Ring the Bell The spotlights over the squared-circle went dark tonight. An early pioneer in the sport of professional wrestling cannot answer the bell. The match is over… I followed this man’s career with great fascination; I was a kid of six or seven, and I was about to be the brother-in-law to a professional wrestler. My big sister was marrying him. I grew up watching him wrestle on “NWA Championship Wrestling,” which was promoted by Nick Gulas & Roy Welch and broadcast throughout the Southeastern section of the country. Local Television Stations would broadcast the matches (in grainy black-and-white; with harsh lighting, and crappy sound); then promote the upcoming live Wrestling matches at the National Guard Armory or the County Coliseum… depending on where you lived. Back in wrestling’s early days; the fraternity of wrestlers had a circuit, a group of cities and towns where their storylines were established and they could cut down on road-time… These wrestlers of today hop a corporate jet; and one eye-blink later, they’re on the other coast… The whole Country can be a circuit; in today’s WWE Entertainment. In the mid-sixties; a grappler had to drive to every event, or carpool with other wrestlers, managers, and sometimes, even the referees… the money wasn’t like it is now, in the sport. A heel or a baby-face had more overhead; over a hundred thousand miles a year on a car, required a yearly replacement to avoid breaking down and possibly ending up in a fight with a crazed fan on the side of the road… No security to make sure they could make it safely out to their cars after the matches, or into or away from the ring, for that matter… Nobody gave a dam about the wrestlers, back then… The fans came to those bloody matches, hoping to see a hated grappler get his ass kicked. That’s where my brother-in-law came in. I could tell you his name; but you probably wouldn’t know it… But you know him… if you’re any kind of fan at all… In the early sixties; there was a masked tag-team known as “The Interns” with manager Dr. Jerry Graham. Looking clinical in their all-white wrestling tights and masks, the tag-team had an advantage. They were impossible to distinguish apart… same build-same body type; can’t see their faces for the masks… “The Interns” would catch the referee with his back turned; and switch without a tag, drawing frenzied screams of rage from the crowd. I have personally witnessed a friends grandfather almost rip the arms off his rocking chair, hollering at the T.V. “HE’S CHOKING HIM...! TURN AROUND REF…!! LOOK!!! Wrestling wasn’t marketed as “entertainment,” back then… most of the people who were fans thought of it as a sport. You have to be a better than average athlete, just to have a shot at trying out… sounded like a sport to me. And the consensus was that sports were real… Those two guys who comprised the tag-team “Interns” were one of the most reviled teams of the early sixties. They bled for their sport… kept their sport alive and built upon it; in those early days… they grew the sport; inspiring legions of fans, and some of the very wrestlers who step between the ropes, today. Bill Bowman was one of those lab-coat wearing interns… The other was my Brother-in-law, Joe Turner. Told you that you probably hadn’t heard of him… For someone relatively unknown in the sport; he sure had a lot of “firsts” for the sport. He was one of the original “Interns.” There was a later tag-team who went by the same name; with a Dr. Ken Ramey, as their manager… But Joe, Bill, and Dr. Jerry were the first… Joe and Bill later formed a tag team known as “The Sky Brothers,” arguably their most successful partnership. “The Sky Brothers” were the first tag team to wear cowboy hats, blue jeans, belts with a big rodeo buckle on them, and pointy-toed cowboy boots as their wrestling wardrobe… As a singles wrestler; Joe Turner was the first wrestler to adopt “The Mummy” persona. He was the first to be known as “The Black Hand.” Many of his wrestling personas were under the mask; which factored on his notoriety, but allowed him to get an apartment and have some semblance of a normal life. He could work a territory as an unmasked opponent for six or eight months; then go under the mask, and work the same territory for the same amount of time. When a territory played out; when a wrestler’s drawing power started to drop off, it usually meant a move to another territory. By wearing a mask; Joe could go over a year before needing to relocate, saving on the cost of a move. One of Joe’s last “firsts” was the masked tag-team “Mephisto & Dante”; where he teamed with my brother, who he had trained in the sport. It was pretty much his last hurrah. Old age and nagging injuries took its toll, and Joe Turner had to give up the thing that he had sacrificed soo much for… the sport he had devoted a career to. The stars of the squared-circle in the 21st century stand very tall, in todays “wrestling entertainment.” Today’s stars stand on the shoulders of the men who blazed the trail; and helped evolve the sport from a fledgling upstart, to a world-wide phenomenon. It didn’t happen on its own. Men put in the work… Men like Bearcat Brown, Len Rossi, the Fargo Brothers, Ron and Robert Fuller, Tojo Yammamoto, the Mighty Yankees, Les Thatcher, Jerry Lawler, Jim White, Chief Thundercloud, Pepe Lopez, Frank Hester, Sam Bass(those last three made up a tag-team known as “the Dominoes,” with Sam as their manager. All were tragically killed in a fiery car crash on the way to their next town on the schedule), the Scufflin Hillbillies, Ken Lucas, the Samoans, Mike Jackson, Bob Armstrong, the most hated manager of the sixties, Saul Weindrauff… Bill Bowman… And last but not least, Joe Turner… Who passed on this day; 1 may 2014… He was seventy-five years old… The lights over the squared-circles should go dark, when the matches start next… Ring the bell in tribute; and in ceremony, for a fallen brother. He has faced his last adversary. “You were born an original… don’t die a copy” Steve Sabol Founder; NFL Films That’s what you were, Joe… An original… It’s what you’ll always be… I will always remember you; and the mark you left on my life. I wish you peace, my brother… Bud Allen
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 14:29:12 +0000
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