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

Hard work key to farm boy?s wrestling success

Posted: May 30th 2016 By: Randy Richmond

Frank Luhovy, who wrestled professionally for decades as Cowboy Frankie Lane, made the most of his average physique, a longtime friend says.

?He wrestled a lot of big names in Detroit. I wouldn?t say he was very muscular, but we won a lot of championships,? said Terry Dart of London, who also was Luhovy?s photographer and sidekick.

Luhovy, 73, died May 24 in Petrolia. He had multiple sclerosis.

Born April 16, 1943, and growing up on a farm in Alvinston, west of London, Luhovy saw wrestling as an opportunity to get away.

?I was working in Windsor for the Ford Motor Co., and they had a school in Detroit for pro wrestling,? Luhovy recalled in 2001. ?I attended the school there, and got the experience enough to start doing TV wrestling and stuff like that. When I had enough experience, I quit my job in ?68.?

Luhovy headed for Leroy McGuirk?s wrestling promotion company in Oklahoma.

?Leroy McGuirk was, of course, blind, but he had a good perceptive image of each individual person just by the way you sound,? Lane said. ?I told him where I wrestled and all that. I said, ?I?d like to wrestle as a cowboy.? He said, ?Got yourself a vest and a cowboy hat?? I said, ?Nope, but I can get them.? He says, ?OK, if you want, you can wrestle as a cowboy.? It was that easy.?

Wearing the outfit, ?Cowboy Frankie Lane? ? named after the popular singer, who spelled it Laine ? hit just about every territory except, ironically, Texas.

?He was a nice guy,? Dart said.

The two worked together in the 1980s, when Luhovy was wrestling and promoting London shows for Grand Prix Wrestling, Dart said.

Dart promoted wrestling, took photos and became well known as a front-row instigator, egging on wrestlers with insults.

Sometimes, Luhovy didn?t take too well to the insults and once invited Dart into the ring. When Dart refused, Luhovy fought him anyway.

Dart can remember the night Luhovy showed up as an alien to a match he was promoting.

?He wore a mask that looked like a loaf of pumpernickel bread.?

When the bout was over, Luhovy came back as himself, saving the cost of hiring two separate wrestlers.

Luhovy worked constantly in the ring, sometimes the heel and sometimes the hero, and sometimes for television in later years as a jobber, the predetermined loser for bigger or upcoming names.

?Cowboy Frankie Lane has become one of the most respected and idolized names in the sport of professional wrestling,? reads a 1984 program. ?Frankie Lane is one of the most dynamic wrestlers in the world. The admiration he receives is justly deserved.?