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Morton To Wrestle In LaFollette

Posted: Dec 15th 2017 By: Robby O'Daniel

A 2017 WWE Hall of Fame inductee and a man considered one of the best tag-team wrestlers of all time will compete this Saturday at the Southern Pride Championship Wrestling Sportatorium in LaFollette.

Ricky Morton, one-half of the legendary Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, will challenge for the SPCW heavyweight title on Saturday.

“I’ve been wrestling for 45 years,” Morton said. “I started wrestling when I was 16 years old. I’m 61 years old.”

Born originally in Nashville, Morton now lives in Bristol. “Up by the race track,” he said.

He was inspired to go into the business by his father, who was a wrestler-turned-referee.

“My dad was a bald-headed referee at that time when I was first breaking in the business,” Morton said.

He and his tag-team partner, Robert Gibson, were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame during “WrestleMania” weekend this past April in Orlando.

“It was a dream come true, especially after not being there for a couple of decades and then remembering us and bringing us back,” Morton said. “It was actually one of the best times of my whole life.”

The duo became famous throughout the Southeast, including in Jerry Jarrett’s Memphis territory, Mid-South Wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions out of the Carolinas and later, Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling in the early ‘90s.

Dave Meltzer, editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and the foremost wrestling journalist in the industry, remembers seeing Morton in the early ‘80s with his work in the Memphis territory, and Meltzer could see Morton’s talent.

“I could tell right away, and even if I couldn’t, Terry Funk was a friend of mine and Terry Funk loved Ricky Morton as a wrestler,” Meltzer said. “He told me … a year before the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express that Ricky Morton was going to be a superstar in wrestling because he sells just so incredibly well and the way he can engage people.”

With the mechanics of a tag team match, the heel (or “bad guy”) team will often get the advantage in the match by cutting off the ring and double-teaming a member of the babyface (or “good guy”) team. It’s up to the wrestler getting pummeled in that situation to “sell” the beating he is receiving — or make it appear real through theatrics.

“Watching Ricky, he was always in that moment of despair,” SPCW trainer Shawn Shultz said. “He was always seconds away from losing, but he would never give up. He would never stay down. You always knew he had a little extra in him, but you were always afraid it was over.”

Often Morton was that babyface-in-peril wrestler, looking to make the tag to Gibson as a team like the Midnight Express was beating on him.

“His ability to sell and engage fans when he was selling was some of the best I’ve ever seen,” Meltzer said. “It’s hard to say, give like specifics, as much as he had really exciting matches all the time with a wide variety of opponents.”

Ric Flair wrestled basically every major wrestling star during his career, so Meltzer saying this meant something: “He was one of the best opponents that Ric Flair ever had in my opinion. They used to just tear it up. … People think of the [Barry] Windham and the [Ricky] Steamboat matches, and Ricky Morton’s matches with Ric Flair were right there with them.”

Shultz, 35, said he knows Morton quite well.

“I started wrestling in 2000, and I met him very shortly after,” Shultz said. “I was trained by Tracy Smothers, who was another WWE, WCW, NWA legend.”

Shultz’s description of Morton: “One of the most giving, kind-hearted humble guys you’ll ever meet in your entire life.”

Fighting for the title

Morton is eager for the match Saturday.

“I’m looking really forward to coming back. It’s been a long time,” Morton said. “… I can still fly, just my landing gear’s a little wore off, but I will still get down Charlie Brown. That’s what I do. The guy that I’m facing, you’re facing 46 years of experience, and it ain’t what you do; it’s how you do it.”

His opponent this Saturday is SPCW heavyweight champion JDL.

“It’s pretty interesting,” said JDL, Jonathan LuAllen. “I wrestled with Ricky a long time ago. Never gotten in the ring with him to face him but he’s really talented. Even now, he can still do a lot more than a lot of these guys out here. I’ve got in the ring with guys like him, Rick Steiner, the Mongolian Stomper … it’s pretty neat to get in there and know a guy like that wants to compete for a belt that I won. Guys like that come in from different states and different wrestling circuits and they come in specifically to wrestle champions, and I just happen to be a champion.”

The 6-foot, 225-pound JDL is a 2001 Campbell County High School graduate.

JDL, 34, is confident in his chances.

“He could have beat me in 1983, but he can’t beat me now,” JDL said. “And they’re going to boo me. And when I beat him, they’re going to cheer me. … It’s not going to be any different. It’s going to be just as entertaining as anything else.”

Doors open at 6 p.m. on Saturday, said SPCW co-owner Matthew Bowens. Bell time is 7 p.m., and the card will include two title matches.

“If anybody wants to come see Ricky Morton lose a match, come on out,” JDL said.