I Remember the Old Southern Wrestlers!

While today's Professional Wrestling is making a lot more money for everyone involved I do recall some fine wrestling in the 60's,and early 70's! It was in the Northeast Tennessee region of which I am speaking.I hope some "good ole",southern boys can remember the days of wild matches between the good guys of the sport,and the dirty ones.Along with this comes drunk,and angry fans,dirty managers,exciting referees,and of course,the fake blood!Occasionally there would be the accidental injury which would usually be devastating to all who watched!

For all of those who don't remember the good old days of "Southern Rasslin",as it was called,I would like to give an insight to some of the greats of that time period.I can recall my favorite hero Sam Steamboat from Honolulu,Hawaii.He was a good guy who always fought a dirty wrestler by the name of Johnny "Sugar Daddy" Long.He had bleached long blond hair,and I,like many fans loved to hate him! I was a child at one of these matches,and thought Johnny blinded Sam with a resin bag to the eyes,and I got so upset that my dad had to carry me out of the auditorium.Needless to say,I didn't get to go to many more matches for a long time.My dad tried to convince me that the whole sport was fake,but to no avail,to such a young lover of Wrestling at the time!

Some of the other big names in our area at the time were: Corsica Joe and Jean,"Wild Man Phillips",from parts unknown,Luke Graham who fought with the latter mentioned Phillips,Sailor Moran who was,an older man who had a special version of the pile driver,Jack Vansky from Poland,and several others from the dirty side of the aisle that I can't seem to recall just now!