November 3, 1972 Part Two

I had gone to St. Joe, Missouri to the city auditorium to be in Roger Kirby's corner for a Texas Death match involving Kirby against Black Angus.

So great was this card that, as soon as it was announced the Saturday before, the switchboard at the ticket office at 713 Edmund lit up like a Christmas tree at midnight. By 6 a.m., the exhausted operator had to announce that every seat in the building had been sold.

Promoter Gust Karras had to put out the Standing Room Only sign at the auditorium box office the following Friday afternoon when they arrived. St. Joe had not seen a total sellout with S.R.O. since the wrestling days of Sonny Meyers and Orville Brown.

The action started at 8:30 p.m. and had Omar Atlas facing Billy Howard from Minnesota. Their 10-minute match ended in a draw and nearly had a riot because of the action in and out of the ring. Les Thornton faced the Destroyer and also ended in a draw. Many thought the Englishman had an advantage on the Destroyer, but the masked man showed the crowd that he was a real veteran of mat wars by being able to counter any move the young Briton had.

Bobby Whitlock was next and faced Ronnie Etchison, “the Old Pro from St. Joe.” Etchison showed the overflow crowd why he was the better man and used his Giant Swing to win the match.

The United States Women's Champion, Betty Niccoli, made her way to the ring to face one of her toughest opponents yet in Belle Starr from San Antonio, Texas. Betty had just come back from a tour of Ohio towns that afternoon. She was in Cleveland the previous night and faced Linda Klein on a star studded card.

Belle Starr used all the tricks she had learned from her travels around the world to upset the champ, but they didn't work as Betty used a rolling reverse leglock and a handful of the top rope to gain a victory by pinfall over Starr.

The Semi-Main Event was a six-man tag team match that brought the contestants from the opening two matches to team with a third member. Juan Sebastian, from Albuquerque, teamed with Billy Howard and the Destroyer to face Danny Littlebear, Omar Atlas and Les Thornton.

It took two referees to contain the heated feelings of these teams. Both had members that wanted revenge from not being able to score a pin in the opening matches. The bell finally rang, and all heck broke loose with all the wrestlers hitting the center of the ring like a mini-Battle Royal.

It was at the 30-minute mark that the first fall was scored by the team of Littlebear, Atlas and Thornton. Omar Atlas had dropkicked Juan Sebastian at least 10 times before putting him on top of his shoulders and doing an airplane spin and pinning him. Juan, also known as “El Gaucho,” tried at least five times to get back to his feet and kept falling down from dizziness.

The bell rang, and he staggered into the wrong corner and was hit in the head and chest by all three opponents. He finally made it to his corner and tagged in the Destroyer, who reached into the waist of his trunks and pulled a shiny metal object and slid it into the eye hole of his mask and turned to Thornton. Les had been tagged in by Omar.

After hooking him up in the referee position the Destroyer head butted Les and drove him back first onto the canvas and pinned him ... One, Two, Three ... evening up the falls. Thornton was dragged to his corner by Littlebear, who was complaining to referee Frankie Diamond that the Destroyer had something in his mask besides an ugly face.

The bell rang, and Thornton was dragged out to the center of the ring by the Destroyer and was having the bejeezus beat out of him by all three opponents as they quickly tagged in and out. Four ringside fans had to be escorted from the building as tempers flared. Finally, one of the wild punches from Billy Howard projected Thornton into his corner, and Atlas was tagged in.

The roof of the building nearly came off as he hit the ring and began to throw dropkicks at everything that was standing, including the referee. Gaucho finally tagged Billy and put a stop to Omar's kicking ability by swatting him aside like one would with a common house fly.

Grabbing him in a Mexican Rocking Chair move, he finally gained the needed fall by making Atlas submit. The crowd began to roar their disapproval of the win, but that sometimes happens, and all the contestants made it back to the dressing room area safely.

The Main Event was next, and, resplendent as I was in my new yellow sport coat over mint green slacks and an orange shirt with a flowered tie, I started towards the ring, followed by Roger Kirby. Kirby had on a new red warmup jacket that had a hood on it to keep him warm. His single strapped trunks were replaced by a pair of bright red trunks that had the word “Champ” written on the back.

The special guest referee, former World's Champion Pat O'Connor, made his way to the ring, and, after saying hello to Gust Karras, he climbed into the ring and began to berate me about my clothing colors and how I couldn't have been looking at a mirror when I dressed.

For the most part, I ignored him, but, when he put his hands on me, Roger took it as a personal thing and attacked O'Connor and threw him out of the ring near Gust Karras. Ronnie Etchison saw what happened and stuck his nose into the action and told Karras that he would be the special referee if Pat was unable to do it.

Of course, the fans went wild when he made the decision to change referees. Karras had that effect on the fans. Just then, a huge roar came from the back of the building as Angus stepped out of his dressing room. He made it to ringside and helped to load O'Connor on a stretcher to be carried back to the dressing room.

It was then that he climbed into the ring and began to stare a hole in me. Etchison had stepped between us and was holding Angus back when, suddenly, Kirby clobbered Angus in the side of the head with a well-placed right fist, and the action was on in the ring.

As I stepped to the outside of the ring, I was grabbed by two goons that were a part of the force that traveled with Karras wherever he went. They carried me to the rear of the building, where I was shoved into a dressing room door, and they held it shut from outside. I made it to the stage area where I could watch what was going on.

Since pinfalls didn't count and no one could be disqualified, I was quite sure that Roger could take care of himself with the instructions I had given him prior to the bout. I had told him of the weakness that Angus had since being injured a couple of days before in a match in Des Moines, Iowa.

I turned when bumped into, and there stood the Destroyer. He began to speak to me in French and asked how he could be of help to me. I asked him to go and inject himself into the match and beat the daylights out of Angus for what he had done to me a few weeks back. It was then that he reached into the waist band of his tights and brought out the shiny metal object and placed it back into his mask.

“I can take care of that long haired bum myself, sir,” he told me. “Then, maybe you will have room for me in your group.” With that, he vanished, and, as I looked, he came out of a huge doorway at the front of the auditorium and almost instantly was at ringside where the two men were fighting.

He slid under the bottom rope and grabbed Angus by the shoulder, spun him around and head butted him, busting his head open from one side to the other. Then, he and Roger picked him up and gave him a spike piledriver. The helpless Angus laid there as referee Etchison had no choice but to 10-count him and award the match to Kirby since Angus couldn't answer the bell. It took a riot squad to get Kirby and the Destroyer to the dressing room.

We won the battle that night, but I was given a $500 fine by Heart of America sports for having the Destroyer go to the ring and inject himself into the match. It was money well spent.

Percival A. Friend, Retired
The Epitome of Wrestling Managers

2003 BWC Hall of Fame Inductee
2004 CAC Hall of Fame Inductee
2006 LWA Hall of Fame Inductee
2007 TCCW Hall of Fame Honoree