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Post: #766050
PT: #1/27
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Was Amarillo dead after Murdoch and Mulligan closed up or were there indies running the area.
If there were indies who worked there and when did they run?
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Post: #766148
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After them World Class took over, with the Von Erichs running occasional cards here, then Bill Watt's UWF took over running occasional cards here. Then largely nothing. but then again Amarillo had much more Indy cards than Lubbock with Romero's kids running a small group there. WCW and WWF appeared maybe once a year.
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Post: #766188
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This message was edited by Gerry K Fabian on August 22nd, 2013 15:40 GMT
At least five distinct crews worked here after Murdoch and Mulligan closed up:
1. Von Erich/Dallas.
2. McGuirk/Oklahoma (I could be wrong, but I think it was McGuirk's crew rather than Watts's; those two promotions were split until, I believe, 1982).
3. Blanchard/Southwest Championship Wrestling. Seemingly with the blessing and cooperation of the Funks.
4. The Romero/Youngblood family--continuing the classic Amarillo titles at least until 1981, and I believe cooperating with at least some of the above. I believe the Romeros are still running some sort of local promotion to this day, though there were gaps of many years.
5. Terry Funk. Promoted a couple of supercards in 1982, and then a couple more as benefits in later years. The 1982 cards featured talent from All Japan, San Antonio, and Georgia. Murdoch appeared on at least one of these, but I believe Funk was the promoter.
There has also been at least one indy besides the Romeros, but I don't recall the names.
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Post: #766192
PT: #4/27
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Thought of another one--Steve Nelson ran a shootfighting promotion here in the 90s. I believe they did very well for a time. Steve is the son of Gordon Nelson, who was our Mr. Wrestling in the '70s.
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Post: #766294
PT: #5/27
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I'm pretty sure it was Bill Watt's UWF crew that took over from the Von Erich's,until Watt's sold his promotion, the Romero kids only ran one or two cards here in Lubbock. Amarillo they ran weekly for a while.
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| The key to happiness is self-delusion. Don't think of yourself as an organic pain collector racing headlong toward oblivion.-Dogbert
Actually, that thought had not occurred.-Dilbert.
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Post: #766393
PT: #6/27
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You could be right, Tigerman. I have been looking around online trying to find results that might shed some light on this, but no luck. Are you saying Watts ran this area until he sold out in 1987? That really surprises me.
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Post: #766447
PT: #7/27
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Yes, I remember watching Watt's UWF show until it went off the air in the buy out. They ran occasional cards here. One week the UWF show replaced World Class and that was it for the Von Erichs.
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| The key to happiness is self-delusion. Don't think of yourself as an organic pain collector racing headlong toward oblivion.-Dogbert
Actually, that thought had not occurred.-Dilbert.
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Post: #766494
PT: #8/27
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That's interesting. It sounds to me as if Lubbock and Amarillo were no longer under the control of the same promoters. So you guys never got cards or TV from San Antonio?
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Post: #766618
PT: #9/27
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No we didn't.
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| The key to happiness is self-delusion. Don't think of yourself as an organic pain collector racing headlong toward oblivion.-Dogbert
Actually, that thought had not occurred.-Dilbert.
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Post: #766671
PT: #10/27
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I've poked around a little. The first thing I found was a video clip in which Gary Hart mentions that, as booker for Von Erich, he controlled the talent in Amarillo, Lubbock, and San Angelo. No big surprise there. After that, I am finding evidence that each Amarillo-territory town went its own way.
For example, Pueblo was using Blanchard's talent on top at least as early as September, 1980:
27 Sep 80 Pueblo (Southwest Championship Wrestling)
Scott Casey v The Spoiler pole match
Rocky Mountain Heavyweight title: Ricky Romero (champ) v Tully Blanchard
Larry Lane/Rick Youngblood v Alex Perez/Rip Hawk
Larry Lane v Rip Hawk
Rick Youngblood v Alex Perez
In Amarillo proper, they seem to have stuck with Dallas talent until November 25, 1980, when they switched to Blanchard's crew.
Almost a year later, I find Amarillo cards with much less famous talent, which I believe were promoted by the Romeros:
Oct. 15, 1981 Amarillo Sports Arena
Billy Starr vs. Ricky Romero
Tom Jones vs. Danny Sanchez
Bob Owens vs. Tommy Reynosa
John Chapman vs. Mark Romero
Ted Heath vs. David Owens
Oct. 22, 1981 Amarillo Sports Arena
Western States Title-Ricky Romero vs. Billy Starr
Tom Jones vs. David Owen
Bob Owen vs. Mark Romero
Tommy Reynosa vs. George Dodgen
Danny Sanchez vs. Ted Heath.
It seems that Blanchard's crew was back in Amarillo in December 1981. In April and June, 1982, Terry Funk promoted a couple of supercards using big stars from Japan, Georgia, etc. The April card features Dick Slater defending the Southwest Heavyweight title--a Blanchard title--which I take as evidence that he was still being seen with that title on Amarillo TV at the time.
I still haven't found cards to help with the timing of Watts and/or McGuirk in Amarillo proper. I do remember a young Jim Ross as the TV announcer, but my understanding is he worked for McGuirk up until the merger with Watts in 1982. So he could have been on our TV for either or both of those promotions.
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Post: #766679
PT: #11/27
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Now I'm looking at Tri-States (McGuirk) results from 1981 on Oklafan.com. I see that the cards I blamed on the Romeros above are loaded with McGuirk's talent:
Billy Starr
Tom Jones
Bob Owens
David Owens
Plus the Romero family--Ricky and Mark Romero and Rick Youngblood--were all appearing for McGuirk in Oklahoma City in October 1981. Romero's association with McGuirk seems to start in April 1981. So, I propose that the sequence of promoters for Amarillo proper went something like this:
The Funks, using Jerry Kozak as local promoter, through the summer of 1978.
Murdoch and Mulligan took over somewhere between August and November 1978. By early 1980, they had begun to rely partly on Dallas talent.
June-November 1980: Dallas
November 1980-?: Blanchard
April-October 1981: McGuirk
December 1981: Blanchard again, maybe in cooperation with Terry Funk
April-June 1982: Terry Funk
After that: Beats me.
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Post: #766766
PT: #12/27
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I think we were lucky hooking up with Watts' crew after World Class, we got to see, Steve Williams, Jake Roberts, DeBiase, Eddie Gilbert, Missy Hyatt, Babydoll who is from here, One Man Gang, Terry Taylor and many more. Watts put on a good show, especially live. Looking through Kriss' results he doesn't have any results from this period, but I was sending them in to Meltzer however, I was a subscriber early on.
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| The key to happiness is self-delusion. Don't think of yourself as an organic pain collector racing headlong toward oblivion.-Dogbert
Actually, that thought had not occurred.-Dilbert.
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Post: #766774
PT: #13/27
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Yeah, I think you guys got a better deal than we did up north. I lived in Guymon and we got absolutely nothing for a long time after M & M folded. (Before that we got spot shows every two or three months.) Fortunately I went downstate for college and discovered Mid-South. At first I wasn't too excited to see it because I thought it was the same dull promotion I'd seen with Jim Ross on Amarillo TV, but then it turned out to be amazing. Even so, I didn't realize Watts and McGuirk had run separate promotions. I just thought the Oklahoma promotion had really, really improved.
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September 21st, 2013 22:28 GMT |
 
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Post: #770775
PT: #14/27
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Sorry I've not been posting here for a while. I've been taking a break from the heavy research and I've not been visiting KM much.
I can add a little to this discussion.
Jerry Kozak was always billed as the promoter in Amarillo from the death of Doc Sarpolis in 1967 right through until December 1981. Kozak had stated in early December 81 that there would be a Xmas eve card, and that wrestling would return with twice monthly cards in 82. In reality, he promoted the last card on Dec 3, 1981.
M&M took over the promotion in November 78, or possible late October. The first week of November featured Murdoch & Mulligan winning the Western States Tag Team Title every night of the week in each town on the circuit.
The last Amarillo card to feature Dallas talent was Nov 18,1980.
Unfortunately, I'm missing most of December 80 and January 81. However, the main crew for late November to March looks to be: Dennis Stamp, Eddie Mansfield, Alex Perez, Ricky Romero, Tank Patton, Scott Casey, Ivan Puski, Ted Heath, Larry Lane, Tiger Conway, Jr. I'm not sure where these guys were booked from. Were these Southwest guys? I remember reading somewhere that Blanchard was briefly booking shows in competition to Kozak in Amarillo. It was an an issue of the Amarillo newspaper on Newspaper Archive, but all Amarillo papers after 1977 disappeared from there a few years ago.
The first card with Tri-State talent was April 2, 1981 and the last was, I believe, August 13. The earlier cards seem to have had more Tri-State wrestlers than the later ones. With guys from the crew listed earlier filling out a lot of cards.
The next card on August 20 was a tournament for the vacant Western States Title, although Frank Hill and Porkchop Cash stuck around for a few more weeks.
I'm missing November 1981, and the last card, Dec 3, 1981, does feature Blanchard himself, but doesn't look like a Southwest card.
Regarding Lubbock...
The last card I have for weekly wrestling is August 13, 1980, and it is a Dallas card. Nick Roberts was always billed as promoter, no matter where the talent was booked from.
I have cards from 1983, with Nick Roberts promoting cards with Dallas wrestlers in the Civic Center, and Southwest running opposition in the Fair Park Coliseum.
In Abilene...
This is copied from something I researched a while ago:
An article in the July 19 Abilene Reporter-News states that Don Slatton would resume promoting wrestling cards on July 24. Slatton had “shut down his popular operation a few months ago because of an $800,000 lawsuit he had filed against M&M Promotions in Amarillo”. Slatton was suing M&M for “deceptive trade practices”, claiming that his gate was being hurt by M&M consistently providing unpopular replacements for booked talents. Slatton claimed that “the practice was part of M&M’s plan to take over the territory, and that a previous attempt to oust promoter Pat O’Dowdy from Odessa had been successful. Wrestling was returning to Abilene as Slatton and M&M were close to an out-of-court settlement.
I have cards after this up until Jan 1981, with each card being booked with Dallas talent. This is unsurprising, since Slatton would often book Dallas wrestlers for matches and feuds that were not featured on the rest of the circuit. At one point I believe he was practically running his own mini-circuit.
In regards to Pueblo, I believe that southern Colorado was being run by Larry Lane and Randy Morse, and they started to work with Blanchard, rather than book wrestlers from the Kozak/Roberts/Romero roster. Dallas wrestlers never appeared in southern Colorado, but some AWA talent would appear when the Denver cards coincided (also note that Bockwinkel sometimes wrestled for Blanchard).
Hopefully these notes can add something to the discussion.
I really want to get back to researching the West Texas/New Mexico wrestling scene. If anyone wants to share memories or results, please get in touch.
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Post: #770796
PT: #15/27
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Great information, Kriss, Thanks. I can answer this part:
Unfortunately, I'm missing most of December 80 and January 81. However, the main crew for late November to March looks to be: Dennis Stamp, Eddie Mansfield, Alex Perez, Ricky Romero, Tank Patton, Scott Casey, Ivan Puski, Ted Heath, Larry Lane, Tiger Conway, Jr. I'm not sure where these guys were booked from. Were these Southwest guys?
Mansfield, Patton, Casey, Putski, and Conway were all Southwest guys at this point. Stamp, Perez, Romero, Heath, and Lane were Amarillo locals, but Lane and Romero made some appearances on San Antonio TV around this time.
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