Shooters

by Jonathan Snowden

  “If I tried to tell these guys in the bar what a step-over toehold was, they would resent me and say, ‘Who the hell is he?’ So I would tell it to ‘Mother,’” James explained. “And if Mother was watching she would say, ‘John, is that a hammerlock?’ And John would say, ‘Of course,’ and it would make him into a hero.”

  The demands of television changed wrestling dramatically, taking an already over-the-top spectacle to the next level. Characters like “Gorgeous” George became the stars. With his curly blond locks, elaborate robes, and preening manner, George was the perfect villain. “I don’t think I am gorgeous,” he told the audience at home. “But what is my opinion against millions of others?”

  George was just one of many new stars created for the medium. Chicago-area promoter Fred Kohler became, arguably, the most important man in the industry thanks to his control of wrestling on the DuMont network. Wrestlers seen nationwide on television became stars — and Kohler controlled them with exclusive contracts. If other promoters wanted his talent, they had to go through him. Sports Illustrated took note in 1955, remarking that there were 5–10 million fans of televised wrestling, almost 4,000 active professionals, and six world champions when decades prior there was merely one. In the heyday of televised professional wrestling, one of those world champions was a talented amateur from Minnesota who would outwit them all in the end.

  DuMont’s Rising Star

  There was room for the occasional “real” wrestler to gain fame under the Kohler regime. Verne Gagne, a clean-cut amateur champion from the University of Minnesota, became a star with his smooth wrestling and good looks.

  “He started on the DuMont Network in 1951,” Verne’s son Greg Gagne said at his father’s WWE Hall of Fame induction. “He was kind of the first wrestling star who was made on national TV — him along with Pat O’Connor, Hans Schmidt, Roy McClarty — people like that. It’s funny, it seems like wherever we go in the country, people recognize my father from way back then. The people are a little bit older, of course, but they still recognize him and they recognize that that’s when wrestling first hit the networks. And he was a major, major part of that.”

  With Kohler’s backing, Gagne toured the entire country, becoming a star nationwide, but particularly in the Midwest where his United States championship was considered the most prestigious wrestling title to local fans. Gagne became NWA World champion Lou Thesz’s professional rival. Though the two men only competed a handful of times, they vied for the attention of wrestling promotions throughout the United States.

  Gagne had the bigger name thanks to Kohler and charged just 10 percent of the gate, less than Thesz who also collected a percentage for his manager Ed “Strangler” Lewis and NWA booker Sam Muchnick. Gagne was one of wrestling’s first crossover stars and an excellent worker in the ring. Unlike many amateur stars who never really understood how to get the audience going, Verne was the perfect babyface, making fans believe when he screamed out in pain and believe again when it was time for him to make his comeback.

  “With Verne, I believe it was a genuine competitiveness,” Lou Thesz’s biographer Kit Bauman said. “I was with the two of them a couple of times, and it was vivid, even long after they’d quit the ring. I’ve mentioned before that when I asked Lou about the guys who gave him trouble in the ring (or, especially, in the gym), he would go vague on me, for reasons I had a hard time understanding; I came to believe that it was mostly a matter of Lou being stingy with praise. Over time, he loosened up and would talk it, and he said his feelings toward Verne were colored by the behind-the-scenes activities in the early to mid-’50s to put the title on Verne. ‘We worked for different people, so there was a lot of pressure on both of us,’ he once said to me. Lou also said, however, that their matches were among some of the best of his career, in terms of credibility.”

  Gagne appeared on the variety and talk shows of the day and had endorsement contracts to hawk vitamins and other products to wrestling fans. He was a big enough star, and Kohler an aggressive enough promoter, that the NWA feared giving him their world title. Gagne was overlooked in the late 1950s when the NWA title passed from Thesz to Gagne’s old college rival Dick Hutton. When he was passed over a second time in favor of Pat O’Connor, it was the last straw.

  A YOUNG VERNE GAGNE

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  “Lou Thesz was the champion. I wrestled him three times. We had two draws and in the third one he got disqualified,” Gagne remembered. “Then I couldn’t get another match with him. The last time I wrestled him I said, ‘The next time we wrestle, I will beat you.’ I never got him to wrestle after that. So we got into promotion here and I bought the Stechers out.”

  In 1960, Gagne and Wally Karbo, long time consigliere to Minnesota wrestling promoter Tony Stecher, went into business for themselves. In June, Gagne challenged O’Connor to a title match, giving him 90 days to comply. If the NWA champion refused, Karbo insisted Gagne should be recognized as the rightful champion. Of course, this was all for the fans’ benefit. Gagne and his partners didn’t actually request an appearance by O’Connor as part of the NWA champ’s nationwide tour. That didn’t stop them from calling him yellow and stripping him of his title in favor of Gagne, then breaking away from the NWA to form the American Wrestling Alliance.

  “Verne made a legitimate effort to meet O’Connor and Pat refused to answer,” Karbo said at the time. “Gagne deserved the title shot more than any other wrestler in the game today, but O’Connor didn’t even have the common courtesy to send a reply. Other promoters all over the nation are now regarding Verne as champion of the world.”

  Gagne was in the business of selling Gagne — and for decades it was a good business to be in. He was one of wrestling’s most enduring stars and he held the world title he had struggled for so mightily for most of his 21 years on top of the AWA promotion. Gagne was the prototypical wrestling babyface. He used a dropkick to knock opponents down and finished them off with a sleeperhold. Fans in the Midwest seemingly never tired of seeing Gagne with his hand raised at the end of the night.

  “We ran from Chicago to San Francisco with the AWA, and all of those cities in between the major cities,” Gagne said. “We were drawing sellout crowds most of the time, 17–18,000, 15,000, whatever the arena held. But we were doing very good business. . . . It was fun. I liked it, enjoyed it . . . I was doing everything at one time — wrestling and promoting and match-making and all that.”

  Gagne went out of his way to help fellow amateur stars find their way in the business. He helped make Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon one of the biggest stars in the sport. The diminutive grappler who had once represented Canada in the Olympic Games became one of wrestling’s fiercest heels. He was a wild man — in and out of the ring. Vachon, despite being just 5'7", was considered by many of his contemporaries to be the toughest man in the business. Anyone who challenged him in the bar after the matches found out the hard way that the little dog had quite a bite.

  “I could beat the shit out of them. And most of the time I did!” Vachon remembered. “That’s eventually when Don Owen called me the Mad Dog. So I carried it inside and outside of the ring. I must have had hundreds of street fights. Why I’m not in jail today is a surprise to me.”

  Other legitimate wrestlers in the AWA included “Red” Bastien, Dr. Bill Miller, Billy Robinson, and Jim “Baron Von” Raschke. Raschke was a two-time All-American at the University of Nebraska, so he had the skills, but Raschke admits, “Verne Gagne actually taught me the difference between amateur wrestling and professional wrestling.”

  The AWA was full of foreign menaces, with Gagne eventually conquering them all. Raschke was quiet and shy until Vachon got his hands on him, turning him into a Nazi villain and making him a star. From AAU and Army amateur to goose-stepping Nazi was quite a leap, especially for a wrestler who had envisioned himself as a potential succes
sor to Gagne as a big time babyface. But the act worked for Raschke, and he and Vachon made blood boil wherever they wrestled.

  Says Raschke, “Once I became the Baron all those inhibitions I had, all those deep psychological restrictions that I put on myself as Jim Raschke were completely wiped out . . . the Baron could say and do about anything he wanted.”

  Television’s Sideshow: The Carnival Circuit Continues

  For the most part, you’d have never recognized that Vachon or Raschke had legitimate wrestling talents. It just wasn’t an important part of the product being presented to fans. But while actual wrestling had all but disappeared from television with its increasing reliance on flashy moves and choreographed pratfalls, real wrestlers still roamed the land. They could be found with traveling circuses and carnivals, part of the athletic shows (AT shows) that competed with the bearded lady and thrill rides for the audience’s attention. It was a tradition that went back to the middle ages, but in colorful modern America it included more than just your typical tough guys. Attractions would include female competitors and midgets, but carnival sideshow expert Ward Hall says the competitors were mostly local farm boys from the Midwest looking to escape a humdrum life, joining the veteran wrestlers in the athletic tent: a simple and Spartan structure, 30 by 30 feet, that contained a 16-foot ring with mattresses underneath, where the wrestlers slept at night.

  It wasn’t just the facilities that were spartan — so was the pay. Despite being stars of a popular attraction, the handful of wrestlers with each carnival weren’t well compensated. Taking home just a few dollars a day, wrestlers often drove the big trucks and helped set up the tents for extra cash. Once the shows were open for business, the wrestlers were responsible not just for drawing a paying crowd, but for winning at all cost. Signs hanging from the tents advertised they would take on all comers. Anyone who could best them took home a cash prize. Locals were often awarded a dollar for each minute they could last with the carnival mat man — wrestlers who couldn’t finish the match quickly or lost more than a handful of matches were replaced with those who could win regularly. Historian Mark Hewitt argues this pressure to win created a very hard-nosed brand of wrestler:

  In its heyday, the athletic show produced a hardy breed of grappler; rough, ready, and able to dispose of any challenger who stepped up from the spectators. The challenger or “mark,” as he was known in the business, could be anything from a husky farmer to the local bully. George Drake, who worked “AT shows” out West in the 1940s, remembers his challengers as being “cowboys, wiseguys, drunks, college wrestlers, and football players.”

  “AT show” bouts were time-limit handicap matches, with the “comer” attempting to stay for usually five minutes of wrestling or three rounds of boxing. Often, as part of the show, one of the carnival wrestlers, referred to as a “stick,” would be planted out among the crowd. The stick would be worked into the program as all the “marks” were met and defeated in the beginning of the week. Athletic show grapplers faced from two to a dozen or more challengers a day! As the “marks” were weeded out, the stick would stay the limit with a couple of “AT show” men. Then the big end of the week match would be the stick versus the carnival mat star in an exciting finish contest. Other times, a local wrestler or amateur champion would be built up as a worthy contender.

  Martial arts historian Robert Smith wrote about the scam, noting that just like regular pro wrestling the promoter controlled both wrestlers. But eventually they would have to accept a challenge from a tough local. And that’s when Smith and others like him would strike: “I’d con the con artists. I would stand up close and holler and stumble awkwardly toward the platform. I was young, skinny, and babyfaced, and hung my head a lot in those days and this would help the deception. They would invariably accept me — once. Because when we got inside and the crowd had paid its dollar or so I’d pin the house man without ceremony. The house guy wasn’t usually good enough to be dirty. But he’d try. He would elbow and jab me in close with his palm, try to strangle me, and pretend to throw me while getting into my gonads with an errant ‘accidental’ foot.”

  Many carnival and AT show wrestlers were ordinary talents, but most troupes included at least one supremely talented grappler. Known as hookers, these were the men who knew the holds that would make men cry out in pain. The worst of them were known as rippers. They didn’t just know how to hurt people — they actually enjoyed it. It was these wrestlers who would be called upon to take on anyone who seemed like a serious challenge, often surprising college standouts and solid technical wrestlers who didn’t know enough dirty tricks. Carnivals were a seasonal attraction in many parts of the country, allowing some of the best pro wresters in the world to compete on the circuit in between pro bouts.

  “My carnival schedule was: Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, from April to September. This was the carnival time of the year,” wrestling veteran Billy Wicks said. Wicks was trained by Farmer Burns disciple Henry Kolln and knew all the hooks. He’d needed them. Carnival wrestlers often took on multiple opponents on a single night. If a bested opponent wanted to give it another go, an immediate rematch was granted.

  “We wrestled a 300–400 mile radius of St. Paul, Minnesota, for Dubson United Shows. Their carnival tour had the ‘whole ball of wax,’ that a traditional carnival offered. Our wrestling tent was 40x40 with a platform outside where the barker would talk to the people in the midway. Dirty Dick Evans was the barker getting people in. He would challenge them, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen! Come see Free Pro Wrestling! Where we will show you holds.’ He would also call out, ‘Where are all you tough guys that slap your wife or your cow around? Come see if you can take on my champion!’ I wore a mask a lot of time to give it a mysterious feel. We had a ‘stick’ (one of our guys) out in the crowd to create a show. My stick was Greg Peterson. He was a little guy, he would give them confidence to get up the nerve to give it a try. The sticks were the toughest guys, many times.”

  Frankie Cain, a street kid who grew up hustling and fighting in the streets of Columbus, Ohio, remembers his time on the carnival circuit fondly. Although he went on to great career as one of the Masked Infernos and as “The Great Mephisto” in traditional pro wrestling, it is the carnival life he finds himself recalling in his later years. A wrestler and boxer, Cain was trained by Frank Wolf, a wily veteran who once served as a policeman for wrestling promoters in Ohio, taking on tough locals and new talent to gauge their skill. Cain admits that much of what went on in the carnival tent was worked, especially when ex-wrestlers from the local area were involved. Many times former wrestlers would become part of the show, building for a final match with a local with lots of side bets on the line.

  They were “big, old cauliflowered ear guys,” Cain recalled. “They’d say, ‘I’ve wrestled around here for years and I’ll take you on!’ The people would cheer. You’d go in and, of course, they would work. On the other hand, the old middleweights were really tough. They’d come around to the AT shows and try to knock the AT show boys off for the money. But we’d love to get a shoot with a local guy that looked tough. I read where John Buff made the comment that shoots killed the show. That might have been true in certain parts of the country, but it certainly wasn’t true in the AT Shows that I knew. You’d get some of the marks you’d wrestle who were half smart. We’d ask ’em, ‘Do you want to shoot, or do you want to show?’ On the other hand, we had a lot of challenges from guys who thought they were tough, and they wanted to prove it. Even with the shoots, though . . . we’d sometimes let them go through. We’d put them over a little . . . let them think they could win. Then we’d come back the next night in a return match and you’d beat them.”

  Future world champion Harley Race, a notorious tough guy who fought his way from coast to coast, scaring even fellow wrestlers with his fistic prowess, got his start in the business as a 16-year-old carnival wrestler. Working for Gus Karras, the young Race was usually planted in the crowd as a �
��local” challenger. He would volunteer to face the house champion and was usually beaten. Sometimes, if the crowd was especially riled up, he’d get to win to calm them down and prevent a riot. The toughest nights were when Race had to meet a real local in a challenge match: “When we wrestled each other, we watched out for each other in the ring, just like pro wrestlers continue to do today. But wrestling a local was more dangerous, usually to him. If you got hold of a finger, and the guy didn’t give up, you broke the finger. In this pre-lawsuit crazy era, arms and legs were fair game too. . . . I often wound up facing some legitimately tough old farmers . . . There were times some of those mean old bastards had me on the ropes for real. I knew if I lost the match, the farmer would get paid and I wouldn’t. But if I got disqualified, I got paid and he didn’t. So I quickly learned to throw my head into their noses if it looked like they were getting the upper hand. A well-placed head butt preserved my pay many days.”

  While the carnivals died out, the practice of having wrestlers who could handle challenges from marks in the crowd remained part of professional wrestling, especially in rural areas. That too came to an end with the cautionary tale of Tim Woods. Performing as “Mr. Wrestling” in the Georgia territory, Woods was a great amateur who had finished second twice in NCAA tournaments in the late 1950s. Decked out in all white, Woods was one of the first masked babyfaces in wrestling history.

  Georgia booker Leo Garibaldi had pushed Woods hard. He was a mainstay in the arena programs before he ever appeared in the territory and in his early matches proved he had dozens of finishing holds that he could hit you with from all angles. The coup de grace was a $1,000 open challenge. Any fan that could last 10 minutes against Mr. Wrestling would collect — big time.