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‘Pistol Pez’ Whatley was gifted grappler, skilled showman

Posted: Apr 26th 2021 By: Mike Mooneyham - PostAndCourier.com

EDITOR’S NOTE: With pro wrestling/sports entertainment anxiously awaiting a green light to reconnect with live audiences at venues across the country, it’s an ideal time to take a look back at some of the greats of yesteryear who helped paved the way for those who followed.

“Pistol Pez” Whatley really never cared much about what side of the ring he was on. As long as he was entertaining the fans who paid to see him perform, he was good to go.

“I liked being a hero, making people like me, but I liked making people cheer against me too,” Whatley once said.

The Tennessee native’s legacy lives on 16 years after his passing in 2005 at the tender age of 54. One of the South’s most entertaining wrestling characters, Whatley died due to kidney failure in a hospital in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tenn., where he had been a high school and collegiate wrestling star.

Pezavan Whatley’s career had taken him far behind the confines of Tennessee, and around the world to venues in Japan, Australia, Mexico, England, Germany, Africa, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Caribbean. But it was in the old Southern territories where he made his biggest mark. Whether working as fan favorite “Pistol Pez” Whatley or as cocky alter ego “Shaska” Whatley, the Tennessee native left a lasting impression on the wrestling audience.

Recognized for his contributions to the world of wrestling, Whatley was posthumously inducted into the Legacy Wing of the WWE Hall of Fame earlier this month.

Colorful career

Whatley came by his pro credentials honestly. He held the distinction of being the first Black prep athlete in Tennessee to win a state wrestling championship, first in 1967 and again in 1969, at Chattanooga’s Notre Dame High where he was a standout running back on the football team. He also was the first Black wrestler at UT-Chattanooga, where he was a teammate of George Weingeroff, son of legendary Tennessee manager Saul Weingeroff and a future pro himself.

The 5-10, 245-pound Whatley made his rounds through just about every major outfit in the country and held a number of titles along the way. He broke in working Tennessee independents in the early 1970s for promoters Phil Golden, Nick Gulas and Angelo Poffo. He teamed with Ray Candy as The Soul Patrol to win the Mid-America tag-team title in 1977. Wearing a gaudy wig and teaming with Rip Rogers as The Convertible Blonds, Whatley held one half of the ICW U.S. tag-team title in 1982. He held the NWA Southern title in Florida on several occasions during 1984 and defeated Rick Rude for the Florida version of the NWA Southern crown in 1985.

Whatley teamed with Tiger Conway Jr. as The Jive Tones during the late ’80s for Bill Watts’ United Wrestling Federation and later for Crockett Promotions where he and Conway took part in a well-received mid-card program with The Lightning Express (Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner).

Whatley’s work as Willie B. Hert in the Continental territory during the late ’80s earned him main-event status with the ascension of Eddie Gilbert as that promotion’s booker. An angle in which Gilbert and Paul E. Dangerously (Paul Heyman) attacked Whatley’s real-life teenage son turned him into one of the territory’s biggest babyfaces.

“Pez was a pistol,” said the late grappler Burrhead Jones (Melvin Nelson), who teamed with Whatley in Continental. “Eddie Gilbert put us together to help draw a larger Black audience in Montgomery, and sure enough we did.”

Whatley spent most of the ’90s working behind the scenes for Ted Turner’s now-defunct World Championship Wrestling. He served as an instructor at the company’s Power Plant where he helped train a number of performers, in addition to occasional stints as a road agent and overseeing the ring crew for house shows.

Jody Hamilton, one of pro wrestling’s greatest masked stars as one half of The Assassins and later director of WCW’s Power Plant, had nothing but praise for Whatley.

“He was very good-natured and affable and a good instructor in the ring. I have nothing but good things to say about him. He was just a nice, honest guy. To me, that’s a very redeeming trait in life. In the wrestling business you meet so many people who aren’t standup, and Pez was a standup guy.”

Classic angle

It was as an active performer, though, that Whatley carved his niche in the business. He enjoyed his greatest success throughout the South – in the Carolinas and Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky territories.

Whatley was involved in a number of classic angles during the ’80s. Perhaps none was more memorable than the one in which Whatley turned heel on partner Jimmy Valiant. The two had been born only 75 miles apart – Whatley in Chattanooga and Valiant in nearby Tullahoma, Tenn. Their ensuing program, however, would cover the entire Mid-Atlantic territory and have fans talking about it for years to come.

The brilliantly executed split came when the charismatic Valiant referred to Whatley as the best Black athlete in wrestling. Infuriated by the remark’s racial implication, Whatley attacked the Boogie Woogie Man, using a pair of scissors to cut his long pony-tail.

Whatley subsequently changed his name to “Shaska,” joined the hated “army” of former fan favorite “No. 1” Paul Jones and embarked on a moneymaking feud with Valiant that culminated with Whatley losing his hair to Valiant during the Great American Bash Tour on July 5, 1986, in Charlotte. Jones exacted revenge three weeks later by defeating Valiant in another hair vs. hair match at the Greensboro Coliseum.

Outside the ring, though, the two were anything but enemies.

“I liked him right off the bat,” Valiant would later say. “Pez was always laughing. He was a real sweetheart.” Valiant had been one of Whatley’s first opponents years earlier when the rookie turned pro in the Nashville territory.

“Pez was an old-time trooper,” said Valiant. “He was old school all the way. He was a real shooter as well as a great worker.”

Like the late well-respected journeyman Brad Armstrong, noted Hamilton, Whatley always seemed on the verge of breaking through to that elusive next level, only to be lost in the shuffle of a new power structure or circumstances beyond his control.

“He was a hell of a talker and a hell of an interview,” said Hamilton. “His work was good in the ring, and he was excellent on the microphone. Had he gotten the proper break, he could have been very big.”

Declining health

Whatley, who continued to work independents in the 1990s while doing enhancement matches for both WCW and the WWE, had experienced declining health in later years. He was working with the WCW ring crew when he first took ill.

“Pez hadn’t worked for WCW for six months prior to the company going out of business (in 2001),” said Hamilton, who had gotten Whatley an even higher-paying job as head of one of his ring crews after the Power Plant moved. “He got very sick that last time coming off of the road, and I told him he needed to go to the doctor.”

Whatley was treated for bronchitis, but the doctors also found that his high blood pressure was a result of an enlarged heart that would eventually stop pumping. He was diagnosed with a congenital heart disease and was taken off the road permanently.

Whatley had experienced several prior brushes with death from heart-related problems. He suffered a massive heart attack in 2003 along with subsequent kidney problems that led to a lengthy hospitalization. His kidney failure was exacerbated by the fact that he had hypertension and diabetes that he had been unaware of.

Languishing on kidney and heart transplant lists, Whatley was pronounced dead on two occasions while awaiting a transplant that never materialized. But experimental medicine designed to rebuild muscle around the heart apparently had taken effect, said Hamilton, who had last talked to Whatley a couple of months before his passing. Whatley told him that his heart muscles had strengthened sufficiently enough to keep from having a transplant.

“He called me and sounded great. He said he was blessed and so fortunate. He said the new medicine was working and that he was getting better. That’s the last time I talked to him.”

Despite his medical problems, Whatley had continued to support longtime friend Rocky King and even helped him promote some shows and charity events.

“They were always inseparable,” recalled Valiant. “If you saw one, you saw both. They traveled together for many years. Rocky, God bless him, worked underneath (on the wrestling shows) and Pez was usually on top, but they were always together.”

Valiant had last seen his old friend three years earlier at an independent show in North Carolina where they were reprising their classic angle.

“We’ll really miss Pez. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for him,” said Valiant.

‘The real deal’

Whatley left behind four children. Hamilton noted that his family had remained close-knit through some very difficult times.

“I really have to take my hat off to his family,” he said. “They all pooled their money together and put all the kids through college. They later pooled their money and helped Pez with his medical bills.”

The once-muscular 240-pounder had lost considerable weight and moved noticeably slower than during his wrestling days, but he was happy to be alive and hosting a weekly television show in Chattanooga promoting amateur wrestling.

“It’s a miracle I’m here,” Whatley told the Chattanooga Times Free Press shortly before his passing. “I’m walking, talking proof there is a God.”

“He was always an impact, a positive impact,” said Baylor School wrestling coach Jim Morgan, who coached Whatley at UTC. “When he came to us from Notre Dame, he made an impact because of his ability and his spirit. He was the glue of the team. Most recently he was making an impact with his promotion of high school wrestling. He was a heavyweight in every way. He was a winner.”

“Pez was a good guy and will be missed by a lot of people,” added Hamilton. “He was genuine. He was the real deal. He was not only a man, but he was a gentleman. The world is a sadder place without him.”