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Wrestlers Had Strong Hold on Area Fans in the Early Days

Posted: Aug 5th 2007 By: CMBurnham

Salvatore Bellomo was a crowd favorite at wrestling shows in the area in the 1980s. Long before "road rage" became a buzz phrase, professional wrestling -- OK, sports entertainment -- was an affordable family affair. Even grandmothers like Ringside Rosie helped fill school gymnasiums, church halls and various other venues in the area.

And the price was right. Not the costs now denting your wallet or credit card for shows at Mellon Arena or your cable TV bill with a seemingly endless parade of pay-per-view presentations from the WWE and other professional wrestling -- oops, sports entertainment -- organizations.

High school gyms throughout the Mon Valley -- Charleroi Area, Belle Vernon Area, Monessen, Monongahela, Ringgold, California Area -- played host to the shows presented by such regional promoters as the late Ace Freeman. Hamer Hall on the campus of then California State College also played host to the mat shows.

One of the first live presentations in the area came in the early 1950s at the old Brownsville High School stadium. It was staged under the lights and featured Chief Don Eagle, a Mohawk Indian from the Klahnawake reserve in Quebec. His real name was Carl Donald Bell, but he gained popularity as Don Eagle because of his mohawk haircut -- remember Ernie "Fats" Holmes of the Pittsburgh Steelers? -- and the fact that he wrestled barefoot.
Eagle was one of the first stars of wrestling on TV and won the AWA world championship on May 23, 1950. Three days later, in a match televised in Chicago, he lost the belt to Gorgeous George (Wagner). Eagle, whose trademark move was a flying dropkick that led to a tight scissors hold on his opponent's mid- section, was only 41 when he died on March 17, 1966, of a gunshot wound to the head. According to the Slam! Wrestling Web site, the apparent suicide remains disputed today.

Local TV wrestling entered the mainstream of viewing in 1959 with the introduction of "Studio Wrestling" on WIIC-TV Channel 11, the forerunner of what is now known as WPXI-TV. Two excellent Web sites, www.members.aol and www.wikipedia.com, offer enjoyable and informative histories of Studio Wrestling in Pittsburgh. Another good source of wrestling history is www.1softball.com.

Staff newsman Mark Shaffer was the original host of the shows, which were presented live from the Channel 11 studios. He was succeeded by the legendary Bill "Chilly Billy" Cardille, who also made his mark as host of "Chiller Theater" on WIIC. American Heating Co. was the main sponsor of "Studio Wrestling," and Pie Traynor, the former Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman, was the firm's pitchman and did the commercials live. Remember Traynor proclaiming: "Who Can? Ameri-Can!"

Pittsburgh's own Bruno Sammartino led the weekly parade of stars on "Studio Wrestling." Such national performers as Gorilla Monsoon (Gino Marella), Reggie "Crusher" Lisowski, Cowboy Billy Watts, George "The Animal" Steele and Bobo Brazil (Houston Harris) also were featured. Among the local wrestlers sharing the spotlight, according to Wikipedia, were Jumping Johnny DeFazio, Hurricane Hunt, Tony "The Battman" Marino and Johnny Valiant. Local referees Izzie Moidel, Andy "Kid" DePaul and Bucky Palermo also had their own followings.

Lisowski, a burly brawler from Milwaukee, and Sammartino locked horns, not to mention full nelsons, back breakers and stepover toe-holds in a memorable match in early 1960 at the old Monongahela High School gymnasium. The action in the ring spilled over into the audience when the match ended. An elderly woman, obviously a Ringside Rosie wannabe, began chasing Lisowski in an unscripted part of the action in the stuffy venue. She wielded a large umbrella and hit Lisowski in the back several times before police and other officials came to her rescue.

Sammartino also headlined a benefit show at the Monessen High School gym in the early 1970s. That card also featured George "The Animal" Steele, who became involved in a pre-match hassle with ring announcer Frank Buscanics. Steele verbally expressed his displeasure with the introduction by Buscanics, moved to the center of the ring, lifted the affable announcer off his feet and carried him to the nearest corner.

Buscanics, a former basketball standout who was a big man physically, calmly placed his microphone on the mat, lifted Steele into the air, turned him around and plopped the villainous grappler into the turnbuckles. The crowd roared with delight, and Steele and Buscanics book a bow.

The Monessen High School Band Parents sponsored another show May 8, 1965, at the MHS gym.

The main event pitted Dr. Bill Miller against Irish Don McClarity. Other pre-WWE stars on the card were Cowboy Billy Watts and newcomer Mr. Kleen (not his real name), who, in a clever marketing move, was bald and wore an earring. A four-man midget tag-team match also was featured.

Pulling on the success of "Studio Wrestling", promoters began filling the Civic Arena with shows that usually had Sammartino in the main event. His opponents included, but were not limited to, such notables as Gorilla Monsoon, Walter "Killer" Kowalski, "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers (Herman Rohde), Hans Mortier and the Masked Destroyer. Others who wrestled at the Arena shows were Haystacks Calhoun, Bobo Brazil, Argentine Apollo, Chief White Owl and Dr. Bill Miller.

"Studio Wrestling" and WIIC-TV parted ways in 1972 and the wrestlers moved to Channel 53 (WPGH), broadcasting from Erie. Among the other local wrestlers who were on "Studio Wrestling" before its demise in 1974, were Dom Denucci, a rookie named Larry Zbysko, veteran Ace Freeman, Bobby "Hurricane" Hunt, Frank Holtz (the fighting cop from Carnegie), Chuck Martoni, The Red Demon (Joe Abby), the late Ron Matteucci (a graduate of Brownsville High School, where he was a football standout), Frank Durso, John L. Sullivan (who later became Johnny Valiant) and Ron Romano.

Denucci and DeFazio, a longtime United Steelworkers of America official and now a member of the Allegheny County Council, were one of the most popular tag teams, and Denucci also teamed with Angelo Mosca a number of times, while Freeman and DeFazio and Sammartino and The Battman were other crowd-pleasing duos. Among the tag teams drawing the ire of fans were George Steele and Baron Mikel Scicluna.

And those are just a few of the "Studio Wrestling" graduates.

The wrestlers' ring personas were in sharp contrast to what they presented when they weren't wearing tights and carrying the dreaded "foreign object."

That point was emphasized prior to a show at the Rostraver Gardens in the late 1970s. Killer Kowalski welcomed visitors to the dressing room before going out to terrorize one of the good guys. He was smoking a pipe and reading a book and reminded the young visitors that, "Reading is good for you ... a great way to learn."

Several years later, in a show at the Ringgold High School gym, the Iron Sheik (Hossein Vaziri), a sneering "anti-American" villain who entered the ring waving an Iranian flag, also greeted visitors in the dressing room after losing his match.

"Hey, guys," he smiled at a group of youngsters, "come on in and have a hot dog." The late Tony DiBuono of Carroll Township, an avid wrestling fan who had accompanied the kids, accepted a frankfurter, looked the Sheik in the eye and said, "Thanks, Sheik. You know, you're OK for a bad guy."

Baron Scicluna was among the featured performers at a April 25, 1981, show at Hamer Hall on the campus of then California State College. He wrestled Steve Travis that evening and, as obviously planned, was "cheating." A young boy kept running to the ring to remind the referee that, "He (Scicluna) has a foreign object in his pants. He's sticking it in his (Travis) eyes." The referee, frustrated after about five minutes of the taunting, turned to the kid and replied, "I know what's going on. Do you think I'm blind?"

Others in that evening's lineup at California were "Polish Power" Ivan Putski (Bednarski), who defeated Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, and Australian Tony Garea, who ground out a victory over Jesse "The Body" (and future governor of Minnesota) Ventura. Tickets for the show were sold at the Locker Room sporting goods stores in Charleroi and California, Dice's Sporting Goods and Nesser Sporting Goods in Uniontown, and the Henry Vulcan Insurance Agency in Brownsville.

WWF shows at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh came into their own in the 1980s. Typical of the cards was one on Dec. 10, 1982, that featured champion Bob Backlund against challenger Superstar Billy Graham in a main event of one fall or 60 minutes. This was a return match for the WWF title.

Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, billed as being frm the Fiji Islands, faced Ray "Crippler" Stevens, in a "special event," while a six-man tag team match pitted the Strongbow Brothers, Jay and Jules, and Ivan Putski against Mr. Fuji, Mr. Saito and Captain Lou Albano. Completing the card were Rocky Johnson against the lovable Swede Hanson, Curt "Mr. Perfect" Hennig against "Playboy" Buddy Rose, Scicluna against Salvatore Bellomo, Eddie Gilbert against Pete Sanchez and Tiger Mask defending his junior heavyweight championship against Charlie Fulton.

A little more than four months later, on April 15, 1983, a Civic Arena card's main event was a six-man tag team scuffle between Backlund, Snuka and Andre the Giant against the scoundrels Afa and Sika (the Wild Samoans) and "Big" John Studd, a Butler native whose real name was John William Minton.

Others displaying their talents were The Magnificent Muraco, Johnson, Graham, Pedro Morales, Bellomo, Mr. Fuji, Rocky Cole, Gilbert and Garea. A ladies tag team match showed world champion Fabulous Moolah (Lillian Ellison) pairing with Donna Christanello against Kandi Maloy and Penny Mitchell.

One of the most memorable incidents involving professional wrestlers in the area came on a hot August evening in the '70s at the Charleroi Area High School stadium. Haystacks Calhoun, a huge man whose real name was William Calhoun, was scheduled to be in the main event.

As noted by www.HistoryofWrestling.com, Calhoun, a native of McKinney, Texas, was billed as "weighing in at a colossal 601 pounds" but "in reality fluctuated between 450 and 500 pounds." The difference notwithstanding, Calhoun, who stood 6 feet-5 inches tall, was strong and didn't have an ounce of body-enhancing substances in his body.

Calhoun calmly waited in the stadium dressing room for his turn in the squared circle. When his time came, he knocked the door to the dressing room off its hinges, splintering it to pieces, much to the chagrin of school district officials -- not to mention Haystacks' fellow wrestlers who were in various stages of undress inside.