Won'cha Miss Billy Red?
Posted: Jul 9th 2009 By: CMBurnham
Meeting William Snip in his later days, you'd never have guessed what it was that had made him famous once upon a time.
But for the grizzly bear-sized paws that passed for hands, everything else about him had been downsized. His once muscular body that had thrown men around like they were filled with helium, had been whittled down by a couple heart attacks, a couple strokes and a few bouts of cancer. His movement that'd been so effortless as a young man now required a cane and the odd arm of a friend. Even his legendary voice had been reduced by a decibel or two.
But right up until the day he died at age 77 on June 22, as a result of the cancer that'd spread through his bones, nobody and no act of nature could take away the personality that made him a legend.
Or the four words that made him a household name to a generation of pro wrestling fans.
When WWF fans heard the announcer say: "Don'tcha dare miss it," they knew Billy Red Lyons was on the air.
"Even if they don't remember him wrestling or commentating, they'd know him for that," says his son, Scott.
The irony of it is that the Dundas native would be remembered for something so innocuous after putting his body through hell to make a living for years and years.
He'd been a young man when he'd began making a living in the wrestling world. In a black and white world, the guy who earned his nickname for the shock of red hair that capped his muscular, 240-pound body, started working his way across North America, always chasing a better deal.
His son, now 50, remembers constantly being on the move as a kid. From a small town in upstate New York, to small-town Texas, to Oklahoma, on to California, back to Texas, up to a few towns in New York and onto Minnesota. At least, those are the stops he can recall. There might've been more, he's not really sure.
"Someone would offer him more money and we'd move there," Scott says. "We never really stayed more than a year or two in any one place."
Those were the days when different wrestling promoters staked claims to different corners of the continent, and respected each other's, territories. But pushing into the 1980s, things began to change a bit as the WWF - now the WWE - began growing.
While Billy Red was working the airwaves for that company - as well as Maple Leaf wrestling - with his famous catchphrase, the industry was on the verge of exploding in unprecedented popularity. And as it did, it dragged him along for the ride. Suddenly, the retired wrestler was more popular and more famous than he ever had been as an active one.
But a stroke in 1996 basically put an end to the broadcasting career. The days after had more than their fair share of health woes. A few years ago he left the house he and his wife Norma lived in for years and moved to the Kitchener area.
Though he kept in touch with many local wrestling buddies and made an annual pilgrimage to the wrestling hall of fame induction, he faded from public view.
Which was somehow appropriate for him. Great as he was at promoting the shows, he was a lousy self-promoter. He just never saw himself or his work as that big a deal. Which may explain why he kept barely anything from his career, save for maybe a pair of wrestling boots, a pair of trunks and a scrapbook or two.
And his famous saying?
"He never went out of his way to cash in on it," Scott says. "Maybe he should've."
Snip is survived by Norma, three children, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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