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Missy's Manor: Eddie Gilbert

Posted: Feb 22nd 2010 By: CMBurnham

There are many wrestling deaths that wrestling fans and industry workers had mourned over the years. Each death affects us in a certain way based on the untimely manor, relationship to the decease, or just by being a fan of their work as a co worker or wrestling fan.

I always try to reflect upon the sacrifices that the person made in order to provide entertainment to anybody who took the time to watch a wrestling television show or invested their time and money to watch them live. This is not an article about the dark side of wrestling. Instead I want to praise a person that made many contributions to the wrestling business that has started to be forgotten by a rapidly changing wrestling business and younger demographic that was not around the territorial days of wrestling.

I always gauged a decent booker based upon their long term direction in creating match ups, story lines, and how to maximize or discover the strengths of their talent. I always based a successful creative writer to be one that had success in creating compelling TV, increase in ticket sales, and elevated talent. Not based on a person that might have been a success in creative at one point in their career & has been living off their possible contributions for an entire career.

Eddie Gilbert was one of the most passionate bookers in his many booking stints that ranged from UWF-Mid South, Continental, WCW, Global, ECW, and WWC. He was also an amazing performer as a personality, promo, and wrestler.

It took me over twenty years, but I recently watched Continental wrestling from the time that Eddie Gilbert took the book in 1988. The territory was in shambles. Crowds were down. Morale was awful for the wrestlers. Eddie worked very diligently in creating a television product that would gradually increase fan interest. Instead of hot shotting his television programs by having a million turns, giving away marquee matches for free, or just rehashing the same talent. Eddie instead created fresh feuds that would spark enough interest to start enticing a disenchanted wrestling audience to gradually return to attending wrestling shows in the South Eastern towns.

Eddie would split up long time tag team partners in Ken Wayne & Danny Davis by using jealousy over the junior title to cause dissention. Evidentially they would split up after subtle glances by Ken Wayne & Wayne wanting the tag team title at any costs. Once they finally got to the split, they were having brawls that sparked the emotion of the audience that watched this feud slowly unravel before their eyes over several weeks.

Eddie was also very influential in giving Paul Heyman the opportunity to assist him on the creative end in formatting a wrestling program and mapping out long term direction in the creative end. Whatever lessons that Paul Heyman would learn under Eddie would be influential later on in life for Paul in his leadership of ECW. As a wrestling duo, Eddie & Heyman were major heat seekers. They took Pez Whately who was a solid journey man performer and elevated him to main event status based upon the angle in which they assaulted his thirteen year old son. The angle triggered genuine heat.

Paul Heyman & Eddie would gain major heat when they beat up John Gillam in the fan out of the crowd challenge. Plus their attack on Austin Idol in which they cut part of his hair was a hot angle. The heat that Heyman & Eddie generated in Continental would elevate almost any foe to a main event match from a journey man in Pez Whately, a long time local wrestler in Mr. Olympia, or main eventers in Austin Idol & Jerry Lawler.

Eddie had a major knack on triggering heat in almost every territory that he worked in. I remember last year that Michigan indy wrestler in Super Keys had made me a compilation of Eddie Gilbert's work in WWC during 1994. Eddie was partly instrumental in popping the crowds with his heel antics and the help of the booking mind of Dutch Mantel during that time period. A simple fire ball to the face of popular babyface Hurricane Castillo would build up a major feud between both of them. Instead of throwing a fire ball and forgetting about it, the angle would be replayed over several weeks.

The tease of Eddie using fire and music videos of Eddie burning other wrestlers would help allow this match to be a major drawing card for the Aniversario '94 show. This would lead to a fire match as the blow off to the feud. Compare that formula to the crash & burn instances in which fire, light bulb tubes, thumb tacks, etc are used & lead to nothing by many wrestling promotions. The hardcore aspects of wrestling can be effective in moderation by selling it for more then a minute.

I can go on and on about the greatness of Jerry Lawler in Memphis. I was always amazed on how Eddie & Jerry Lawler had a knack for bringing the best out of each other on the microphone and in the ring. They could draw fans in to their matches in areas outside of the Memphis territory. Their match ups would entertain fans in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, and for any promotion that would match them up. It was no secret that Jerry Lawler was a major influential figure in who Eddie would emulate his promo skills from his days as a wrestling fan.

One of my favorite Eddie Gilbert promos was when he did "This Is Your Life Jerry Lawler". Eddie would bring in various wrestlers and voices to air their grievances about Jerry Lawler. Eddie would come across as the ultimate smart ass in this angle.

I still think the angle in which Eddie ran over Jerry Lawler was the greatest. Granted the angle was not a hit at the box office. It did demonstrate how far Eddie & Jerry would go to create a compelling feud against each other that would span over several years. Keep in mind that the bump that Jerry Lawler would take would not require any stunt double, special effects, trick camera work, or multiple retakes. The entire angle from the mic work to the car bump was all done live on one take. No editing magic was needed at all. To show how wrestling has changed, some of the television audience that witnessed the angle live on TV would actually call up 911 to report Eddie for vehicular assault on Jerry Lawler.

Another Eddie/Lawler classic occurred in 1988. Eddie would burn Jerry Jarrett, Eddie Marlin, & Jerry Lawler over the span of a couple of weeks. Eddie would gloat about burning all of the legends in the CWA. Eddie & myself would take over the CWA Show by harassing Lance Russell for weeks. Poor Lance Russell would have to deal with me annoying him with my announcing and even ruining the weekly trivia contest that resulted in Lance legitimately blowing a gasket at myself.

This would eventually lead to Eddie threatening to burn Lance. Keep in mind that Lance very rarely ever gets physically involved or threatened as an announcer. This would lead to Jerry making a surprise return to attack Eddie in a brawl that started in the studio and went in to the WMC parking lot. This brawl would have Eddie slam Jerry on to a car wind shield and break it.

One of Eddie?s personal favorite angles was the one in which he and the Russians attacked Bill Watts and layed him out with the Russian flag. I remember watching that episode a week before I started up in UWF and was amazed on the amount of heat that it generated from the crowd. I remember thinking this territory was red hot and it was quite a contrast from World Class that I had previously worked for. When I talk with old school wrestlers that watched the UWF, they all vividly remember this angle. The promo work of Eddie & Bill Watts, the beat down, & the heat it generated was a recipe for ticket sales.

Mick Foley and Eddie Gilbert laid the foundation for the hardcore wrestling scene in New Jersey and Philadelphia based on their matches from 1990-1991 for TWA & the late Dennis Coraluzzo. They brought old school Memphis style brawls, stipulation matches, and amazing match quality at the time that helped pave the road from TWA to its successor in ECW. It didn?t matter if the matches were falls count anywhere, stretcher matches, cage matches, etc. Almost all of the matches received unanimous praise from the hardcore fans at the time. Foley would take a bump off of a cage, a glass bottle to be broken off his head, and his hip busting elbow drop on his road to cementing his hardcore legacy in his battles against Eddie.

I strongly encourage any old school wrestling fans or anybody who wants more information or stories about Eddie Gilbert to check out www.eddiegilbert.com

Tags: Missy Hyatt, Eddie Gilbert, UWF, MSW, WCW, ECW, Ken Wayne, Mr. Olympia, Jerry Lawler, Dutch Mantel, Bill Watts, WCCW, Mick Foley