• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

The Hammer Will Fall in Fruitland Park

Posted: May 18th 2007 By: CMBurnham

Sometimes it's a given that sons will follow in their father's footsteps.

But Greg Valentine never imagined growing up that he would follow his father, "Handsome" Johnny Valentine, into the professional wrestling business.

Greg Valentine was attending college in Washington, and he thought life was going to take him down another career path.

Those plans changed after Greg Valentine accompanied his father on a five-month road trip in Texas in 1969.

"I just really got hooked," Valentine said. "My dad was such a good actor. If he hit somebody, you would hear it crack across the arena. His expressions and everything he did were so believable."

By the time that trip ended, Greg Valentine knew he wanted to become a professional wrestler.

Thirty-eight years later, Greg Valentine is still going strong.

The Hall of Fame wrestler will be in Lake County on Saturday as part of American Classic Pro Wrestling's Wrestlefest '07. Brutus Beefcake and former Extreme Championship Wrestling star Hack Meyers also will be on the card, which begins at 1 p.m. at the Northlake Fleamarket, 2527 U.S. Highway 441, Fruitland Park.

The card also will feature a hair vs. hair match between Punk Rock Q and Jack "The Bull" Mahoney.

Raymond Snow, Sgt. Hardcore, Simon Bone and other superstars will be in action.

But there's no denying that Valentine and Beefcake, who were former tag team champions in the World Wrestling Federation, are the headliners.

Valentine, who was inducted to the WWE's Hall of Fame in 2004, never imagined he would be so fortunate to last 38 years in the professional wrestling business. Now 53, Valentine continues to stay busy working with independent professional wrestling organizations. He recently did three shows in Minnesota and three in New Jersey.

Valentine also was part of a recent card with Hulk Hogan and The Big Show in Memphis that attracted a crowd of 8,000.

In his heyday, Valentine attracted crowds double, even triple, that size. First, though, he had to learn how to become a professional wrestler and develop a persona and a style that would make him equally appealing and reviled.

Valentine started his professional wrestling schooling with Stu Hart in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta. He said his first five years in the business included a lot of travel and not a lot of television exposure. At the time, professional wrestling had a strong, niche audience, but it wasn't widely available on TV.

It wasn't until the mid-70s when Valentine went to the Carolinas and teamed with "Nature Boy" Ric Flair that his career took off. In August 1976, Valentine was hired to replace his father, who broke his back in a plane crash in 1975 and was forced to retire, in the Mid-Atlantic promotion, an affiliate of the National Wrestling Alliance.

Based in North Carolina, Valentine, nicknamed "The Hammer", developed a signature move, an elbow drop off the top rope of the ring, and he used it to "retire" Johnny Weaver.

The next year, Valentine teamed with Flair to win the NWA World Tag Team titles twice and to win the Mid-Atlantic Tag Team championships.

From there, Valentine developed another signature move, a submission move called the Figure Four leglock, and feuded with some of the greats of the industry: Chief Wahoo McDaniel, Chief Jay Strongbow, Bob Backlund, Roddy Piper, Tito Santana, Don "The Rock" Muraco, and "Rugged" Ronnie Garvin.

Valentine said the first three years of his career were the toughest. Still, he never thought about giving up professional wrestling and getting a "real" job.

"I really loved it. I was making enough money to make ends meat and I was learning my craft, and getting paid to learn," Valentine said. "When I got my first big break in 1976, I went from making so money to making really good money. It stayed that way up until 1990."

Valentine admitted it was hard to stay on top of the business for that long. He said the key for him was his love and passion for the sport kept him motivated and helped him realize there was nothing else he wanted to do.

Valentine said his father, who died in April 2001, was a big inspiration and the reason he was so successful.

"He always told me things, and I think all of the things he told me stuck in my mind," Valentine said. "I also was always coming up with ideas to promote myself and to keep myself in the mix. On top of that, (my father) always said the cream always rises to the top."

Valentine said his work style and ability to sell the action were the biggest reasons he was able to remain so popular and so hated for so long. He said it was common to wrestle an opponents four or five times in a row in the same city over the course of several months. He said he had equally long feuds with Santana, Strongbow, Piper, Flair and Backlund in various promotions.

Valentine and Beefcake also paired as a tag team and feuded with the British Bulldogs.

"All we did was wrestle for belts," Valentine said. "It was good against evil, and it worked. It would work today, but they don't have faith in what they're doing, I guess."

Valentine said his hard-nosed approach helped him sustain the "heat," or appeal for so long. He said many of the top wrestlers of his generation generated used the same mind-set to develop their characters.

Since Valentine's heyday, professional wrestling exploded in popularity in the 1990s. It remains to be seen whether it is as popular today. The WWE and its sister organization, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling have weekly programs on cable television, but those are the remaining big-time national promotions.

That doesn't mean Valentine plans to hang up his boots anytime soon. He said he will stay active as long as he is healthy, and that he is extremely proud of his father's legacy and the work that he has done in the business.

Valentine never would have imagined that he would become a professional wrestler and then outlast his father's years of service (his father wrestled from the late 1940s to 1975). But anyone who has watched Greg "The Hammer" Valentine wrestle knows he has left an important example for the wrestlers who follow him.

"(The fans) had to know I loved the sport, and I am still in it after 35 years," Valentine said. "My dad's footsteps were big footsteps to follow, believe me. When I watch the old tapes of my dad and myself, I can't believe the resemblance. Still I have my own style. I think the legacy of Greg "The Hammer" Valentine will be that I was a hard-nosed, in-your-face type of hard-nosed wrestler who never pulled his punches and made no bones about anything he did. I worked hard and loved the business."