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Wrestling heel was hero to many

Posted: Dec 28th 2009 By: mikeiles

Many fans might remember Bronko Lubich as the slow-counting, slow-moving referee for the Dallas-based World Class Championship Wrestling during its glory days in the 1980s.

I?ll remember him as a character who hooked me on this business more than four decades ago.

My life would never be quite the same after taking a break from a Saturday afternoon backyard football game to check out the action on my family?s black and white console. It was to be my first taste of professional wrestling, and it opened up a brand new world for a 10-year-old whose horizons heretofore hadn?t expanded beyond the more conventional sports such as baseball, football and basketball.

But here I was, transfixed by this grand spectacle on my TV set, with larger-than-life characters the likes of which I had never experienced before. On one team was a 600-pound Arkansas plowboy aptly named Haystacks Calhoun, sporting a massive bib overall, a lucky horseshoe and a partner not even half his size named Johnny Weaver.

It was the other team, though, that intrigued me. A pair of menacing-looking foreigners ? one from Buenos Aires, Argentina, the other billed from Belgrade, Yugoslavia ? with a hickory cane-wielding manager who sported a permanent scowl and a nasty demeanor to match. The faux Kentucky colonel?s name was Homer O?Dell, and his nefarious charges were Aldo Bogni and Bronko Lubich.

Lubich, in particular, cast an imposing figure. Not a large man in stature, with dark, close-cropped hair and well-groomed mustache, he moved methodically in the ring, complementing his bigger, lumbering partner. What really set him apart, though, was a hold he called the ?corkscrew? that rendered his helpless opponents unconscious. And it was as painful as it sounded, with Lubich digging his knuckles into his foe?s temple until the unfortunate wrestler either submitted or blacked out.

Keep in my mind, this was years before the ?don?t try this at home? disclaimers, and I found this neat little maneuver to be especially effective whenever pushed to do battle in the local schoolyard. This helpful bit of wrestling knowledge came in handy on more than one occasion, but was used, of course, only as a defensive measure.

As a result, Bronko Lubich soon became one of my favorite wrestlers, despite the fact that he was a despised and feared heel. But it wasn?t long before I was smartened up to one of wrestling?s facts of life ? that the ?bad guys? inside the ring were usually friendlier and more accommodating outside the ring than the so-called ?good guys.?

Bronko Lubich was successful in his trade because he knew how to make the fans hate him. Outside the ring was another story.

Bronko?s girls

Lubich passed away more than two years ago, in August 2007, at the age of 81 of complications from a stroke while in hospice care in Plano, Texas. At his side were his three daughters. His wife of more than 50 years, Ella, had passed away three years earlier after a lengthy bout with cancer.

His three girls will tell you there was a lot more to Bronko Lubich than the fans ever saw. Those true believers of a bygone era might be surprised to know that the man they loved to hate was a doting father, a faithful soulmate to his wife, and a homebody who loved tending to his garden.

Kathy Lupsity, 56, the eldest of the daughters, says not a day goes by that she doesn?t think of her dad. ?He was the most gentle man I?ve ever known,? she says, still holding back tears.

She fondly recalls being raised in a traditional, old-school family. While her father was on the road much of the time, her mother stayed at home and took care of the kids.

Maria Miller, 52, says her father was ?the salt of the earth.? And despite his rigorous travel schedule, he was ?a real homebody? who planted a garden wherever he lived. ?He traveled a lot but when he was on home, mostly on Sunday, he?d be in the backyard with us and play with us all day long.?

Most fans from that era might have a hard time visualizing the rough-and-tough wrestler tucking his three young daughters in at night and telling them stories before they went to sleep, but that?s exactly what he did, she says.

?He was such a good dad and such a good role model,? she says. ?He was such a positive person. We never heard any negative things about other people.?

One of her favorite memories, she says, was her dad putting up a pup tent for her and younger sister Melanie, and spending the night with them in the tent.

?Half of his body stuck out of the tent,? she laughs. ?Here?s a guy who rarely got to sleep in his own bed, and there he is, spending the night in a tent with these two little girls and their stuffed animals, giggling and carrying on.?

?He was so wise,? says Melanie Becker, 50, the youngest of his three daughters. ?He didn?t have a very good education because he came from a poor family, but he loved to read, loved history and invested well. He was like a sponge. It was amazing. He inspired me so much in my life. He was very hard-working.?

Melanie still has an old poster that was framed by her sister. Her dad and Aldo Bogni are wrestling The Kentuckians in the main event of a wrestling card in the ?60s. There are other names on the bill such as George Becker (no relation), Johnny Weaver, Big Bob Orton, Nick Kozak and George Drake that bring back memories. It hangs on her wall and is a constant reminder of the days when her dad was a big-time wrestling star.

?I saw my dad in such a different way then. He was basically a very quiet person. It always struck me kind of funny to see him get in the ring in front of all these people and wrestle and do interviews. But that never fazed him a bit.?

Her mind wanders back to a time when things were simpler and life seemed so much easier. She remembers a house they lived in where there were woods in the back and a swath of undeveloped land.

Sundays with their dad were special. Ella would pack them a lunch, and they would enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches near a gentle stream in the woods. There was a big vine nearby, and the girls would swing and swing while their dad pushed them. That vine once broke, but they?d always go back to the same spot. They?d go hiking and fishing. Melanie and Maria couldn?t bare the thought of eating the fish, so Bronko would put the catch in their above-ground pool.

They?d cut down their own Christmas trees during the holidays. It always seemed to be on the coldest day of the year. ?We just had so much fun,? they recall.

As Melanie got older, she?d go to spot shows with her dad, and they?d have ?their talks? on the drive home. Monday night was Fort Worth, she remembers, and they?d watch ?McCloud? together. It was like clockwork. He?d get home right before the show started, go upstairs and put his suitcase up, and quickly change into his pajamas. It was their ?Monday night thing.?

She also fondly recalls her days living in Charlotte, where she would hang out with Wendi Weaver (daughter of wrestlers Penny Banner and Johnny Weaver) and Craig Evers (son of Harvey ?Rip Hawk? Evers). ?Wendi was always fun because she was a girl and we could do girl stuff,? remembers Melanie. ?Craig always had cool stuff at his house like Mad magazines and things like that. The moms would play canasta, and we?d read magazines.?

And, for the record, Bronko Lubich was even beloved among his biggest ring rivals, behind the scenes, of course.

?He was wonderful ... a wonderful person,? said Johnny Weaver, with whom Bronko engaged in many a bloodbath over the years, shortly before his death in 2008. ?He never got nervous, mad or anything like that. He was always calm, cool, just a great ring general.?

A wrestler?s wrestler

Bronko Lubich was born Sandor Bronko Lupsity on Christmas Day 1925 in Batonja, Hungary, although after the war and the boundaries changed, his family moved to Yugoslavia. They had wanted to move to the United States, Kathy Lupsity says, but the country had a quota at the time. Bronko ended up moving with his family to Montreal, Canada, in December 1937.

A self-taught businessman, Lubich had only a sixth-grade education but left school to help support his family, who lived in a home with a dirt floor. He had a real thirst for knowledge and was an insatiable reader, says his daughter, and he loved history and theology.

His future wife?s family already had come over from Yugoslavia with little but the clothes on their backs, settling in an ethnic neighborhood in Montreal with a sizable Slavic population. They worked hard to carve out a living.

?Our people would kind of get together and buddy up and help the new people get jobs,? says Maria. ?Their kids would teach the other kids how to speak English or be their buddies at school.?

Bronko and Ella?s families didn?t know each other until they settled in Montreal and were attending the same church. Ella was a year-and-a-half-older, and they courted for a number of years before marrying in their early 20s.

Lubich became an accomplished amateur wrestler who was selected to represent Canada in the 1948 Olympic Games, but he was unable to compete after breaking his arm in a competition shortly before the Games. Unable to wait four years for another shot at Olympic gold, he continued to wrestle as an amateur and took a job in an aircraft factory.

The injury also proved to be a blessing in disguise for Lubich. He turned pro later that year and quickly rose to prominence as the manager of mat villain Angelo Poffo. The two eventually would form a top team, winning the Texas tag-team belts from Pepper Gomez and Dory Dixon in 1961.

?Daddy was the brains behind everything they did,? says Kathy.

Lubich?s first high-profile stint was serving as manager for Poffo, the father of future stars ?Macho Man? Randy Savage and Lanny ?The Genius? Poffo, on the Chicago and Indianapolis circuits. With the crafty Lubich using a cane on opponents, usually behind the referee?s back, the two drew tremendous heat wherever they appeared. A tag-team match against Wilbur Snyder and Yukon Eric in the main event of a show at the Cincinnati Gardens in 1959 drew more than 15,000 fans and set a record for any event ever held in that building.

Melanie says it wasn?t uncommon for the two to get pulled over and have their cars searched.

?They looked like gangsters,? she jokes. ?They were both dark-haired, muscular guys wearing these big overcoats. They were suspicious looking.?

Lubich eventually settled in Charlotte, the headquarters for Crockett Promotions, and was a top star in that territory for many years. Some of his best days were in Charlotte where he was very close to promoter Jim Crockett Sr. It was a good area to raise children, and he loved the fact that he was able to take his family to the beach in the summer and the mountains in the winter. He stayed there longer than any other territory he had wrestled in, although he would travel to Florida for short stints in between.

The Carolinas-Virginia circuit was a hotbed for tag-team wrestling during the ?60s, with such top duos as George and Sandy Scott, George Becker and Johnny Weaver, Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson, The Bolos (The Assassins), Skull Murphy and Brute Bernard, and The Kentuckians.

At the top of that tag-team hierarchy was the villainous duo of Bogni and Lubich along with manager O?Dell. The team held numerous tag titles, including the Southern tag-team belts, and later captured the Florida tag-team title with the colorful George ?Two Ton? Harris as their manager.

Bogni, under the moniker Count Alexis Bruga, had teamed with Lubich years earlier in the Calgary-based Stampede Wrestling territory. With the always controversial O?Dell added to the mix, the combination became one of the most hated and feared forces in tag-team wrestling. And O?Dell wasn?t just controversial in the ring. He was infamous for carrying a revolver, and he often shot it behind arenas to scare off fans who might pose a problem.

?Bronko and Aldo Bogni were one of the top teams in the Carolinas, and we had a lot of great teams here,? recalled Weaver, who first met Lubich in the late ?50s when he was starting out in Indianapolis. ?They stayed for a long time ... years and years and years. They didn?t have to move to other places. The heat stayed on them. We had a lot of full houses with them.?

Weaver, just days before his own passing in February 2008, reflected on his many fond memories of that era.

?I think about them almost every day. That was a very special time. Bronko was a great competitor ... one of the best I ever wrestled. He was all for the business, and that seems to be a lost art now.?

Respected veteran Abe Jacobs, who met Lubich in Detroit in 1960 and worked a number of tag-team matches against him later that decade in the Mid-Atlantic area, credits Lubich for the success of his team with Bogni.

?He was the brains behind that team,? Jacobs says, referring to the Bogni-Lubich-O?Dell tandem. ?He made that team work. He knew how to get the heat on Homer, and he was the one who told Homer to do stuff behind the referee?s back in order to get heat. He was just so smart inside that ring.?

Jacobs even took his praise one step further when talking about Lubich.

?Eddie Graham was really smart and creative, but when I really think about it, I?d have to say Bronko Lubich was the smartest guy I ever met in this business. He really had an incredible grasp.?

Savvy businessman

Lubich was smart in business, too, saving and investing his money wisely. Choosing not to squander his savings foolishly like many of his peers, he would encourage others not to throw their money away. O?Dell was one of the worst, and frequently would buy drinks for the entire bar. Despite Lubich?s pleas, O?Dell would go through money like it was going out of style.

Lubich, though, had saved and invested throughout his career, and had an impressive investment portfolio. He was wise with his money, says Kathy Lupsity, unlike many of the younger wrestlers who were making good money but spending it on expensive cars, fancy restaurants and high-priced motels.

?He used to tell these guys to take some of that money and invest it,? she says. ?Don?t just blow it. Something could happen tomorrow, and you might not be able to wrestle anymore,? he would routinely advise them.

Much of Lubich?s adult life, like most of his colleagues in the business, were spent on the road. His daughters spent most of their lives in Charlotte and Dallas, where their father was headquartered during his active career, and remain thankful they didn?t have to move from territory to territory every couple of years. It was important to Bronko that this family maintained as normal a life as possible.

One thing was for certain, his daughters say, and that was that they always maintained a special relationship.

At noon every day, father and daughters had a pact. He would think about them, and they would think about him. He?d send them postcards when he was on the road.

?I think we were much closer than some families were,? says Maria. ?I could always go to him and talk about anything. Even when I got older, and I was troubled about something, I could go over to see him, and everything just melted away.?

The best advice he ever gave Maria, she says, was encouraging her to lead her life in a way that would be an example to others. ?He told me that my actions were going to follow me, and that?s what people are going to think about you.?

She remembers his big hands gently cupping her small face and telling her: ?Honey, you?re a beautiful girl, but that isn?t by your choosing. That has nothing to do with the kind of person you are. You need to be good person on the inside.?

It would tear him up, she says, when the sisters would argue. Bronko and his brother never had an argument in their entire life and adored one another, she says, and he couldn?t understand how siblings could ever fight.

Soulmates

Both Bronko and beloved wife Ella were ?old school,? their daughters say, and the children learned to speak Serbian at an early age. Ella was a good listener and a people?s person. Bronko was more reserved. The combination worked.

The key to their success, jokes Melanie, was that ?Dad traveled all the time and wasn?t home.? But, she adds, they were as close as two people could be.

?In my heart and soul, I really believe there are people who are meant to be forever,? says Kathy. ?And Mom and Dad were two of those few people.? She looks at a card with the words, ?Your father is in his beloved wife?s arms,? and smiles. ?That?s truly what I believe. I just know Mom and Dad are together right now.?

The last 10 years had been rough. Ella had gone fast after cancer came back with a vengeance three years after being diagnosed and going into remission. Bronko?s illnesses were much slower.

?He was like the Energizer bunny,? recalls Lupsity. ?Bless his heart ... he just kept going on and on and on.?

Ella had cancer and chemo, and the disease went into remission. Then Bronko was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent radiation. Ella?s cancer eventually returned, and radiation treatments followed.

Bronko suffered a series of strokes, and each one chipped a little more away. It made it harder every time the girls would go to see him.

Bronko recovered from an initial stroke that he had at the doctor?s office. Another stroke at a hospital was more serious. Eventually someone was hired to live at the house. Bronko, who eventually lost the use of his right arm, eventually moved to a personal care home three miles from Melanie?s house.

Kathy, who had served as a caregiver, would grab her dad?s hand and squeeze it. ?I don?t even know if he knew I was there.?

?After each one (stroke), you would notice something different,? says Melanie.

Throughout the hard times, the sisters say, there also were many poignant moments.

Bronko thought the world of Lou Thesz, his daughters recall, and he kept a picture of the two in a box next to his bed during his final years.

His mind had failed him in many areas, but ?he always knew that was Lou Thesz.?

Maria remembers her dad, following one of his strokes, asking her if her folks were still alive.

?Yes they are, and you?ll be very glad to know that, because you?re my dad,? she told him in no uncertain terms.

His eyes beamed. ?I am? That?s great, because I really like you,? he told his daughter.

He paused for a few moments and then asked, ?Do you know Steve?? referring to his wife?s brother and his best friend.

?I told him that I did,? says Maria, ?but we didn?t see him often, because Steve was in Montreal and we were in Dallas.?

?Daddy looked at me, his eyes really twinkling, and asked, ?Do you know his sister?? Dad had a crush on Mom since he was 12 years old.?

When Maria told her dad that was her mother and his wife, and that she was on her way home, she recalls him barely being able to contain his excitement.

?You mean Steve?s sister is on her way right now?? he gushed.

?Daddy immediately threw the covers off the bed and said he had to change his clothes,? relates Maria. ?She walked in that room and you would have thought it was Miss Universe. He looked at her like that until she died.?

?He and Mom were soulmates. They always managed to have fun together,? says daughter Kathy.

It was hard watching his health slowly decline, she says.

?I saw this man who always kept his body fit. You don?t want them to go, but that?s out of selfishness. You know when they go, they?re going to somewhere better. It was a blessing when Daddy passed, because he wasn?t in pain. He?s with Mom now.?

Maria, like her two sisters, has a difficult time composing herself when asked what she remembers most about her father.

?My dad always had a thing about his eyes,? she says. ?He could tell stories and communicate so much by just looking at him. I could just look at him sometimes and we wouldn?t have to even say anything to each other, just look at each other, and we always knew what we were thinking. I just miss the look in his eyes. He?d give good bear hugs. I miss Mama too. But at least they?re together now.?

The Von Erichs

Lubich moved to Dallas in 1971 for his last major run as an active wrestler. He teamed with Chris Markoff to win the NWA American tag-team belts on two occasions from George Scott and Tim Woods, and later Johnny Valentine and Wahoo McDaniel.

He eventually moved from the wrestling end to the management and promotional side of the business, guiding such stars as The Spoiler (Don Jardine) and Boris ?The Great? Malenko (Larry Simon) before becoming a full-time referee in 1973 when he officiated for the NWA world title match where Jack Brisco defeated Harley Race in Houston.

In the meantime, though, he formed a business partnership with Fritz Von Erich (Jack Adkisson), who was the promotion?s top babyface as well as the owner of the NWA-affiliated territory. Lubich still maintained visibility inside the ring, for years serving as the senior official for the nationally syndicated World Class Championship Wrestling.

A staple at the famed Sportatorium in Dallas and the North Side Coliseum in Fort Worth, Lubich worked in the World Class office and served as referee until he retired in 1990. The years he spent with the company, though, were bittersweet.

World Class, which formerly had been known as Big Time Wrestling, had become the innovator of pro wrestling?s worldwide exposure via television syndication in the early ?80s. Wrestling events were like rock concerts, and Von Erich?s sons and their wild, young friends were treated like rock idols. Rabid crowds, consisting mostly of teen-agers, flocked to the Sportatorium in Dallas arenas to experience the excitement of World Class.

With Von Erich?s three oldest sons as the franchise stars, WCCW was one of the most syndicated shows in the world, In its heyday, WCCW had a higher TV rating than Saturday Night Live, and the show was on more than 85 stations in 25 countries.

The promotion, however, burnt out through a string of shocking tragedies. The Von Erich brothers were portrayed as wholesome, milk-drinking brothers, but the clan wasn?t as wholesome as it was portrayed on TV. Living in the shadows of each other and their famous father, the Von Erich boys had problems. The office became the home base for some of the most heartbreaking stories in wrestling history.

The oldest Von Erich son, Kevin, would later say that a statue of Bronko Lubich should have been erected when they tore down the famed Sportatorium.

The sons Bronko never had

Becker, who lives in Plano and is an office manager for a manufacturing company, attended North Texas State with Kevin and David Von Erich (Adkisson). Both boys left school for the wrestling business.

Lubich was always close to Fritz Von Erich and his boys, all of whom but Kevin died tragically, and he never could forget having to break the news to Fritz when son David died during a tour of Japan. He got a call in the middle of the night about David, and he made them go back and check three times before telling Fritz.

?All of his kids, as far as Daddy was concerned, were like his sons,? says Lupsity. ?They were like the sons he never had. It grieved him terribly when those boys died.?

Everyone respected Bronko. What he said was the law. ?Kevin and David loved him like a father.?

Shortly before David?s death, he and brother Kevin, both of whom Lubich had helped train, had gotten into an argument in San Antonio. Bronko got mad at them and sat them down. He told them they should be ashamed of themselves.

?I would give anything in the world to have my brother back,? he reprimanded.

After the talking, she says, they made up, went out and got drunk.?

?They were completely united. David went to Japan shortly after, and it was the last time Kevin saw his brother alive.?

It was uncommon for Bronko to intervene. ?It was a bold move for him, and for him to listen to that inner voice at that time was great,? recalls Miller.

Kevin later said that he would have hated himself had they not made up.

?Those guys all went through their personal hells,? says Becker. ?Before he left for Japan, David had been very sick. He was throwing up blood before the matches. Everyone told him to go to the doctor, but David said he didn?t have the time and would go when he returned from Japan. He would be sitting at the dinner table and just black out. It wasn?t surprising that something like that happened.?

The Von Erich saga remains one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the business.

The tragic story of the star-crossed family began with the electrocution of 7-year-old Jack Jr. in 1959. David, 25, died in February 1984 of an intestinal inflammation, theorized by some to be a drug overdose, during the tour of Japan. Mike, 23, died of a self-administered drug overdose in April 1987. The youngest, Chris, 21, shot himself with a 9mm pistol in September 1991. Kerry Von Erich, at the age of 33, ended his troubled life in February 1993 with a single bullet in his chest. He was the fifth of six brothers to die young. Only Kevin remains to carry on what was once the sport?s most heralded dynasty.

Jim Hellwig, formerly known as The Ultimate Warrior, was one of Kerry?s best friends and reflected on the tragedy shortly after his death.

?Kerry was just a big kid. His poor kids didn?t think it was him (in the funeral home). They thought it was a mannequin. They think he?s out on tour or something. Kerry?s problem was he had a bad drug problem and he couldn?t go to his father because of the respect in combination with the way they looked up to their father. He didn?t want to let him down. Or Fritz denied the whole thing all the time to himself that Kerry actually had a problem.?

The deaths were especially painful for Lubich.

?He knew those boys ever since they were kids. It was really hard on Dad,? says Lupsity.

?I don?t know how Kevin survived,? says Lupsity. ?There was so much tragedy all around him.?

As the problems within the company worsened and the lack of discipline got out of control, it became more and more of a chore for Bronko to go to work, says Lupsity.

It had become a far cry from the days when Bronko worked in the Charlotte office for promoter Jim Crockett Sr.

?I can remember when he worked for Mr. Crockett,? says Lupsity. ?Daddy always wore a suit and tie. Guys in World Class wore cut-off shorts, bare-chested or wearing a dirty shirt. It was like night and day.

?I remembering him saying that Mr. Crockett was one of the most influential men in his entire life, and that he always wanted to respect him by wearing a suit and a tie. Daddy would always refer to him as ?Mr. Crockett.? And I think Mr. Crockett respected Daddy.?

It was quite a different story in the Dallas office.

?It got the point where he truly hated to go to work. That?s when Mom told him to get out of it. He finally made up his mind to retire. And that was it.?

Rare breed

Bronko Lubich was a rarity in a cutthroat profession where slings and arrows are bandied about at breakneck speed. He was universally respected by peers, with performers from ?Nature Boy? Ric Flair to ?Stone Cold? Steve Austin singing his praises. Austin, who got his start in World Class Championship Wrestling, would often travel with Lubich and longtime Texas wrestling figure Skandar Akbar (Jim Wehba).

?We?d be together in one of their cars, and they?d be up front smoking big, smelly cigars and I?d be in the back seat asking them questions and soaking up everything they were telling me. That was a college degree in the old-school ways of doing things. I love those guys,? Austin recounted in his autobiography.

?Sometimes they?d tell me old wrestling stories. I?d always enjoy hearing those. I didn?t have any money then, and they wouldn?t charge me for transportation. I?d just sit in the back and ask them questions. Those guys were cool. They knew I was genuinely interested in learning, and they both took me under their wings.?

?Both Akbar and Bronk were excellent storytellers,? added Austin. ?When one of them told a story, the way they laughed made me want to laugh too. It was a real good time in my life. Those guys and their wealth of knowledge about ring psychology were tremendous influences on me throughout my whole career. They also furthered my respect for the wrestling business.?

As for those ?smelly cigars,? as Austin put it, the confines of the car was the only spot he smoked them, recalls daughter Kathy. ?He never smoked one inside the house. I think he just did it to have something to do.?

Bronko loved telling tales and joking with the boys. Those jokes and those tales, though, usually stayed in the locker room and the office.

?Your dad was like king of the joke-tellers in the dressing room,? David Von Erich once told Melanie.

?I?m sure it was a lot different in the dressing room,? she says. ?He was always such a gentleman around his girls. I?m sure it was probably really hard. He touched so many people?s lives. I always knew he did mine in a very special way.?

A good man

I last talked to Bronko 10 years ago and invited him to a Mid-Atlantic legends fanfest that was being held at the old County Hall on King Street. He had main-evented in that storied building numerous times, and I could tell he relished the thought of returning to one of his old stomping grounds.

But his beloved Ella had been ill, and even the prospect of seeing many of his old friends couldn?t lure him away from her side.

We talked about the old days, that faraway time when larger-than-life heroes made true believers out of 10-year-olds, when wrestlers didn?t make headlines for dying early and steroids weren?t in vogue.

I?ve often thought about Bronko since then.

More than 45 years later, it still gives me comfort knowing that Bronko Lubich was as good a man as there was, despite making fans think he was as bad a man as there was.

A lot can be said about Bronko Lubich, but the ring-wise Hall of Famer Abe Jacobs may have given him the highest compliment a wrestler can earn.

?He was a square shooter.?

Rest in peace Bronk, and thanks for the memories.

Tags: Bronko Lubich, WCCW, Haystacks Calhoun, Johnny Weaver, Bob Orton, Lanny Poffo, Swede Hanson, Assassins, Kentuckians, George Harris, Abe Jacobs, Lou Thesz, Von Erichs, NWA, Tim Woods, Wahoo McDaniel, Spoiler, Jack Brisco, Harley Race, Fritz Von Erich, Kevi