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Oklafan Look At The Life And Times Of Gary Hart

Posted: Mar 18th 2008 By: CMBurnham

Professional wrestling lost another great manager Sunday when Gary Hart passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. He was 66 years old.

Hart, born Gary Williams, came from Chicago and began his career in 1963 not as a manager, but as a wrestler in the Wisconsin and Illinois areas. He was a skinny, bleach-blonde kid who sometimes went by the nickname "Gay" Gary Hart. Primarliy a tag team wrestler, Hart would eventually move down to Texas where he would gain his biggest fame. Hart formed a team with the Spoiler and the duo would go on to capture the NWA American Tag Team Titles on 3 occassions. Their first title run came on October 23, 1967, when they upended the team of Brute Bernard and Mike Paidousis. They held the titles a little over 3 months, dropping them to Fritz Von Erich & Billy Red Lyons. In the middle of June, 1968, Hart replaced Smasher Sloan, who had been unmasked as Spoiler 2 and then left the area, and again found himself in a championship team beside the Spoiler. This title reign only lasted about a month and again Fritz Von Erich, this time with Grizzly Smith, took the belts away. Fritz & Grizzly would hold them slightly less then 2 months. On September 10, 1968, Hart & Spoiler would take the belts for the 3rd and last time and this reign would be their longest, as it too Fritz over 3 months (and new tag team partner Dan Miller) to finally regain the titles on December 17, 1968.

Hart would spend some time down in Australia after losing the titles. He & Spoiler feuded with such stars as Mario Milano & Tex McKenzie. But his partnership with Spoiler hit the skids while in Australia and they actually had a match against each other, which Spoiler won. Hart was in Australia from March to May of 1969 and would return several times in the 1970s.

Upon returning to Texas, Hart made the switch from wrestling to managing and was responsible for revealing that Fritz Von Erich was actually Jack Adkisson. Hart was managing Karl Von Brauner at the time and feuding with Fritz. At one of the events, Hart told everyone that Von Erich would never beat Karl because he wasn't actually German.

By the mid 1970s, Hart had left Texas and moved on to work for Eddie Graham in Florida. While in Florida, Hart was responsible for helping turn Dusty Rhodes into one the most popular figures in the sport. Dusty had been a hated heel, teaming with Dick Murdoch as the Texas Outlaws. But at this time, he was managed by Hart and in 1974, a falling out occurred between them, leading Dusty to begin a long run as a much-beloved national wrestling figure "The American Dream". Hart also was involved in a near-fatal aeroplane crash in 1975. On February 20, Buddy Colt was piloting a Cesna 182 from Miami to Tampa with passengers Bobby Shane, Gary Hart and Austin Idol. There was some bad weather, so Colt was forced to land at the airport on the nearby Davis Island but missed the landing and the engine stalled. They ended up crashing nose-first into the water! Colt, Hart & Idol were all able to free themselves from the wreckage and swim to safety but Bobby Shane was not as lucky. He drowned and passed away at the age of 29. Idol was unable to swim so Hart had to drag him to safety.

Hart returned to Texas by 1979 and at this point his time in the business was to be put to its best use. Hart joined with Fritz Von Erich behind the scenes and became one of the creative geniuses behind the golden age of WCCW. Initially a heel manager upon his return, Hart would take on a mix of wrestling oddities such as Kamala, Bugsy McGraw, the Great Kabuki and others to continue his feud with Fritz Von Erich and his sons Kevin, David & Kerry, who had entered the sport by this point. But by the early 1980s, Hart had formed H & H Limited with Arman Hussein and was involved in an intense feud with Skandar Akbar and his forces of Devastation, Inc. For more than 2 years, Hart was in the public eye feuding with Akbar and behind the scenes, he was creating storylines such as the night Michael Hayes betrayed Kerry Von Erich in the steel cage match against Ric Flair, ingniting the feud between the Von Erichs and the Fabulous Freebirds. When Akbar left WCCW for MSW, Hart returned to being the top heel manager of the territory. He also continued to acquire many new and outrageous talents like the One Man Gang, Mark Lewin, Tim Brooks and others in his continuing war with the Von Erichs, which now included Mike and "cousin" Lance. In 1988, he entered a brief partnership with Phil Apolo and formed Nu-Age Management, which allowed Apolo to be ringside while Hart took care of other business behind the scenes. In truth, Hart was trying to do what he could to save WCCW, which had seen profits fall and crowds dwindle. Nothing Hart could suggest would save the ship and by 1988, Hart left WCCW.

He turned up in the NWA, leading the J-Tex Corporation, in 1989. There, Hart and his associates feuded with the 4 Horsemen and Hart was at ringside for one of the most famous matches involving the NWA World Title: the "I Quit" match between Ric Flair and Terry Funk broadcast on the Clash of the Champions. Hart's stay in the NWA lasted about a year.

Hart was one of the people responsible for trying to revive WCCW. He helped create World Class: the Next Generation in the early 1990s. But mostly, he spent the time getting his son Chad ready to wrestle. He also passed on some of the mental acuity to his nephew Court Bauer, who would be one of the creative minds behind the wrestling boom of the 1990s, working for Vince McMahon and helping orchestrate what many call "The Attitude Era".

In 2004, Hart made an unexpected return at the end of a Major League Wrestling event, but it didn't lead to any sort of run. It's his last documented wrestling appearance.

Hart has 2 documented wrestling appearances in Oklahoma. On September 1, 1982, Hart lost a match to Bugsy McGraw in Lawton. 5 years later, on May 6, 1987, he lost a special gimmick match to WCCW referee David Manning. Unfortunately, many wrestling records don't list appearances by managers, so while it is likely that he was present at other Oklahoma WCCW shows, there's no way of verifying that.

Hart is credited with discovering or working with much of the talent that got it's beginning in WCCW. He considered them all "his boys" and had pictures of all of them in his home, with 1 exception. Hart took the death of Gino Hernandez very personally. In one of the interviews for "The Triumph and Tragedy of World Class Wrestling", he is quoted as saying he should have been able to save Gino from the demons of drugs but couldn't. He said he can't even look at a picture of Gino without crying, then adding that he has several pictures of "his guys" from wrestling but just can't have a picture of Gino as it is too upsetting.

Hart had spent the weekend prior to his death at the WCCW Ringside Reunion, sponsored by K&S WrestleFest. There, along with fellow WCCW alumni Bill Irwin and Skandar Akbar, Hart once again got to relive and relate alot of the stories from the WCCW days. He was said to be looking very good after leaving that event and was quite humble about the whole thing, even expressing confusion as to why anyone would want to discuss his booking ability with him.

Oklafan extends its sympathies to family of Gary Hart for their loss.

Tags: Gary Hart, Spoiler, Fritz Von Erich, Grizzly Smith, Billy Red Lyons, Karl Von Brauner, Dusty Rhodes, Dick Murdoch, Kamala, Great Kabuki, Bugsy McGraw, Kevin Von Erich, David Von Erich, Kerry Von Erich, H & H Limited, Arman Hussein, Skandar Akbar, Deva