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J. R. To Induct Mat Icon Hodge At Fanfest

Posted: Jul 12th 2010 By: CMBurnham

There are a lot of good reasons to attend this year?s NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest in Charlotte.

One of the best reasons is Danny Hodge.

If you?re a longtime, dyed-in-the-wool fan, it might be on your wrestling bucket list to personally meet the incomparable Hodge, the likes of whom may never pass this way again.

Hodge, the legendary All-American from Oklahoma and one of the most celebrated athletes in collegiate and professional wrestling history, will be among the inductees in the 2010 Hall of Heroes.

And not only will the 78-year-young Hodge be on hand to accept the award, but none other than ?Good Ol? J. R.,? Hall of Fame announcer and fellow Oklahoman Jim Ross, will be there to induct him.

It will mark Ross?s first-ever Fanfest appearance, and the second straight for Hodge, who attended last year?s event as a special guest.

WWE Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross will induct Danny Hodge into the Hall of Heroes.
This year?s Fanfest will be held Aug. 5-8 at the Hilton University Place Hotel in Charlotte. The dinner banquet and awards ceremony, hosted by Jim Cornette, will be held Aug. 6 as part of Fanfest Weekend.

The Hall of Heroes Class of 2010 includes seven other heroes from wrestling?s past. The elite list includes Mr. Wrestling No. 2 (Johnny Walker 1st), Reggie Parks, Billy Robinson, Joe Blanchard, Greg Valentine, and the late Johnny Valentine and ?Mr. Wrestling? Tim Woods.

Ross, arguably the greatest and most famous of all modern-day wrestling announcers, is excited about the event. Due to his rigorous schedule over the past couple of decades as both an on-air talent and an executive at WWE, the venerable Ross has been a virtual stranger to the convention circuit.

?My schedule over the years, when I was an administrator and then worked as an on-air talent along with booking live-event cards, was literally a seven-day rotation. You just never got off the treadmill,? says Ross. ?Outside the WWE umbrella, I?ve probably only done a handful, and all of those were with (Jerry) Lawler. That?s pretty much it.?

But now with a more relaxed schedule, Ross says he couldn?t pass up the chance to induct a man who he ? along with many others in the profession ? considers to be in a class by himself.

?That element (inducting Hodge) really put it over the top for me,? says Ross. ?Danny Hodge is just an amazingly gifted athlete. I truly believe that he is the greatest wrestler alive.?

Hodge, the only man to ever win national titles in both boxing and wrestling, holds records that most likely never will be broken.

During the 1950s, Hodge won three NCAA championships at 177 pounds for the University of Oklahoma, never losing a match or even taken down from a standing position, and also won three national titles in freestyle wrestling and one in Greco-Roman. He pinned all his opponents in the Big 10 tournament every year he wrestled ? and with an average time of one minute and 33 seconds.

Wrestling great Danny Hodge is being inducted into the NWA Hall of Heroes in Charlotte.
Hodge also competed on two Olympic teams. He made the 1952 squad as a 19-year-old, at that time the youngest wrestler ever to make an Olympic team, and in 1956 won the silver medal in the 174-pound class in Melbourne, Australia.

?Just look at his athletic body of work,? says Ross. ?You?ve got to remember that it?s not about how many Wrestlemanias he headlined, or how many times he sold out the Garden. Not to diminish any of those accomplishments, because all of those were significant things at different periods of time and in different eras. But the issue is that here?s a 19-year-old kid making the Olympic team, a guy who was never taken down, a guy that beat everyone he ever faced in college, and at the highest level.?

Hodge also could have easily taken the gold at the 1956 Olympics. He was ahead 8-2 in the championship match with seconds remaining, but while rolling through on a move, his shoulders touched the mat and it was ruled a pinfall.

?He had the match won,? says Ross. ?He had his opponent beat and crying and mortified. Hodge was way ahead and took the guy down, and while they were engaged, Hodge rolled him over but Danny?s shoulders hit the mat. The ref, who was from an Eastern bloc country, hit the mat and said Hodge was pinned. Danny?s opponent was not in control, and was there for the taking. Danny was just punishing the guy.?

The controversial call is considered one of the worst referee decisions in international wrestling of its era.

?News traveled slowly back in 1956, and had that happened today, it would be akin to the United States-Russia basketball game,? says Ross. ?Hodge?s situation was just as atrocious inasmuch that he ended up winning the silver medal when he should have won the gold.?

It was one of the few setbacks, if you can call it a setback, in Hodge?s illustrious career.

Don?t mess with Hodge

There was a popular saying throughout the pro wrestling community: ?You don?t mess with Hodge.?

And for good reason.

He never was a braggadocios, bigger-than-life, over-the-top talker. He didn?t have to be. His actions spoke much louder than words.

?I talked to a lot of guys at the Cauliflower Alley Club,? says Ross, ?and when they talk about really tough guys, there?s a handful of guys they talk about. And then they say, ?Of course, there?s Hodge. That?s a whole different deal.??

In 2000 Hodge was listed by Sports Illustrated as one of Oklahoma?s greatest athletes of the 20th century.

?He?s truly extraordinary,? says Ross. ?He?s just an athletic phenomenon. I hope the fans that are there who might be of a different generation, who may not have seen him perform or compete, will understand and appreciate who?s going to be on the podium.?

Danny Hodge was never taken down from a standing position while in college and won the NCAA title three times after going undefeated at 46-0.

Hodge was so good, says Ross, that it?s hard to adequately describe the impact he had on the profession.

?It?s hard to describe just what he?s meant to the business. You think about some of the other greats of the game who considered Hodge their hero. He was Jack Brisco?s hero. And there were very few better than Handsome Jack. And when you hear that Lou Thesz could take advantage of this guy or that guy, but the one guy that he didn?t have any desire to engage was Hodge, that says something. But nobody did. He?s the only guy that I can tell you that I?ve never heard that anybody ever got the better of in a match.?

Hodge, who had a muscular and powerful 220-pound frame, was incredibly strong. He could rip telephone directories and decks of cards in two, crush apples into pulp and mash pliers into scrap metal. His grip and hand strength is legend.

?The stories of his hand strength are all legitimate,? says Ross. ?They?re all true.?

Ross recalls once accompanying Hodge into a hardware store where the owner, doubting Hodge?s legendary strength, challenged him to bend some of his sturdiest pliers. It wasn?t long, says Ross, before the owner was waving a white flag after Hodge had easily snapped more than half a dozen pair in two.

Missing in WWE Hall

Hodge, who survived Depression-era Oklahoma in his youth, has lived in the same house for years.

For a man of such stature, one who has been on the cover of the Perry, Okla., phone book, Hodge is just your average citizen in a small town. Except for the fact that he?s regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in Oklahoma history.

?The Perry phone book with Danny on the cover is one of my most prized possessions,? says Ross.

Ross jokes with WWE world champion Jack Swagger (Jake Hager), another Perry native and former OU heavyweight champ, that he?s ?going to be really good some day,? and that?s he really proud of him, but ?You?ve always got to remember that you?ll always be, at best, the second-toughest guy from Perry.?

Surprisingly enough, one place where Hodge?s name is conspicuously absent is the WWE Hall of Fame, a situation Ross, for one, would like to see corrected.

?Danny Hodge is a true legend. He?s in every hall of fame that the sport has to offer in amateur wrestling. He?s got the highest honor in Division 1 wrestling named for him. I?ve said it many times, and I don?t know where it will eventually end up, but there are five Oklahomans ? Mae Young, the Briscos, Bill Watts and me ? in the WWE Hall of Fame. And no Hodge.?

That?s not a knock on the WWE Hall, says Ross, but it does seem like a gross oversight.

?I still look at, and I know others have decried the WWE Hall of Fame over some people who are in it and some people who aren?t for whatever reason. There?s always different agendas. I look at it as a great honor, and I?m proud to be in that group. But I would also tell you that Danny Hodge deserves to be in that hall of fame as well. If there is a hall of fame that has anything to do with wrestling, amateur or pro, he should be in it. It?s not an indictment of WWE?s Hall of Fame. It?s just the fact that there is a hall of fame out there that he isn?t a member of. He should be.?

Silent shooter

Dan Hodge is one of those rare types of athletes whose humility belies a career that has been unparalleled in wrestling history.

The mild-mannered, unassuming country boy never wanted to live anywhere but Perry, a small city with between five and six thousand people, where?s he lived in the same home for nearly 50 years and knows every nail that?s ever gone into the house.

An accomplished woodcrafter, Hodge drives a wheat truck for a friend in the summer.

?I have three or four weeks of harvest in June. I get to help him no matter what happens. What a pleasure. I have keys to their ponds to go fishing. I have the best of all lives.?

Hodge loves the life he has lived. There?s never a stranger at the Hodge home.

?All the kids come and go. When friends come in to see my plaques and medals and trophies or bottle-openers ... I want them to feel at home. You don?t have to kick your shoes off at the front door. It?s home.?

?He hasn?t changed any since the first day I met him,? says Ross.

That was nearly 36 years ago, in 1974, when Ross was a young referee in the Oklahoma territory and making his first trip to do Shreveport (La.) TV. Ross was told to come by the Tulsa office and pick up a passenger on the way. Little did Ross know that his riding companion would be Hodge.

?I didn?t even ask them who, because then you didn?t ask questions. I was happy to have a job, especially in the wrestling business, so that morning I went to the office in the old Tulsa Convention Center. I was there a little bit early, and lo and behold, Danny walked in a few minutes later with his suitcase. He was my passenger from Tulsa to Shreveport, which was about a five-hour drive, so my first trip to the southern part of (Leroy) McGuirk and (Bill) Watts? territory was bringing Danny Hodge to TV.?

Hodge had just returned from one of his many tours of Japan.

?We had a great visit and really bonded on that trip,? recalls Ross. ?Just two country boys from Oklahoma. The great thing to me was that after a little while in the car, even though I was still hero-worshipping, it became just two guys talking. He was so unassuming and humble about his accomplishments. He was as interested as to where I grew up and the fact that we were both Oklahoma fans. We had a lot to talk about.?

It reminded Ross of a similar experience he had after officiating a Friday night football game. He rode on a plane from Dallas to Tulsa and sat next to baseball legend Mickey Mantle.

?Once the seat belt light came on, and we started to taxi, people left him alone,? says Ross. ?We were seated across the aisle from each other on a Southwest flight, and the plane wasn?t very full back in those days. We basically just leaned across the aisle and conversed all the way to Tulsa. The irony of that trip is that I was in such awe of him ... I had been collecting Mickey Mantle memorabilia for probably 20 years, and I didn?t ask him an autograph. I was just too intimidated. He recognized me being from wrestling and said he didn?t know I was so famous. I assured him that he was the only one who was famous on that plane. It became a talk of the common ground on which we stood.?

Traveling partners

After Ross became more established in the business, Hodge would become a regular traveling companion. The two would eventually drive the Mid-South loop together.

?We became regular traveling partners,? says Ross. ?To make any money in my role as a referee, you had to get two or three passengers in your car, because they paid you two cents a mile for driving. You bought the gas and drove the automobile. That was the drill. The nice thing about Danny was that we came back to the same base, which was Tulsa, as I lived there and he lived in Perry. He?d make his commute from Tulsa over to Perry. When he was booked again, we?d have our plans made and our booking sheets. He?d leave his vehicle and hop in the car with me.?

And Hodge would always return to Perry. He never wanted to live anywhere but Perry, where he grew up, settled down and raised a family with Dolores Hodge, his wife of 58 years.

?He was a good shepherd to me,? says Ross. ?There were a lot of tough, ornery old wrestlers who wrestled back in the day. They would take liberties in their matches with their opponents if they could. Some would punch fans. If you refereed their matches, they would always have a way to catch you with their elbow or do something that was unnecessary or unprofessional because they knew they could. That never occurred with Danny in the ring. He was the policeman. He wouldn?t let anyone be a bully. He didn?t like bullies.?

Ross recalls a match involving Bruiser Bob Sweetan during a period in which the burly 300-pound heel was getting a major push.

?Sweetan nailed me and gave me a black eye. It was just him being him,? says Ross.

Hodge noticed Ross?s swollen face the next day at TV.

?What happened to you, Tiger,? he asked his traveling buddy.

Ross explained that he had caught an elbow during a match, but that it was no big deal.

?Interestingly enough, a couple of nights later, we had a match in Oklahoma City,? Ross recalls. ?Watts was getting ready to work with Sweetan, and Danny was going to do the honors to get Sweetan ready for Bill, which Danny didn?t have any issues doing. But he never forgot what Sweetan had done to me earlier in the week. He made sure that issue would never occur again.?

?He still lost the match,? Ross adds, ?but when it was over it was hard to tell who had lost.?

Hodge says there were several instances where some wrestlers ?didn?t want to put the referee over.?

?The referee is part of it,? Hodge told his colleagues. ?Respect him.?

?If they didn?t,? he adds, ?they answered to me.?

Ross remembers Watts reprimanding Hodge after the match with Sweetan.

?Bill was not happy with Danny?s treatment of Sweetan in Oklahoma City because Hodge just literally beat the hell out of him. And then he, of course, lost because that?s what the script called for. Watts said, ?Danny, you?ve got to loosen up out there with these guys, you just can?t hurt people like that. If pro wrestling was real, Danny, you?d be in it by yourself. Nobody would want to get in the ring with you. Nobody would want to be in the business.??

Ross says the same scenario occurred in Shreveport, La., during a match between Hodge and The Spoiler (Don Jardine).

?Don Jardine was a great guy ... a very talented big man,? says Ross. ?Same thing. Hodge was in the co-main event against The Spoiler whose next opponent was going to be Bill (Watts). But Danny was so over in the territory and so believable that he couldn?t be hurt. When Spoiler got the claw on Danny Hodge, and Hodge started bleeding, and then Hodge lost, the attendants had to help Hodge to the back. I?m following, because I?ve already seen this routine.

?Imagine this picture. Hodge has his arm over each guy?s shoulder, and he?s squeezing. Here?s a guy who is bloody and battered and beaten, and he should be the one in agony. But it?s the attendants carrying him back who are screaming in agony. They get him back up the steps to the back of the stage behind the curtain, and they are absolutely tormented and in anguish. Bill was next to the babyface dressing room, and he starts chewing Danny out about hurting someone and getting carried away. But all Danny was doing was playing. He didn?t know how strong he was. It was just a very funny scene.?

After Hodge?s match, Ross recalls going back out to referee the final bout of the evening involving Watts.

?The people go home happy,? he recounts. ?We go back to the locker room. Hodge has already showered, dressed and left. We go into the showers, and the showers always had two handles, one for hot and one for cold. Hodge had gone in the babyface shower and had turned the hot-water faucet against the grain so strenuously that he ripped the hot-water faucet off the plumbing. So the only water you could turn on was the cold water. That meant Watts had to take a cold shower. He got in the shower before I did, and all I heard was him bellowing and cursing. I just put my stuff in my bag and ran across the stage (to the heel dressing room) and took a hot shower there.?

Ross and Watts drove on to Jackson, Miss., after the show and the Cowboy, according to Ross, was ?red hot.?

?I?m going to fix that Hodge. He won?t do this again, and I?m tired of his pranks, and all that stuff about how he doesn?t know his strength,? Watts rumbled.

?So Watts is cutting his promo. I?m thinking tomorrow night is really going to be a showdown,? says Ross.

Ross says Watts did have a talk with Hodge later, ?but not nearly in the tone that he had cut his promos in my car. Cooler heads had prevailed.?

?I?ve often said that if he (Hodge) had been a bully or a mean-spirited guy, there would be a lot more stories out there about him than there are, because he was truly untouchable,? says Ross.

Where?s that train?

Ross recalls refereeing a one-hour draw between Hodge and NWA heavyweight champion Jack Brisco in Little Rock, Ark.

?Danny would get so emotionally wrapped up in the process that he would sometimes get a little carried away. And he didn?t know his own strength,? says Ross. ?His punching power was freakish. We were at about the 50-minute mark and the crowd started chanting for him because he was the hometown hero. Even though Brisco was also from Oklahoma, Danny was in the territory and Brisco was the traveling champion. They both had a very clean, classic clinic of a match for about the first 50 minutes.?

Until, says Ross, Brisco backed Hodge into the corner in a collar-and-elbow tie-up.

The left-handed Brisco nailed Hodge with a forearm while his opponent was on the ropes. The move was illegal, and the fans became unglued.

?All it took was that one move,? says Ross. ?The fans could not believe it after all that art they had been seeing in the ring. The issue was, of course, that the champion felt in jeopardy. The title was at risk. The story that we were drawing on this canvas was that Hodge had built some momentum and was getting the better of the two. It was amazing execution. Danny sold it big, and I was admonishing Brisco. The crowd got so wrapped up in it. Danny got these big goose bumps on his arm and was overwhelmed by the proceedings. He got Jack down and was wrenching on some hold. And Jack Brisco was no slouch ... there were very few that could measure up to Jack Brisco.?

In this case, says Ross, Brisco was definitely feeling the pressure.

?I remember Jack covering up his mouth and saying, ?Danny, if you?ll just loosen up, I?ll give you the damn title.??

Hodge eventually loosened up and came out of his trance-like state, says Ross, and Brisco escaped a series of near falls before time ran out.

?It was just one of the most epic matches,? says Ross. ?Both of those guys were big heroes of mine. They were legitimate mainstream sports stars. I was a vociferous reader since the age of 5. And those two were on the sports pages all the time.?

Hodge remembers asking Brisco during the match: ?Where?s that train?? Hodge, of course, was referring to the huffing and puffing sound Brisco was making as Hodge put him through the paces.

?Jack would then blow harder,? laughs Hodge, who continued to egg on Brisco, a fellow Oklahoman who had turned down a scholarship at OU to go to Oklahoma State.

?You know, I?ve never seen an Aggie get in shape,? Hodge whispered in the ear of his opponent, referring to Brisco?s alma mater.

?I really pushed his buttons,? says Hodge. ?But what a great kid Jack was.?

Hodge later went to a 90-minute match with Jack?s younger brother, Jerry, in Jacksonville, Fla.

?We were both looking for air in that one,? says Hodge.

Boyhood hero

Ross grew up 120 miles from Tulsa, the home base of Mid-South Wrestling, and every Saturday night at 10:30 he?d watch wrestling at his grandparents? farm, a mile away from the smaller, 160-acre farm he grew up on in the town of Westville, Okla.

?My grandparents and I would fight sleep (to watch wrestling)? he recalls. ?We?d have Hershey?s syrup on our vanilla ice cream while the news was on, and we?d be ready for wrestling at 10:30. It was on until 11:30, and that was as late as I?d ever stay up for most of my adolescent years. Then it?d be bedtime.?

During that era, says Ross, Danny Hodge was ?to me in the wrestling ring what Mickey Mantle was to me on the baseball diamond.?

Mantle, also a native Oklahoman, was in his heyday during that time.

?When I grew up, Mickey Mantle and Danny Hodge were two of the biggest sports stars in the world, in my eyes. Mantle went to live and play in New York during the season, and Danny never left Perry, Okla.?

?That was my early, impressionable years of watching wrestling,? says Ross. ?It was positively affected by Danny Hodge. It wasn?t a surprise for us to hear the information on his career as an amateur athlete because if you could read, and you were of that age group, sports writers had been writing about Danny Hodge since he went to the Olympics in ?52, the year I was born. He was one of the few guys that the old wrestling skeptics would look at and know because of his accomplishments at Oklahoma University, that he was the real deal. He commanded great respect because he had earned it.?

Hodge was literally untouchable.

?He won three national titles, and the only reason he didn?t win four was because freshmen were not eligible then,? says Ross. ?He would have had no issues winning a fourth. He already had one Olympic Games under his belt by the time he started at Oklahoma. That?s why he dominated everybody on the wrestling team as a freshman, but he couldn?t wrestle varsity.?

Hodge was the biggest wrestling star on television during that time, says Ross, although he never defended the title on TV. Title defenses, says Ross, were reserved for the live events.

Back in the early 1960s Oklahoma was largely a junior-heavyweight territory, says Ross, and Danny Hodge was ?the man.?

Jody Hamilton recalls a particularly grueling series of matches he and his partner, Tom Renesto, had in Oklahoma during their 14-year run as The Masked Assassins.

?You talk about two guys earning their money. We worked with Hodge and Lou Thesz as his partner. Sixty minutes and coming back for 90 minutes the next week with no falls. We damned sure earned our money.?

Hamilton remembers the team taking their outfits off after the match. ?We could actually wring water out of them.?

Ross says he learned the art of storytelling listening to Gordon Solie narrate a Danny Hodge vs. Hiro Matsuda NWA world junior heavyweight title bout from Tampa. The bout was recorded with one camera on film.

?I probably watched it, and this is no exaggeration, a hundred times. Great exchanging of holds, isolating body parts and trying to work back into a hold. The story, even for the novice fan, became clear as day.?

Ross says his beloved fellow Okie carried himself as a champion inside and outside of the ring.

?He had such a great influence on me. He was one of those disciples of Lou Thesz. He always brought class, professionalism and respect to the locker room. He always dressed nicely, in a suit, a sports coat or jacket, and always looked professional. The first time I ever saw a Halliburton suitcase was Danny. A lot of the other wrestlers would wear casual clothes, but Danny always dressed like a champ. But Danny learned from Lou.?

Living legend

On April 1, 1957, Hodge was on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, the only amateur wrestler ever accorded such an honor.

The Dan Hodge Trophy, named after him, is the amateur wrestling equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.

?He was just an extraordinary human being,? says Ross. ?Now we?re 50-plus years removed from his amateur peak, and even though guys have won four national titles and guys have had great records, you ask Dan Gable who?s the best he ever saw. And I have great respect for Dan Gable.?

Ross recalls an assignment he had during the Goodwill Games as a broadcaster for the U.S.-Russia dual broadcast on TBS. He also was doing TBS Saturday night wrestling at the time.

?I remember (former U.S. Olympic champion) Bruce Baumgartner was very reluctant to talk to me because I was that ?wrestling guy.? I introduced myself, told him I did pro wrestling on TBS on Saturday nights, but I grew up in Oklahoma.?

?His eyes started to sparkle,? says Ross. ?I told him that Danny Hodge was one of my best friends, and that I was also great friends with (Dr. Death) Steve Williams. He and Doc had many wars all the way to the finals a couple times. Baumgartner, of course, talked about Hodge like he was a god. He talked about Doc by saying if he had concentrated on amateur wrestling, people would have been talking about Steve Williams, not Bruce Baumgartner, as the best heavyweight in America.

?But when I mentioned Hodge?s name, it was the same response as when Dan Gable was coaching. I told him I wasn?t going to interview him or anything, that I just wanted to introduce myself. And I used the magic word. Danny Hodge. And all of a sudden, the great Dan Gable was just another guy. A guy who was happy to talk to you. He wanted to know more about Hodge.?

Hodge went undefeated in wrestling throughout college. He scored pins in 36 out of 46 matches ? including 24 in a row. He still holds the all-time college record with pins on 78 percent of his opponents.

?When you look at the greatest amateur wrestlers of any current generation who are still alive, the Dan Gables of the world will say Hodge is the guy,? says Ross. ?If you look at all the pro wrestlers that have had any interactions with him in the ring , he?s the guy. They talk about how Steve Austin sold more merchandise, how Ric Flair had the most charisma or The Rock had the amazing intangibles of personality and athleticism, but when they get down to brass tacks, in the pro wrestling world, there was one man.?

Hodge, who began his pro career in 1959, was still a major star until having to retire in 1976 after breaking his neck in an automobile accident.

Five decades too early

Hodge?s name came up during a dinner conversation Ross had with Steve Austin the night before the recent Brock Lesnar-Shane Carwin UFC bout in Las Vegas.

They both agreed on one thing.

?Danny Hodge would be printing money for UFC? had he been coming out of college now.

?The reality of his personality was that he was probably more cut of the mold of a UFC fighter than he was to be a pro wrestler,? says Ross. ?He was a very smooth wrestler and a great champion, but his natural personality ? that nice, low-ley, humble guy ... humble doesn?t sell well in today?s climate. But if he would have come out college now and gone into UFC, he would have been looked at as a god. Here?s a guy who was a three-time national champion, a Golden Gloves boxing champion, with two Olympic Games on his resume, going into the Octagon. ESPN would have loved him. I?ve yet to see anybody in UFC that could approach Hodge.?

Ross says he shudders to think how Hodge would dominate mixed martial arts if he were in his prime today.

?He won the Golden Gloves title with no boxing experience. He picked it up and was tough enough and good enough to beat everybody. People ask how big a title was that? Well, it?s the same one that Muhammad Ali won, the same one that Floyd Patterson won.?

Hodge was considered one of the best ?shooters? (legitimate wrestlers) in the sport. He didn?t need any flashy gimmick or high spots to get over. He was a wrestler?s wrestler.

?There have been so many great wrestlers ? legitimately, highly skilled wrestlers ? and there have been an inordinate amount of tough human beings in pro wrestling,? say Ross. ?Bar fighters, street fighters, whatever. But you can get them all in a room, give them a pad of paper and tell them to write down the names of the five toughest guys they ever saw or been in the ring with or heard about. Danny Hodge will always be at the top of the list, and the other four guys will be interchangeable parts. But no one will ever omit Hodge from that list.?

Hodge and his easygoing demeanor is in stark contrast to the fierce competitor he was on the mat and in the ring for so many years.

?That?s the funny thing about him. When you meet him, you just think, ?How could this nice man be a killer,? jokes Ross.

?Within the inner workings of the business, from a generation of wrestlers from the ?50s, ?60s, ?70s and ?80s, for four decades, anybody you talk to from that period of time will all have some type of Hodge story.?

Fun at Fanfest

?Coming back to that event in Charlotte will bring back a lot of good memories of that era,? Ross says of next month?s Fanfest. ?I?ll enjoy seeing some of the greats and reminiscing and talking to guys and seeing how they?re doing and how their families are doing. It?ll be a great trip. I?m really looking forward to it.?

Plus, says Ross, ?I might come back with a few 8x10?s I didn?t think I needed at the time.?

Ross is no stranger to the Charlotte area, the former headquarters of Jim Crcokett Promotions and Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, where Ross worked for a number of years as one of the voices of the NWA.

?Bob Caudle and I were the hosts of NWA Pro Wrestling for a few years. I never had a bad broadcast with Bob. He was probably one of the most underrated wrestling announcers of all time. From the very beginning, we just had very good chemistry, and we liked each other.?

Caudle, who started working with Jim Crockett Promotions in the late 1950?s for promoter Jim Crockett Sr., was regarded as the voice of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling.

?We traveled the roads together and had a good time. It was a pleasure to work with him. I enjoyed that experience in the Carolinas. Anytime you can trust your partner, it means everything. We always just went out and did our thing, and just tried to tell the stories that we were seeing on the monitor, and do just what all announcers should do, and that?s to make the talent bigger and better than ever.?

Caudle, says Ross, was a voice that you could trust.

?If he told you it was going to be a big event at the Greensboro Coliseum, you believed that. And if he told you that someone was great or someone was a bad guy or was dangerous, you could believe that. It?s one of those old-school Keith Jackson, Chris Schenkel, Jim McKay-type theories that the voice you hear is one you believe in and you trust, and that you feel that one person is talking to you and not around you or over your head. Bob had that gift.?

Ross, who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007, says he?s overwhelmed by the response he has received.

?My role for so long has to embellish others. Going to Charlotte, and ostensibly to induct Danny Hodge into their Hall of Heroes, was basically the crux of my accepting the opportunity.?

Plans for Ross?s involvement have expanded, and he now plans to come in on Thursday evening for an informal session with fans, bringing some of his famous barbecue sauce with him. He?ll most likely sign some autographs on Friday before inducting Hodge at the banquet later that evening.

?Hopefully people will enjoy seeing me,? says Ross. ?I know I?ll enjoy seeing them. And of course it?s going to be a big thrill for me to be a part of anything than honors Danny.?

Ross also is looking forward to sampling the many vendor tables that will be present at the convention.

?I really like looking at the old stuff. The old photos are really cool. I seemingly end up coming back home with more stuff. I?m still a fan at heart. Looking through all that memorabilia always bring back interesting memories. I?m still engaged by the roots from which I came.?

The great Danny Hodge may be the most excited person of all coming to Charlotte.

?I would have driven to Charlotte anyway,? enthuses Hodge, whose wrestling travels have taken him around the world 43 times. ?I just can?t wait to see all of the fans. It?s not just about me. I want to thank all the boys who wrestled and made me. I never dreamt anything like this would happen. I want to come there every year for the fans. And it will be an honor to be inducted by Jim Ross.?

?I think about all the fans I?ve had, and I?d like to shake each and every hand,? he adds. ?I know I?ll never get to, but I have the pleasure of knowing that, whether they hollered for me or against me, they were there. What a great ride it?s been. I loved every minute of it.?

Hodge also says he is looking forward to answering any questions that fans may have.

?A lot of the folks give speeches and get nice ovations, but many of the fans would like to know about this or that. And I?d like to answer all their questions.?

And, the Oklahoma Shooter adds with a chuckle, some might like to see a hold. Applied, of course, by the master himself.

?I?ll be glad to show you ... they won?t ever, ever, ever forget it.?

Special presenters of this year?s Hall of Heroes awards include Dory Funk, Jr., Terry Funk, Jerry Brisco and The Assassin.

Fanfest Weekend features three days and four nights featuring dozens of wrestling?s legendary heroes and villains.

The list of legends includes such names as Skandar Akbar, Tony Atlas, Tully Blanchard, The Hollywood Blonds (Jerry Brown and Buddy Roberts) and manager Sir Oliver Humperdink, Bob Caudle, ?Million Dollar Man? Ted DiBiase, Terry and Dory Funk, Jr., Rocky Johnson, Kamala, Sonny King, Nikita Koloff, Harley Race, Tommy Seigler, Dan Severn, Les Thatcher and Tommy Young.

VIP ?All Access? Pass holders will have early admission each day, first access to all autograph signings and photo opportunities, exclusive admission to question-and-answer sessions, and ringside seats to the live wrestling matches on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

For more information on Fanfest, e-mail NWALegends@aol.com.

Tags: NWA, Danny Hodge, Jim Ross, Mr. Wrestling II, Billy Robinson, Joe Blanchard, Greg Valentine, Mr. Wrestling, Tim Woods, WWE, Jerry Lawler, Jack Brisco, Lou Thesz, Jack Swagger, Jake Hager, Mae Young, Brisco Brothers, Bill Watts, Leroy McGuirk, Bob Sweetan,