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Before bowl games, this was wrestling season across Florida

Posted: Jan 4th 2016 By: TBO.com

For college football fans, when December blends into January, it?s time for gathering over seasonal refreshments to share emotions and memories.

In other words, it?s bowl season.

But from the 1950s through the 1980s, before Orlando added yet a third bowl game and before the number of post-season contests nationwide topped three dozen, December in Tampa and other cities also heralded the season of professional wrestling holiday cards.

The industry?s biggest stars would battle one another at sold-out arenas on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, New Year?s Eve and New Year?s Day.

?It was family fun and a family affair,? said 69-year-old Gerald Brisco of Tampa, a member of the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame. ?Holidays are a time when people sit around their houses a lot. Wrestling provided a way to blow off steam at night when their family event ended.?

Brisco recalled seeing some families bringing their holiday dinners into the arena.

?I?d look out and fans would be passing the giblets,? he said with a laugh, adding, ?whether I wrestled in Florida, Greensboro, or New Orleans, on a holiday we set attendance records.?

The last major holiday wrestling card held in Tampa was Christmas Day 1986, according to Barry Rose, an archivist of Florida professional wrestling history.

That?s the same year Tampa began hosting The Outback Bowl.

It is not a coincidence that holiday wrestling ended in Tampa as a bowl game arrived, said 56-year-old Brian Blair, a childhood fan of the city?s professional wrestling scene and renowned grappler in his own right before turning his attention to Hillsborough County politics.

?Wrestling and football share fans. You add a new event and attendance at old ones get watered down,? Blair said. ?It?s the same with television. As the number of bowl games people could watch on TV increased, the number of people who would attend wrestling shows on a holiday decreased, especially on New Year?s Day, when I think a lot of people prefer to watch a big game at home on TV than go out.?

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In the 1950s, as holiday wrestling cards achieved status as an annual tradition in Florida, there were eight college bowl games. In 1980, there were 15, and by 1990, there were 19. This season?s bowl games total more than 40 between Dec. 19 and Jan. 11. All but a few are televised.

?Back then there weren?t over 40 bowl games and only a few cities actually hosted one,? said Brisco. ?But most major cities did have wrestling.?

Professional wrestling was different then. The big name today, WWE, did not dominate the landscape. Instead, each area of the country had its own local promotions and champions.

In Florida, the top promotion was the Tampa-based Florida Championship Wrestling, or FCW.

Among the local FCW matches was New Year?s Eve 1975 when Rocky ?Soulman? Johnson defended his Florida state championship against Frank Goodish at the Tampa Sportatorium.

Goodish would later become global star ?Bruiser Brody,? but he was still relatively unknown in Tampa at that time. Johnson, on the other hand, enjoyed celebratory status in Tampa and seemed unbeatable during an era when wrestling still operated under the guise of legitimate competition.

So when Goodish prevailed, the crowd was shocked and raved about it, in the way college football fans would marvel at a major upset in a national championship game. And that?s just how local newspapers covered the outcome.

Then there was Christmas Day 1982. St. Petersburg?s Bayfront Center hosted a main-event match between Dusty Rhodes and Kevin Sullivan. As part of the script, Jake ?The Snake? Roberts had been banned from the building so he couldn?t help Sullivan.

But disguised in a Santa Clause costume, Roberts ?snuck? into the arena mid-match, slipped Sullivan some brass knuckles ,and escaped before the crowd could confront him.

Roberts once told the Tribune that the following morning, newspapers reported a number of Santas were beaten up in the streets by fans looking for him.

?I?d say the Rhodes- Sullivan-Jake Roberts holiday angle was the most iconic ever,? historian Rose said.

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Tampa didn?t host a wrestling card every year at Christmas and New Year?s. The shows rotated among Florida cities, but Tampa would usually host matches on at least one of the four big days.

Just as college football fans will travel to see their team play in a bowl game, Tampa?s professional wrestling fans would make a day trip to Orlando, Jacksonville or Miami on a holiday to see their favorite grapplers.

And just as college football bowl games match high powered teams, the holiday wrestling cards featured top stars.

FCW often employed top talent, said historian Rose. But come the holiday season, shows were stacked.

Cities throughout the country also hosted wrestling cards during the holidays, but the industry?s most renowned stars jockeyed for a match in Florida so they could vacation in the Sunshine State while earning a few dollars in the process.

Rose?s archives of cards held in Florida read like a who?s who of the industry over those years.

Ray Stevens and Eddie Graham were the headliners in the 1950s.

Wahoo McDaniel, Boris Malenko, Bob Roop, Jos? Lothario and Hiro Matsuda filled out cards in the 1960s.

The 1970s featured the likes of Dusty Rhodes, ?Superstar? Billy Graham, Dick Slater, Bob Orton Jr. and Sr., Haystacks Calhoun, Ox Baker and Pedro Morales.

And in the 1980s, fans could see Lex Luger, Michael Hayes, Jim Neidhart, H?ctor Guerrero, Barry Windham, Mike Graham and the Fabulous Ones tag team.

?You?ll notice the big names were always in Florida during the heaviest winter weeks, which were also the holiday season,? said Rose, 52, who grew up as a wrestling fan in Miami and now lives in Philadelphia.

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One example of the Sunshine State?s appeal: Bruno Sammartino ? then champion of the World Wide Wrestling Federation, popular in the northeast and the predecessor of WWE ? defeated Duke Keomuka at the Miami Beach Convention Hall on Christmas Eve 1964.

It was Sammartino?s only appearance in Florida during that holiday season and one of his few ever in the state.

?The big names wouldn?t have storylines or feuds,? Rose said. ?They?d wrestle one match or four or five at the most against other big names and then return to their home territory. The Florida fans loved the treat.?

For that reason, Santa Claus would often slip tickets to a wrestling show New Year?s Eve or Day under the Christmas tree. And because the kids were on winter break, staying out late on a weeknight to watch the matches was acceptable.

?We used to get such big crowds on holiday shows that we?d run double shots,? hall of famer Brisco said. ?We?d do one city in the afternoon and another in the evening.?

The crowds diminished as the 1980s began.

The growth in bowl games was one reason, but there were others.

FCW folded in 1987, in part because it was unable to compete with WWE as the growing enterprise went global and landed the top stars. The same happened to territorial promotions throughout the country.

But if a holiday show in December was likely to turn a profit, former grappler Blair said, WWE chairman Vince McMahon would promote one or more of them, somewhere, each year.

?Vince calculates everything and a lot of research goes into every decision he makes,? Blair said. ?If there was an opportunity to make money with annual Christmas or New Year?s shows he would capitalize on it.?