February 11, 1972

The St. Joe, Missouri city auditorium always was a jam packed event every Friday. The promoter Gust Karras saw to that by bring the best matches in the Midwest to the ring each and every week. It didn't matter what the weather was outside, it was hot, hot, hot inside.

The card on this night featured matches that would have been Main Events in any building on our circuit. It was a star studded card that had every seat in the building sold out in anticipation of the results of each match. I was asked to accompany Black Jack Black to the ring as he was fearful of the newcomer, Terry Martin, that Angus had tangled with in Kansas City. As a mentor to Earl Black Jack Black, I accepted the minor challenge and headed to the ring with "Blackie." The fans of St. Joe just did not like me and often hurled huge cups of beer and hot coffee at me and called me everything except Mr. Friend.

As I stood at ringside minding my own business, a ringsider began to wildly swing his fists at me and call me a few nasty names. I looked over at the policeman that was at the corner of the aisle and shouted at him to put this guy back into his own seat so I could get on with my business. The cop was so tired that he almost fell asleep standing on duty. I always wondered what eating donuts would do to someone's ego when you eat too many of them.

Terry Martin started the match by taking the much larger Black to the mat and grinding his face and chest into the unforgiving canvas, causing some pretty large burns on his chest and nose. At about the 10-minute mark, I asked Earl to hit the floor to talk to him about what this "KID" was doing to us. I gave him the pep talk that a college football coach would give a team at halftime, and some of it seemed to sink in as Earl was getting very red faced and angry at Martin. Martin, in the meantime, had gotten the fans so riled up that they were screaming and clapping and stomping their encrusted boots on the wooden floor of the auditorium. And this was just the opening match.

Blackie climbed back into the ring, and, as Terry was delivering one of his signature drop kicks from nowhere, he sidestepped him and just swatted his feet like you would a fly with a folded newspaper. Terry hit the mat with a thud, and Blackie started to do him the same way he had done him earlier. For the better part of the next nine minutes, he dominated the match under my guidance and attention.

During the last minute of the 20-minute time limit, all heck broke out as Omar Atlas came to the ring to stick his nose into everything . I sent word back to the dressing room to get Bob Orton to come to the ring and voice his expert opinion in the matter. Promoter Gust Karras decided at that point to put a stop to the match, but he was beat out by the timekeeper, who signaled the end of the match and declared the match a draw. There was a huge argument between the four wrestlers, and Bob Geigel and Pat O'Connor ended up separating the whole melee by sending everybody packing.

As the dust settled and the arena calmed down, the second match was in the ring. It featured the old pro from St. Joe, Ronnie Etchison, facing Jerry Miller from Nashville, Tennessee. The 10-minute added attraction went six minutes before Ronnie handed the young athlete from Music City a defeat by the huge Big Swing he had used for many years to win matches.

I had changed sport coats because, during the first match, somebody threw their hot dog loaded with extra ketchup and mustard all over the back of the pretty yellow silk original from New York that had just set me back $250 the week before. I donned my red jacket that had yellow western trim on it as it went well with the royal blue slacks and the orange shirt I was wearing.

I headed to the ring with Bob Orton Sr. and Earl Black to face Terry Martin and Omar Atlas, the overgrown midget. Fans seemed like they wanted more of me because they kept hollering my name along with many cuss words at me. Our tag match ended up in a double disqualification as Omar and Terry would not adhere to the referee Frank Diamond’s command to keep only one man from each team in the ring. Of course, we were trying our best to help Diamond out by fighting to keep Atlas and Martin in line.

Promoter Karras decided once again to stick his nose in our business and make a four-man Russian Roulette match for the following week with the four guys in the previous match, and then he barred me from being at ringside the following week ... much to the delight of the redneck fans. I left the ring with Orton and Black at my side and returned to the dressing room where I would get Angus ready for yet another huge match for the night.

For the previous four weeks, Angus and the Viking had crossed paths in arenas in a tri-state territory. Some of their matches ended in riots and bloody sessions that had to be broken up by many of the wrestlers from the dressing rooms. I don't know what got into the Viking's beard, but he definitely had a harsh time in being in the same building with us, and, last week, he went in front of an overflow crowd following a very bloody affair between us and him and demanded that we meet in a Texas Death Match where falls didn't count and there would be no time limit and the only way a man can win is by his opponent not being able to answer a 10-count either by submission or pin.

We were fortunate to have video taped the matches that Angus and Viking were in as we learned a few secrets that we didn't know before. Referee "Rabbit Ears" Moody stuck his nose up next to our locked dressing room door and yelled out, "In the Ring!!!!!"

To be continued…

Percival A. Friend, Retired
The Epitome of Wrestling Managers