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This week’s column takes us back almost 33 years to the St. Joseph, Missouri city auditorium. Gust Karras had tried every swerve he could to try and keep me from greatness. Being the master at picking his brain every time we came in contact kept me nearly one step ahead of him. I always knew when new talent was coming to the Midwest and how tough that things would be in getting matches with the best wrestlers would be.
Karras was a talker and maneuver artist that had been in the promotion business for nearly five decades when I arrived in Kansas City in 1971. He not only booked wrestling but dabbled in country music and the Harlem Globetrotters’ bookings as well. He was also very fond of county fairs and people groups. They seemed to be the most interested in getting talent for money raising projects.
Gust would constantly book us in places like Strawberry Point, Iowa or Mexico, Missouri or Downs, Kansas, of all places. I guess he was trying to see if we had the drawing potential in small towns as well as the large ones like Kansas City or Des Moines.
St. Joe, as it was called, produced many top stars in the wrestling world like Ronnie Etchison, Sonny Meyers, Mike George, Orville Brown, Bobby Bruns and many more too numerous to list. St. Joe had a reputation of being one of the toughest towns to wrestle in if you were not a well-liked person like myself or Harley Race or Bob Brown.
The five-match card for March 23 had some of the greatest talent in the Midwest on hand for a sellout crowd. The standing room only audiences were commonplace for the aging auditorium that held every Friday night in awe and enjoyment.
Benny Ramirez, the former masked star from south of the border who campaigned as THE MUMMY for a number of years, started the card off. He faced the amazing Argentina Zuma, who had just come in from a very successful tour of the Southwest states area. Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma were another hotbed of talent that shared with Heart of America Sports in Kansas City.
The match was a very fast paced event that had fans standing in the aisles and tormenting Benny for his roughhouse style. With a barrage of flying dropkicks and head scissors, Zuma won the match in just over 12 minutes with a body press. While the referee was raising the hand of Zuma, Benny slammed a well-placed fist into the back of Zuma's neck and sent him flying to the arena floor.
Fans didn't appreciate the action and fought to get at Ramirez while he was being escorted to the dressing room area. Mickey Doyle, who was in the next match, came out just as Benny was getting back to the dressing room door and helped get him into safety. They ended up carrying Zuma to the dressing room on a stretcher where he was cared for by the doctor in attendance.
The late Lou Klein. He was partner to Red Bastien, president of the CAC and trainer of many great stars in the wrestling world. He was also a very accomplished star in his own right. He was the proud father of Lois, Sharon and Linda Klein.
Mike George, a St. Joseph native who was trained by Lord Littlebrook, faced Irish Mickey Doyle in the second match. Doyle, who had teamed with Mike Boyette as the California Hippies, was a feisty light heavyweight that had been trained by Lou Klein in Detroit. Both had a bringing in, as we called it, to live up to. They battled to a 30-minute time limit draw that left fans screaming for more action. Mike wanted five minutes more, and Doyle refused, saying he was only getting paid for 30 minutes and needed to leave for a booking in Denver.
Bob Brown, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, had been setting the wrestling world back a few notches with his antics, both on television and in live matches at arenas nationwide. He had been recently been barred from five western states for causing riots. His answer to the commissions of those stated was, "Who needs you, anyway."
As he entered the auditorium, fans started throwing full beer and pop cups at him. They called him every name but Bob Brown. They wanted to fight with him, and he was ready to fight right back. He must have had a lonely childhood with the attitude he possessed. He was the kind of guy that fights a 10-foot coiled up rattlesnake and gives it first bite.
Bob was facing Rufus R. Jones from Amarillo, Texas. Rufus had been very well received since coming back in from the Carolinas nearly six months before for another extended tour of the Midwest. He had beaten nearly all the top stars there and was asked by Karras to come back in to be part of the group wrestling in this area. Jones didn't even make it to the ring before Bob Brown jumped from the ring and began to tear off the beautiful velvet jacket that was given to Rufus by his fan club.
Jones and Brown fought on the outside of the ring most of the match and only jumped in to break the 20-count on the floor by referee “Rabbit Ears” Moody. They were both a sweaty mess at the end of the 20-minute time limit with neither gaining an advantage. Rufus grabbed the microphone and pleaded with the fans to go to promoter Karras and ask for another match with lumberjacks on the outside so Brown couldn't run away as much. Brown grabbed the house microphone and screamed out that if ANYONE was the GUTLESS COWARD and RAN from a match … IT WAS JONES!
They ended up fighting all the way to the back of the building before a riot squad stepped in and stopped them in their tracks. It was no wonder that we drew the kind of audiences we did. You just never knew what you would be missing if you missed one Friday night’s action.
I was next in the semi-main event with the best team to ever come out of the Rising Sun, Tokyo, Japan. The Great Togo and Tokyo Joe were two of the very greatest stars to come from the training dojo at New Japan wrestling. They excelled in strength, stamina, speed and endurance, and, combined with my know-how, they went on to become the World Tag Team Champions.
Togo and Tokyo Joe had been warming up for the match doing Hindu squats, pushups and beating on each other to get the demons away from them. It was a ritual they did in Japan, and it seemed to work. Tonight, they faced Bob Geigel and Abe Jacobs, as tough a team as you would find in any territory at the time.
To be continued....
Percival A. Friend,
Retired
The Epitome of Wrestling Managers
2004 CAC Honoree
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