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PART 2
Bourne:
Now, as we get on later into the
60’s, you and George Becker
teamed for – well, he took you
as a partner really until he
left the territory in the early
70s, right?
Weaver:
When the thing ran out was when
Calhoun and the Bolos which
lasted for about eight months.
Calhoun never stayed anywhere
for eight months, you know.
Then, I went back to Becker. Me
and Becker were a tag. In the
meantime, when we were split
there, Becker went with whoever
was wrestling Bronco Lubich and
O’Dell, which really made good
for the territory because there
were two towns a night and both
were packed, you know? That
lasted until Becker left in ’71.
Cline:
Becker’s last match in Charlotte
was supposedly the night you and
Funk finally wrestled.
Bourne:
Tell us about that famous long
program, brilliantly booked, an
angle that crossed two
territories, where Dory Sr. put
the bounty on you when you were
chasing Dory Jr. for the NWA
title….
Weaver:
Well, Funk Jr. had matches with
Jack Brisco in Florida and I
knew them both and wrestled them
both. And by the way, they would
be the #1 or #2 people that were
the best I ever wrestled. Both
of them.
Bourne:
You would put them at the top of
your list?
Weaver:
Right. As far as wrestlers go.
If you want to get in there and
brawl with men like Hawk and
Hansen, Brute Bernard and
everything, then they’d go into
another category. But the best
wrestlers were Brisco and Funk,
that I ever wrestled.
Anyway, they had wrestled each
other a lot in Florida and so
they said no more title matches
for Jack and they put a bounty
on Jack’s head, put up by Funk,
Sr. So anybody who wrestled
Jack was going to collect the
bounty, you know, and I had
wrestled him here several times,
hour draws. And old man Funk
said no more matches for Weaver
up here (in the Mid-Atlantic
territory.) So, I came up with
the idea of putting on a mask
and flew into Florida where Funk
wrestled down there a lot. I put
the mask on and went down there
and wrestled him on TV and when
I went into the ring on the TV
match, the little TV crowd there
would say, “oh, you’re going to
get beat” and “another masked
man.” A lot of guys that had
jobs down there in Florida would
put a mask on and go in as a
jobber, you know. And that’s all
they were used to seeing, masked
guys getting beat, so when they
seen another one they didn’t
recognize with a mask on… same
old story, he’s going to get
beat. Well, Dory and I went in
there and I beat him non-title,
and that was the thing about
Funk. He made you look so
good. They’d say, “My God,
if he looked that good against
the world champion, he could
beat anybody we got here.” you
know, which really helped. So
after we had our match then, I
brought the tape back here and
put it on WRAL and took the mask
off and then we used the thing
where old man Funk put the
bounty on my head here for them
guys to get, I’d say, it was the
end of August and Funk Jr. and I
are going to wrestle for the
title soon, and they had Bob
Roop and Terry Funk, I know
Terry was there, and Boris
Malenko. Yeah, they came into
Park Center….
Cline:
…Three straight Monday nights.
Weaver:
Yep – three straight Monday
nights after the bounty. That’s
what we were doing. And I would
go to the YMCA and play
racquetball with Bobby Isaac,
the race car driver. I played
racquetball with him regularly.
We were just getting our
equipment in and we would go out
on what is Independence Blvd.
and I’d do my roadwork and
people would go by honking.
(laughing)
Bourne:
They were filming this for
television?
Weaver:
Yeah, me getting ready for Funk.
Jackie was taping it. You had to
make sure before you started it
that Jackie had tape in the
camera. So, then we had, you
know, me and Funk had the world
title matches. And then I went
to Amarillo in October of 1971,
once that thing happened with
the bounty and all that, in the
Infernos were out there with
J.C. Dykes, and they were having a
feud with the Funks. And my idea
was I put the mask back on and
then old man Funk added to this.
When I got there, I knew I was
going to wrestle him, old man
Funk. J.C. Dykes got this masked
wrestler to come and take care
of old man Funk, collecting a
bounty Dykes put on him. That
wound up being me. So I show up
in Amarillo, J.C. picked me up
at the airport and we went down
there that night and I got the
mask on. And this gets to be a
funny story, too, how I used
this all back in the Carolinas.
I go out in the ring and I got
J. C. Dykes as a manager,
right?
Amarillo October 28, 1971
Johnny Weaver. under a mask as
"The Crippler" and managed by
J.C. Dykes,
wrestles Dory Funk Sr.
Bourne:
What would the fans in Charlotte
have thought about you with J.C.
Dykes?
Weaver:
Yeah, you’re not kidding
(laughs), me and Dykes together.
(laughter) This is what
happens, though. Here comes old
man Funk and he’s got Buck
Robley as his manager. So when
it comes down to the finish,
Robley and Dykes get into it and
they roll out of the ring down
on the floor where the camera
can’t see either one of them,
right? And I got the old man in
the sleeper and the people are
going crazy because they think
he’s going to get beat. Well,
here comes Terry from the back,
clobbers me and they beat the
heck out of me and the old man
covered me and Terry counted
1-2-3, put the old man’s hand up
and they had to take the mask
off, right? And so then I
brought that back here and
showed it, but they didn’t see
it here – they didn’t see Dykes
and Robley was down there. They
just saw me with the sleeper on
the old man and they know we had
that feud going from the
bounties in Charlotte, and all
that. And so I showed the tape
here. And we had a big tag team
just before Thanksgiving in
Charlotte which always was a
good show and Junior didn’t want
to wrestle me, so it was Terry
and the old man Funk Sr. that
wrestled me and Brisco. It all
tied together.
"The Crippler not only lost to
Dory Funk Sr. but had to unmask.
The newcomer
was
Johnny Weaver of Charlotte, NC.
He was pinned with a press at
11:28."
(from the Amarillo results
clipping in the local paper)
So
anyway, after the deal with Dory
Sr. in Amarillo, the next
morning I got an early flight
back to Charlotte and I go out
to the airport and I’m sitting
in the coffee shop, I’m reading
the paper and there’s two guys
over there and one of them says
to the other one, “Man you
should have been down there at
that rasslin match last night.
They took the mask off of that
guy. They did this – they did
that, and I had to hide!
(laughter) Gotta go get on my
plane. I flew back in for
Crockett. I was wrestling that
night, me and Art Nelson was up
at Elon College in Burlington
that same night.
Bourne:
How did George Becker leave?
Weaver:
I think he was asked due to
Jimmy Crockett (Jr.) didn’t like
any of us. He was just getting
up there where he was starting
to put his hands in there.
Everything was getting more
expensive and they were thinking
that they needed a change in the
booking office and I don’t know
why, I told them, I don’t know
why you just……as long as he can
still get in the ring and you
can put his name on the marquee,
I’ll do the rest. His name
always drew. But they wanted to
move him out and he wouldn’t go
for that. Not long after, that’s
when the old man (Crockett Sr.)
passed. Johnny Ringley
(Crockett’s son-in-law, married
to Frances Crockett), was far in
our corner. But the Crocketts,
especially Jimmy, was coming up
and the old man died and Jimmy
Crockett wanted to be the head
man. Old man Crockett told Mrs.
Crockett on his death bed,
“don’t let Jimmy get the
business. Give it to Johnny
Ringley." So that worked. Johnny
was there and it went along good
for a while and then Johnny got
caught messing around and
that was that, and we walked in
one day and Jimmy’s got all his
stuff, and he took the desk and
just pushed it all out.
Bourne:
Everything changed.
Weaver: Everything changed. They wanted
something different. They wanted
to go with George Scott and they
got a success out of it for the
simple reason that they created
a second tape. The thing of it
was that WBTV was on so long,
I’m just using BT in Charlotte
as an example, but everyone knew
that wrestling was on at 6:00 PM
on Saturday, right? When you
hit your audience, you saturate
that audience, you can’t get the
other people. Now they come up
with a 2nd tape at
night, and they get a whole new
audience – a whole new younger
audience. It grows. So, arenas
started filling back up. Yep.
And that’s what really gave them
the success until Jimmy and
George fell out. There were a lot
of them after that. There was
one time that Gene Anderson and
I sat in there and counted 13
different bookers. At one time
(in the early 80s) they had four
at one time! Funk was one of
them.
Bourne:
One for each part of the
territory…
Weaver:
Right. Dory Funk Jr. was one of
them. Gary Hart, Ernie Ladd.
Gary Hart had North Carolina,
Ernie Ladd had Virginia, might
have been Ole Anderson had South
Carolina, but Dory Funk was over
all of it. That didn’t work
either. Then they got Dusty and
then Jimmy went out of business.
(Pauses) Enough said. I mean,
they did good for a long time,
but when you got your own 18
wheeler and you go out and do
your tapes, and you’re paying
everybody all of these ungodly
salaries and hiring all that
staff to run that thing, and
when you do have a big show,
you’re paying David Allan Coe
$10,000 of your money that, you
know, money just don’t last too
long.
Bourne:
Let’s jump back for just a
minute to when you left the
Mid-Atlantic territory briefly
in late 1974 through fall of
1975. Do you remember the
circumstances there? Was that
maybe all having to do with the
booking change?
Weaver:
Yeah, it had to do with the
booking. They said that I had
been there for 12 years and that
people were tired of seeing me,
but people were still coming,
but anyway. I think that’s when
I went to Memphis briefly, then
Florida, and Canada, and then
Japan for a couple of weeks in
August of 1975, and then back to
Crockett.
Cline:
Is that when Greg Valentine hurt
you on TV?
Bourne:
No, that was ’76. That was
another short period of time you
left the territory, right, in
the fall of 1976.
Weaver:
Yeah, that was to go back to
Amarillo for a few months. That
was to help get Greg Valentine
over.
Chappell:
I’m not sure we’ve asked you to
comment on Ric Flair. We’ve
gotta have that in some way. You
saw him in the very beginning.
Weaver:
Yeah, well, he was the man. He
was the first one that was able
to take it away from me. But he
was. He was the man. The girls
and their mamas, they all fell
for Flair. (laughs)
Bourne:
Tell us a little bit about
Number One Paul Jones.
Weaver:
Paul was a good friend of mine.
He was a good wrestler and when
he first came here, we used him
a lot in six man matches. And
then when Nelson Royal came with
the Viking and then they split,
then Nelson needed a partner and
Jones was the man that was here
and had got known by being our
third man a lot.
Chappell:
Johnny, why don’t you tell us
the story about Brute if we’re
going to get into some of the
tag teams.
Weaver:
Brute? All right, well. I
thought maybe that’d be better
suited for this evening, but…
(laughter) I don’t know if you
can use that on here…
Chappell:
We can clean it up!
Weaver:
Brute was…
Chappell:
He was crazy – it wasn’t an act?
Weaver:
No, well, you make up your own
mind after I tell you this.
(laughter) You know Brute was
married to Betty Jo Hawkins.
That was a girl wrestler. She
was in Penny’s era. But a
really good girl, but she had
arthritis real bad – her fingers
would go that way and she was
always hurting from arthritis
and all that. And nicest person
in the world. But she had
married Brute and they had one
son and they were living in
Charlotte in a duplex. Brute was
like a lot of us older ones – we
had no regard for our bodies,
just sacrifice your body to get
the show over, you know, and
Brute had both shoulders
separated. There were big knots
on his shoulders. Brute had only
one kidney. He was all beat up
because he just gave his body.
Well, anyway, they told him that
he had a bad back and they gave
him harness to hang in.
Bourne:
Like traction?
Weaver:
Yeah. To hang in for his back.
Well, back then, they had out
here in back of his apartment a
“T” pole like this. Two wires go
across and you hang your clothes
on them to dry. So Brute is
looking for a place to hang,
right? Brute goes out here and
puts the harness on and the pole
ain’t tall enough, right? He’s
on the ground. So Brute goes and
gets the shovel and digs a hole.
(laughter) I told you you’d
make up your mind after I told
you this story. Well, Brute
took the harness and steps off
in the hole and is fine and it’s
good for his back. And here
comes the mailman… (laughter)
and he drops the mail off here,
goes around, and sees Brute
hanging there and goes ahhhhhh!!!
(laughter)
Bourne:
Brute probably just looked over
at him, like, "what’s the
problem?"
Weaver:
OK – another story, same place –
Betty Jo was feeling bad and she
had all that bad arthritis.
Brute is going to cook for her,
OK? Brute goes out and gets one
of those three legged barbeque
things and lights up the coals
and squirts the lighter fluid on
it and put the steaks on there.
Brute is cooking them for Betty
Jo. Damn thunderstorm comes up.
So Brute picks up the grill and
moves it onto his little back
stoop here, right? It’s got a
little place here with a top.
It’s raining like hell, though.
So Brute goes inside the screen
door and sits down. Well the
rain and wind is blowing out the
fire so Brute takes the charcoal
lighter and he squirts it
through the screen door on top
of the meat out there to keep
the fire going. Serves Betty
Joe the steaks and she gets food
poisoning from all the lighter
fluid that got in the steaks!
(laughter)
Later
they moved to the country and
they had horses. So the damn
horse gate was open. They lived
in a trailer and it was open
country and the horses would run
away. So somebody told Brute
about an electric fence. So
Brute has an electric fence put
around his property. He gets on
a horse and he wants to show the
horse what the electric fence
is. Well, he rides the horse up
towards the fence and the horse
senses it and stops. He won’t go
no farther, right? But Brute
wants the horse to go farther
and Brute don’t know the horse
has sensed it. He wants the
horse to touch it so he will
learn. So the horse won’t go so
Brute gets off the damn horse,
he’s slapping the horse, so
finally Brute grabs the bridle
with one hand and then…… the
fence with the other!
(laughter)
Chappell:
Yep, I think Brute was nuts!
Bourne:
There’s some story about him or
maybe Homer O’Dell firing off a
pistol in a car or something?
Weaver:
I don’t know that one.
Cline:
You told us about you down at
Myrtle Beach and you woke up and
Homer O'Dell was down on the
beach naked shooting his guns.
Weaver:
Norfolk! The police came out
there and we got kicked out of
that motel, too. (laughter)
Homer had nothing on but his two
guns. Shooting out over the
ocean. Then, of course, Brute
was playing Russian roulette,
they had told them they were
dum-dum shells, and I guess he
thought they were blanks and he
shot himself playing Russian
Roulette.
Bourne:
Is that the legit way he died?
Weaver:
Yeah. He didn’t know what dum
dum shells was. They’re shells
that explode when they hit the
vest.
Cline:
Any Two-Ton Harris stories?
Weaver:
Two Ton? When I was booker, we
were in Roanoke, Starland Arena.
They were wrestling somebody,
him, Bogni and Lubich. And so
they must have had like a riot.
And Bunk got stabbed in the rear
end.
Bourne:
Goodness!
Weaver:
Bunk calls me about 9:00 in the
morning and I had been somewhere
a long way out. He said, “hey
man, we really had ‘em going
last night. We had so much
heat.” He said, “I got stabbed
in the ass. It went all the way
to the bone.” I said, “Bunk,
what’d they use? A sword?”
(laughter)
Cline:
Why did Homer switch from Bogni
and Lubich to Mauler and
Matsuda?
Weaver:
I think him and Bronco didn’t
see eye to eye or Bronco thought
he wasn’t doing his part. He
was a manager in Indianapolis,
but when he come here, they got
Homer. Of course, Homer was
great, though, because he took
that microphone. And it was like
I was telling Mike on the way up
here with the Andersons. When
Ole first came in the 1960s, Ole
was green as grass, man. He
couldn’t do nothing, but you
couldn’t tell him. He changed
later, but I mean, he’d just
throw his body and sacrifice his
body to get the show over. But
he could talk. Rip Hawk, Ole
Anderson, Homer O’Dell….
©
Photograph by Bill Janosik
Cline:
The Bolos were great on the
mike.
Weaver:
All they needed was the mike.
And Ole would get on there and
talk and they just hated him and
he couldn’t do nothing in the
ring then. And he’d throw his
body all around and take bumps
in and out of the ring. Didn’t
know how to go out. You’d throw
him out of the ring and he’d
grab the second rope and go out.
Well, his body was going to come
down across that iron metal, you
know? You go through, you grab
the rope with one hand and the
side of the ring with the other,
and hit on your feet. One night
I told him, look, Ole, I’m going
to show you how to go in and out
of the ropes. You go in the ring
and push the second rope down
and jump both feet through.
When I come, I’m going to do the
same thing and run at you and
you do the same thing, but go
back out. Every time you come
back in, I’m going to run at you
and you go back out. We did that
5-6 times in a match and finally
he learned how to do that. But
he had that gift of gab and the
people hated him way more than
they hated Gene or Lars, which
put heat on the team. But we’d
go in 6 man matches, so I’d
start and I’d wrestle Gene. Gene
would tag Lars. I’d wrestle with
Lars. Lars would tag Gene.
Someone else would come in from
my team. They’d tag Lars. Lars
would tag Gene. Pretty soon the
fans caught on that they ain’t
tagging Ole, right? But they
don’t care that we kicked the
shit out of Gene and Lars. They
want us to get Ole.
Bourne:
Because of that mouth.
Weaver:
Because Ole has riled them with
that mouth. (laughter) So they
catch on to it and they would
start a chant, “We want Ole. We
want Ole.” And we’d go back to
the corner and say, “God, don’t
tag Ole!” (laughter) But in
about six months, he was top
man. He was a top man. He lost
his mind down the road, way
farther down the road.
Cline:
Tell us about the Missouri
Mauler.
Weaver:
Mauler was a wild person in the
ring. Lots of punches, lots of
kicking. Yeah, he was like the
old school. He’d sacrifice his
body to get that show over. That
was all that was on his mind was
getting the show over. Well,
that’s about it. You know, he
was good. We kept him good with
not only Firpo, but
Malenko and had him good for
years.
Cline:
Matsuda.
Weaver:
Yeah. Matsuda. They were there
for years. He and Brute came to
my defense one time.
Hall:
I was going to speak in general
about Aldo Bogni and Bronco
Lubich. 1965 was a big year with
you and Becker working with them
and you won the Southern tag
team championship from them. And
later on, you know, you worked
with these other teams and
everything, but changed to the
Atlantic Coast tag team belts in
1969 and you held both titles
there for a while after ya’ll
beat …
Weaver:
Yeah. They let the Southern tag
belts go. They thought the other
ones were bigger. Don’t know
why, but I think because we got
them there when we were working
them a lot and exchanging people
with Florida and also Florida
had gotten their tape on a TV
station in New Bern, NC, which
we couldn’t do for some reason.
Joe Murnick couldn’t get our
tape on there, but they got the
Florida show with Solie on
there. They left a 5 minute gap
in the middle of the thing that
showed all their wrestlers when
they come up here like Jack
Brisco, Funk and others that
people knew. They left a 5 minute
hole in there.
Bourne:
For Crockett to promote his
show?
Weaver: Yeah. We could promote Raleigh
and we would do a tape at WRAL,
a 5 minute interview, and put it
in that tape and send it to
whatever station it was in New
Bern.
Cline: When Channel 36 in Charlotte
started running Florida shows on
Saturday nights at about 8:30 in
1966 or 1967, they had a spot in
there where you guys would go
over there and promote Park
Center’s Monday night show and
sometimes you shot the things
out in the parking lot.
Weaver: Yeah.
Cline:
A guy named Gene, I think it
was.
Weaver: Gene Gordon.
Bourne:
The photographer?
Cline:
Wore the world’s ugliest sport
coat.
Weaver: Yeah, that was Gene Gordon.
(laughs)
Cline:
We had just gotten our first
color TV and I thought, well is
the color right on this thing,
or is that an orange coat?
Bourne:
Well, Johnny, why back in those
days when all the promoters of
course worked together within
their respective territorial
lines, why was the Florida show
on here (in the Mid-Atlantic
territory)? Was that a problem?
Weaver:
Some stations really wanted
wrestling, but didn’t want ours
because it was too much like
what was out of Raleigh. So they
got the Florida show and ran it
but we ran our shows off it too,
we had their guys up here
occasionally that our people
knew here. Plus when guys came
here, they were already stars
and draws from their TV.
You
know, that’s how Becker and Bolo
got here. Because WBTV ran the
LA show, the wrestling from Los
Angeles in the 50s. That’s how
they got here. And they were
already stars. Bolo, which was
Al Lovelock there and not ours,
but when Tom Renesto come here,
they wanted him so they just put
it on and said it was Bolo,
right? The one they had saw for
years in Los Angeles.
Bourne:
So the L.A. show was on here
before Crockett started taping
live shows at WBTV?
Weaver: Before Crockett ever had his own
live show. And that’s how the Beckers got known here. And the
Smiths was on there, too. John
and Al Smith? And Lovelock.
They were the big guys out
there. A little Italian guy, he
was big, too. At one time he had
the biggest crowd in Los Angeles
ever with Lou Thesz. I forgot
his name, though. He was part
of that, too.
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