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The Birth of
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Charlie Harville calls the action as Wahoo McDaniel and Johnny Valentine
square off in an impromptu battle on Championship Wrestling on
WGHP. (Edited)
1:07
2.9 MB
(WMV video file. Requires Windows Media
Player)
Charlie Harville is a
member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame
1964 Ad for Wrestling on WGHP-8 in High
Point NC.
Special
Memories of a life-changing experience at WGHP
by Michael Roach
Many of the clippings on this page are
courtesy of WrestlingMemories.com
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In February 1964, WGHP began airing Championship
Wrestling on Saturday evenings. The show was filmed (later
taped) at the WGHP studios on the second floor of the Sheraton Hotel
on North Main Street in High Point NC. The host was WGHP news and sports
personality Charlie Harville, who became a broadcasting institution in
North Carolina and would become only the second sportscaster inducted
into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. It was Harville who spoke
the first words on the new station when it first went on the air four
months earlier on October 14, 1963.
The studio was very small, and as a result
had a smaller ring, so much so that
Tex McKenzie once complained to Harville it was not large enough for him
to properly and effectively execute his bulldog headlock! But the cozy
atmosphere defined what made studio wrestling so special during this
era. Behind Charlie Harville's desk, photos and event posters would be
taped to the wall and the camera would zoom in on them when Harville
would run down the card at the beginning of the show or when doing local
promos.
The WGHP program was enormously popular,
and supported the regular cards in Winston-Salem, Lexington, and the
huge shows in Greensboro. The market area for the show was actually the
three city TV market of High Point, Winston-Salem, and Greensboro, but
the signal stretched northward across the Virginia border and as far
east as Raleigh. During its 10
year run, it was the only Crockett Wrestling show in the
Winston-Salem/Greensboro/High Point
market. The Raleigh taping of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling did not
begin airing there until after the IWA closed shop, and Jim Crockett
took their TV time on WXII-12 out of Winston-Salem.
The early shows were shot on film and were
only seen on WGHP. Later, they switched to video tape and the show was
seen not only locally, but also sent to other markets. (For example, the
High Point show was seen on Saturday nights in Asheville NC on WLOS-13.
When they ceased tapings at WGHP, that show was replaced by the 2nd
Mid-Atlantic taping out of Raleigh, hosted by Les Thatcher, and then
finally the new show Wide World Wrestling with Ed Capral.)
Championship Wrestling aired at 6:30
p.m. on Saturday evenings for most of it's 10 year run on WGHP. There
was a brief period of time in the fall and winter of 1966 when the show
was split in to two 30 minute programs airing at 7:00 PM and 11:00 PM on
Saturday. And in an odd scheduling move, the show aired at 6:00 p.m. on
Friday night from September 1967 to February 1968.
Harville was loved by wrestling fans, and
he also served as ring announcer for a period of time for the Greensboro shows
in the Greensboro Coliseum.
Wayne Brower has an excellent feature on the broadcasting legend on the
Gateway. Be sure to check out
Charlie Harville: Remembering
His Remarkable Journey. - Dick
Bourne
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(L) Charlie Harville talks with an angry
Rip Hawk on the set of Championship Wrestling at WGHP on channel
8. (R) Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson talk with Charlie Harville at ringside
on Championship Wrestling. Usually when Charlie laughed like
that, Rip was thanking him for being one of Rip and Swede's biggest
supporters. (Hawk and Harville were close personal friends off camera.)
(L) A promotional photograph of George
Becker, Charlie Harville, and Johnny Weaver at WGHP TV in High Point,
NC. (R) Harville waits at his broadcast position to return to the air
during a commercial break on Championship Wrestling.
(L) Charlie Harville interviews Southern
Heavyweight Champion Johnny Weaver. Rip Hawk, one half of the Atlantic
Coast Tag Team Champions, is over Harville's right shoulder. Wally Dusek
is seen waiting to do the ring introductions in the ring. (R) Harville
interviews Mr. Wrestling Tim Woods. Not sure who is in the ring.
(L) Host Charlie Harville interviews manager
Homer O'Dell and his team of Bronco Lubich and Aldo Bogni. (R)
Wahoo McDaniel chops Johnny Valentine in an impromptu battle in the WGHP
studios. It was Wahoo's first appearance on WGHP as he prepared to enter
the territory full time in 1974.
(Top L) TV Guide ad from 1960 for the local
news broadcast on WFMY TV 2. The ad features Charlie Harville who was
at channel 2 before going to channel 8. (Top R) An image from a WFMY employee
publication celebrating Charlie Harville's 50th anniversary in
broadcasting. (Bottom L) A TV Guide ad from 1967. Notice the announcer is
featured in the ad for a wrestling show. Charlie was always as big a
star as the wrestlers, although he never tried to be. The fans just made
him that way. (Bottom R) An news/sports ad for WFMY-2 in Greensboro from
a 1959 TV Guide featuring a young Charlie Harville. |
A special graphic shown on WFMY-2
television (Greensboro)
during commercial breaks
following the death of Charlie Harville in
2002.
An article by
Wayne Brower
Special thanks to Wayne Brower and the family of Charlie Harville who
made substantial contributions to this feature. Thanks also to Carroll Hall
and Brad Anderson for their
assistance, support, and inspiration.
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STATION HISTORY
The station began operation in 1963, and it
was owned by Southern Broadcast Company. It was originally the Piedmont
Triad's ABC affiliate. Harte Hanks Broadcasting's purchase of Landmark
Television in 1977 resulted in the company owning both WGHP and WFMY-TV,
and WGHP was consequently sold to Gulf Broadcasting in 1978.
WGHP was owned by Gulf Broadcasting until
1984, when it was acquired by Taft in a group deal. Great American
Broadcasting purchased other Taft properties in 1987, but Taft would
keep WGHP until 1992 when Great American bought the station as well.
In 1994 it was agreed that New World would
buy most of Great American Broadcasting's (now known as Citicasters) TV
stations, but WGHP (along with WBRC Birmingham) would be sold directly
to Fox. Fox was able to close on WGHP and WBRC in the Summer of 1995. On
September 4, 1995, WGHP took the Fox affiliation and became an official
Fox owned-and-operated station (O&O). The ABC affiliation went to WNRW
channel 45 (now WXLV-TV).
(Credit - Wikipedia)
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