle, enjoying a
fine cigar. Yes, i am future Hall of Famer. I've
said this before, I'll say it again. I hope you're
voting the man that did it all on Bad Street
and other streets for that matter, and the fabulous free Birds.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Michael ps Hayes.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you, Gene.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
My very dear, close personal, longtime friend, the manager of
many a superstar and of course very prominent in the
nineteen seventies, James Jay.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Dylan.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Dylan Dylan is the last name, and our panel would
not be complete without the presence of often one of
our panelists joining us again, this time Hall of Famer,
former Intercottinental champion, the very first step real de Gennaro.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
My correct, that's the correct Patterson.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yes, very good on the subject of the decade the
nineteen seventies when I started, By the way, guys Nick Bockwinkel,
what was it like to be a wrestler in the seventies, Great?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Absolutely great. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
Why why if you were athletically inclined, so go back
even a little further, regardless of whether it was some
gym someplace, or in college or in school or whatever,
and you learn, and you learn the basic trade of
wrestling to then be invited into this fraternity of this
(01:57):
crazy off the wall group of people who, as far
as I was concerned, from the time I was a
little kid, was seeing them, was being in a dressing
room with them, and I mean it was just it
was just wild and I loved it, and I was
awed by it as a little kid.
Speaker 6 (02:17):
That's a really unique way and nailing the nailing it
right on the head a fraternity because it was such
a secretive, close knit brotherhood, if you will. And that
took took, you know, you moving heaven and earth to
get into.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I mean, you know, our career started in the late seventies.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
I started putting up the ring in nineteen seventy five,
but it was seventies wrestling that I fell in love with,
and for me to try to get in with no
family in there, no friend or something. You know, when
you got it, it was like getting in the mafia
and you weren't getting out.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Just about the truth, JJ Dillon.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I kind of view the seventies as a transition decade.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I don't know you talk about fraternity. Was there a
secret handshake?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
No.
Speaker 7 (03:05):
I actually broke into the business full time nineteen seventy one,
so I really got a chance to experience the whole
era of the seventies.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
And absorb it all.
Speaker 7 (03:16):
I started as a as a fan, and you know,
I talk about going to Madison Square Garden to see
the Chikh and Bobo Brazil and Haystacks Calhoun, and later
on as a referee before I had a wrestling or
managing career, I found myself in the ring with a
(03:36):
lot of these same guys, and I had to pinch
myself for a while with that. And then finally when
I broke into the business, I would you know, I
was get beat up on television, but I was in
the ring with the Sheikh, with Bobo Brazil, with Haystax Calhoun,
and so By the time I got to Charlotte, North
Carolina in nineteen seventy one, you know, I was I
(03:59):
had gotten over the initial excitement of being in the
ring with the stars titles, and now it was how
I was going to try to make my living, and
it was. It was a great era.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Pat Patterson, I'm very curious as an outsider looking in
in the nineteen seventies, how secretive was the industry, the
business back in the seventies, and how much did you
have to know before you were welcomed in to that fraternity.
Speaker 8 (04:28):
Well, you had to be respected by your peers, because
if you were not, you were out the window. And
all these old timers and they were wearing the main event,
and they said newcomers coming in and if you didn't fit,
you were out.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
You had to get along with everybody.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You know that you had to earn their respect. You
had to earn their was.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
One of the non wrestling promoters in the country at
that time, but I mean Bern Ganna, Paul Bosch, roy Shire,
Eddie Graham situation.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Of course of the shock territory was.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Le mc the.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Uncle's Le based Bob gel Rob Geigel in Kansas City.
Speaker 8 (05:10):
Based in those days you have you had to respect
the business you really had. And I was very fortunate,
you know. And years ago many guys would have to
go from one territory to the other two years here,
one year there, and they have to move the family.
And for me, I was in Oregon. I started in
the business when I was in nineteen fifty eight. So
in nineteen sixty five I come to San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It was twenty five years old, But in nineteen fifty eight,
how old were you?
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Eighteen years old?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, So I mean that had to be young.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
You talk about sixteen and setting up the ring at fifteen,
How old nick I was?
Speaker 5 (05:48):
I was?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I was nineteen years old.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Nineteen years old?
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Then, I you were born in the I was born
into the business. And when I think of the first
time after working out with my dad and losing my
football scholarship to college, and I was because I busted
both knees. I'm working out with my dad and at
the end of the workout, he said to me, he says, now,
he says, you got to learn how to take bumps.
(06:13):
And basically what bumps meant is if somebody picked me
up and body slammed me, and my body came down
and hit that mat.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
That was a bump.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
If I got hiplocked, if I got thrown over the
top ropes, landed on the floor or banged up against
the edge of the apron, that was a bump. And
a flying mayor a drop kick, a hip lock. And
so my dad said to me, he says, you gotta
learn how to take bumps. And we were all good
and sweaty, and he says, so, I'm gonna I picked you.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
He picked me up. Now he was holding me up.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
I only way to ten, So he picked me up
and he says, now, then he says, you want to
land flat, and I'm going to throw you down so
you hopefully will land flat, and he slammed me, and boom,
I hit the mat. Now I can hear the shower
and the guy I was working out with going, and
my dad and him are in the shower, a little
little arena in the San Fernando Valley, and I'm laying
(07:05):
in the middle of the ring and I'm going just
trying to suck air back into my lungs. So when
everybody has a tendency to want to make this look
like it's just going to be, oh, an easy thing
to do.
Speaker 7 (07:20):
Ballet as a learning process at the same time to
learn how to protect yourself.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Oh yeah, you learn how to talk to your back,
the back of your head.
Speaker 7 (07:28):
Sure, you learned how to so that your feet hit,
so that your kidneys.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
To reduce, to get the maximum amount of points down
so that the landing doesn't tear the wheels off.
Speaker 6 (07:40):
Now take the impact away. I mean, it is one
of the greatest art forms ever created.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, of course you were a student certainly of the seventies,
and take a look all the free birds eventually evolved.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
How much of that seventies influence did you take in?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Well, a lot of it.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
And you know, if I had to, you know, try
to put you know, one title to the seventies because
like when I was growing up and started to watch
you know, wrestling Saturday nights there in Pensacola, Florida, it's
Golf Coast Championship wrestling, and I'd go to school and
I was proud that I like wrestling, but nobody else
would admit that back then. And I think that's one
of the staples of seventies wrestling. Seventies wrestling drew great crowds,
(08:21):
unbelievable crowds. People don't realize that. They think the boom
started in the eighties, but it wasn't sociably acceptable to
admit that you watched wrestling and to say that you
went to wrestling.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
On that subject, I'm going to talk about something that
is all near and dear to our heart, the two hundred,
two hundred and fifty seat television arenas, the wrestling and
the production values with one two cameras at the most,
JJ Dillon.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You saw all of that change, because all of.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
A sudden in the mid eighties, we've got the WWE
and the highest production standards in the industry still today.
Speaker 7 (08:58):
Well a conceptually, and one of my first matches might
be my first match was in uh was in Ohio, Dayton, Ohio,
in a building just like you're talking about that was
so small they couldn't have seating on all four sides.
They only like an l they only had seating on
(09:19):
two sides and only two rows. And the commentator was
Eladie Off the Grand Wizard. Yeah, and this was like
nineteen sixty eight if you took a snapshot of that.
And then the concept where this company took it to
the big Arenas with the with the pyro with you know,
I mean it's like day and night.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
I remember Mike and Ben Sharp Brothers. This is back
in the early fifties, and in fact, I'm still in
high school and I have a picture where I'm standing
in a suit with my dad, who's wrestled that night
and got dressed Kyle Palace, San Francisco, and We're standing
(10:01):
in between the Sharp Brothers who were just getting ready
to go out to the ring, and I'm standing in
the middle like this. And that night, after the match started,
I don't know what or how, but the next thing
you know, there was a riot and the Sharp Brothers
were standing in the middle of the ring and people
(10:22):
were climbing through the ropes to come into the ring
thinking that they were maybe possibly going to do something.
And they did. They all took final final takeoff flights
over the top rope. The Sharp Brothers stood back to
back and were just as they were coming in, they
were just throwing them out.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
First version of air traffic control.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I because I always thought about this and when I
was working in the business breaking in the seventies, But
did you ever actually fear for your life.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
Oh many times from me off t mawny times I've
wrestled Peter McVey at the cow Palace and all of
sum Owing population would come to see their their chief,
and he is a real chief, and I would beat
the living hell out of Peter Mavea.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
I'm going to tell you something.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
I had a tough time getting out of the ring
and you were then you found out where I lived.
I got up one morning, my car was crash. I
had a brain new kindiac. The windows were all broken
and my there was eggs in my windows, rocked my windows.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
They ruined everything.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
That much passion people would become that vio.
Speaker 7 (11:37):
We talk about dangerous situations and I wasn't there, but
guys in the business talked about, you know, how how
close it could be.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Sometimes.
Speaker 7 (11:45):
There was a story in in uh Richmond, Virginia, Bob
Orton Senior and Boris Malenko.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I think where where one of them you was.
Speaker 7 (11:55):
Was hit and knocked unconscious in the island, and uh
they had a right and feared that one of them
was was gonna get get killed.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
And that happened. That happened more and more than once.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Oh yes, but no, wait a minute, was there not
an unwritten rule in in in wrestling that a fans
got into the ring.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
There was a.
Speaker 8 (12:20):
Game that was a fair game, but your chance of
winning in Courtworth, forget about it happened to be in
San Francisco. I'm just ready to go in the ring
before my match at the Cow Palace for the main event.
There's a knock in the dressing room door and it's
the police, and the police says where it.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Was the problem the Cow Palace.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Well, well that was a smaller building, right anyway, So
we're in the ring now.
Speaker 8 (12:41):
The referee brings it Sayuto and Fuji brings Patterson and
Steven give us the instruction, and all of a sudden,
we hear a pop boom. It was a kid in
the front road that turned a cup upside down.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Boom.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
We all jumped out of the ring.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Back then, ninety to ninety five percent of the audience
like the guy that was the good guy. You know,
you didn't have your heel, your villain fans back then,
and it was it was a ritual for people. I
think Jimmy Garvin stated it well in one of our
previous episodes that people they connected with the the their hero,
and all week long they thought about going to wrestling
(13:17):
matches because he needs my support. Without my support, he's
got less of a chance of winning off coach wrestling.
I had my own heroes, you know, Mike, the California
hippie boyet, Eddie Sullivan, Rip Tyler.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
You know, you had the late great Bobby Shane.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
But I wondered how people on top thought about people
on top in other places. In other words, you had
such a successful career in the AWA. What did you
guys think about Bruno sam Martino when you were in
Minnesota and learned his stories in New York? What did
you guys think about the Nick Bockwinkles and the vere
gania Is when you and Ray were in Frisco, and
(13:55):
or Bruno sam Martino? Because I know how everybody was.
You had this pride of your own area, your own
territory that you were probably the best wrestling going on.
So there had to be not animosity, but a friendly competition.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Would you say? Yes?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Another question?
Speaker 5 (14:12):
Absolutely, absolutely, you're correct. You read the magazines. They come
out once a month, they give the ratings, they give
the all of the lineups and everything, and you you
read what has been published about you and about say
your last match. And at the same time, if if
there's an article in there about me, there's an article
(14:32):
in there, maybe about Pat, there's maybe an article in
there about someone else. And I know that an arder
for my storyline or my picture to be in there.
I was respected enough by either the photographer or the reporter.
Ditto again, Ditto again. So that you you you all,
you knew, you knew who the other players, so to speak,
(14:56):
in the business were, but you.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Kind of dodged in my question.
Speaker 7 (14:59):
You in Amarillo, Texas, they don't had the population of
maybe a hundred and fifty thousand people, so you felt
that you had to just give so much to draw
enough people out of a population of one hundred and
fifty thousand. And in the dressing room, did I ever
hear well enough people would walk into Madison Square Garden
(15:20):
that just are lost in New York.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
They would fill the place.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
They don't have to do anything. And I think that
was a tongue in cheek comment.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
I don't think that it was mean spirited, but there
were people that thought, there are so many people up there,
they don't have as much trouble drawing.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
As we do, because look what we got to draw.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
We work harder.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, tell them, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to cut
your short here. We're gonna go to a break. But
when we reached did you draw more fans? Did you
draw more money? Were you a better champion in your eyes?
I would say yes, and I would I would say
I'd have to agree with that because I saw more
of you.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
But that's the answer I expected from him, of course.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
But I mean, you know, I mean, usually the miss
stick is but.
Speaker 6 (16:01):
To be on top that long and go through that
many people that Bruno did and continually.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Sell out and sell out, I don't care what you say.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
If he wasn't the greatest wrestler, that's some of the
greatest success.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But there was other stars that had different.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
I guess was very, very fortunate that he lived in
an area of this country that has a tremendous Italian following.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Well, now we are getting to what we started talking
about earlier, about the cultural support.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
And I'm maybe I'm going to be the loan one here,
and because I started.
Speaker 9 (16:36):
To own the territory, I'll give you an interesting and
you've heard I know you've heard this before that, a
lot of those territories, the top stars had either owned
the business outright or had an interest in it, and
they always had that thing in the back of their
mind that if I put so much stock in this
(16:57):
guy and he up and leaves, what I'm still here
and what do I have left?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Right?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I know I could trust myself.
Speaker 7 (17:03):
Yes I'm not I'm not going to leave because I
have a vested interest here. And that was always the
argument that you face. A lot of those guys stayed strong,
stayed champions. I mean, you can look at Fritz, you
look at the chic looking Eddie Graham to a degree
in Florida's much like they were in one sense protecting
(17:25):
their investment.
Speaker 10 (17:25):
Even in the Los Angeles market, pat What one name
that was well traveled that really made his appearance on
the scene in the nineteen seventies was a guy that
came from Hawaii and all of a sudden showed up
on the shores of the United States of America.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Is Jimmy Superfly Snuoker.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I believe.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I used to watch Warner Woolf on CBS television and
they would show Jimmy Snooker from Madison Square Garden did
that guy JJ make an impact here?
Speaker 7 (17:58):
And we go back to the thing that you keep
hearing repeated here is that the guys that had talent,
no matter where they went, where we're going to excel.
And Jimmy Snooker was certainly one of those.
Speaker 8 (18:09):
You're right, even when if you went back in the
seventies and some of the territories there was a click.
There was clicks in different territories. You could work every
night and make a good living, but your chance of
moving on top.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
I get it. There was so much politics, sure, but
you know, you know what happened.
Speaker 7 (18:28):
There were guys who, like Dusty Rhodes, would book and
he had people that he was successful with in other places.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Bill wats is another one.
Speaker 7 (18:38):
So part of it was bringing in the guys who
they had a tracker record of success with elsewhere.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
And if you want to call that a click, maybe
that's what it was.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
Their c but their crew, and that was part of
what made them more attractive in the eyes of promoter,
because when Dusty came in, you were going to pretty
well see black Jack Mulligan, you were going to see
some of the other guys that gravitated to him, and
boy then you look at what you got, I mean
instant success.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know, a couple of great stars in the seventies
and behind the scenes, I think it was a well
known and well documented fact the Dusty Rhodes and Rick
Player didn't particularly care for each other, but both rolls
out of the ashes of the seventies become superstars in
the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
Well, you know, it's funny if you study the history
of Dusty and Rick. I think at one time when
Rick was breaking in in the AWA, he thought that
he might be like Dusty's younger brother. With Dicky and
Dusty when they were a tag team up there, I
think there was a fondness there originally, and then it
did go it separate ways, and that it always had
(19:46):
become a competition to who was the greater entertainer. And
you could argue both sides. You could say, you could
say that Dusty could never wrestle like Rick. You could
definitely wonder did Rick drawl as much as Dusty? And
they both drew tremendous say when they were together.
Speaker 7 (20:01):
A big story in the seventies was the rivalry. Rivalry
between the Funks and the Briscoes. Oh my God, Yes,
and that folks drew huge money in West Texas, but
also they would go to Saint Louis and went to
other parts. And when I broke in in the early seventies,
story was the reigning end w another big one in
(20:22):
that era with Thunderbolt Patterson, Wow, Tommy.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Sawyer. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (20:29):
They and another guy who was big in Florida when
I was at big and Georgia was restless to wrestling
number two and actually was the wrestling number one.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Let me ask you something.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
It is Piper was legend, Yes, La, it is legend
that Dusty Rhoades took fifty percent, if not more, of
his stick if you will, from Thunderbolt Patterson.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Yes, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yes. Another name that I want to bring up because
he was so dominant in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
And in the n w A.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I don't think anybody is going to dispute the fact
that Harvey Race was one tough cookie.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Doubt.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
I don't know that you could argue that Harley won
the best and in his own way. I mean, I asked,
I asked, you want to do what?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Kid?
Speaker 5 (21:23):
I asked my dad one time, I says, what does
it take to be the world's champion. Now I'm like
eighteen nineteen years old, And he said, they look for
a man who can steer the entire boat just the
way promotion wants it and will produce a product that
(21:45):
is going to make all the people in that arena
contend to have spent whatever amount of money that they've spent.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
JJ Dillon. What made Harvey Race so special?
Speaker 4 (21:57):
First of all, he was he was tough, tough, really tough,
and feared nothing and started he started.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
He started as a young guy when when Harley Wood
would would would come in.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
For a week.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
Obviously they would fly and he would fly in and
he wouldn't wouldn't drive. He would come in and he
would have to hook up with somebody and he's like
to ride with me. And Harley drove fast. He would
drive fast car, his own car. If he would ride
with you, Harley's m O was, he would say, I'm
going to ride with you, but I want I want
to drive. And the first question he would ask you
(22:34):
is how fast can I go? If you told him
one hundred and twenty, Harley one twenty. If you told
him a hundred, he would keep it one hundred. If
you said seventy six. He would dry, he would respect
what you ask and after the matches the mo o
which we all saw in that era, he would stop
by the convenience store. He'd get the syropoone cooler, he
would get a case a beer, dump the ice on it.
(22:57):
He would get behind the wheel, you would talk wrestling.
Would be excited to be in the presence of Harley Race.
But after a while, you know this this, and Harley
was this, And only towards the end your kidneys can only,
you know, do so much and the bladder gets full
and you'd have to start pulling over.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
But he could do that every night and still go out.
And if you need to go sixty minutes, he could
do it.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
He was tough guys. Final question. We've had a pretty
good assessment here.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I think of the decade of the nineteen seventies, it
was a glorious time. It was also a time of transition.
Nick Bockwinkle, I know you had quite a roll, quite
a run in the nineteen seventies, has did Bruno San Martino.
Who do you think would be the top hand of
the nineteen seventies all territories.
Speaker 8 (23:47):
That's a question. Yeah, earlier. I mean different territories. Again,
the guys were famous in one place and were not
famous in the other.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Player.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Wait a minute, he asked Nick.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
He's saying, I'm asking.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Answer.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
I want to hear your answer.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
If you're stumped, I'll come back to you. Do you
want to think about it? Yeah, Michael P.
Speaker 6 (24:12):
Says, I'm going to say the most well known. That's
what I'm going to judge it by Andre the Giant
Wow J J.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Dillon.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I was breaking into that era and this it was
all new new to me.
Speaker 7 (24:29):
And Pat mentioned earlier a couple of matches that to
this day he remembers going out as a wrestler and
sitting and watching. And I experienced a series of matches
during that era. So it becomes two people in not one,
and that was Jack Briscoe and Dorrid Funk Jr. That
I would leave the dressing room when my match was
done and showered, and I wanted to sit in the
audience and I wanted to absorb that experience.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
To me, asked if who was the wrestler that was
most well known? I top hand that.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Really the demand that defined the era of the seventies.
Speaker 8 (25:06):
Well, I can only look at it one way, you know,
like I always say, the Briscoe were famous in Florida,
probably in Texas, the funct.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Were they were.
Speaker 8 (25:16):
Nick was Blackmancob was famous around Minneapolis, Chicago. But to
me in the seventy eight that we TV were all separated,
I didn't know how these guys worked.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
But I still got to say, Bruno, some Martino. Everybody
in every territory new brue s Martino.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Back to you. Nick.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
The ethnic element added to what he just said.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Bruno, all right, gentlemen, I want to thank you for
your time. The one thing I think will or about you.
You're not getting out of this. No, I'm gonna say
something here. I think we're all going to agree. It
was a decade of transition. It was before cable television,
it was before pay per views, but it was a
very exciting decade time. Yeah, Bruno, San Martino, ladies and gentlemen,
(26:03):
great choice.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
JJ. I gotta go with it.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
But there's so many and I know somebody's gonna bust
my rock somewhere sooner or later for making that call.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
You're gonna have to buy a drink. I will buy
a drink.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Nick Bockwinkle Michael Hayes, JJ, Dillon pat Patterson, Jan You,
thank you for joining us right here on the WWE
Legends of Wrestling.
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