The World According to Ron 6.28.07
Posted by Ron Gamble on 06.28.2007
I don't want to write this column, but if everyone else is having a say...
My love affair with wrestling has been told and retold, but this seems like a good time to tell it once again. It was in 1971, when I was four years old, when I wandered into the living room and my grandparents house. These two guys were wearing swimming trunks and beating each other up. It was something I had never seen before. I walked over to my dad and asked him, "What's this?"
"It's wrestling," he said, without looking from the screen.
I sat down next to him, watching the violence. I can't tell you who was on the screen, but I can tell you the crowd watching them was happy. My dad and Grandpa Gamble were in the room, but I'm not sure about anyone else. I sat down next to Dad and started watching.
I was hooked.
When I was younger, we got two separate wrestling shows, with the same guys for the most part. One was All-Star Wrestling, from Philadelphia, or Altoona, or Hamburg, PA. It was the standard WWWF syndicated show, Saturday afternoons at 12:30 on WSTV-TV from Steubenville, OH. The other show was similar, with many of the same guys, from Pittsburgh's WIIC-TV. Instead of Vince McMahon, the announcer on the Pittsburgh show was Bill Cardille, who also hosted "Chiller Theatre" on Saturday nights, and also had the greatest toupee this side of William Shatner. Cardille's greatest accomplishment on the show was getting chased by George "The Animal" Steele. If I remember right, Steele ate Cardille's carnation from his lapel several years before The Samoans ate Gary Michael Cappetta's.
The very first match I remember was Pedro Morales, WWWF champion, defending against Don Leo Jonathan. Pedro won with, I believe, a "big swing," which is like an airplane spin, only instead of putting the guy on your shoulders, you grab him by the ankles and spin around.
A few years later, WIIC (now WPXI-TV) stopped showing wrestling, and WPGH-TV picked up a second syndicated show from the WWWF, airing it on Friday nights at midnight. I was allowed to stay up late on Friday nights to watch it, but I couldn't always do it. It was on this show that I got to see Peter Maivia turn his back on Bob Backlund in the middle of a tag match against
Victor Rivera and Bad News Allen Coage.
In 1979, when I was 12, I discovered something else that would turn my world upside down: Inside Wrestling magazine. The first issue I bought, dated November 1979, told about Dusty Rhodes beating Harley Race for the NWA World title, then losing it back a week later after Terry Funk broke his arm. This was the first time I had ever heard of Harley Race, Terry Funk, or the NWA. Two months later, when Pro Wrestling Illustrated released its first issue, I was there. I saved all my old issues until about seven years ago, when I couldn't justify to my wife why I had all these musty magazines in the attic.
Sometimes I feel I've got to run away,
I've got to get away from the pain you dug into the heart of me,
The love we share seems to go nowhere,
And I've lost my light,
For I toss and turn,
I can't sleep at night.
Later that year, after Grandpa Gamble died, Grandma kept finding ways to have us down on Saturday evenings. Grandma, Mom, Dad, and I would have pizza and play euchre until 6:05, when Georgia Championship Wrestling was on Superstation WTBS from Atlanta. Grandma was the only person I knew who had cable and would have us over on a regular basis, so she knew we would always be there. Tommy Rich was an early favorite of mine, and his battles against Buzz Sawyer were classics. Roddy Piper was the person everyone loved to hate, until he was stabbed a couple times trying to help a couple girls being held at knifepoint.
I begged and pleaded with my dad to take me to Pittsburgh to see the no-disqualification match between Bruno Sammartino and Larry Zbyszko in May 1980. We made it to the Civic Arena, but couldn't find a parking space, and ended up going back home. The next month, I was there when Bruno beat Larry in a cage match in front of his adopted hometown.
By 1980, we had cable at home, which included USA Network, which would show the monthly WWF Madison Square Garden shows live. It was here that I got to watch Jimmy Snuka's crash landing from the top of a cage after Bob Backlund rolled away. When the Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins met in Super Bowl XVII, I was watching the replay of that night on USA. I still think I made the right choice.
In the mid-1980's, I was in Wrestling Nirvana. WPTT showed wrestling four nights a week. I'm pretty sure they showed World Class, Mid-South, and ICW wrestling three nights, and "This Week in Pro Wrestling" with Joe Pedicino and Gordon Solie. They also showed Mid-Atlantic Wrestling and WWF, while WPGH and WTOV showed other WWF programming, and WTOV also showed AWA. ESPN began showing AWA, as well, during this time. In 1985, I learned Pete Rose hit his 4,192nd hit while watching the crawler on ESPN on a Monday night, underneath Larry Zbyszko screaming at someone for doing something.
During this same time, WTOV-TV (formerly WSTV) began showing Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. I knew Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes, among others, from their time on WTBS. When Magnum T.A. beat Wahoo McDaniel in a cage match for the NWA United States title, the match was "shown" on WTOV, but the picture was blacked out the entire time, so I have only heard the match.
At this time, I was watching about 18 hours a week of wrestling programming, and I was very happy.
Now I know I've got to run away,
I've got to get away,
You don't really want any more from me,
To make things right, you need someone to hold you tight,
And you think love is to pray,
But, I'm sorry, I don't pray that way.
In October 1988, I started dating my wife, Renee. We learned a lot about each other in the early months of our relationship. I learned she was a San Francisco 49ers fan, "because of Joe Montana's butt." I learned she loved Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rod Stewart for very similar reasons.
She learned I was a wrestling fanatic.
She joked about it at first, telling me she couldn't believe I watched "that stuff." Her dad teased me a lot, and I found out that he would watch it with his future mother-in-law while waiting for Marla to get ready for dates. I watched AWA Wrestling at her house the night they showed the match between Jerry Lawler and Kerry Von Erich at SuperClash III. While watching the show, she let it slip that her favorite wrestler was Jimmy Snuka.
The following spring, during the buildup to WrestleMania V, she encouraged my raging habit by accompanying me to the Capitol Music Hall in Wheeling, WV, to watch the closed-circuit broadcast. We were there with about 2000 other people, laughing when Bushwhacker Luke looked like he was pleasuring Raymond Rougeau, cheering when Roddy Piper sprayed the fire extinguisher in that loudmouth Morton Downey Jr.'s face, and streaming to the bathroom when Run-D.M.C. came on to do the "WrestleMania Rap." When Hulk Hogan pinned Randy Savage, everyone around me cheered, while I threw my arms up in disgust. And, on the way home, she told me she had fun.
I knew right then I had to marry this woman. On August 19, we celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary.
Don't touch me, please!
I cannot stand the way you tease,
I love you, though you hurt me so,
But I'm gonna pack my things and go.
This song, "Tainted Love," was paired with "Where Did Our Love Go?" and released in 1982 by SoftCell. I was 15. Chris Benoit was 15. Nancy Daus was 18.
I heard it on the radio today, and I thought it would be a good way to tie all these thoughts together. After all, it comes close to explaining my 36-year long affair with professional wrestling. She is a cruel but fair mistress, and while there have been times I have wanted to hide my head in shame, there were other times I was very proud to admit that I was a fan. All through Chris Benoit's career, I could point to him and say, "That is what professional wrestling is all about." He had not done anything that would make me wonder about his judgement.
That all came to a close on Tuesday morning, as it became more and more apparent what took place in their Atlanta home. I cannot and will not accept their conclusions as factual until autopsy results come back, and I will continue to hope against hope that there was a fourth person, or even a fifth, involved in the ending of these lives.
However, at the same time, I am coming to the sad realization that, unless they were very sure, the police would not release even a speculation of murder-suicide. Why would they want to besmirch the reputation of a celebrity, someone who was described as "friendly," "emotional," and "kind," who "loved his family?"
And then, there were the revelations about that family life. Nancy Benoit filed for divorce in May 2003 and asked for a restraining order against him. I never heard anything about that. His son was born with Fragile X Syndrome, which can cause mental retardation, low muscular definition, and shyness. He just turned 40, and his body was breaking down. He was switched to the "C" show, suffered many concussions, and for all we know, understood the heartbreak of psoriasis. There are all kinds of explanations and rationalizations for the events of this past weekend. But none of those can balance the scales when you remember that, when Chris went, he took Nancy and Daniel before him.
The song, "Tainted Love," when it was released in 1982, was originally thought by kids of my generation to be about AIDS. We didn't realize it was originally released years before, by Gloria Jones in 1964, and was not about AIDS at all. It was about an abusive relationship. It explains the relationship we all have with wrestling, where we love it, but can't admit that to everyone.
A small part of me wonders, now that I know way more than I wanted to know about the events of this past weekend, if Nancy Benoit heard the song on Friday, what police believe was her last day among the living. And, if she did, did she really hear the song, thinking about the lyrics, and take them to heart? Or, did she just listen to it, absent-mindedly singing along and thinking back to her high school days? We'll never know.
When I was talking to Larry Csonka Tuesday night, the two of us had come to the same conclusion, that Chris Benoit is now the O.J. Simpson of wrestling. If you go back to May 1994, O.J. Simpson was a Heisman Trophy winner, a great running back, the first person to rush for over 2000 yards in one NFL season, a spokesman for Hertz Rent-a-Car, movie star from "Capricorn One" and "The Naked Gun" series, and analyst for NFL broadcasts on NBC. Since June 1994, when you hear the name "O.J. Simpson," you automatically think of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman.
I will do my best to remember Chris Benoit winning the 1994 Super J Cup, when he broke Sabu's neck, powerbombed Flyboy Rocco Rock through a table from the top rope, delivered an incredible 25-minute promo in support of the Triple Threat while rubbing his hands the entire time, had a best-of-seven series with Booker T, beat Sid Vicious to win the WCW World title and gave it back one day later, debuted against Triple H on Smackdown, beat Triple H and Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XX to win the World title. I will remember him hugging his friend Eddy Guerrero in the center of the ring, each holding a world title.
But, I'm afraid every time I see him, I will see Nancy and Daniel.
Once, I ran to you,
Now, I run from you.
This tainted love you've given,
I give you all a girl can give you,
Take my tears and that's not nearly all.
Oh! Tainted love.
