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Ole
Anderson's Return to Mid-Atlantic Television
It
didn't take Ole long to make his come back after the injury.
In fact, only 48 hours later, he was at the television tapings
at the WRAL studios in Raleigh (Wednesday, May 26, 1976),
doing an interview on the show that would air that Saturday, Memorial Day
weekend. Ole interrupted Bob Caudle and Tom Miller as they
opened the show and told the fans:
"You didn't think Ole
Anderson was just going to walk away, did you? Somebody down
in one of those states put a couple of cuts on me, I guess
somebody is really unhappy with me."
It was a classic
interview, and one had a sense of just what kind of a tough
individual Ole Anderson really was.
Check out these classic
audio clips from Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling
in May of 1976 which feature Bob Caudle and Tom Miller
opening the program when Ole Anderson interrupts. You
think a knife wound to the chest and a couple dozen
stitches are going to slow this man down?
Ole
Anderson talks about the stabbing on Mid-Atlantic
Championship Wrestling television only two days after
the stabbing (5/26/76).
Classic
Ole Anderson Promo (vs. Tim Woods). You can't
keep an Anderson down for long. You think he's been
selling eggs all his life, selling snow cones on the
beach? An all-time classic promo.
The Week After:
Sgt. Goulet and Bolo
Mongol Step Up to Team with Gene
Ole Anderson missed exactly
one week of action due to the injuries sustained in the
stabbing. The Tuesday night after Greenville, Sgt.
Jacque Goulet replaced Ole teaming with Gene Anderson
against Woods and Bravo in Raleigh at the Dorton Arena.
On Wednesday night, Ole appeared at the TV tapings at
WRAL television studios in Raleigh. On Thursday it was
Sgt. Goulet teaming with Gene again in Norfolk at the
Scope Exhibition Hall, while Bolo Mongol (Bill
Eadie) teamed with Gene in Charleston at County Hall on
Friday night. Gene wrestled Tim Woods in a singles match
Saturday night in Spartanburg at the Memorial
Auditorium. Ole then missed his his scheduled battle
royal appearance in Wilmington NC at Legion Stadium on
Saturday.
Just seven days after the
stabbing that nearly took his life, Ole Anderson
returned to the ring on Monday May 31st, in the Park
Center in Charlotte teaming with Gene Anderson to
challenge Woods and Bravo once again for the world tag
team titles. They were unsuccessful that night.
Ole would return to the
Greenville Memorial Auditorium one week later (exactly
two weeks after the stabbing), on Monday, June 7, as he
and Gene made another unsuccessful bid to regain the tag
team titles. They wouldn't have to wait too much longer
to get the belts back, however, as they defeated Woods
and Bravo three weeks later on June 28 in Greenville to
regain the NWA world tag team championship.
Not All Was Bad News For
the Anderson Family:
Flair Regains the
Mid-Atlantic Title in Charlotte The Same Night as the
Stabbing
On the same night that Ole
Anderson was stabbed and found himself in a hospital
fighting for his life, Wahoo McDaniel found himself in a
hospital in Charlotte fighting to save an eye following
his match with another member of the "Anderson family."
Just 100 miles up I-85 in
Charlotte NC, Ric Flair regained the Mid-Atlantic
heavyweight championship on May 24, defeating Wahoo
McDaniel in one of the most famous matches in their year
long, bloody feud. Flair and Wahoo brawled through a
table at ringside, and when Flair hit McDaniel with the
broken table leg, a protruding nail cut McDaniel in the
eye, requiring over 40 stitches to close the wound and
nearly costing McDaniel his vision in that eye.
These were a bizarre set of
circumstances that led to two major stars in the
promotion being injured and out of action on the same
night at separate shows, but only for
a short period of time. The toughness of Wahoo McDaniel
and Ole Anderson is the stuff of legend and both men
showed why as Wahoo returned to action that Saturday,
and Ole the following Monday.
Ole
Anderson's Cast
When Ole Anderson was attacked in Greenville, he was
stabbed in the chest and in the arm. Booker George Scott and Anderson decided to use part of
Ole's injuries to further the angle with Woods and Bravo over
the World Tag Team title belts, which Woods and Bravo had
recently won in a match on the Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling
television show.
 The story
told was that it was Woods and
Bravo that injured Ole's arm. (Ole mentions this in the audio
promo, linked above. If they could
have figured out how to do it, they would have tried to say
that Dino or Tim cut him in the chest, too!) Ole was wearing a
cast following a four-hour surgery on his arm to reconnect tendons that
were severed by the knife wound. In this way, Ole could use
the cast as part of the storyline with Woods and Bravo, which
was a major part of the angle for the rest of the summer.
Ole
even used the cast as a major part of a short series of
matches with Wahoo McDaniel, after Ole had hit Wahoo in the
head with the cast, causing him to lose the Mid-Atlantic title
to Ric Flair during their bitter 1976 war. To even the odds, Wahoo had a cast
put on his arm for Indian Strap matches battles with Ole around
the circuit.
 The Greenville Memorial
Auditorium
The Greenville Memorial
Auditorium, the site of the stabbing, was one of the most
historic old venues on the
Mid-Atlantic circuit in the 1960s-1980s. Sadly, it was torn down in the mid
1990s.
More information on this
grand old facility can be found in the
Greenville
Memorial Auditorium chapter of the
Classic Venues
section of the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.
The Opponents in
Greenville:
NWA World Tag Team
Champions
Dino
Bravo & "Mr. Wrestling" Tim Woods
Dino Bravo made a quick name
for himself in early May of 1976 when, after only two weeks
in the territory, he teamed with "Mr. Wrestling" Tim Woods
and defeated the Anderson Brothers on television to win the
NWA World Tag Team championship.
The
night Ole was stabbed in Greenville, he and Gene
Anderson were challenging Bravo and Woods in an attempt
to get the world titles back. They were unsuccessful
that night, but put a hurting on the champs after the
match and left them laying in the ring. It was all that
and more that led to a fan attacking Ole on the way back
to the dressing rooms.
The Andersons vs. Woods &
Bravo feud was a hot one in the spring and summer of
1976. Read
about this feud in
David
Chappell's Mid-Atlantic Wrestling History.
The Weapon
A hawkbill knife, similar
to the knife Oscar Ramsey used to cut Ole Anderson in
Greenville, SC.
The wounds to Anderson's
chest and arm nearly cost him his life.
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