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Shelby City Park action once aired from Boston to LA

Posted: Apr 2nd 2009 By: CMBurnham

There's a clip on You Tube in which Ric Flair, one of the most acclaimed pro wrestlers of all time, is shown armed with a baseball bat and wearing a neckbrace. He sprints around the ring and swings wildly at his intended targets.

The crowd screams in approval. Police make sure none of the onlookers get too close to the action.

Moments later, the Charlotte native is interviewed on a nearby stage about his surprise return from injury and what he has in store for Bob Orton and Dick Slater - the men that put him in the neckbrace.

It was 1983. The site was the Shelby City Park gym. And the broadcast, as with all the other Jim Crockett Promotions wrestling shows taped at the gym, was shown on TV sets across the country.

This Sunday, more than 60,000 fans will pack the Reliant Astrodome in Houston, Texas, for WrestleMania 25, professional wrestling's equivalent to the Super Bowl. But long before the term "WrestleMania" was ever coined - before World Wrestling Entertainment became a mainstream media juggernaut - residents of Shelby filled the City Park gym every few weeks to witness their own scaled down WrestleMania.

There were no fireworks. No pyrotechnics. No million-dollar stage design. But the star power was the same.

Andre the Giant. Dusty Rhodes. Ric Flair. Roddy Piper. Charlie Holtzclaw saw them all.
Shown across the country

Holtzclaw, now the city parks director, was the assistant athletic director in the early 1980s when JCP, then the premiere wrestling promotion in the Carolinas, held TV tapings at the gym. Shelby mat action, involving some of the biggest names of the era, aired in syndication in markets across much of the country.

Shelby was a prime location for the tapings, Holtzclaw said, because it was close to the company's home base in Charlotte and it seated more than a typical high school gym.
In a time when many still did not have cable TV, local stations thrived on syndicated programming. And pro wrestling, which continues to have a devoted following in the Carolinas, was a favorite among local viewers.

"Unlike the national cable broadcasts that drive wrestling today, back then syndication was the key to selling tickets for the local shows," according to Dick Bourne, who operates The Mid-Atlantic Gateway Web site which details the history of JCP. "During the time Crockett was taping TV in Shelby, he was running shows seven days a week and twice on Sundays. Four to five days a week, they ran two shows each night in different towns."

Bourne said - at its peak - Shelby wrestling action aired coast to coast.

"The tapings started in 1983 when Crockett moved out of the tiny WPCQ TV studios in Charlotte," he said. "Starting around 1984, Crockett started syndicating into lots of markets outside their traditional territory. By 1986, they were all over the country, from Boston to Los Angeles. These markets all saw wrestling that was taped right there in Shelby."

Every few weeks - always on a Tuesday - fans would pile into the gym to see up close the stars that filled their TV screens. It became so popular, Holtzclaw said, that fans became conditioned to buy tickets for the following month's show before that night's action was over.

"It got so big and so popular, even (police) reserves would put on their uniforms so they could get in free and be part of the show," Holtzclaw said. "And the same with EMTs. We didn't have any problem with security, that's for sure."

?It was a sardine can'

Holtzclaw remembers one show in particular that featured the "Eighth Wonder of the World" Andre the Giant. Andre, who was billed at 7 feet 4 inches, was responsible for the biggest wrestling crowd ever at the gym.

"It was hot as the dickens," Holtzclaw said, remembering the July 4 show that drew thousands to a gym that didn't yet have air conditioning. "The ticket count was over 2,200 and it was a sardine can. That was probably the biggest crowd. With fire codes what they are now, we can't get 2,000 people anymore."

Andre wrestled the Masked Superstar that afternoon. And again later that evening. And a third time that night as the show made the holiday rounds in the area.

Helping with the events each month, Holtzclaw got to know many of the performers and even the Crockett family. Many, he said, drove in from their homes in Charlotte.

Injuries in the ring

One wrestler he got to know well was the late Wahoo McDaniel. McDaniel was a star player with the New York Jets during the 1960s and once made 23 tackles in a game against the Denver Broncos. It wasn't long thereafter that he become arguably the most successful Native American wrestler of all time.

One night after a show, Holtzclaw spotted McDaniel in front of the water fountain at the back lobby. A small mirror was positioned against the fountain as the native Oklahoman went to work stitching up his own forehead, closing a wound sustained during the show.

"Man, you are tough," Holtzclaw said.

"It beats paying $90 to go to the emergency room every time I do this," Wahoo replied.
The wound to Wahoo's head was nothing compared to an accident one night that sent a wrestler to the hospital. Holtzclaw said Don Kernodle, a native of the Charlotte area and once tag team partner of Sgt. Slaughter, was chasing his opponent around the ring when his arm flung around the steel hook holding up the turnbuckle pads. Before anyone knew it, Kernodle's arm was pouring blood.

"It gashed him all the way down to the bicep," Holtzclaw said of the hook. "Blood was all the way from the ring to the dressing room. They had to take him to the hospital. The match went on. They went ahead and kinda adlibed it."

And despite hefty security, there were occasional altercations between wrestlers and some of the more passionate fans. McDaniel once had to defend himself against an irate elderly man. For his trouble, the fan received a face full of McDaniel's title belt and was hauled away by police.

"He turned out to be OK," Holtzclaw said of the fan. "In those days, there were people that really got upset. Really, really upset. Crying, cussing, yelling. The majority of them would get into it but they knew there was a point they can't cross."

Historic night

One of the most historic shows held at the city park during the timeframe was on July 9, 1985.
Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, collectively known as the Rock-N-Roll Express, were making their JCP debut against the top team in the promotion - NWA Tag Team Champions Ivan Koloff and Krusher Khrushchev.

In the midst of the Cold War, the southern crowd was strongly behind the smaller Morton and Gibson but the Rock ?n Roll Express were overmatched by the larger opponents. Despite that, and in a shocking upset, they won the titles that night and would go on to become one of the most decorated tag teams in wrestling history. And it all began in Shelby.

Despite its success, the tapings at the city park lasted only a few years. JCP was sold to Ted Turner in 1988 and eventually renamed World Championship Wrestling. Shelby was passed over on the wrestling circuit in lieu of larger crowds in Charlotte and Asheville. In 2001, WCW went out of business after it was purchased by rival WWE.

Nature Boy returns

Smaller wrestling promotions have held shows at the gym since with varying success. Holtzclaw hopes a card headlined by Flair May 5 will help put Shelby back on the wrestling map.
Flair, who retired from the ring at last year's WrestleMania, recently walked away from a contract with WWE so that he could make more personal appearances and participate in wrestling cards like the one upcoming.

The show, under the banner of indy wrestling promotion Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, will feature Flair, Buff Bagwell, and others, and is a fundraiser for both the city park and Shelby Police Department.

It's been several years since wrestling has been held at the gym. Why Holtzclaw agreed to this one is easily answered.

It's because of the man who wore the neckbrace and swung wildly with the baseball bat so many years ago.

"Why this one?" he smiles. "Ric Flair."

Tags: Ric Flair, Dick Slater, WWE, Andre the Giant, Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, The Masked Superstar, Wahoo McDaniel, Sgt. Slaughter, Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Rock-N-Roll Express, NWA, Krusher Kruschev, WCW