Kenny Jay Part Two

We ended last week with a brief overview Kenny’s very long career as a professional wrestler with the American Wrestling Association. As I had mentioned, Kenny Jay was a very hard-working person supporting his family in a demanding way by working in the landscaping business and also working for the AWA when needed and available. The majority of Kenny’s bouts were the televised variety, but he did also appear in live arena cards mainly around the Twin Cities and occasionally took a trip out of town.

In numerous conversations with Kenny, he’s told me about some of the rougher spots of his career, the injuries. He suffered cracked ribs, broken ribs, and several foot injuries in matches he wrestled. I asked him who the easy ones to work with were, and he mentioned he loved working with The Crusher, Verne Gagne, Billy Robinson, Ray Stevens, Adrian Adonis, and Jesse Ventura. I asked him about the rough matches he had, and he mentioned both Larry Hennig and Mad Dog Vachon. He didn’t say this in a derogatory manner, more that, when you were matched up with these two, it was demanding but good work in the ring.

In looking back at a few years of Kenny Jay’s career, 1969, 1971, and 1976, it was easy to get the impression that Kenny never had his hand raised much. These were only three years of a very long career, and Kenny did get his hand raised on occasion. Two of his biggest moments occurred in the very early 80’s. On November 23, 1980, Kenny was wrestling Bobby Heenan in a TV match when Buck Zumhofe came out and distracted Heenan as the two were starting a feud. Kenny took advantage of Heenan being distracted, rolled him up, and got his hand raised on television. On December 13, 1980, Kenny was involved in a tag-team match along with George “Scrapiron” Gadaski against the East-West Connection, Jesse Ventura and Adrian Adonis. Kenny and George had their hands raised, being given a win by disqualification, but I’m not sure he and George were real thrilled since they took a pretty good beating from Adonis and Ventura afterwards, as did promoter Wally Karbo, who ended up getting his sport coat ripped off in the fray. (Wally had a plaid sport coat Percival would have paid big $$ for!)

If Kenny had a unique year in his career, it had to be 1976, the same year our country celebrated its bicentennial. The year started out average enough. Crusher and Bruiser were AWA tag team champs, Nick Bockwinkel was the heavyweight champ, and, through May, Kenny wrestled television matches with the normal line of top opponents such as Bockwinkel or Von Raschke. Kenny one day was asked to meet with Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo as soon as possible. He didn’t know what was going on, and did he get the surprise of his life when he met with his bosses. They wanted Kenny Jay to travel to Chicago to participate in a boxer vs. wrestler exhibition against none other then Muhammad Ali! This was a promotional event held in Chicago for the upcoming Ali-Inoki match, which would be held in Tokyo in June. The invite came on short notice, Kenny accepted, and headed to Chicago along with Buddy Wolff who would also work against Ali. I asked Kenny how he felt about participating in this match, his reply was “nervous, VERY nervous”,

The big day arrived, and, for once, Kenny was the main event, and his advisors were secondary. Kenny had the world’s most dangerous wrestler in his corner, Dick the Bruiser. Verne Gagne served as referee but had also given Kenny some advice which was a lot more technical then Bruiser’s “poke him in the eye” suggestion. Ali was seconded by the great Fred Blassie, and the exhibition took place in the famed Chicago Amphitheatre. Kenny went out after Ali, and the boxing champ did the same thing he did with Inoki, headed for the ropes every time Kenny started to tighten in on him. Kenny went for a lot of single leg takes downs and throws, but Ali simply threw a few punches and went to the ropes where a break was called. Actually, it was a pretty short match as Ali landed a few punches in round two and finally TKO’d Kenny in round two. After Kenny was counted, out it appears Ali had some intentions of getting in Bruiser’s face, and Blassie very smartly pushed him back. If you wish to view this match, just go to www.youtube.com and do a search for Jay & Ali, as this is written it is available. The video runs about six minutes.

The big night in Chicago was actually June 25, 1976, where a live card featured Greg Gagne defeating Bob Orton Jr., Crusher and Bruiser turning back #1 challengers Lanza and Mulligan, and Verne Gagne and Nick Bockwinkel wrestling to a draw. Fans in attendance then saw Andre vs. Chuck Wepner and Ali vs. Inoki on closed circuit TV. It’s very safe to say that the Ali - Inoki match was the most boring and uneventful of the evening. What could have been fun and big wasn’t.

There are few, if any, former AWA stars who didn’t get along with Kenny Jay, and I’ve never heard a bad thing about him. The respect by his peers is shown by the names in attendance at his annual Hystiocytosis (an illness affecting some children from birth to as late as age 15 and attacks all body areas such as skin, bone, muscles, and organs) fund raiser. While I haven’t attended all of his events, former wrestlers I have seen there include Nick Bockwinkel, Dr. X, Red Bastien, Baron Von Raschke, Mad Dog Vachon, Larry Hennig, Bobby Heenan, Steve Olsonowski, Jim Brunzell, Oliver Humperdink, Buck Zumhofe, the late Rick Renslow, Eddie Sharkey, and many others. Can you imagine if this roster was still able to work and Kenny just did card! While Kenny has had some high points in life, and I don’t know which one he considers the biggest, a candidate would have to be the 2005 Cauliflower Alley Convention, where he was inducted into the honor circle. Harley Race summed it up best in the CAC press announcement when he said “Kenny Jay was THE BEST overall talent in wrestling, he could work with any human being and get a good match out of them”. Verne Gagne used to kid that he was the champ and Kenny got his face on TV more then Verne did. That might have been a stretch, but Kenny basically did wrestle over 20 times a year on television.

Well, I’ll turn the column back over to my good friend Percival and look forward to the next time he asks for a guest writer. And to all of you, always remember the wrestlers who made the stars what they were. Kenny Jay was never near the top of the win-loss list, but he will always be at the top of guys who helped make the business what it was in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Any by the way, as far as I know Kenny will still wrestle an occasional tag match and can still slap the “sod grip” on pretty good!

Percival A. Friend, Retired
The Epitome of Wrestling Managers