Williams, a 300-pound offensive guard, said he will spend the summer traveling the southwest as a professional wrestler. Not that he is unaccustomed to the wrestling world. The OU lineman placed second to Bruce Baumgartner of Indiana State by only two points in this year's NCAA wrestling championships.

"Dr. Death," as Williams has been known at OU, will make his pro debut Wednesday in Shreveport, La., against an opponent yet to be named. He will be in Oklahoma City Sunday for a 2:30 p.m. match at the fairgounds and will wrestle in Tulsa at 7:30 Sunday night. Those opponents are also not yet known.

"I'm tired of going out on the mat and not getting paid for it," Williams said from a Shreveport motel room. "Now, I can go out there and get paid."

Williams has wrestled four years at OU, but has another year of football eligibility left because he was redshirted his freshman season.

Head football coach Barry Switzer was consulted about the unusual summer job, Williams said.

"He said just make sure you're in shape for the Orange Bowl," Williams said. "And that's where we're headed next year. And I'm going to lead them."

OU line coach Merv Johnson said he had heard of Williams' plans and approved of them.

"It is probably a good way for him to stay in shape and it could be financially beneficial," Johnson said.

The 22-year-old Williams said he is just learning the pro wrestling business and doesn't even know exactly how financially beneficial it might be. However, he admits it probably will be a lot.

"And as for people asking me if it's real," Williams said, "I'll say I know I'm real. I'm as real as wrestling and right now I'm bruised up and sore. I've hit just like we did in amateur wrestling and football."

Williams said he will simply wear his OU wrestling singlet and robe when he steps through the ropes. "I'm gonna promote Oklahoma," he said.

"But I don't need no mask," Williams said. "I'm ugly enough I don't need one. I don't need no such thing as a gimmick. I'm the real thing. I'm Dr. Death!"

Although the pro wrestling matches are somewhat longer than college matches, Williams said he is already learning some things which can extend his time in the ring.

"Hey, Turk, you jerk," a fan shouted. "Turk's a jerk. Har, har, haaarrrr."

The fatigued wrestler stopped to lean against the cinder-block wall.

He resembled an aging, bearded Curly of the Three Stooges. Where once had been ears, the Turkish native has only gnarled lumps of cartilage and skin. And Dr. Death had just given him a few more lumps.

"In the last couple of years, there hasn't been a guy who just turned pro as good as Steve Williams," the 33-year-old Turk said.

The Turk was the fifth victim in Williams' five-day-old pro wrestling career. Williams returns to the University of Oklahoma next fall for a fourth season as a Sooner offensive guard. Until then, he will spend summer picking up big bucks and bigger bruises in southern arenas against guys like the Turk.

Williams put on quite a show in his Oklahoma City debut. No sooner than a fan shouted, "Go get em, Doc," Williams had sent the Turk tumbling with an arm throw. The Turk went wailing to the ref.

Williams caught the Turk again, put him in a head lock and rolled him over his hip. The Turk bounced up and threw a forearm into Williams' chest. The Doctor returned the blow, grabbed the bulky Turk and sent him reeling across the ring into the turnbuckle.

The stunned Turk was in trouble and the crowd of about 1,000 fans loved it. Dr. Death sensed the kill and used a familiar move the same shoulder block he uses to level Cornhuskers and Trojans. The Turk bounced off the canvas. Then Dr. Death picked up the wobbly opponent and ran across the ring with the bulky body held high.

The Turk's back hit the canvas with a mighty "wwuummpphh" as Williams dropped him. Dr. Death simply lay atop his opponent for the winning three-count from the referee.

"See, like I said it was just like another amateur match," said Williams, who wrestled four years at OU and was the 1982 NCAA heavyweight runner-up. "I just beat the hell out of some guy named the Turk. I feel like a million dollars."

Wrestlers don't always feel like a million bucks. Dr. Death, 22, already has faced a lot of reality.

"Last night, I must have stayed in the cockroach motel in Baton Rouge," Williams said.

Preliminary match performers don't rate first class accommodations like Williams is used to as a University of Oklahoma "performer."

"After a match, we're off driving to the next town," he explained.

"You rent a car or borrow a car or go with one of the guys that drives. If a guy's got a small car, that's the way you gotta go."

And the aches and pain follow you.

Williams raised his arm to show a softball-sized purple patch on his rib cage. Then his lowered the edge of his OU wrestling singlet to reveal another.

"For people who think this is fake, I can answer that in two words," Williams said, turning on his menacing Dr. Death glower. "Am I fake?"

He stopped, smiling sheepishly.

"Oh, that was three words. Well, I was close, wasn't I?"

Williams is following in the footsteps of another former OU wrestler-turned-pro, promoter Bill Watts. Dr. Death even wears Cowboy Bill's old wrestling boots.

"I definitely thing he's got the capability," Watts said. "The first thing we've been trying to do is to get him to stay out of the holds he wasn't used to as an amateur the front-face lock and the blood-chokes like a sleeper hold."

Watts has also given Williams his secret weapon the move Doc used to demolish the Turk.

"That's my hold the Oklahoma Stampede," Watts said proudly.

"Steve just picks the other guy up, takes off across the ring and dives with him. When they hit the mat, his momentum just crushes into the other guy's chest. That was my favorite move and Steve is my protege."

There is no doubt Steve Williams at 6-0 and 300 pounds has the physical size for the ring. But can he be entertaining?

"Promoting yourself is the toughest part," Williams said, looking suddenly serious. "We did a TV bit for this show. I just puckered up and didn't know what to say."

Watts said the showmanship aspect is very important in building crowds.

"Certainly, you have to be a crowd pleaser," Watts said. "If Steve went out and just tied his opponent up, they would boo him out of the ring."

A guy also has to be JPT just plain tough.

"I don't try to tell everybody everything is on the up and up in all of pro wrestling because I don't believe that myself," Watts said.

"But I've had five of my friends die either in the ring or the dressing room."

"I guess you could categorize me with the crazy people," Williams said.

But, maybe he isn't so crazy. As he points out, he is not taking the risk of being hurt in an oil field accident or bored to death by paperwork in his summer job.

"I'm going to be a better man, too," he said. "Bill is teaching me how to take care of my books. I have to watch how much I spend on motels, food and taxicabs."

And for a man just a couple months away from wearing sweaty football pads under a hot Oklahoma sun, his current training regimen probably seems like heaven.

"You have a match, a six-pack of beer, a good steak," Williams said. "Then you crash."

As Billy Starr came sling-shotting back, his stringy blond hair flying, "Death" answered his audience by springing forward as if he was seeing Cornhusker red and dug a shoulder into the middle of the man dressed all in black. Starr gave a primeval grunt and went down for the count as the referee lazily tapped the canvas three times to make Steve Williams 12-0, or is it 13 now.

Whatever, Mid-South Wrestling's newest "find" continues to make mincemeat of every foe promoter Bill Watts sends in the ring against him. If nothing more, Dr. Death is proving you don't necessarily have to be the boss' son to start out at the top.

For all their notoriety and public appeal, many football stars at the University of Oklahoma earn their summer money in exotic ways but none quiet so exotically as offensive right guard Steve Williams.

As a rare two-sport performer at OU, Williams exhausted his collegiate wrestling eligibility in March, losing in the NCAA heavyweight finals to Bruce Baumgartner of Iowa State. But since he sat out a football season as a redshirt, he still has one last autumn in the crimson and cream at Owen Field.

Collegiate rules say you can be a professional athlete so long as you do not participate in that sport as a collegian. That is how John Elway can play quarterback for Stanford and first base for a Yankee farm club in the summer and Williams can wrestle professionally during his between-semesters vacation and block for Stanley Wilson this fall.

Trained and physically equipped as he is, Williams is likely to have his career choice next year the aches and pains of the NFL or, as some say, the fakes and games of Mid-South. You would think financial opportunity ultimately will settle the issue and if so, it's already settled.

"I played football one year in the American Football League," said Watts, a former OU heavyweight champ who has quietly assumed control of pro wrestling hereabouts from aging LeRoy McGuirk. "But because of wrestling, I couldn't afford to go back."

Wrestlers often drive Cadillacs to their matches. An annual salary of $100,000 is not that uncommon and main-eventers expect $1,000-per-night pay days. Yet what Williams might expect to earn between now and his "retirement" date of August 1, is a well-kept secret.

"That's something between Steve and the IRS," is the way Watts, who has taken personal control of Williams to the extent that Dr. Death spends many hours at Watts' Bixby home perfecting his moves, puts it.

"But it pays better than most summer jobs I ever heard of."

Williams says its already the best-paying summer job he has had while at Oklahoma. "I never even had a job before," he says. "I was always trying to get in shape for football."

Barry Switzer reportedly was appalled recently when he heard that the Mid-South ring announcer was promoting Dr. Death as a 300-pounder.

So is Williams. "I'm about 280 now," he says, "on my way down to 260 for football."

As might be expected, Williams is strictly an under-card grappler at the moment. Sunday, when he put out Billy Starr at the Fairgrounds Arena, he appeared as the second event.

Ernie Ladd, another former football player, followed by bashing the daylights out of Killer Kahn and Kahn's despicable manager, a character who wears the head dress of an Arabian oil sheik. Then, in the main event, Dick Murdoch bloodied The One Man Gang, another disciple of the Arabian, who wears a vest adorned with the logo of a camel just in case you need clues as to his ancestry.

After Dr. Death has vanquished Starr, who was tauted as "Billy Goat" by the ringside regulars, he hung around to talk with friends, including Stan Abel, his wrestling coach at OU.

"This is the first time I've seen Steve," said Abel. "I was supposed to come before but couldn't make. Steve sent a message that he was going to come after me If I didn't come see him. I'm impressed. His timing is really great."

In the Mid-South ring Williams trades exclusively on his OU reputation, down to wearing his red OU robe and wrestling tights. He plans to keep that affiliation and, in time, might add a mask in keeping with his "Dr. Death" image.

It's hard to say whether Williams' OU affiliation or his football-star status has taken hold of the pro wrestling fans. Or even whether they care at all.

One of Watts' lieutenants looked around at the slim crowd Sunday and guessed it hasn't. Then he added that Sunday, obviously, is not the day for pro wrestling in Oklahoma City.

While Williams stood around greeting old friends, Kahn seemed to be getting the best of Murdoch in their "Texas bull rope match."

Suddenly, from a darkened corner appeared Ladd, who will be 44 this November if he gave his correct birth date to San Diego Chargers when they drafted him into the old American Football League on the 15th round in 1961.

With a spring in his step belying his age, the "Big Cat" dove into the ring and pounced on The One Man Gang and his Arabian sidekick, pounding them both as Murdoch won the no disqualification match. The results sent the crowd home agreeably pleased that the "good guy" had won every match on the card.

Williams watched Ladd with a bemused look, perhaps wondering if he'll still be doing this 20 years from now. Ladd limped past as he headed for the communal locker room but assuredly you don't seen any NFL veterans still around in their 40s.

But everybody wants to know this year what the University of Oklahoma football player did during the summer. When the big guy starts talking, you'd think he was that E.F. Whatsisname. Everybody listens.

"All the coaches asked me how my summer was," Williams said.

"They were all curious. And the players asked me lots of questions.

They all want to know what it was about. But I don't know anybody as crazy as me, Dr. Death. No one has asked how to get into it."

The gray-haired announcer climbed into the ring and motioned to the two wrestlers to begin making their way into the large arena. As Steve Williams got close to the ring, he had to squint his eyes to adjust them to the bright overhead lights. The robe he used to wear as a nationally ranked wrestler at OU made an audible rustling noise as he walked. Now he was a larger-than-life pro "rassler." A fan shouted as he walked past: "Hey, go get 'em, Doc."

"People just keep asking me if the pro wrestling stuff is real," Williams said with a slight sigh. "I must get asked that question by 100 people an hour. All I can say to the guys who ask me if it's fake is that they don't knock it until they get into a ring and get beaten up until they can't walk. Then I'll ask them if they think it's fake."

Williams is a starting offensive guard in his senior season at OU this fall. He wasn't sure at first about a summer of pro wrestling when Tulsa promoter Bill Watts asked him to try it, but decided it might be a good way to pick up a little extra spending money. After all, he had been an outstanding college wrestler for four years at OU, although he still had a year of football eligibility left. The two men quickly became close friends and Watts gave Williams a crash course in pro wrestling.

"The first week I wrestled, I got 42 bruises on my ribs from hitting the turnbuckles and being thrown outside the ring," Williams recalled.

Williams quickly figured he had to get tougher. His wrestling nickname, which he had been tagged with since high school, was Dr. Death, but he was the one getting killed early in the summer.

"So I got in the weight room and started getting my muscles toned up so I could handle it. I feel real strong now. I feel I'm going to be one of the strongest guys on the football team."

Wrestling four or five matches a week re-shaped his massive body.

Williams reported for fall football drills weighing 275 pounds, 25 less than last spring. The physical change was so dramatic Williams started wearing smaller wrestling tights at the end of summer.

Steve was complaining vigorously, shaking his head wildly and waving his arms at the referee. Meanwhile, Bob Rupe slipped to the opposite corner and slyly slipped his hand into the waistband of his wrestling trunks. The crowd shouted wildly at the referee, but too late. Even as the referee turned his attention to Rupe, the wily veteran already was pounding on Steve's head. "I thought he broke my jaw," Steve would say later. The youngster dropped to the canvas with a thud, and lay motionless. All the referee could do was shrug his shoulders and begin the count. Rupe raised his arm, then left the ring quickly. The fans then stood, wondering if Steve would be able to do the same. A small group of other wrestlers, who had been watching from a distance, came to the ring and dragged the motionless athlete off like a group of dock workers struggling with a crate. "I finally came to in the locker room when they gave me some smelling salts," Steve said. "That night, I signed a contract to re-wrestle him."

Williams took his summer job seriously. He mostly appeared in preliminary bouts, but ran into pro wrestling's headliners every couple weeks. The ex-OU mat star only lost twice once to Rupe and once to a wild oriental wrestler named Killer Kahn.

"Aw, he used a lot of karate moves," Williams explained of the latter loss. He hit me a couple of times in the Adam's apple. It really knocked me out."

Williams eventually gained revenge for being decked by Rupe. It was a satisfying victory in front of 40,000 Louisiana Superdome fans who gave Williams a cheer he had only heard before while sharing it with 10 other OU players.

"It was fabulous," Williams said. "This was a great summer job. I enjoyed it and made a little bit of money too."

No man before had ever intimidated Steve. He had butted heads with some of the best football players in America. But this was no ordinary man standing before him. The wrestler offering his hand to Steve was Andre the Giant, a 7-4, 485-pound mountain whose name is perhaps an understatement. Andre was to be Steve's tag team partner in a main event against Big John Stud and the Super Destroyer in a few days and the two men were doing a TV promo for the match. "I looked down while I was shaking his hand, and my hand was gone," Steve said. "It kind of makes you think you're not so big after all." Andre then took a Sun Bowl championship ring from Steve's finger and tried it on for size.

"It covered the fingernail of his pinky," Steve said.

The entire summer was a learning experience for Williams.

"I learned a lot about life," he said. "When you look at the outside world, college is easy. When you get out there, it's pretty tough."

Traveling five days a week through Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma, Williams stayed in "rotten hotels as well as nice places."

"I had to learn how to keep a budget," Williams said. "There's a business part to learn in wrestling."

Williams also had to learn to deal with pro wrestling fans who adore their heroes and hate the sport's bad guys with a vengeance. Luckily, Dr. Death was considered a crowd favorite everywhere he went but even that was not without problems."

"You have your groupies in pro wrestling," Williams said. "It's like being a rock star. There are all kinds of groupies, and when you're a pro wrestler they love you."

Williams tried to be obliging.

"I let them enjoy as much as they wanted to when they came to see Dr. Death," he said. "I'd sign autographs and give them kisses.

That's great. they're my fans."

Sometimes, though, the young man found it all hard to believe.

"One time, I had to move out of my hotel in Baton Rouge," Williams said. "And I've seen some cars get vandalized. There are some kind of wild ladies around."

But Williams won't tell just how wild they were.

"You know I can't say that in the paper," he said with a husky laugh.

Steve can now "jaw" like a pro wrestler. Sometimes his answers remind you of a chest-thumping, masked man staring wildly into a TV camera. Everything comes in a rush of words: "All this football work is nothing to me. I'm ready to play. I'm definitely going to do some damage. I'm going to physically beat the other players to death. I want to take players out of the game. I figure if you take the No. 1 player out of the game, then the No. 2, pretty soon you're all the way down the line and they don't have anybody left to play."

Right now, Williams is serious about football.

"I'm here to win the national championship, then go to the Orange Bowl," he says.

He hasn't counted out a pro football career yet.

"We'll see what happens if they draft me," he said.

But when football finally ends for the OU offensive guard, he will walk back to the wrestling ring.

1. Arizona State's Dan Saleaumua, needing help from the audience to perform his Samoan love song, asks, "Is there a Steve Williams in the house?"

The Oklahoma offensive guard strides onto the stage and answers, "You can call me "Doctor.' "

2. On the plane ride out here the previous day, Steve "Dr. Death" Williams sat in the back of the charter, drinking bourbon and coke. An OU assistant turned to another member of the athletic staff and said, "You think I'm going to tell him to stop?"

3. Entire rosters, redshirts and all, were introduced at a Monday morning brunch. Approximately 170 players walked across the stage at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. Approximately 169 wore the Fiesta Bowl sweaters they had been issued upon arrival. Steve Williams did not.

"They gave me one and I got it on, but when I went like this," he explained, crossing his arms in front of him, "the shoulders ripped out."

Probably not all that surprising to a guy accustomed to searching clothing racks for a size 56 coat. And Steve Williams, listed at 6-2, 280, could easily be sporting an extra 20 pounds these days.

4. After another routine workout, the Sooners head for their dressing room at Scottsdale Community College. Williams shouts, "The bus goes straight to the bar. Anyone who wants to go to the hotel can get another bus."

Coach Barry Switzer shakes his head, "Isn't he a piece of work?"

The legend of Dr. Death grows as the only professional wrestler on a Big Eight football roster prepares for his final college performance.

"I want to go out with class. I want to play my heart out. I figure this is my last game to show people I can play football," he said.

That has always been his first priority, yet it has never been the easiest thing for him to do. As a wrestler, he was three times All-Big Eight. As an entertainer, he is the Sooners' most delightful interview.

But as a football player, he could not win a starting job with OU until his fifth season. His aggressive play, and perhaps his reputation, helped place him on UPI's All-Big Eight team.

"I love football . . . more than wrestling. I've played football all my life, wrestling kinda came to me second-hand. I come from a football family," he said.

Older brother Jeff played tight end for the Sooners. He scored his only career touchdown in 1981 against Oregon State and indirectly contributed to the legend of Dr. Death.

Switzer was saying after the game that the touchdown had been rather pointless but that it was nice for Jeff to get his first score.

Someone asked if he thought Steve was proud of his older brother.

Switzer deadpanned, "I don't think Steve knows he has a brother."

Another time, Williams called sports information director Mike Treps and asked if a copy of the spring football guide could be mailed to his cousin.

"Sure," Treps replied. "What's your cousin's name?"

There was a pause at the other end of the line. "I knew you were going to ask that question," Williams said.

Williams made his name, rather, his nickname, in wrestling. Always a crowdbaiter home or away, Dr. Death became bigger than his matches.

Oklahoma State sports fans have never cheered longer or harder than last winter when Williams, needing only to avoid a pin for an OU victory, was, indeed, nailed to the mat by Mitch Shelton.

During the summer months, Williams toured the "Mid-South" as it is called on the pro wrestling circuit, his college eligibility having been used up in that sport. Still an OU athlete, even wearing his OU ringlet, he was "a good guy."

When or if he returns to the professional ring, Williams recently admitted that he may one day cause the crowd to turn on him. "People really respond to me as a nice guy, but I don't know. Someday maybe I'll have to turn on a nice guy to win a title."

Wiliams has worked hard to earn his own title, an unusual monicker by his own admission.

"You don't often get a Dr. Death on a college team. I enjoy it and I think people who read papers enjoy it. Some of these guys out here won't tell you what's going on with the football team but I will. And the people want to know what's happening."

Although teammates call him "Doc" or "Death," not everyone has taken to the name.

"My mom she hasn't really realized that who I am is Dr. Death.

I'm still her little boy. She calls me Steve, but that's all right. I'm the baby of the family."

Mrs. Williams' baby is hoping to hear from a National Football League club soon. The United States Football League has already been calling.

"I've been getting letters. The San Diego team has called and the Denver Gold. I've heard a lot from the New Jersey Generals. My high school coach, Pete Levine, is up there (along with Chuck Fairbanks)," he said.

"I'm going to get my (recreation) degree in May and it'll help me out if football doesn't."

The offensive line and Williams have made drastic improvement from the early part of the season and Williams says the credit belongs to assistant head coach Merv Johnson. "He's the brightest one of 'em all.

He's brought us far from when we weren't doing so well. He's helped me a lot, too.

"I wasn't too hot on some of the plays 'cause I didn't understand why you had to do things a certain way. Merv took the time to sit down and talk with me and it really helped."

The only senior on the line, Williams has played an important leadership role with the Sooners.

"The guys look up to me. I know what it takes, I've been in the meatgrinder in both wrestling and football. I think I kinda make it easy because I enjoy football so much. It will be sad when I have to leave.

"I'll miss coach Switzer. We weren't too close until two years ago. We had some words and then I realized who was the boss and who was the player. But he laughs and I think he enjoys having me around."

After the Fiesta Bowl, the Sooner coaches will look for a new right guard. But a replacement for Dr. Death? Hardly.

But neither did most of them anticipate their fellow countrymen would forget them so quickly.

Take America's Olympic wrestlers for instance. Of the 20 gold medals offered in the wrestling events in the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, nine of them stayed right here in the good old USA. But none of America's gold medal winners have couped any real financial reward.

For most of them, in fact, it's been just the opposite. It was a financial struggle for them before the Olympics and is still a struggle today. It's impossible to win if you don't train and it's impossible to train and hold down a full-time job.

No athlete is more dedicated to his pursuit than a wrestler. Dieting to make weight and injury are constant companions. No matter what they do, though, amateur wrestlers can't seem to catch a break. Even at an event like the National Sports Festival.

The U.S. is using the Sports Festival as a qualifying tournament for the World Championships coming up in October. The winners here compete in Hungary, meaning America has its very best athletes on hand for this event.

So how are the wrestlers treated? They are bivouaced at the Louisiana School for the Deaf which is located more than 10 miles out of town. Their venue is furthest away from the center of the sports activity and least likely to draw a crowd.

The wrestlers are sleeping in five-foot-long beds and have to wait up to two hours for shuttle buses that carry them from their Deaf School campus dorm to the eating facilities on the LSU campus. On top of that, they work out in a building without air conditioning.

"The letter W comes near the end of the alphabet," shrugged heavyweight champion Bruce Baumgartner. "It's like they think of us last."

The treatment is so shabby and the neglect so obvious, one would think it would be enough to make them quit. Why don't they toss in the towel? Why don't they turn to something that would at least reward them financially?

They could you know. Pro wrestling has never been more popular.

Night after night, pro wrestlers fill arenas around the country.

Wrestling is seen on almost every TV channel, network as well as cable.

Certain pro wrestlers are among America's highest paid athletes.

Promoters have mixed wrestling with rock music and both have thrived as a result of the unholy alliance. Wrestling and rock are the fad of the '80s.

This spring's "Wrestlemania" drew one of the highest TV ratings ever. Cindy Lauper and Hulk Hogan are both better off as a result of discovering one another's fans.

With all that money there for the taking, though, Baumgartner refuses to partake of it. He knows a man has nothing if he doesn't have his dignity. Without honor and self-esteem, he would be stripped of everything worth having.

"Pro wrestling's just not for me," said Baumgartner, who trained at Oklahoma State the year before the Olympics. "I'm not interested in making money that way."

The other night while the amateurs were sitting around watching TV, a pro wrestling show came on. Baumgartner sat and watched a while, hooting and hollering. Then a familiar face came on the screen.

When they were both in college, Baumgartner defeated OU's Steve Williams four times. Never lost to him in fact. Now "Dr. Death," as he is known to his pro fans, makes a living on the pro circuit while Baumgartner coaches for a meager existence.

"I chose amateur and he chose pros," said Baumgartner. "He's making money and I'm not."

"I saw Death recently," said Mark Schultz, another U.S. gold medal winner in Los Angeles, who was Williams' teammate at OU. "He had gold chains around his neck and diamonds on his wrist. He's in the bucks."

Schultz knows that Baumgartner could make the same kind of bucks if he went pro. Mark looks at the muscular heavyweight, arguably the best in the world today, and sees nothing but dollar signs.

"He'd be a multimillionaire," Schultz says of his larger teammate.

"They could call him the Human Torture Device."

But Bruce has chosen to stay amateur and it is not a decision open to debate. Not at the present time, anyway. But despite his choice, Baumgartner does not scoff at the professionals or the way they make their living.

"They're athletes. But they're not wrestlers," he says.

"You have to have some ability to do a flying scissors and take all those falls. But it makes me wonder when they hit one another over the head with a chair and nobody gets killed."

Quite possibly, though, sooner or later Baumgartner will give in to the pressure and turn professional once he has achieved all his amateur goals. Every once in a while Cowboy Bill Watts, a popular promoter, phones him and ups the ante.

Baumgartner didn't go to LA to get rich, no question. But he didn't win to stay poor either.
___________________________________________________________

"Number one, I just completed another edition of "The Crusher Record Book" and was wondering if you would review it in the WAWLI Papers if I send a copy to you.

"Number two, I have a website devoted to The Crusher that is constantly under construction that your readers may be interested in. The URL is: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Court/8214/

"Number 3, I will be sending you some info from Mlwaukee on a regular basis. My interest in the history of wrestling here has been renewed in the last year or so, and being on the web has shown me that a lot more people than I imagined are also interested in the "old" days, as well. Here are a few results from Milwaukee, 1945 that I dug up recently:

"Tuesday, June 5, Bahn Frei Hall -- Walter Palmer won 2/3 falls over Cyclone Anaya, Al Williams beat Bad Man Louie, Gordon Hessel beat Hans von Buesing. Ref: Rowdy Pocan (Note: Palmer beat Anaya by COR several weeks earlier).

"Tuesday, June 12, Bahn Frei Hall -- Al Williams and Joe Dorsetti vs. Sam and Charlie Wong, Gordon Hessel vs. Jesus Hernandez-2/3 falls, Sgt. Fritz (Frederich) von Schacht vs. Jack Reeder-2/3 falls (Von Schacht was on leave from the army).

"Tuesday, June 19, Bahn Frei Hall -- Walter Palmer beat Sgt. Fritz von Schacht, who was DQed in the 3rd fall for "roughness," Tex Hager beat Jesus Hernandez, Leo Kirilenko beat Jose Manuel.

"Tuesday, June 26, Bahn Frei Hall -- Jesus Hernandez and Jose Manuel beat Al Williams and Joe Dorsetti, Cyclone Anaya won 2/3 falls over Tex Hager, Hans von Buesing beat Fritz von Schacht by DQ (for "roughness" again) in a scheduled 2/3 falls.

"See ya on the web,

"George "CrusherBolo" Lentz

A Fort Myers car dealer is offering tickets to Friday night's pro wrestling show at the Everblades Arena as an enticement to bring customers to the lot.

I'm not sure if he's a genius (people so dense that they would go out of their way to see professional wrestling might be easily duped into overspending on a car) or an idiot (the dentally impaired dimwits who fill wrestling arenas can't possibly afford anything better than the rust-riddled bolt buckets they use to get to and from their jobs at the Food-A-Rama).

In either case, the fact that the car dealer is one of the few places to get a ticket to wrestling, since the show sold out in less time than it takes for Ric Flair to double-cross a tag-team partner, is disturbing.

It seems there was a time, not so many years ago, when professional wrestling was funny.

Wrestling was an inside joke that we were all privy to. We'd express mock surprise when the referee would fail to notice that foreign object, a belt buckle maybe, in the ring.

Everybody has chuckled at a story about someone's grandma who used to yell at the TV because she thought it was "real."

At its best professional wrestling was a sort of morality play pitting good against evil. A melodrama played out on a stage bounded by three ropes.

But somewhere along the line things have gone terribly awry.

Emboldened by the television success of the Jerry Springers of the world, wrestling now targets an ever baser instinct in its audience.

Soap-opera scripts of alliances and betrayals have replaced the good guys vs. bad guys storylines of previous decades.

Violence has always been king in professional wrestling, but now the violence is packaged with profanity and sex and offered for sale to an audience made up largely of children and equally impressionable simpletons.

This year, in California, a handful of teen-age morons had to be stopped from putting on makeshift exhibitions in which they cut themselves with cheese graters and leaped from a garage roof onto a picnic table, all in preparation for their envisioned careers as pro wrestlers.

A current theme in the World Wrestling Federation, the outfit putting on Friday's show, has wrestlers taunting each other by pointing towards their crotch and declaring "Suck it." Young imitators can be seen in the audience aping the gesture and "Suck It" signs dot the stands.

The illegal belt buckle has been replaced by more dangerous props. In a recent episode, a wrestler held a pistol to the head of WWF chief Vince McMahon. When he pulled the trigger, a flag unfurled. Hilarious.

The popularity of modern-day wrestling is a symptom of more troubling trends.

The demise of civility, the rise of situational ethics and the glorification of gangs are demonstrated in each televised card.

The number of people who believe the matches are actual competitions is still probably low, but the willingness of so many people to set aside the norms of decent behavior and become part of the spectacle does not speak well for society.

Professional wrestling offers stupid people a forum in which they can be themselves.

It grants everyone else a license to be stupid.

The tan Cherokee minivan with a "Beany 2" license plate driving into the parking lot of the Everblades Arena on Friday night didn't seem to fit with an outsider's image of the World Wrestling Federation.

Traveling just behind the minivan was a Ford F150 truck that did, its back window sticker proudly proclaiming, "Absolute Redneck & Damn Proud of It." One could imagine professional wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin riding quite comfortably to his latest match in such a vehicle.

On close inspection of the crowd gathered for various tailgating activities outside the Estero arena, the picture of just who goes to WWF events changed. As it has been changing for several years, bringing the world of wrasslin' to a whole new demographic.

Sure, the roving bands of young men in jeans holding koolie cups of Budweiser were there in force. A man calling himself "Moose," for instance, held court with a few friends before the concert.

Jonathon "Moose" Jones, a San Carlos Park resident, described the appeal of the soap-opera wrestling phenomenon.

"It's like 'The Young and the Restless' for men," he said, starting to ham it up. "You come home from work and it's there for relaxing. We aren't allowed to beat nobody up no more because they lock you up, so there's this."

Moose and crew, though well represented, were not the only fans who forked over perfectly good cash for a chance to see Austin and the other stars pummel each other in the ringed stage.

Bob Blusiewicz, who owns a roofing business, brought his family from Fort Myers to see the show. He knows it's not real, but he is a fan from way back.

"It's exciting," he said. "It's loud, something you can get into. It's a nice release, just like going to a hockey game."

"You gotta put your hands up like this," said 12-year-old Tyler Woodrell of Naples, demonstrating the correct posture for a wrestler known as DX.

Despite the fact that the first ever professional wrestling exhibition at the Everblades Arena sold out in less than an hour to more than 8,000 fans, some fans seemed a bit embarrassed by their attraction to the sport-as-theater.

Jim, an employee at Lee Memorial Hospital, refused to give his last name to a newspaper reporter because he was afraid of the razzing he would get at work the next day.

"I'm not giving you my last name because my reputation would suffer," Jim said, over the cajoling tones of his friends.

Jim and friends had brought an assortment of offspring to the event. The offspring, including Jim's son, Andrew Sproul, 12, were busy making appropriate signs to cheer on the combatants such as, "Open a damn can."

Another boy in the group, Adam Wilkie, 18, said the main appeal of the WWF for him was Austin.

"He has the attitude," he said. "He doesn't take anything from anybody."

Entertainment venues are paying attention to the new faces. Numbers like 8,000-plus fans speak loudly to the arena bookers.

Sims Hinds, vice president of arena management for Gale Force Sports and Entertainment, which handles Everblades bookings, said Southwest Florida audiences are broader than many entertainment executives might think.

"Wrestling over the last two or three years has become much more mainstream," he said. "You will see everyone from guys coming off construction sites to corporate executives to kids."

Hinds said his group has a multi-year contract with WWF to bring four major events to the Everblades arena each year. The next one is scheduled for Oct. 3. Ann Schad, for one, intends to be there. She and daughter, Patty, barely made this exhibition. They won the last two tickets from a 96K-rock radio station give-away, less than an hour before the show.

The trend hasn't been lost on some who do welcome the spotlight. For instance, the folks at All-Pro Wrestling, a Hayward, Calif.-based school that trains wrestling wannabes who aspire to the big leagues, like the World Wrestling Federation.

"There's so much publicity about how no one really knows how to read," said "Fun Boy" Morgan, All-Pro Wrestling's marketing director and assistant wrestling instructor. "Illiteracy is becoming more and more of an issue."

Roland Alexander, a onetime accountant who owns All-Pro Wrestling, said he saw the reading sessions as a way to soften the profession's rough-and-tumble image, as well as help promote exhibition fund-raising matches his wrestlers put on at schools.

"Wrestling has always been an adult soap opera that has catered to sex and violence," said Alexander, noting that one television promotion for another wrestling circuit featured an athlete opening a can of beer with his head.

"That's not the role model I would want for my kids," he said.

Alexander said that in the past, his wrestlers have appeared at school assemblies to hype fund-raising matches and deliver wholesome messages: "Just Say No to Drugs"; stay in school; obey your teachers; and listen to your parents.

But that got old, he said, and a light went on in September, when some teachers suggested something new. "The kids have heard all that before, why don't you come and read to them?" Alexander recalled them saying, adding that he heard that Golden State Warriors basketball players were going to classrooms as well.

"If they can pull it off, there's no reason we can't," he thought, "although wrestlers are a different breed than the normal human being."
Most of the aspiring wrestlers, who range from gas station attendants to teachers, are fully up to the task, he said.

But then there's All-Pro Wrestling bad boy Jimmy "The Mack Daddy" Ripp.

"I wouldn't feel comfortable with Jimmy going in there and reading to kids because he's got missing teeth," said Morgan, adding that Ripp doesn't even brush the surviving ones.

Ripp aside, Alexander said the forays have been a hit. Besides reading Dr. Seuss, the wrestlers also tell how literacy helps them with their profession: They need to read contracts, maps leading to the matches, and the TelePrompTer during television tapings.

"The kids just think these guys are gods," said John McReynolds, a local promoter who booked the classroom visits last September.
"They told the kids, 'It's important to read' and the kids were like, 'Yeah! I'll read,' " he said.

On Wednesday, the students got into the act again, this time helping "The Gigolo" Massaro, a native of Sicily, get through "Amelia Bedelia," the story of an eager-to-please housekeeper with a knack for reading things quite literally.

Third-grade teacher Noelle Barthel said later that she didn't know whether Massaro's stumbling over the words was real or a clever act to get her students involved. Whatever the case, they were impressed, even if they didn't quite grasp the meaning of Massaro's professional moniker.

"We've got to tell our moms the gigolo came today!," Barthel quoted her students as saying.

Cline, the USC public relations expert, said having hulking wrestlers read to the children is a brilliant stroke. "It's the gentle giant idea.

"I don't want to know what [Minnesota Gov.] Jesse Ventura reads," she said, "but [pro wrestling] seems to be cleaning up its act and this is one good way to do it."
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(Austin American-Statesman, Jan. 25, 2000)

By Mark Wangrin

Growing up a boy in the Duncum family meant being tough, whether it was standing up to bullies who questioned whether they were as tough as their professional-wrestling father, or surviving a 20-foot fall into a creekbed that left a gash on the head and a leg broken in four places. It meant sucking it up and moving on.

Today, it means it more than ever. Monday morning, Bobby Duncum Jr., who followed in his father's steps as a college and pro football player and a pro wrestler, was found dead at his home outside Leander. Duncum, who was on medical leave from World Championship Wrestling to rehabilitate a shoulder injury at the time of his death, was 34 years old.

"I'm still a little shocked," said brother Duane, 18 months Bobby's junior and his only sibling. "It hit me hard this morning. It's not easy to go over and set up a funeral for a 34-year-old. It seems like such a waste."

Police answered a 911 call at around 5:20 a.m. Monday to find the former Texas Longhorn football player's body in his bed. He appeared to have been dead for several hours, said Detective Lee Jones of the Travis County Sheriff's Department. Jones said there was no sign of trauma. "It doesn't appear to be a suicide or any indication of foul play," Jones said.

An autopsy revealed no cause of death, pending toxicology tests, which could be available in one to three weeks, said Dr. Elizabeth Peacock, Deputy Medical Examiner for Travis County.

Former UT Coach David McWilliams, who recruited Duncum, remembered him for his work ethic and his toughness. During the Horns' game against Missouri in 1986, Duncum blew out a knee -- and jogged to the sideline, where he calmly announced, "I think I blew out my knee."

"He didn't want surgery. He wanted to play," McWilliams recalled. "They finally told him, `You have to have surgery.' If he could have played without it, he would have. Nobody was tougher than Bobby Duncum, mentally or physically.

"I always liked his enthusiasm. I always thought he was a great, tough leader."

Duncum earned four letters (1985-88) as a defensive end and linebacker at Texas, where his career was interrupted by injuries. He played briefly with the San Antonio Riders in the World League of American Football and spent two seasons with the Dallas Texans of the Arena League, playing alongside Duane in 1993.

He learned to wrestle before he played a down of football, and chose to follow in the footsteps of his father -- who grappled under the name "Big Bad" Bobby Duncum in Japan and with the World Wrestling Federation. He had planned to form a tag team with Duane, but his younger brother had a serious knee injury that precluded such a pairing.

Like his father, Bobby was a big hit in Japan, before signing with the World Championship Wrestling in November 1998, where he regularly performed until having surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff last fall.

Duncum, whose stock was rising in the WCW before his surgery, had a natural performer's flair, his younger brother said. When Duane and Bobby were teammates at Texas, Duane said, "My mom always told him if he didn't make it in football, she'd get him a one-way ticket to Hollywood, and he'd make it there."

"He had a real, real charm about him," Duane said. "People who knew him loved him. He had a certain air about him. And he was a guy you knew would always be there for you."

Duncum's funeral has been tentatively set for Friday, though the site and time had yet to be determined as of late Monday. Visitation will be at Harrell Funeral Home. He is survived by his wife Michelle, daughter Cassidy, 2, and son Austen, 13, his brother and his parents, Bobby and Glenda, all of Austin.
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THE READERS ALWAYS WRITE

From Penny Banner:

To: J Michael Kenyon

Word flashed across the Internet Monday concerning the death of Al Costello, one half of the original Fabulous Kangaroos, on Saturday, January 22. He was 80 years old. An existing heart problem was made worse by a case of pneumonia.

His real name was Giacoma Costa and he began his wrestling career in Australia in the late 1930s.

With Roy Heffernan, along with the legendary Wild Red Berry as their manager, Costello’s Kangaroos occupied a top spot on the eastern wheel in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Later, when Heffernan left the team, Costello continued the Kangaroo pairing with Don (Bulldog) Kent. Heffernan died in his native Sydney, Australia, at age 67, from a heart ailment in 1992.

In an interview later printed in "Whatever Happened To . . . ?" Heffernan described the team’s formation:

"Al Costello and I made our debut as The Fabulous Kangaroos in New York in `57. We had little boomerangs that we threw to the crowds, and we had our manager with us. We had a big banner with `The Fabulous Kangaroos` on it, and a recording of `Waltzing Matilda` that we`d march down to the ring to. I remember the first time carrying the banner. It was a low ceiling and the top of the banner hit it. Then our manager, Red Berry, starts to fall. Al Costello tries to catch him. And he starts to fall. So, I try to catch them both. And suddenly, all three of us fall down! And this is our grand opening. Our debut! All three of us are floundering around, our hats are all twisted, and we look just like the Three Stooges! We never lived that down. (laughter) It was awful."

Costello and Heffernan won the WWWF tag team belts on several occasions, the first time on July 21, 1960, in Washington, D.C., when they defeated Red and Lou Bastien (Klein).
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That is to pin the massive shoulders of Jimmy Londos, who is recognized in practically every state as the world’s champion, to the mat.

And Jimmy, with his crown cocked jauntily on his curly raven locks, is going to attempt to prove once more that it’s a tough job to put a good Greek down.

For sixteen years, Londos has worked and sweated to reach the heights, which he gained by flopping Dick Shikat, the German phenom, to the mat in a Philadelphia ring two years ago.

And since he won from Shikat, no one has ever put his shoulders to the floor of a ring for a fall. So it looks like a tough evening ahead for the grappling medico in the match Tuesday night.

Londos today is generally regarded as not only a marvel in physique but the most crafty, cunning and scientific of matmen. In late years he has developed a number of new holds – holds that are not only punishing, but well nigh inescapable. The champion uses many Japanese jiu jitsu grips to win his matches.

Sarpolis has been coming along so fast that he is rated the country’s outstanding contender for the title. The doc is a clever chap, strong and his middle name is Gameness.

He is the inventor of what he calls the flying hook body scissors, which has brought down some of the game’s best performers.

The Londos-Sarpolis title tilt will be preceded by the three following high-class matches: Ray Steele vs. Don Andreas Costanos, one hour, one fall; Abie Coleman vs. Dick Raines, one hour, one fall; John Freberg vs. Bob Kruse, thirty minutes, one fall.
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Facing Londos will be Dr. Karl Sarpolis, giant Lithuanian wrestling medico of Cleveland, who has been mowing down his recent opponents.

The match will be a no time limit affair, with the best two in three falls deciding the victor.

Londos will not only have his title at stake in tonight’s match, but also a record of never having lost a fall in the hundreds of bouts he has engaged in since he beat Dick Shikat of Germany for the championship in Philadelphia.

It is the prediction of many local wrestling experts that Sarpolis will gain a fall on the Greek, even though he may not win. The doctor will be in there trying every inch of the way to accomplish this rather hard task.

Londos and Sarpolis have never clashed, despite the fact that they have been wrestling for a long time.

With both grapplers in fine shape, a hot struggle is sure to be witnessed by the spectators. They also will see some scientific work, for the two behemoths are past masters at the grappling art.

By Harry B. Smith

Jimmy Londos is not only champion wrestler of the Atlantic seaboard, but he annexed a fair share of the Pacific Coast when he tossed Dr. Karl Sarpolis in two straight falls at Dreamland Auditorium last night.

One fall came after 32 minutes of action, during which the doctor did a fair bit of the work, only to be thrown with a series of body slams and crotch holds. Sarpolis appeared to be in a hazy condition and was several minutes recovering from his impact with the canvas.

Londos, once having found the enemy, made it fast and snappy for the second fall. The Greek started after Sarpolis like "nobody’s business" and slammed his rival down in three minutes with a series of headlocks, a reverse headlock and finally an airplane spin that left Sarpolis gasping for his breath once more.

A banner crowd greeted the night’s engagement and the folks witnessed a good performance not only in the main event of the evening, but throughout the preliminaries.

The house was estimated at $9876 with something like 7,700 fans and in this day and age, believe me, brother, that’s showing a lot of interest.

The gallery section was crowded to the guards, with a lot of folks standing in the aisles and much the same went for the downstairs sector, where the seating space was equally congested.

It has been five years since Londos has appeared on a San Francisco wrestling card and many behind that since I watched him in those old days when Ad Santel ruled the roost in San Francisco.

Meanwhile Jimmy has put on a lot of weight and learned a great deal about the game. Last night, without being unduly rough, as are so many of the boys, Londos was master of the situation all the way and won about as he pleased.

His technique has improved and although, several times before he gained the first fall, Sarpolis appeared to have him in jeopardy, Londos wriggled out of harm’s way and finally grappled his way to an easy win.

In the past two years, so they tell me, Londos hasn’t lost a fall. He held to that tradition last night and I figure he can still come back for another banner crowd.

The first fall, that lasted thirty-two minutes, held plenty of interest. Londos was chiefly the aggressor, but he was apparently in trouble on several occasions. Sarpolis, at least twice, cramped on a body scissors, that had Londos bridging to keep away from harm. It was not the Joe Stecher scissors, however, and the Greek worked his way back to safety.

Jimmy used several toeholds that had Sarpolis in apparent pain, but it was his fierce attack at the close, with a series of body scissors and finally a crotch hold, that brought him the fall.

After that it was easy for the now New Yorker. Sarpolis didn’t go to his chair as the fall was called, but sat flat on the canvas, evidently in more or less pain.

He managed to stagger to his feet as referee McDonald from Los Angeles called the pair together for the second try.

After that it was more or less an easy affair for Londos. Having gauged his man, he started for the doctor with a series of head clamps and then gave Sarpolis an airplane spin that left Sarpolis gasping for his breath.

It was "nobody’s business" the way Londos finally won when he made up his mind the evening’s performance was about to end.

Abie Coleman, pride of the New York ghetto, butted out a victory over Dick Raines of Texas with a series of flying tackles in the semi-windup. It lasted 22 minutes.

Bob Kruse, Northwest bad man, and big John Freberg of Sweden went to a one-hour draw in the special attraction. The boys played real rough, but neither was able to secure a fall.

Hans Graber of Germany body-slammed Ray Jerome of New Mexico into defeat after seven minutes of uninspiring heaving and hauling, while Mustapha Pasha, the robust Terrible Turk, finished Leo Papiano with a slam in fifteen minutes.
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(Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wa., Feb. 27, 1935)

Big beefy boys of bizarre brutality in three acts and a stanza filled the Masonic Temple arena almost to capacity last night and from the roundelays of jeers and cheers brought unalloyed joy to the faithful.

There was a roaring lion, a terrible Swede, a corn-husking Nebraskan and King Kong Cox among the gladiators. Louis Taylor lost his shirt, water buckets, bottles and ring chairs, to say nothing of mayhem and hair pulling, all were part of the display which from a standpoint of showmanship was excellent all the way through.

The crowd seemed to enjoy the rough tactics of King Kong Cox, with the exception of Cliff Macdonald of the state boxing commission. After his rowdy exhibition, Mr. Macdonald announced: "I’ll give Cox one more chance to come here and act as he should or he’ll go on the shelf."

Antoher who came under the disfavor of Mr. Macdonald was Ted Stacey of New York, who failed to appear for the professional wrestling debut of Frank Stojack, former running guard of W.S.C. Stacey drewd 30 days’ suspension as a result. Ralph Bernardi, carnival star, substituted and looked as if he was due for 30 days in the hospital after the roughing Stojack gave him in two quick falls. Stojack used his blocking skill largely in his victory.

The eyeopener was an exhibition between Count Cassi Columbo of Italy and Michael Strelich, the jaguar of Yugoslavia. They staged a slick tumbling act and both emerged with a hand in the air.

Joe Hubka, the Nebraska cornhusker, and Cliff Olson, Minnesota Swede, drew in five rounds with a fall each. Both shed as much perspiration as a crocodile is said to shed tears with Olson throwing a few Minnesota lakes at Hubka from his drenched hair and husking Hubka’s nose to his disgust. Often they were so entangled they got toe holds on themselves.

In the bout between Rumberg, Spokane’s own, and King Kong Cox, the tough guy from Lodi got the first fall in the third round with lefts and flying tackles, only to be pinned quickly in the next round. In the final he got more interested battling Louis Taylor and his own second than Rumberg, and Taylor awarded the match to Rumberg before he called for help to take Cox away from there. Taylor had less clothes on than the wrestlers after it was all over.

WRESTLING TONITE CIVIC ICE ARENA

Ralph GARIBALDI vs. Ras SAMARA

Four Other Great Bouts Including 1,000-lb. Tag Match

Dusek, Hurley, Plechas, Swikert, Geigel and Dr. Len Hall

STARS OF EASTERN TV

Tickets on sale – Central Ticket Agency, 1411 – 3^rd Ave.; Green Cigar Store, 1311 – 3^rd Ave.; Spring’s Cigar Store, 316 Pike, or Ice Arena Box Office

(These bouts will not be televised but main event will be broadcast over radio station KRSC.)
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(Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 8, 1951)

Ralph Garibaldi of St. Louis won the main event wrestling exhibition at the Ice Arena Thursday night when he took the only fall from Ras Samara of Birmingham.

Joe Dusek of Omaha, Neb., took two out of three falls from Frank Hurley, Australia. Dr. Len Hall of San Francisco was disqualified in his match against Bob Geigel, Des Moines. Bill Swikert of Vallejo, Calif., got the referee’s decision over Danny Plechas, Humboldt, Ia.
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(Oregonian, Portland, Ore., June 10, 1951)

Heavyweight wrestling will return to Portland Wednesday night, when Ralph Garibaldi and Joe Dusek are scheduled to clash in the main event of a program at the auditorium.

Wednesday’s matches, first in a series, will be promoted by Ivan Michaeiloff, recently arrived from the East coast.

Garibaldi, well known to mat fans nationally, will be making his first Portland start. Dusek is one of the famed Dusek brothers from Omaha, Neb.

Jack Pesek, son of John Pesek, the Nebraska Tiger Man, will engage Seelie Samara, huge crowd-pleaser, in Wednesday’s semifinal.

Other tiffs are to send Dr. Len Hall against Billy Earl Swigert and Danny Plechas against Bob Geigel.

Winding up the opening program will be a tag match between winners and losers of the first two bouts.
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(Oregonian, Portland, Ore., June 12, 1951)

Heavyweight wrestling won’t make it’s 1951 debut at the auditorium Wednesday night after all, according to an announcement Monday. In fact, it might not bow in at all.

Promoter Ivan Micheiloff was inexplicit in calling off the card, but said heavyweight programs might be presented later if "troubles" can be overcome. He said he was going to Seattle in that connection.
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(Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 13, 1951)

Jack Ganson, Cleveland, Ohio, promoter of one wrestling show in Seattle last Thursday night at the Ice Arena, announced Tuesday that he was canceling his future mat cards in the Northwest.

In a letter to the head of the Eagleson Post of VFW, under whose auspices Ganson expected to operate in Seattle and other Northwest cities, he explained his failure to obtain licenses in other cities prompted his withdrawal.

(ED. NOTE – One of the fanzines which proliferated in the 1970s was produced by Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz of Kew Gardens, N.Y. Among their contributors was Earl Elder of Baltimore, a familiar wrestling magazine byline of the era. The second issue contained highlights of the previous month’s WWWF television wrestling.)
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Nov. 5 – Jose Gonzales drew Butcher Nova, Larry Zbyszko beat Jack Evans, Bobby Duncum beat Tony Vee-Tom Stanton hdcp, Dean Ho-Tony Garea beat Dennis Johnson-Bill White, Hans Schroeder beat Jeff Rhodes

Nov. 9 – Dean Ho-Tony Garea beat Bill White-Hans Schroeder, Spiros Arion beat Jeff Rhodes, Johnny Valiant-Jimmy Valiant beat Jose Gonzales-Tony Vee, Joyce Grable-Susan Greene beat Paula Kaye-Peggy Paterson, Bobby Duncum beat S.D. Jones-Gentleman Jim hdcp

Nov. 12 – Larry Zbyszko beat Bill White, Butcher Nova beat Tony Vee, Spiros Airon beat Gentleman Jim, Bobby Duncum beat Dennis Albert-S.D. Jones hdcp, Tony Garea-Dean Ho beat Jack Evans-Hans Schroeder

Nov. 16 – Bobby Duncum drew Jose Gonzales nc

Nov. 23 – Spiros Arion-Jay Strongbow beat Jack Evans-Tony Altimore

(Baton Rouge Advocate, March 16, 1998)

By Michelle Millhollon

Randy Desbordes of Mandeville admits he’s a "wrestling fiend."

The 24-year-old camped out 13 hours to snag tickets when World Championship Wrestling came to New Orleans. He spent three hours in line to get a seat at Thursday’s show in Baton Rouge.

"It’s a soap opera for men," Desbordes said before the start of last week’s show here as he showed off one of $20 T-shirts he’d just purchased.

"If my girlfriend can watch ‘Days of Our Lives’ and not get hassled about it, we shouldn’t get hassled about wrestling," he said.

But wrestling’s fan following is far from being limited to men. Women also flock to the matches, snap up the souvenirs and scream into the ever-present television cameras.

The event at the Centroplex Thursday was sold-out, proving wrestling packs as much of a punch locally as it does nationwide. WCW organizers were so impressed with the turnout that they’re returning in July.

Thirteen-year-old Austin Tarver gasped with excitement at the news from his floor seat at the arena.

"My birthday’s in July," Austin said, looking over at his father.

John Tarver, 45, just sighed.

Pro wrestling, which waned in popularity during the 1980s, has resurfaced as a flashy, money-making blockbuster, reviving the careers of old-timers like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair.World Championship Wrestling is the highest rated series in cable history.

Featuring ongoing story lines and an array of personalities, the shows pit the good guys against the New World Order villains.

The popular Sting regularly trounces bad guy Hogan in energetic matches. And fans from Milwaukee to Houma love it.

A recent show at the civic center in Thibodaux quickly sold out, a local resident said.

"People love it," Andrew Wise, 32, said. "They seem to have a lot of interest down here."

Centroplex usher Julie Loubiere eagerly volunteered to work the Baton Rouge show.

"I begged," she admitted.

Loubiere, 19, is a longtime wrestling fan as is her boyfriend, Jeremy Daley. A week before the event, Daley was seriously injured in a car accident. He remained unconscious in a New Orleans hospital the night of the show.

"He would love to be here tonight, so I asked to work so I could get his favorite wrestlers to sign a card for him," Loubiere said.

On Sunday, Loubiere said Daley still hadn’t regained consciousness but that the card is by his bedside for when he does.

"He’s going to flip," she said.

She said doctors are optimistic Daley will recover and they speculate that heavy medication may be keeping him unconscious. They plan to begin reducing his medication this week, she said.

Surveying the crowd at the Centroplex, Loubiere said she has only seen one event that attracted more people to the arena.

"The Garth Brooks concert was pretty big," she said.

Because she was working the wrestling match, Loubiere didn’t have to buy a ticket to witness the excitement.

Others weren’t so lucky.

Fans who weren’t fortunate enough to get a ticket hovered outside the building, perhaps hoping to nab a no-show’s seat.

Austin Tarver begged for months to attend the Centroplex show until his father finally phoned about buying tickets. After being told when they would go on sale, John Tarver was warned to come early.

He was glad he did. The tickets were snapped up fast, leaving many parents scrambling.

Tiffany Mercante got tickets at the last minute from a local radio station but didn’t let her son Robert, 8, in on the good news.

"I put him in the car and he didn’t have a clue where we were going until we got here," Mercante, 27, said.

Robert’s favorite wrestler is Sting and on his way into the arena he bought a Sting mask. He sat riveted in his seat high up in the stands. His face registered an array of emotions as he gazed fixedly at the ring.

His only concern was whether or not his friends would believe he had been there.

"I probably need to be on TV so I can prove to them that I’ve been to World Championship Wrestling," he said with a worried look.

His mother assured him he could show them the ticket stubs if his face wasn’t flashed across TV screens.

Friends Aiman Bayoumi, Nathanael Richardson and Justin Angelle, all 16, also hoped to catch the attention of the cameras and quickly shed their shirts to show off their chests. Each had painted on a letter to spell out "N-W-O," for New World Order.

"I see it like in football games," Richardson explained. "People paint their team names."

Richardson’s father, Tracy, looked bemused at the display as he sat next to them.

"I don’t care what they do," he said. "They’re having fun and I’m having fun watching them."

Other fans held up signs, some obscene, and cheered as their favorite wrestlers strutted into the ring. One poster reflected current news instead of sports. "Another shameless Lewinsky reference" it read.

But for at least this night, wrestling was the main event.
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(Decatur Herald-Review, Nov. 14, 1999)

By David Burke

Drop by Gary Nein's house on a Monday night, and you'll likely find him watching TV, watching the moves of the muscular men.

But the 47-year-old Argenta man is not engrossed in "Monday Night Football." He's likely watching the World Wrestling Federation on cable television.

"I watch it quite a bit, yeah," said Nein, an auditor for Caterpillar Inc. in Decatur. "It's kind of comical. You really don't know what's going to go on from one Monday to the next."

Nein said he's been a wrestling fan for 10 years, after his brother got him hooked on it.

"It's all fake, and everybody tells me that. But I tell them, 'You watch movies all the time. Is that real or is that fake?' " he said. "They don't have anything to say after that."

Nein said his wife Kim will generally leave the room when he watches wrestling, but he'll spend the time in front of the TV with his 10-year-old son, Dylan.

"My friends just got 'No Mercy' on pay-per-view the other night, and a bunch of us watched it over there," said Dylan, a fifth-grader at Argenta Grade School. "It costs $30, so we don't get that too often."

The father and son are part of a growing population -- fans of professional wrestling.

From the pages of Playboy to the Minnesota governor's mansion, professional wrestling is virtually everywhere. And, beginning Nov. 20, that includes the Herald & Review, which will start running a wrestling column in the Classifieds section.

"I've loved wrestling since I was 4 years old. That's all I've followed, inside and out," said BlackJack Brown, whose column will run in the newspaper. "I never cared for baseball or football or basketball or anything else."

Brown, a 42-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., native, has been writing about wrestling for various magazines for 23 years and has had his own column for the last decade.

Pro wrestling, Brown said, is more popular now than it's ever been. And he said the main reason is its stars and its storylines.

"It's still climbing," he said.

Unlike the last wrestling craze in the mid-1980s, wrestlers are performers now more than ever.

"At that time, wrestlers weren't good talkers. Now, it's a different story," Brown said. "They can read a script; they can follow the program."

Yes, the script. While previous incarnations of wrestling tried to trade on the legend that it was spontaneous combustion in the ring, today's wrestling makes no bones about its preparation.

Big news was made in the wrestling world a few weeks ago when Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara, head writers for the World Wrestling Federation, jumped to rival organization World Championship Wrestling, owned by Ted Turner.

"For a whole year, WCW was dominating the industry, and last year WWF went ahead of them in the ratings," Brown said. "The competition is so great. Both feel like they have to be the strong one."

The two organizations duel it out on Monday nights, with the WWF on USA Network cable and WCW on Turner-owned TNT cable. Together, they bring in higher ratings than "Monday Night Football."

Wrestling has given a jump start to everything from MTV to CBS' cop show "Nash Bridges," where Brown says ratings skyrocket when a wrestler is featured. Highbrow cable network A&E even has a wrestling week scheduled in its "Biography" series beginning Monday.

"Whatever they touch, whatever they're a part of, turns to gold now," Brown said. "It's just so cool to be involved with wrestling now."

Three times this year, Playboy has featured shots in the altogether of WWF wrestling vixen Sable, who blew the whistle on the organization for getting too kinky with its scripts.

"The WWF doesn't need her anymore," Brown said. "They can make other stars."

The most famous ex-pro wrestler, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, was elected governor by the people of Minnesota last year.

"The reason why? The popularity of wrestling. He knows that," Brown said. "That's why he went back to (referee matches in the pay-per-view) 'Wrestlemania,' and he'll go back again."

Wrestling has also made celebrities of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock, "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan and dozens more.

While Brown said the dialogue made outside the ring is totally scripted, he said what happens in the ring can still be unpredictable -- except for the predetermined outcome.

He compares it to a children's game of play fighting that gets out of hand.

"A lot of fans believe what they see," he said. "It's like 'The Jerry Springer Show' -- they don't know what's real and what's fake."

One of the celebrities wrestling has created is Diamond Dallas Page, who's been wrestling for eight years after being a manager and color commentator for three years before that.

The 50-year-old New Jersey native has parlayed his success into two movies. The first, "The President's Daughter," was made for cable's TBS Superstation and drew high ratings. The second, a theatrical film called "Get Ready to Rumble," is slated for 2000. It co-stars a bevy of other wrestlers as well as actors David Arquette, Oliver Platt and Rose McGowan.

"It's like 'Wayne's World' meets wrestling," said Page, who plays one of the villains.

Page was in Central Illinois a year ago to sign autographs at Hickory Point Mall in Forsyth. Fans lined up three-fourths of the way around the exterior of the J.C. Penney store for autographs.

Born Page Falkinburg, the wrestler said the competition between the WWF and WCW is a main reason for wrestling's renaissance.

"Anytime you create controversy, it makes people pay attention," he said. "And when (the organizations) pay attention to the product, people are going to watch."

Page said he thinks wrestling is going for a "Howard Stern type of shock" with more adult themes.

"Kids are still 15 to 20 percent of our audience, and when I say kids, I mean (ages) 2 to 11," he said. "No matter what, the kids are going to like wrestling and watch wrestling whether it's adult-themed or not"

Unfortunately, he said, the wrestling organizations "went to the next level ... soft porn."

While Page credits Hulk Hogan as being the dominant figure in wrestling for the past year and a half, he said credibility for the genre came from an unlikely source. "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno invited Page, Hogan and National Basketball Association stars Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman on the show to talk about an upcoming two-on-two match.

"I mean, Jay Leno. Who's a more reputable guy?" Page said. "If there's a sweeter guy than Jay Leno, I want to meet him."

Leno eventually got into the ring with Page, in a match against Hogan and wrestler Eric Bischoff.

It's the fans' connections with the wrestlers that is another key to the success, Page said.

"You have to have a personal bond with the combatants, whether it's the L.A. Lakers versus the Utah Jazz or whatever," Page said. "Everybody's got a personal investment in a team. In wrestling, you've got to have it with the guy."

Page said he believes wrestling fans realize and appreciate it for what it is. "It's like a soap opera, only better," he said. "To me, wrestling is an American art form. If you really look at it, we are the greatest improvisational, theatrical athletes on the planet. I can give you a billion examples why."

Amused and amazed at the success of wrestling is Frank McAndrew, a faculty member at Knox College in Galesburg. Not only is McAndrew a psychology professor, he's also coach of the college's wrestling team.

McAndrew said the first image in people's minds of wrestling is the professional variety, not the competitive sport he coaches.

But he said he still understands professional wrestling's appeal.

"If you think of the things most people watch in their spare time, it's either sports or movies and plays. Pro wrestling kind of combines the two," McAndrew said. "There are certain types of things males are programmed to be interested in. Pro wrestling tries to build that in there -- political intrigue, power struggles, and there's always a running story line -- like a soap opera."
_______________________________________

By John Leland

This is the same Vince McMahon who, from a sleek corporate office in Stamford, Conn., presides over a huge media empire. In the last 17 years, using tactics not so different from the Machiavellian drama on screen, he has transformed a modest family company into a media machine of surprising scale and synergy—a louder, raunchier version of the Disney kingdom. To the uninitiated or unconvinced, pro wrestling may seem like a dopey spectacle in which really big guys put on silly tights and pretend to beat each other up. And OK, it is that, but it is also a very big business, and has become an addiction for a broad cross section of young America. The WWF's "Raw Is War," watched by about 5 million households weekly, is the highest-rated show on cable; "SmackDown!," seen in another 5 million, is the top-rated show on UPN. These are just the wheels of the machine, though. The WWF's home videos routinely rank No. 1 in sports, its action figures outsell Pokemon's and its Web site is one of the first outlets to turn streaming video into profits (other than porn sites, of course—and some would argue the distinction is subtle). The autobiographies of two WWF wrestlers, Mankind (Mick Foley) and the Rock (Dwayne Johnson), are currently Nos. 1 and 3 on The New York Times best-seller list. Add in revenue from live ticket sales, pay-per-views, platinum-selling CDs and a new theme restaurant, all in turn promoting the shows and each other. "If someone said, 'Build me a model program, something that'll have all kinds of synergies and profit centers'," McMahon says, "you would build this."

You should be so savvy. The company is projecting sales of $340 million for this year, up from $250 million in 1999. The stock market values the company, 83 percent of which is owned by the family, at more than $1 billion. At a time when television has lost the ability to seduce young male viewers with sex and violence, McMahon has crafted a luridly compelling new delivery system: comic, winking, with daredevil action, larger-than-life cleavage and soap-opera plots. For a jaded audience raised on Quentin Tarantino and bored by political correctness, he gave up the pretense that wrestling was real. In its place, he framed the bouts with a "behind the scenes" saga about his own family, full of sex and intrigue, and starring the McMahons themselves—a second layer of unreality, creating ironic distance from the first. You could take it straight, or with a twist. Here was something to believe in: the candidly, honestly fake.

Of course, the company is not Disney, and not just because it's more popular with 14-year-olds. A third-generation wrestling promoter, McMahon has set new standards of sleaze, outraging some parents and embarrassing many of the genre's legends. Cardboard good guys and bad guys were replaced with pimps, porn stars and sociopaths. "Darwin proved there was a theory of evolution," says Jim (Baron Von) Raschke, 59, who wrestled until the early '90s. "McMahon has taken us back to where we started." The story of his rise, and the enemies he has made along the way, is made for a family soap opera. It is made, in fact, for "SmackDown!" The Rock, a third-generation grappler himself, understands that life inside the squared circle is like no other. "Frankly," he says, "if you're not born in the business, it's hard to grasp."

Vincent Kennedy McMahon was born on Aug. 24, 1945, the second son of parents already speeding toward divorce. Raised by his mother and stepfather in rural North Carolina, he met his father when he was 12, and began his twin obsessions with family and business that would govern his adult life. From his offices in Washington, D.C.'s Franklin Park Hotel, Vincent James McMahon ran Capital Wrestling, a regional circuit that put on shows from Virginia to Maine.

In that era, wrestlers worked in "territories," performing throughout one region of the country for crowds of a few hundred to a few thousand. The promoters had an unwritten agreement not to invade each other's turf or steal each other's wrestlers. It was a period of louche glamour. Wrestlers lived in a state of nomadic grace, a nightly caravan of big men in big cars. The pay wasn't like today, when big-timers can make $5 million a year, plus stock options, but the performers' resourcefulness was the stuff of legend. "I've seen four midgets in one bed in a hotel room," says "Pretty Boy" Larry Sharpe. "And four broads knocking on the door to get in." They were their own outsize tribe, "the last of the Gypsies," says McMahon. "Of course I came along and drove all that out."

As he grew closer to his father, Vince fell under the thrall of a flamboyant blond wrestler named Dr. Jerry Graham. What Dr. Jerry offered the boy was a far cry from life in his mother's trailer park. "How often do you get to ride around in a 1959 blood red Cadillac convertible, lighting a cigar with a hundred-dollar bill, not stopping at stoplights?" asks McMahon. He was hooked. When his father suspected an underling of stealing from him, he reluctantly let Vince take over the shows in Bangor, Maine, a minor Capital outpost.

Where his father was polished, Vince was brashly ambitious, a Sonny Corleone in a world of spandex and brawn. He was a cocky kid, a born "heel" (villain) in the only industry in which becoming the most-hated man in America qualifies as a noble career objective. He expanded into neighboring towns and urged his father to wage a broader turf war. What worked in the East, he figured, would work even better nationwide. To his father, this was apostasy.

By 1982, the old man was talking about selling the business, threatening to put Vince out of a job. Borrowing money, Vince and his wife, Linda, made him and his partners an offer: four quarterly payments of about $250,000 each; if they missed any payment, they forfeited the company and whatever money they'd put in. "It was one of the original LBOs," says Linda. "We really bought it with the revenue that we were generating from the business itself." To boost cash flow, McMahon started promoting shows in other territories.

The enemies McMahon was making were often former wrestlers, sometimes rough men—"the type of guys who'd steal a hot stove and come back later for the lid," says veteran wrestling and boxing writer Bert Sugar. Jim Ross, now an announcer and talent scout at the WWF, was working for another promoter at the time, and remembers attending a kind of general war council in Kansas City to organize against the young upstart. In the men's room, says Ross, he overheard two promoters discussing an extreme remedy. "They started saying, 'One way we can put an end to this is to have the s.o.b. killed.' I'm sitting on the throne, creeping my legs up so they won't see me. I was dead certain they were serious." In the end, though, nothing came of the meeting, or the plot. Says Ross, "They couldn't cooperate on that, either."

One of the men McMahon put out of business was Verne Gagne, who ran the American Wrestling Alliance out of Minneapolis. "I have no love for Vince McMahon," says Gagne, now 73. In the 1970s and early '80s, Gagne built a rippled pantheon that included Hulk Hogan, Jesse (The Body) Ventura and Ric Flair, among others. Since the promoters mostly cooperated with one another—often to the detriment of the wrestlers—Gagne did not need to have his stars under contract. Then McMahon came along. "He took 37 of my people, including my announcer," Mean Gene Okerlund, says Gagne. "Then he came into my territory and used them against me."

By the mid-1980s, McMahon's scorched-earth tactics had winnowed the field of big-time wresting promoters to the WWF and a limping circuit called the National Wrestling Alliance. Through TV syndication, McMahon could build his wrestlers' profiles over all the old territories at the same time. He flooded independent stations with videotapes of his matches—often paying to have them aired—stoking demand for his wrestlers, not the local guy's. He made his money from the live gate, writing off TV costs as the price of promotion. It was risky, but this was the Reagan era. McMahon was developing a slicker, kid-friendly product, with cartoonish stars like Hulk Hogan doing commercials telling kids to eat their vitamins. Micromanaging every detail, from wrestlers' names to the color of their tights, he was pushing the grappling game farther from the scruffy realm of the carnival and closer to the workaholic template of a high-budget, high-concept Hollywood star factory.

With the advent of pay-per-view technology, McMahon seized another emerging medium and trampled another wrestling dictum. Though the public may have been dubious (no one ever bet on pro wrestling), promoters had for decades presented their spectacle as honest sport. Accordingly, it fell under the purview of state athletic commissions. Now these commissions wanted to tax pay-per-view broadcasts. Vince and Linda repositioned their product as "sports entertainment," convincing authorities that their matches were scripted, the outcomes fixed. Though WWF folks paint this as a bold move in the direction of candor, really it was a way out of an onerous tax. A funny thing happened: wrestling began to seem less alien to mainstream entertainments and advertisers, crossing into music videos and network TV. It grew more popular than ever. For a 1987 show at the Pontiac Silverdome, the company sold 93,000 tickets, with more tuning in on pay-per-view.

Then trouble struck. In the early 1990s, the company found itself mired in a steroid scandal and allegations of sexual misconduct. As the WWF reeled, a newly reinvigorated National Wrestling Alliance, now owned by Ted Turner and rechristened World Championship Wrestling, gained ground by experimenting with higher production values and more sophisticated "story lines," the mock behind-the-scenes soap operas that were beginning to overshadow the grappling. McMahon, who casts the competition as a steel-cage match between himself and Billionaire Ted, was being beaten at his own game. "We didn't give the audience what they wanted," he admits. "We weren't relevant." Starting in July 1996, the WCW began 83 consecutive weeks ahead in the ratings war.

The WWF roared back, however, and now doubles the ratings of its competition. McMahon did it the old-fashioned way, with extra helpings of savvy and sleaze. Hiring writers from Conan O'Brien and MTV, McMahon has let his inner miscreant run free: one plot had a wrestler winning another's wife in a poker game, and sending videos of the consummation; for Thanksgiving, two women wrestled in gravy. He pushes the boundaries of civility as gleefully as his stars trample the rules of the ring: you never know what might happen. For the converted, this is a recipe for great television, but it is a gambit. When Coke pulled ads from "SmackDown!," McMahon cleaned up the show to get a PG rating. "It was Vince's decision," says UPN head Dean Valentine, who brought wrestling to the new network last summer. "I was supportive. I would have been supportive if he hadn't. I didn't have a problem before, I don't have one now." But even cleaned up, the WWF kept growing. A month after the change, he says, ratings are up 10 percent.

The old carny days are dead and gone. Last Monday, in the bowels of the First Union Center in Philadelphia, a couple of dozen "superstars" (WWF-speak for wrestlers) killed the hours before showtime watching a videotape of the previous night's pay-per-view, the Royal Rumble. Like any group of traveling athletes, they divided into cliques, each looking up to check his or her performance. When the wrestler Darren Drozdov entered the room in a wheelchair, paralyzed after fracturing his neck in the ring last October, they all applauded, then lined up to hug their fallen colleague. A languid camaraderie pervades. "When a new guy comes in, I try to give him financial tips," says Mick Foley, who doubles as both the lovable Mankind and the redneck psychopath Cactus Jack. "I hear Bradshaw knows a lot, but he delves into individual stocks, and they scare me." Bradshaw is John Layfield, a former NFL player who is known among the other wrestlers for bringing a bruising verisimilitude to his hits. The son of a banker, Layfield says he earned 88 percent on his investments last year and 73 percent the year before. "That just shouldn't happen."

McMahon is now in expansion mode once again. Though the stock price has lagged lately (analysts blame the advertiser imbroglio and an injury to star Stone Cold Steve Austin), last October's initial public offering still raised $170 million to expand the WWF's online activities. In his unprepossessing office at the WWF, Shane McMahon spins a basketball on his finger as he discusses the destiny of his father's company. Shane, 30, is the WWF's president of new media; his childhood friends wrestle as the Mean Street Posse, a group of rich kids from the snooty suburb of Greenwich, Conn.—which, in fact, they are. "We do over 6 million video streams a month," he says, most of them free of charge. Like his father at the same age, Shane represents the future of the family business. "We know that the Internet will be our own 24/7 network," says Linda. Shane worked intensely with techies at Microsoft to customize a new format for bringing the WWF's pay-per-views online. "The WWF has been a pioneer in using new media to bring events to broad audiences," says Dave Fester, director of marketing for Microsoft's Digital Media Division. "We've learned a lot working with them."

But McMahon's most cherished innovation remains his family—the on-screen version and the real. As TV's malevolent Mr. McMahon, he plays a natty corporate monster who would destroy anyone, including his wrestlers, in the pursuit of power. Here is a heel any wrestling fan can get behind—preferably to shove down the stairs. It is a role many said he'd been playing all along. The current story line has Stephanie and her "husband," Triple H, running the company with vindictive malice—a filial jihad that might ring a bell among students of the real McMahon saga. It is a gloriously multilevel play between what wrestlers call the work and the shoot, the staged and the real-real. And it suits the times. As Triple H says, in the post-cold-war era "there is no horror now. To the average person, the real-life enemy now is their boss." Shane has sided with Vince; Linda with Stephanie, a formidable team. But don't count the patriarch out yet. Though he is secretive about story lines, he allows himself a little laugh about the family drama to come. "I've got one coming up with Stephanie and Linda that Linda doesn't know about," he says, chuckling. Then, punctuating each word like a slap, he recites a line of prospective dialogue: "Oh, you bitch."

In wrestling, though, truth is often funkier than fiction. The McMahon family boasts of tight blood ties. Shane calls his father "my best friend, my hero, my boss, my mentor, my brother, my confidant, my buddy." When he married three years ago, Shane asked his father to be his be