The 1975 plane crash that ended the career of Johnny Valentine is well documented.  But, considering Valentine’s age and his many accomplishments, do you think he would have stayed in the MA area as US Champion for much longer?  

MIKE: Even though Johnny Valentine was well into his mid-40s by the time of the plane crash, there was no doubt than he had many good years left. I don’t think he was in any rush to leave the territory, since he was still the area’s top star and had many hot programs in the fire. He certainly had at least seven or eight good years left. It would have been interesting to see how Valentine and Ric Flair’s careers would have paralleled. JV and I discussed it before — might it have been Valentine, even at the advanced stage of his career, instead of Flair, in his prime, who would have ascended to the No. 1 spot a few years later when the decision was made to put the strap on Flair, had things not turned out the way they did? We’ll never know.    

RICHARD: Pretty sure the feud that later played out with Flair and Mulligan was originally conceived as a Flair/JV feud with John going babyface. Had tons of mileage left in him. JCP never got to see JV and Wahoo team. Think he would've lasted as a headliner for another couple of years. Can't even imagine Johnny Valentine as a mid-carder ala Swede Hanson or Brute Bernard though.

There were two wrestlers that basically started out in the AWA that soon made their way to JCP.  Ric Flair in 1974 and Ricky Steamboat in 1977.  How was Jim Crockett able to land these two future Hall of Fame wrestlers?  

MIKE: George Scott was the connection and helped bring both men into the area. They also both had strong references from Verne Gagne. George had seen Steamboat work on Georgia and Florida TV, and immediately liked him. Eddie Graham had changed Ricky’s name from Dick Blood to Ricky Steamboat, since he rightfully felt that Dick Blood was a heel’s name, and Ricky was a natural babyface. He gave him the name Steamboat, which was the last name of one of Graham’s former partners, Sam Steamboat. He billed Ricky as Sam’s nephew, since Ricky had that Polynesian look. Jack Brisco was in the office when Eddie made that decision, and agreed 100 percent with Eddie. George Scott, with Buddy Rogers as the model, worked closely with Flair in helping fashion his persona, although at one point he had the notion of turning Ric into a cowboy wrestler in the mold of Cowboy Bob Ellis. I think we can all safely agree that one would have been a mistake. Ric also played a big part in Steamboat’s push here, since he told the office that he wanted “to work with this kid.” Steamboat had attended Verne Gagne’s camp in Minnesota a year after Flair.  

RICHARD: I believe Gagne hooked them up with George Scott through Wahoo. Gagne got a percentage of their earnings in their early days so it was a good "investment."  

Mid Atlantic wrestling was able to satisfy its fans by using great angles and letting the matches tell the story, rather than outlandish characters or matches.  On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate JCP as far as delivering quality wrestling for so long? 

MIKE: I would give the promotion a 9 as far as delivering quality wrestling. Most of the guys down here were very solid workers and were proud of it. As for the characters aspect, the top guys didn’t have to create or invent them; they were their own best characters. But it was all about time in the ring.  Just look at Steamboat and Flair. They’d do a 60-minute broadway and they’d come back the next week and sell out the building with a 90-minute broadway. They’d hold the people on the edge of their seats for an hour and a half. They were masters at their craft. Guys in the locker room would be amazed when the agent would come up to Flair and Steamboat before a show and give them their instructions and simply ask them to go broadway that night, and that would be that. The guys would later ask them if they weren’t going to go over anything since they were going to be out there for an hour, and they’d tell them no, that they were going to listen to the fans. They didn’t have to line up everything from A to Z. They would simply go in the direction the fans were leading them. Today it’s just thump and bump with no rhyme or reason. Guys back then were taught that it was like reading a book – you start off slow, build in the middle and finish it off. It worked. Like Lou Thesz always used to say: “If all else fails – wrestle.”  

RICHARD: Eight    

The highly touted Flair/Mulligan “Hat and Robe” incident is considered one of the classic moments in wrestling.  How would you rate this angle in the scope of wrestling history?  

MIKE: I would rate it at the top of the list, along with Rufus R. Jones having his crown stomped to pieces at the hands of Ric Flair and The Andersons, and “cousin” Burrhead Jones, a local cult favorite, being destroyed by Black Jack Mulligan on Raleigh TV. While the latter angle isn’t as well known on a national basis, you’d be amazed at how many guys who were around at that time vividly recall that match. Even guys in the business today who weren’t around back then have heard about it. It was one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever seen on television. And what made it even more memorable was that Rufus R. Jones was doing color commentary with play-by-play man Bob Caudle. Black Jack was literally destroying Burrhead, while Rufus was having to sit and watch. When Rufus finally asked Bob what Black Jack was doing to his cousin, Bob said something to the effect that it looked like Mulligan “was trying to kill him.” Burrhead, meanwhile, is laid out in the ring going through these convulsions and acting like a chicken with its head cut off. But going back to the angle where Mulligan ripped Flair’s $5,000 peacock robe to pieces, and Ric later putting a $10,000 bounty on Black Jack’s head, that was a classic. You just don’t get any better than that. For pure heat, the angle where The Superstar (Bill Eadie) smashed Boris Malenko’s lit cigar into the eyes of The Mighty Igor had to rank right up there. The angle was so successful that Eadie said that he got a 14-year career out of Inoki from it. They were supposed to have a blowout at the Tokyo Dome after six weeks, but there was so much heat on Eadie that they had to send him home. They finally brought him back, and he got 14 years out of it. Now that’s a successful angle.  

RICHARD: Maybe my favorite angle of all time. Very simple. Just a good emotion-building "little epic."  

There were always well known wrestling stars that appeared in JCP at one time or another during their careers.  Names like Jack & Jerry Brisco, Dory Funk, Jr., Bobo Brazil, Harley Race, Tim “Mr. Wrestling” Woods just to name a few.  What would have been some other names you would have liked to have seen have an extended tour in Mid Atlantic wrestling?  

MIKE: I would have loved to seen more of guys like Eddie Graham out of Florida in the earlier days, and I thought the wrestling from Georgia was great as well. I still managed to see a lot of those stars because of the proximity of those territories. I also liked the wrestling down in the Tennessee area, and would have enjoyed seeing guys like Jackie Fargo, Tojo Yamamoto, The Von Brauners, Saul Weingeroff, etc. Naturally I wish I would have been able to see more of the other world champions, such as Verne Gagne from the AWA and Bruno Sammartino from the WWWF.  

RICHARD: I wish Nick Bockwinkel had stayed forever.

How do you think JCP did as far as developing younger stars for the future?  

MIKE: Obviously it did a great job, with the prime example being Ric Flair. I remember talking to Sandy Scott just a couple of years after Ric had arrived, and at that time he told me that Flair had championship written all over him, and we both agreed that he would be champ sooner rather than later. A few years later, of course, he was.  

RICHARD: With all due respect to Don Owen, it was THE promotion for developing younger wrestlers. Scott Irwin, Tito Santana, Stan Lane, and countless others worked their prelim system, learning from veterans like Abe Jacobs and Swede Hanson and paying their dues. It's kind of amazing to look back at how many top-tier names honed their craft on JCP undercards.     

Promoters always stated that if a champion loses his title, the challenger would assume the future bookings of the champion.  Did this ever take place?  

MIKE: I saw quite a few times where the new champion would assume the ex-champ’s bookings.  

RICHARD: Only with the NWA World title (so far as I saw).   

I attended JCP wrestling in several venues (Charlotte Coliseum, Carolina Coliseum, Township Auditorium, Riley Park in Sumter, and the Exhibition Center in Sumter).  I seemed to enjoy the wrestling in the somewhat smaller venues a bit more than in the big places.  How about you?  

MIKE: While the bigger arenas certainly gave the feel of a “special” event, there was a certain intimacy that came with the smaller venues. The bigger buildings got the bigger shows, which is how it should have been, because you knew you were being treated to something beyond the norm. Some towns, however, didn’t have large venues but still carried some great cards. I remember attending a couple of major shows at the old Savannah Sports Arena that featured world heavyweight title matches, and the fans were packed in like sardines. Although the arena seemed cavernous at the time, I remember driving by years later and it had been converted into a grocery store. I couldn’t believe it was the same place. Of course, there was no place like County Hall in Charleston for wrestling. Wahoo once told me that was the hottest building he had ever wrestled in, and he had wrestled in the hottest parts of Texas. He used to joke that it was so hot that even the walls sweat. And he was right. They used to open some doors after everyone had settled in and had these huge box fans running. They helped, but not much when the building was packed. And then, in later years, every time it rained they’d have to bring in buckets since the roof leaked badly. Before the building was finally condemned, part of the balcony had deteriorated due to termites. A lot of great memories came out of that building however. The man who promoted in these parts for a half a century, Henry Marcus, deserves a lot of credit for keeping things going around here. We had the opportunity to recognize him a few years ago, and there was no better venue to do it in than the old County Hall, which had since been sold, renovated and renamed the King Street Palace. It’s been sold and renovated again since then, and it’s now used for affordable housing. It’s on the same street where I work, a couple of miles down the road, and whenever I pass it I still think about those Friday nights so long ago.  

RICHARD: Same here. For my money, the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium was the best place in the world for live wrestling. Hated it as a TV venue though. The lights killed the atmosphere.      

Many JCP wrestlers had success in other areas.  Do you think that had anything to do with their reputations based on their Mid Atlantic work?  Or would they have been top-notch wrestlers regardless?  

MIKE: Different areas emphasized certain qualities. Work rate was important in the Carolinas. I don’t think it was that big of a deal in the WWWF. Jarrett’s Tennessee promotion utilized the smaller wrestlers and the bloodier programs. I do think the Mid-Atlantic guys had a good success rate percentage-wise in the other territories. They basically were pretty colorful characters that knew how to work.  

RICHARD: Don't think it hurt.    

There has been quite a lot of talk recently about the Andersons being Hall of Fame material.  I think they should be in.  What are your feelings?  

MIKE: I think my feelings are pretty well known. Without a doubt they should be in the Hall of Fame. They’re at the top of the list of tag teams in my book. As for the argument that they worked primarily in one territory, that was simply because they were that over in that one territory for so long. Most wore out their welcome, but not these guys. That they didn't headline in numerous territories was a testament to their drawing power. Most wrestlers went from territory to territory for one of two reasons - either they weren't good enough to stay in any one area, or they didn't want to wear out their welcome. Like Jim Crockett Sr. routinely told his performers: “You can buy a house here as long as it has wheels under it.” Nobody came into Jim Crockett's territory with the expectation of staying there more than three to four months, but Jim Crockett made an exception with Gene and Ole Anderson, telling them, “You boys can stay here for as long as you want.” With the possible exception of George Becker and Johnny Weaver and The Scotts, he had never told that to anybody else. Ole Anderson was bringing in $32,000 in 1968, not bad money for that time and more money than any member of the infamous “Purple People Eaters,” the Minnesota Vikings' All-Pro front four. “Where would I have gone to make more?” Ole would say. The Andersons were tremendous. They even looked the part. It might have been a work, but they made it look as close to a shoot as possible.  

RICHARD: Should've gone in on the first ballot. 

I saw firsthand the awesome feud between Johnny Valentine and Wahoo McDaniel.  How would you say their matches stack up in wrestling history?  

MIKE: Once again, they rank at the top of my list. For sheer intensity, heat and realistic brutality, I’d feel sorry for anyone who would try to duplicate what they went through. I was up close and personal for some of their wars, and it wasn’t a pretty sight — unless you were a wrestling fan, and then, of course, it was a thing of beauty. Seriously, these two would chop one another to shreds. I remember once covering one of their matches, and seeing JV’s ear just barely hanging off his head. Then he’d challenge Wahoo to give it to him even harder. Wahoo once told me that the fact that John liked him was a good thing, because “there were some guys he didn’t like, and he’d beat them silly.” If you worked with John and you were believable and you believed in what you were doing, the match would be so much better. When he nailed his opponent and his opponent nailed him and he stood there and looked up at the crowd, and then he nailed his opponent and his opponent nailed him back even harder, he would back up and shake and walk around the ring. That was masterful. A lot of guys were fortunate to be on the same canvas with him. Wahoo always lamented the fact that the two could have had so many more great matches over the year had it not been for the accident.  

RICHARD: If not for that feud, JCP probably wouldn't have become the powerhouse it did, WCW would have never existed, and the industry would've been very different for many years. 'Groundbreaking' doesn't do that series justice.   

When Ric Flair was NWA champ, it seemed to “anchor” the title in JCP’s hands.  Do you think that Jim Crockett had undo influence on some of the decisions made regarding the NWA and the NWA World title?  

MIKE: By that time, the title had moved further away from Sam Muchnick and St. Louis, and it really was time it came down this way. There was no stronger choice than Ric Flair. At that time there were nine or 10 promoters who were involved in the NWA. They had just looked at Dusty as being an interim champion. There was a tremendous power struggle between the Grahams and Crocketts and Bob Geigel and Jim Barnett, and at that time Vince McMahon Sr. had a vote. Jimmy Crockett was looked at as the young guy with no stroke. His dad was very much respected, but Jimmy was the guy who inherited his dad's business and didn't know much about it - according to them. Actually Jimmy was a pretty smart guy. They finally realized that they had to give him some attention, because he had such a big territory. It was pretty much Jimmy putting his foot down. It pretty much shut down Florida where J.J. Dillon was the booker and Dusty quit. Nobody from this territory had ever been the world champion. They all wanted to see it fail big time. Ric, of course, had always wanted to be the champ, having talked about it a lot with Terry Funk and Harley Race over the years, but you never knew what it was like to be champion back then until you finally got it. You’d get off a plane in every territory, and all the other guys would want to see how well you could work. You were in a glass cage.  

RICHARD: Crockett pretty much put the final nail in the coffin of the NWA as a true "alliance" but it was gonna die anyway. As a brand name, he did wonders for it (at least for awhile).  

The transition that Bill Eadie made from Bolo Mongol to Masked Superstar was brilliant.  Most people (myself included) never knew they were the same person.  Have you seen a more creative change in a wrestler in such a short period of time?  

MIKE: That was an amazing transformation, but it was made possible in those days to wrestlers never being overexposed in one particular area and, of course, prior to the advent of cable television and pro wrestling being on a national television stage. One transformation that I certainly found amazing, although not as physically striking as the one Bill Eadie underwent, was the metamorphosis of Doug Gilbert. Beginning his career as Doug Lindsey and later Doug Gilbert, a smallish high flyer who achieved some level of recognition teaming with Dickie Steinborn during the early ‘60s and later working prelims in the Mid-Atlantic area. Shortly after a masked man hits the Georgia area and takes it by storm. Weighing close to 300 pounds and looking nothing like Doug Gilbert. And a solid main-eventer. A few years later he ends up his career in Florida as another character named Redbeard. I also liked Mr. Wrestling No. 2’s transformation from Johnny “Rubberman” Walker to one of the greatest masked stars in the business.  

RICHARD: Maybe the Missing Link, but Eadie is, in my opinion, wrestling's greatest "character actor."  

The incident where Ole Anderson was stabbed by a fan in Greenville showed just how seriously wrestling is taken in the Mid Atlantic area.  Do you feel that the intensity level was that common in other wrestling territories?  I’ve heard that Memphis and Mid South fans were pretty wild also.  

MIKE: And let’s not forget Texas. The fans in that territory – especially in West Texas – were particularly rabid. They used to go after wrestlers with beer bottles. I guess the fact that fans in those particular areas were so very rabid probably says a little about those areas. But the Carolinas and Virginia was a scary place to work back then. I’ve been in the middle of riots at matches. I remember once while sticking my head through the ropes taking pictures during a Becker-Weaver vs. Red Demons match, a pocketknife landing in the mat about a foot from my head. Some guy in the balcony had been aiming for one of the Red Demons, but it ended up a lot closer to me. I’ve been hit by women’s shoes and an assortment of other objects over the years. I remember once the fan heat was so great that the promoter had to actually reverse a decision for no other reason than to allow the heel to get back safely to the dressing room. The fans had surrounded the ring. It was after a chain match between The Missouri Mauler (Larry “Rocky” Hamilton) and Klondike Bill. Years earlier the tables had been turned when it was Larry Hamilton who helped save Rip Hawk’s life after a match in Hamilton’s hometown of St. Joe, Missouri, where Hamilton was the babyface. The crowd had literally turned into a lynch mob and was getting ready to take Hawk outside the building and hang him out back. They dragged Rip through the lobby and had thrown the rope over the lightpole and were ready to stretch him up. Rip was scared to death. Larry and a police officer were finally able to pull the crowd back, and Rip high-tailed it out of there. But he came back the next week for a return match. There is no such thing today as heat. Today it’s just ha-ha heat. Rip told me once that had a “fan” decapitated a cat and threw its head in his garage. It was kind of like one of those Godfather warnings. Guys got heavy heat back then. I remember there was this fan that liked to harass Ole Anderson, and Ole swatted him with his belt. The guy ended up suing Ole but he continued to harass him. Ole was walking down the aisle one night heading back to the dressing room when this fan, who was separated from Ole by a few officers, got close to Ole and hit him with a hunker right in his face. The cops are holding this guy, and Ole tells them to bring this guy to the back. There was a room behind the stage, and this guy was put in the room and the door was shut. Ole told the guy that as long as he was going to sue him, he might as well have some fun with this guy. He put the guy down on his knees and smashed his head into this old steel radiator a few times. This guy is screaming, and the cops come back in and put a nightstick around Ole’s neck. They arrested Ole, took him to jail and took the guy along. On the way there, Ole told this guy that he was going to kill him, or words to that effect. When they got to jail, the desk sergeant asked this guy, whose nose was broken and whose jaw was swollen, what happened. The guy said he fell down. The sergeant asked him if he wanted to press charges. The fan said no. He also dropped his lawsuit against Ole. The guy obviously believed that the police were on Ole’s side, since it was the cops who threw him back in the room with Ole. Plus he was afraid that when Ole said he was going to kill him, which the cops weren’t going to stop Ole. I don’t think the attorneys could have accomplished what Ole did.  

RICHARD: Not sure. All I know is...I long for those scary, twisted days.   

Dusty Rhodes as a booker for JCP…. plus or minus?  

MIKE: Both. A man who helped take them to the dance. And a man who scorched the earth and laid waste to the territory. He came in like he owned the wrestling business. And you see what happened. It went down the tubes. They burned up all of Crockett Sr.’s money. I heard the old man left the kids $36 million. Don’t ask me where it went.  

RICHARD: Plus...and minus.  

Starrcade had always been the crowned jewel in JCP programming.  Would you consider Starrcade as one of the “Seven Wonders of the Wrestling World”?  

MIKE: Certainly for anyone who lived in these parts and appreciated the spectacle of it all. It was a special event — so special that fans would go to their respective venues just to watch it on closed circuit. It became a joke in later years, when main events started featuring the likes of Hulk Hogan against The Butcher (Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake). But in the JCP days, it was the climax of the wrestling year.  

RICHARD: Absolutely.  

Which wrestler would you like to have seen get a bigger push in the Mid Atlantic area?  

MIKE: I would say that Luther Lindsay was probably one of the most underrated workers to appear in this area. The guy was amazing, and did get a chance to work some main events here, but he died of a heart attack during a match with Bobby Paul at the Charlotte Park Center. I don’t think he was ever fully utilized, and a lot of that was unfortunately due to race.  I also think George South was one of the most underrated wrestlers to work for JCP. George was a tremendous worker who never really got a push but was one of the top “enhancement” guys in the territory for a number of years. He was very well respected among his peers.  

RICHARD: I thought they could've done more with Wrestling II. He proved by his later Watts run that he still had a lot of mileage left in him.  

Who was the most over-rated wrestler(s) in Mid Atlantic?

MIKE: I really think Dusty Rhodes was overrated. I know he was a top drawing card for a number of years before even coming to the Mid-Atlantic area, but the fact that he shoved himself down everybody’s throats and put himself over at the expense of others moved him down a few notches in my book. He was almost the early ‘80s version of Hulk Hogan, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. The fact that he constantly tried to put himself over was not lost on The Boys, who realized long before the fans that Virgil Runnels Jr. had a tremendous ego. 

RICHARD: Never got the whole Jimmy Valiant thing, but can't deny he drew money. Was never a huge fan of Rufus R. Jones either.   

I have always felt lucky to have grown up watching Mid Atlantic wrestling.  What’s your overall opinion of JCP and its place in wrestling’s grand history?  

MIKE: It was magic. I don’t know any other way to put it. I do know that I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I might not even have been a fan had I grown up somewhere else. I guess I’ll never know, but I was hooked after watching one match. To me, there’ll never be another territory like the Carolinas-Virginia, Mid-Atlantic wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions, or whatever you want to call it. If you weren’t around it during those days, you probably won’t have the full appreciation for it. And if you were, just consider yourself lucky.  Guys like Richard Sullivan know what I’m talking about. Just mention the names Flair, Valentine, Wahoo, Black Jack, and you can’t help but smile and have great thoughts. It’s kind of like John Sebastian says: “It’s like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll.”  

RICHARD: We live in a time in which our heroes are disposable. Art is disposable. Pretty much anything and everything is disposable. The fact that people still get misty-eyed over things they saw in a smoke-filled arena some thirty years ago should give you a pretty good indication as to JCP's place in wrestling history and the whole pop culture landscape.  

Thanks once again to Mike and Richard for taking time out of their hectic schedules to respond to my questions.  

NEXT MONTH: