Buddie Rogers and The Art Of Sequencing

Transcription

1 Buddie Rogers and The Art Of Sequencing The Poetry of Performance in Professional Wrestling TERM PAPER TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Page 1-3 Basic Text Page 3-20 Footnotes Page Bibliography Page Bibliography Supplement Page Nature Boy Buddy Rogers (Herman Rhode) Max W. Jacobs NATIONAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE CHAMPION WORLD-WIDE WRESTLING FEDERATION CHAMPION 1963 INTRODUCTION Out of the blue, in the middle of the action, an extremely clever comic actor began counting, very slowly, and with great concentration: one, two, three, four annunciating each of the numbers with the utmost deliberation, as if they had gotten away from him and he was gathering them up again: five, six, seven, eight when he reached fifteen, the audience began to laugh, and by the time he had slowly, and with greater and greater concentration, made his way up to 100, people were falling off their seats Yes, cross the border and you hear that fateful laughter. And if you go farther, beyond laughter? - by Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting 1

2 In 1940, in an arena, two men engaged in a wrestling match. One, overweight, with protruding belly and overactive sweat glands, was a good wrestler, functioning in the tradition of Strangler Lewis; the other, muscle-bound, posed in imitation of a male model (edifying female fans, who comprised more than 50% of the audience) but provided no forward movement to the event, reminiscent of Jim McMillan and Joe Savoldi, the football-player-turned-wrestler models of the era. In 1980, both wrestlers were gifted with a fluidity of movement, scrambling between one another s legs, cart wheeling off the turn-buckle, throwing one another over the ropes and alternating in the use of leverage. It is like contrasting a medieval tournament with flight in an F-15. What happened in the intervening 40 years? What changed the performance of 1940 and made it a relic that is virtually unrecognizable today? Well, first of all, there was Jim Londos, handsome and svelte, The Golden Greek who made the wrestling world forget Ed Strangler Lewis Trimmer Jim was a movie star wrestler, gifted with all the moves and in later years the villainy necessary to make this ancient athletic event a genuine American entertainment; however, Jim was too much a product of his craft and his time, too constrained by tradition and limited in imagination. Others might have done it. George Wagner ( Gorgeous George ) got near it, but he did it on the ring apron. Gifted with imagination, but extremely limited physically, he never got the performance onto the performing surface, which is and must always be the ring. What is spoken today are the words or Samuel Muchnick, premier promoter of his era: Buddie Rogers was the greatest showman in the history of the wrestling game. And what is known is that Buddie Rogers probably made more money than any other wrestler in history. What is not known is that Buddie Rogers invented the entire concept of sequencing, a quantum leap from the chain wrestling of Jim Londos and his contemporaries. The problem with this form of entertainment is that, in the mythology of the professionals, the great ones always come in pairs: there was Bill (Muldoon) & Ernst (Roeber), Farmer (Martin Burns) & Frank (Gotch), Ed ( Strangler Lewis) & Toots (Joe Mondt), Jim (Londos) & Ray (Steele) and Buddie (Rogers) & Billy (Darnell). Perhaps this is because wrestling, like dancing, is a cooperative art. However, it must be recognized that out of a timid and rather self-effacing group of athletic acrobats, Buddie Rogers created modern wrestling. He, who did this, did it because he had imagination, as well as a disciplined body. He had the skills both of an actor and director, although he had not the skills of a producer; while a star, he could not promote a star, but could certainly create one, for a moment, in the ring. You see, Buddie had an idea which he gave a name: sequencing. This idea was unique to wrestling in that it had a point: not only a point of origin, but a point of completion. Sequencing had behind it the notion of the finished act. Unlike the concept of chain wrestling, which was a series of momentary scenes strung together by endless acres of time spent in head-locks, sequencing was continuous, a play from beginning to end. The evil Ballet master, which Buddie was frequently called, had a sense of rising action, a notion that a series of physical movements should lead to something, rise sequentially toward the end of the match. His intelligence was savvy rather than literary. What made it remarkable was its humor; Buddie, if anything, was a great tease. That word has the connotation of burlesque in it and, indeed, burlesque it was. However, it was that in the best sense of the word: it was humor more than sex; it was a notion of structure as central; it was the sense of the comic playwright working from exposition to denoumonet. Buddie had great powers of audience observation; he gave the audience what they really wanted, rather than what they thought they wanted; he physically demonstrated to them they were being had by professionally wrestling if they thought it was a sport; never for a moment did they doubt, with Buddie in the ring, that it was primarily entertainment and they loved to hate him for his honesty. Thus, in his time, Buddie Rogers utterly transformed the stagecraft of his profession and created, in the ring, a cutting edge where reason met unreason, where rationality struck opposites, where hatred for the performer became love for the performance. 2

3 At the end, Buddie Rogers was a great artist, gifted with a great artist s skill; however, he did not carve on wood or chisel on stone; he did not put pigment on canvas; he did not sing arias or declaim verses from the stage; his field of creativity was the ring and, in that ring, he truly danced the dance of the wrestler. Max W. Jacobs Wrestling is the national sport of India. As an organized activity it goes back many centuries. The styles vary from state to state, much as they do from shire to shire in England. Certain styles are similar to Græco-Roman and Cornwall-Devonshire, where great reliance is placed in upper-body strength; other styles resemble Catch-as-Catch-can, Lancashire and All-In Wrestling, but are conducted in a more confined space than in the west. American wrestlers first became exposed to Indian wrestlers in Europe during World War I. Prior to that time, they were totally unaware of the Hindu style, its ceremonial significance, the great esteem in which it is held in the native country, the many riles (frequently quite confining) under which it is conducted, or the required floor of combat (the dry and dusty earth). American wrestlers were aware of the key to the wrestling hold, that begin the application of pressure in such a way as not to destroy a counter, since the counter might give and opportunity for a more effective hold. A hold is a slow thing, not a thrust (such as a punch in boxing). It is enforced and exerted, not thrown. Much of Indian wrestling was this comparatively static for to which Americans were accustomed. There was one absolutely spectacular move Americans had never seen before. It was the Danki, a hand-hold and roll, carried out with the leg and foot of the aggressive wrestler. It was similar to a bar-arm and, depending on the resultant position of the defensive wrestler, it was capable of exerting the same sort of pressure as a quarter-nelson, or hammer-lock. While endeavoring for applying certain moves, hook his right hand by your left leg from without hold it fast in the left leg hock Drop yourself suddenly beyond his head and resting your head on the ground, throw up your body, maintaining the hand-hold Fall on the ground on the left side so that he lies flatly on his back to the ground 1 What the American wrestler was totally unprepared for, however, was the entire Indian concept of chain-holds, a pre-arranged series of movements designed to exhibit holds moving fluidly one into the other. Chain No.1: Hand Twist and pull-leg Hook and arm-roll, and throw over back: Get yourself behind your opponent and force him down on his knees. Twist his right hand behind your right hand. Endeavor to apply hand-twist and pull on him Your adversary will extricate his hand with a violent pull and hooking your left leg by his left, will try to turn to his left for executing the Hook and Press on you In the act of turning to his left, lever with right leg against his hips and pull on or pull over When you are pulling him to your right, your foe will vigorously continue his left turn to press you down as in Leg-Hook and Press As soon as he is attempting to press down your shoulders to the ground, you can easily throw up your body over his, as in a Danki to save yourself from the critical position. If your opponent be ingenious enough to throw over back you are in an utterly helpless condition as your legs are in air and consequently you have no support; and you will be easily dashed down to the ground on your back.2 What was the purpose in such maneuvers? Such chain holds appear very graceful to be looked at and the spectators get highly pleased thereby. 3 The grand master cautioned chain hold students: Similar chain can be formed specially for show. If the contestants belong to different institutions, fixed chains can never be possible. At the time the chain will depend upon the clever applications used by them on the spur of the moment. 4 3

4 Such a concept was revolutionary to the American. While they were familiar with exhibitions, and there is ample evidence to suggest working matches were as frequent as shooting matches,5 there is nothing to support the notion American wrestlers had developed the technique of moving rapidly from hold to hold observed in modern professional wrestling. Quite the contrary, wrestlers at the end of the century s second decade tended to apply single holds to the limit of effectiveness (which could last as long as five minutes). The notion the heat 6 could be generated by a frenzy of variety was not lost on the American professional wrestling world. Joe Stecher was to have a deal of difficulty learning chain-holds, but his scissors 7 was so remarkable he was able to entertain without innovation. Earl Caddock, that tragic figure, never got a chance to use them; he had been gassed in the trenches of France, was a shadow of his former self, and soon retired after his return to the United States. Ed Strangler Lewis, on the other hand, very early saw the potential in chain-holds and began to practice them with his policeman 8, Joe Toots Mondt.9 Stanislaus Zybszko, Hans Stenke and Gus Sonnenberg all had problems utilizing chains and Everett Marshall and Dick Shikat never felt they needed them. However, Rudy Dusek, Ed Don George, Dean Detton, Jim Browning and, in particular, Jim Londos all found chains easy to use and effective in generating heat. Londos practiced them for hours with his policeman, Ray Steele. The utilization of chains began to dry out in the mid 1930 s as the depression ground inexorably into wrestling attendance (which had, earlier in the decade, remained relatively immune to the general decline in sports attendance). The public turned to physical phenomenons such as Man Mountain Dean, ignoring the refinements of the showman. The era featured physical strength and only occasionally patronized such outstanding utilizers of chains as Bhu Pinder, a genuine Hindu, and Wild Bill Longson. The other major wrestlers of the period (Steve Crusher Casey, Dan O Mahoney, Whiskers Savage, Ali Baba, Dave Levin, George Zaharias, Bronko Nagurski) concentrated on physical strength, clean wrestling, or gimmicks. Although already a onetime champion, the young Lou Thesz had not yet developed his calm and independent style to a point of impact on the American professional scene. The task of revising the concept of chain hold and turning it into an electrifying and thoroughly American method of raising a wrestling audience to unprecedented levels of heat fell to a young man born in Camden, New Jersey. At around the time Strangler Lewis and Toots Mondt first began practicing the exhibitionist concept of Indian wrestling brought to America by soldiers of World War I, Herman Dutch Rhode was born. The date was February 20, He was fortunate in having a brother nine years older than himself who was quite taken with wrestling. The sport being a natural (albeit complex) activity, the youngsters frequently wrestled together and young Dutch acquired quite a bit of skill before he entered grammar school. At the age of eight, he began wrestling at the Camden YMCA. Before he was ten years old, the Depression struck Camden and he became accustomed to standing in relief lines along with other members of his family for up to five hours, waiting for a quarter pound of butter, a quarter sack of flour and a quarter pound of powdered milk mix. Relief also entitled him to a ticket for one pair of shoes per year. Wrestling, heretofore looked upon by German-speaking parents (both Herman and his brother were bi-lingual) as an athletic activity, suddenly became a dream, a means of escape from the dreariness of life. During the early years of the Depression, wrestling seemed immune from the economic ravages afflicting the rest of sport; in 1934 and 1935, Jim Londos drew six gates of more than $30,000, including a $96,000 gate for a bout against Strangler Lewis in Wrigley Field, Chicago. The older Rhode brother, for some time a noted amateur wrestler, turned professional. In his sixth professional bout his leg was broken by Jumpin Joe Savoldi, effectively ending his career. Young Herman attended the match and was asked to do the color commentary by the radio announcer Ernie Kovacks.10 4

5 After the accident, the career of the younger brother became the focus of both boys. Dutch acquired a dedicated advisor and trainer in his older brother. They were strongly influenced by the wrestling techniques of Gino Garibaldi, the Dusek Brothers, Jim Londos and Ed Strangler Lewis, all of whom they saw in action at the Camden Civic Center. The concentration on wrestling became so total that Herman could not go to school or, indeed, engage in a conversation, unless it involved wrestling. In 1939, he married for the first time.11 Now he had to turn Pro. Herman Rhode had his first professional wrestling match at the Garden Pier in Atlantic City in He quickly found the Depression had eaten into his chosen profession. He worked every night of the week. His usual cut was $5 to $8, out of which came expenses. $12 was a big pay day. He also found a pretty boy 12 who spoke, read and wrote German and who carried the name Dutch Rhode was not a particularly salable commodity on the eve of World War II. He became desperate for money. While in western Pennsylvania, working a match, he attended a small carnival of the Dade Brothers Circus, where he challenged the strong man at the AT Show.13 After defeating the strong man, he was invited by the owners of the show to work with the man he had just beaten. He was informed the two of them would work in shots and could be paid as much as $10 per shot.14 A shot in carnival language, consists of role-playing, in which one party functions as the strong man and the other as the shill 15, the local unknown who almost defeats the strong man, thereby encouraging other members of the audience to try their luck. On occasion, the party outside the ring beats this strong man and then, having received his prize money, challenges other members of the audience. During the summers of 1940 and 1941, he worked for Dade Brothers, taking on all comers. Each challenger was offered $25 if he could stay five minutes in the ring with Rhode. The carnival traveled across western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. It was a small circus. The tent held only 200 people and all performers dressed in one trailer. He learned a great deal. For the first time, he had an alias. He wrestled as The Punk, a name he came to love: it added to his pretty boy status a kind of cocky arrogance he was able to exploit in later years. He learned the effectiveness of direct accusation in cultivating a mark 16. What s your name?, Rhode would hurl at an unsuspecting hayseed in the audience, pointing his fingers menacingly. The question was accusatory, it aroused the ire of the object and the audience. He loved combatants who rushed him, but had difficulty dealing with those who layback ; he had a talent for dealing with rushers that made them look good and made the audience feel it had gotten its money s worth from the match, while in no way diminishing his ability to emerge victorious; he could lead another wrestler. Most important, he learned to lay in the center of ring, after a match, as though exhausted; having forced the local hero into a match by subjecting him to ridicule and having led that mark through the match to make him look good, he wanted to leave the audience with the feeling that he had barely won and that, if they could get a mark just a little more skilled, The Punk would meet the defeat he so richly merited. Rhode learned, if the crowd left with that feeling, it would soon be back and he would have another turn at the cash register. Professionally, his career was moving slowly. At the beginning of 1942, he was wrestling five times and making about $120 per week. In that year, he wrestled Joe Toots Mondt in New York and, for the first time, was exposed to chain-hold. He took to it immediately. He also became aware of its limitations, when, later in that same year, he wrestled Johnny Pesek, the great policeman and shooter from Ravenna, Nebraska. Unlike Mondt, Pesek did not use chain and Rhode realized indoctrination and cooperation were the keys to the effective display of this technique. In 1943, Dutch picked up an outstanding trainer in Dynamite Joe Cox, a wrestler who had been a showman and a person well versed in chain. He also learned, through conversations with Cox, that he had very little chances of advancing his career in New Jersey. The Duseks were promoting in Camden. They were not going to let a home-town pretty boy build a career in that community. The Dusek s were all heels, given to a violent style of wrestling. They were four brothers from Omaha, Nebraska, (a fifth brother wrestled infrequently) who titled themselves the 5

6 Riot Squad and boasted none at ever appeared in a dull match. They were not accustomed to losing and would not participate in the careful cultivation needed to create a local wrestling hero. Cox said he would look around and try to find and area out of which Rhode could successfully book 17. Cox informed Rhode that, in doing this, he was functioning as a manager; however, his real skill lay in training. Cox said, in addition to a trainer (Cox), Herman would have to get himself a manager, a policeman and a glove 18. These were four critical ingredients in making a wrestling star was to be the most fateful year in his young life. Up until that time, he had never made as much as $7,000 wrestling in one year. Early in the year, Cox informed him that the promoter, Eddie Gottlieb19 had made a match for him in Philadelphia with Ed Strangler Lewis. The Strangler was the greatest and most beloved name in the game and, at 54, he was still a formidable adversary. Ed Lewis was a specialist in chains ; in fact, he was distractingly good at them. Ed and I wrestled for 35 minutes and had a real good time. He was 30 years older than me, but had always been know for his stamina, so that I didn t worry about mixing it up with him. Jesus, he was good! He was practically blind from the tracoma20 and would lose his eyesight about ten years later, but he had such a feel for the game, having been in over 5, 000 matches, that it was like child s play to him. He played with me like a mamma cat playing with her kitten. Then, after a half hour horsing around, that big mamma cat reached out her left arm and pulled in this little kitten and took him apart! Lewis got that head-lock on me and brought me down. God, I was low! This was my first really big pay-day and I hadn t even made it look close. I went down to the dressing room and sat on a bench wondering, for the first time, if I was really cut out for wrestling. Eddie Gottlieb brought Lewis down to me in the dressing room and Big Ed put his hand on top of my head and pushed it up so I had to look at him. The, he put his other hand under my chin and said to me, looking at me with those nearly blind eyes, Kid, you showed me a lot tonight; you keep it up and you are going to be the biggest name in the game. I loved him for that. I ll never forget the fact that he took the time to encourage me when I felt so down. Ed Lewis was always, to me, the epitome of what a wrestler should be; he was a gentleman, well read and well versed, who could hold your attention; he was a superb guest speaker and outstanding performer; the only thing he could never do was promote. That s where he lost all his money. A lot of the second-rate performers used Ed to bail themselves out of tight spots. He was a man who made and lost several fortunes because he was such a good guy. Later on that year, Ed Lewis introduced him to Jack Pfefer. Pfefer was notorious in the wrestling world. A former partner of Jack Curley and Toots Mondt in the New York wrestling world, a partner and afterward bitter enemy of the Jessie McMahon-Dusek Brothers promotions, Pfefer spilled the beans about working to newspapers columnist, Dan Parker, and gave the game a bad name from which it would not recover. He did this as an act of simple revenge against partners who, in his judgement, had wronged him and cut him out. Life was war to Pfefer. The perpetuation of the blood-feud was more important than economic good sense. This technique for dealing with an adversary in no way discomforted Pfefer. Pfefer s entire view of entertainment was predicated on unremitting hostility between nations, races and groups of people. He entered the field of American wrestling promotion because of the excellent contacts he developed in Eastern Europe while a manager for the Russian Ballet. He served Curley and Mondt by being able to deliver Russians, Turks, Poles, Bulgarians, Jews, Indians, Chinese, and other assorted raced and nationalities for the edification of ethnic minorities in New York City. He read, wrote and spoke a variety of languages and kept in close touch with the neighborhoods of the sprawling city. In his view, the quality of the performer was not as important as his credible representation of an ethnic identity that could be thrown into combat against an ancient national enemy. Hence, a Russian against a Turk, an Irishman against an Englishman and a Jew against anybody would sell out New York. Pfefer was five feet tall and weighed perhaps a hundred pounds. He was a bachelor and was 50 years old when he first met Rhode. He did not like the fact that Dutch spoke fluent German, for those who spoke German could easily understand Yiddish and Pfefer did not like his wrestlers 6

7 to know the content of his conversations, should they be in his room while he was speaking on the telephone. This man, who was to become Rhode s personal promoter-manager until 1951, looked at Herman curiously and said, in his broken English: I has seen u against de Strangler. I tink you haf de neculeus of performance. In the early fall, Joe Cox spoke with Morris Siegal, the promoter in Houston, Texas, about Rhode. Siegal placed the call, asked Dutch to come down and indicated he would function as booker. That s fine, Herman responded, but I have a problem. Technically, I am a reserve on the police force here in Camden; it is the only way I can keep out of the Army. Is there a way you can help me out? Siegal promised he would get Rhode assigned to the stand-by police force in Houston. Then, as an after-thought, Siegel said: You know, there s a war on and we are fighting the Germans. You should get rid of the name of Dutch. If you are coming down here as a pretty boy you should know we like all American-types and we re not too sophisticated about it. I understand you are a blonde boy and good-looking. Why don t you change your name? I was listening to the radio last night and I heard the singer Buddie Rogers doing a song. Now, that s a nice all-american name, don t you agree? Why don t you call yourself Buddie Rogers? What could be more all American than Buddie? 21 The newly-christened Buddie Rogers entered Texas just as the modern Golden Era of professional wrestling was beginning ( ). He was a pretty boy and a baby face 22 but the stereotype stopped there. Already there was the vaguest hint of a sneer to the smile. His work was slick and tricky, unlike the clean work usually associated with the heroic. He tended to do surprising things in the ring; he went behind an opponent (the ultimate objective of stand-up wrestling) by very unconventional means (through the legs, off the turn-buckle, etc.) He was also beginning to develop a trait that would become more pronounced as he grew older: He was very careful about who he wrestled. Rogers was never a great wrestler; he was a great showman; he knew the difference. He did not, as yet, have his persona totally under control but he did know the style he was reaching for demanded a glove, a partner as interested in the process of multiple short-duration holds ( chains ) as he was. Wrestling as a pretty boy, he did not as yet have access to the outrageous performances prior to the match that were available to the heels. In this he was fortunate, for it permitted him to learn his ring craft before he developed his pre-fight personality: The object was to get the public off its rusty-dusties 23 but with something directly related to wrestling, so that it would be a demonstration of skill. As a pretty boy that was all I had; I had to control it. I knew that if I was going to do something outrageous, I could only do it in reaction to something the heel did to me; I also knew I could only do it once and that I would have to put it at the end of the match, like a Joe Louis punch. I had to do it at the end because, if the public saw through it, the match would be dead anyway and I would have to get out of there before they started booing. This process, which actually became his style, he called, sequencing. How did it vary from chain wrestling? It was different in that it pre-supposed a rise and fall in the emotional pitch of the audience and it proposed to slowly elevate that response over a series of such sequences from the beginning to the end of a match, leaving the audience at a peak, or in a rage. It supposed the movement from one hold to another would be more rapid than in the chain and would thus leave the audience more startled than educated. Finally, it did not confine itself to the catalog of conventional holds then practiced in wrestling, but anticipated an entire repertoire of variations on standard holds quite electrifying in execution, which could be used to finish each sequence. Buddies fertile brain was already at work on a series of such holds; he had only one problem: as a pretty boy, he could not initiate such holds without provocation; he needed to find a heel who was as flexible in thinking and as daring in execution. Roger s acrobatics and creative use of sequencing became the talk of Texas. Doc Zoropolis, Morris Siegal s partner, lost no opportunity to promote the new sensation. Less than three weeks after arriving in Texas, Buddie was matched against Hans Schnabel, Texas State Champion, and soundly defeated him. He was to keep the title for three years. 7

8 On a visit back to New Jersey in the spring of 1946, he found his glove in young Billy Darnell. Darnell was five years younger than Rogers and had not yet turned pro. Buddie turned Billy pro a few weeks after they began working together. The initiation took place at the Camden A.C. Darnell was eager, open to suggestions and a good follower. He had a lot of agility and common sense; most important, he fit Rogers patterns perfectly. He recognised Buddie s star quality and wanted to learn as much about his style and method of thinking as possible. He was also a unique personality; gifted with a babyface, he was nevertheless blessed with shifting eyes and an expression the appeared to conceal malice. He liked the role of villainy and, while youth would forestall his entrance into the hallowed halls of heeldom, Darnell tended to gravitate in that direction and would eventually become a rule breaker. 24 Unlike Buddie, Darnell had no reputation to protect; he was in the midst of learning the ropes and could afford to lose a number of matches without destroying his effectiveness; he was an undercard 25 wrestler. He took good bumps and was an excellent mechanic.26 Finally, like Rogers, he was a perfectionist. The two young men realized it was necessary to lay a good foundation at the beginning of a match. That meant it was necessary to go slowly, avoiding wild dashes across the ring, which tended to build heat too quickly. They also learned draws and disqualifications were no good; they did not allow the heat to reach a crescendo at the end of the match. They left everyone disappointed. Therefore, when Buddie would win a match, it was necessary that he never win decisively. His carnival training taught him to barely come through and set a good tone for a rematch promotion. The sequencing itself was fairly rudimentary. In the beginning, it was quite ragged and the young men used to count by the numbers the steps in each sequence in order to remember the beats and the positions they were to assume at each count (a practice Buddie was to retain until the end of his career). While this early work bore little similarity to the sophistication Buddie was to attain later, it was a style of wrestling that had not been seen before. It was very engrossing and refined, a fatal kind of ballet. To end a sequence Buddie now added two variations on holds for which he was to become famous. Both depended on some prior villainy of Darnell. The first was the Atomic Drop. It was literally spine-tingling. In this maneuver Buddie would secure a crotch hold on Darnell, lift him in the air, drop to one knee turn Billy over and drop his spine against the raised knee. If it was done in just retribution for an act of villainy, it brought the crowd to its feet with a roar of approval and satisfactorily ended a sequence. Darnell would roll across the ring, his hair flying about, his entire body shaking, his face dazed in agony, his right had caressing his injured spine. The second variation was the Flying Piledriver and had two sub-variations. The piledriver is a hold some 5,000 years old; there are wall paintings of it on TombXVI at Benin-Hasan is Upper Egypt. It had been re-introduced by Wild Bill Longson, then reigning heavyweight wrestling champion (having defeated Bobbie Managoff in St. Louis in 1943). Simply explained, Longson s piledriver worked as follows: While his opponent lay on the mat, Wild Bill lifted him by his waist in a bearhug, so that the opponent s knees were in Longson s face, his waist against Longson s chest and his head perpendicular to the mat, facing Longson s knees. Longson, would then secure the opponent s head between his knees and immediately sit down, letting go of the opponent s waist at the same time; a terrifying cracking sound would be heard as the opponent s head hit the canvas; the opponent would spin out and fall backward, stunned. It was quite a spectacular maneuver. Roger s Flying Piledriver had two distinct options to it that were even more spectacular. The first option began in the same manner as the Longson s piledriver; however, instead of sitting down, after securing the opponent s head between his knees, Buddie would leap into the air, as high and as far forward as possible and then come down into a sitting position; the need for control over the knees and buttocks, in order to assure the partner was not injured, was absolute; without welltrained partners in excellent physical condition, this maneuver could not be executed; the danger of injury was too great. The second option was even more awesome and dangerous: Buddie would leave the ground as if in a flying drop-kick, turn parallel to the mat while in the air, catch the 8

9 opponent s neck between his knees and pull him, head downward, onto the mat; witnesses say Buddie s body would rise five feet above the mat in the maneuver; an untrained opponent could get his neck broken if he did not fall with Buddie, after the knees were secured on the neck; similarly, Buddie could be severely injured if he missed the hold and crashed into the opponent; supreme confidence and an unusual degree of trust between performers was necessary to perform this variation. In 1946, promoter Fred Kohler brought Rogers to the Rainbow Arena in Chicago for his first televised match on the Dumont Network. The appearance launched his national career. He was now one of many luminaries on the American wrestling scene. It was not, however, his objective to be one among many. He was only beginning to create the personality that would take him to the very top of his profession. One of the things he lacked most was effective protection and, as he grew more prominent, protection became more and more important. While he was in Chicago, Kohler introduced him to a young wrestler who had only recently come out of the Army with the rank of captain: Fred introduced me to Roughie Silverstein, who was being managed by Al Haft, out of Columbus, Ohio. He said: Can you do anything with him? I said to Fred: What do you mean? I ve heard of this guy; he s a four time AAU Champion; what do you expect me to do with him? He s got showmanship, said Al. Al, I answered: This guy could kill me; I ve got a good thing going. He needs a meal ticket, says Al. So I tried to teach him showmanship but this guy was not a broomstick you could sweep around; he was a crowbar. He was the best wrestler I ever worked with after Ed Lewis and probably the greatest Jewish wrestler that ever lived. We got in the ring together to try out some holds and after he almost broke my arm, the fourth time, I said: Hey, Roughie, you know the difference between working and shooting? You want to make a living? You want to be my policeman? You want a piece of my gates? He said he did. Then stop murdering me! We hit it off right away. I took him into Cincinnati with me and we sold out Cincinnati Gardent for WLW-TV; we wrestled each other for the championship of the television station. I beat him and then offered to fight anyone in Cincinnati who could beat Roughie. Roughie was colorless, but and absolutely great wrestler. He was the ideal policeman. I was in St. Louis with Roughie when Orville Brown and Lou Thesz wrestled. Roughie climbed into the ring and offered $10,000 to any charity if either one of them could stay in there with him. They both headed for the hills and the promoter, Tom Packs, had the police hustle Roughie out of the place. I made a lot of money for Roughie. We wrestled benefits for the McGuire sisters so that they could buy dresses in order to appear on the Arthur Godfrey show back before anyone had ever heard of them. I wonder if they ever sent a thank you letter to Roughie? I never got one. I kept him around to convince people wrestling was on the level. He weighed 195 pounds, was totally efficient on moves and beautiful, if you were a connoisseur of straight wrestling. To the average fan, he was as dull as dishwater but, between 1946 and 1958, he kept the biggies in line and ol Buddie didn t have to worry about the shooters cramping his act. Why, I used to loan him out to promoters that had trouble. In 1952, in Pittsburgh, the word went out that wrestling was fake. We went in there and wrestled and Roughie challenged the whole Pittsburgh Steelers football team for a $100,000 purse and had no takers; he then said, for $100,000, he would take on the first eleven men on the team in one hour and still got no takers. Buddie Rogers had his policeman. In 1947, he got to fulfill one of his boyhood dreams. George Zeherias, The Crying Greek from Crippled Creek, the first of the great cry-baby-heels,27 was then promoting in Denver and asked Buddie to come in and wrestle the aging Jim Londos: Jim was really marvelous. He did a lot of wonderful heel stuff, but had such an image the audience took the heat and held it instead of booing him. He did some old stuff, like take advantage of me when I was down. He hit me with his forearm when I broke clean, a technique not 9

10 much in use then. He charged me when my back was turned and ran away when I turned to face him, that sort of stuff. His only problem was that his timing was a little off and he kneed me in the mouth and knocked out my two front teeth. Zeherias, who was the referee, just put them in his pocket and gave them back to me after the fight, saying I know you wouldn t have parted with them for a million, Buddie. The fight with Londos solidified certain views Buddie had developed over some time. He was sick of being a pretty boy. He had just wrestled the greatest gate in the history of the game, saw the hell stunts Londos pulled in order to excite the crowd, and knew there was more money on the rule-breaking side than the scientific side. However, before he could complete his persona, he was faced with his greatest professional crisis. After some years on the east coast, Tom Packs had returned to St. Louis to promote and had gone into partnership with the father of Lou Thesz and in opposition to Packs former partner, Sam Muchnick. Packs came to the conclusion that Longson s era as champion was over, that the public was tired of a heel as champion and that Buddie Rogers, the pretty boy from Texas, should be the new champion. Joining him in this frame of mind were Charlie Renthrot of Memphis, Tennessee, Frank Tunney of Toronto and Morris Siegal, a rather formidable quartet of promoters. Against this array stood the diminutive figure of Jack Pfefer. No, No, No! he screamed to Buddie in the presence of the quartet. Ef champ you be, in Amarillo and Tulsa and dumps like dat you has to fight. Vehr iss da money en dat? Buddie agreed. He was interested in the big cities on the east coast, the large houses, the big paydays. Nevertheless, the Longson-Rogers match was made, it being understood Buddie would lose after an hours time, being counted out outside the ring.28 About one half hour into the match, Buddie missed a drop-kick for the first time in his life. His body passed by Longson and flew out of the ring between the middle and top rope. As he sailed, he could see that he was going to hit the time-keeper s table and knew he had only a fraction of a second to adjust his trajectory in order to hit right in the middle of the table, or he would break his back. He fell successfully, but made a loud noise. Instinctively, he reached back, groaned and rolled off the table onto the arena floor. It was a perfect conclusion and it happened by accident. He lay there and allowed himself to be counted out. Longson looked concerned. Buddie knew Tom Packs was in the habit of having an ambulance stand by in case there were injuries. While he felt all right, he asked the time keeper to get the ambulance and remained prone on the floor of the arena A path was cleared, the ambulance drove up, and he was placed on a stretcher. What and exit! he thought to himself, as he lay in the back of the ambulance, heard the sound of the siren, and was driven, and was driven out of the arena and to the hospital. He was given a private room and Tom Packs, joined by Pfefer, soon arrived, white-faced and shaken. Buddie, said Packs: Are you all right? Sure, answered Buddie, throwing back the covers and climbing out of bed. Packs was visibly relieved. He told Rogers the show was wonderful and the finale was the finest wash-hanger 29 he had ever seen in the wrestling world. He then reached into his pocket, pulled out $2,000 in cash and gave it to Buddie as a bonus for a remarkable performance. When Packs and Pfefer left, Buddie lay back on the hospital bed and thought to himself: How about that? He believed it! He was in the know and still believed it! Jesus Christ, when you can turn a shill into a mark you ve got it made. Directly after the Longson match Buddie began to change his image. While he accepted advice and councel from Pfefer in financial matters, he allowed no one to tamper with his artistry. As a pretty boy he had not had the advantage of a spectacular entrance. That was well and good, since it had taught him sequencing and improved his performance in the ring. That meant any addition prior to the match would heighten his effectiveness. He started out by adding the words Nature Boy to the front of his name. He felt this could connote and image of naturalness totally out of keeping with the type of appearance he intended to make and the instinctive slickness of his work in the ring. It was an artifice the audience would see 10

11 through and deride. He added a gold jacket with the words Nature Boy emblazoned on the back and front. The jacket zipped up; the zipper was very important to him: I found out I could piss people off just by looking at them. I turned my smile into a sneer and I made my strut, as I walked to the ring, a real slow and deliberate thing. I used my eyes a lot and enjoyed teasing people; people knew I was teasing them and it pissed them off more. My entrances got slower and slower. I tried to make everything I did simple. I wouldn t move a whole hand; I d just move a finger and I would do it so slowly and concentrate on it so thoroughly that people would look at that finger and wonder just what the hell I was going to do. It was obvious to them I was in love with myself and they got a real kick out of it. Everybody likes to see an egomaniac taken down a peg. I didn t think about what I was going to do once I got in that ring until I left the dressing room. Then I picked a spot, while on my way to the ring, where I was going to generate my prefight peak. I would get into the ring and pick out one excitable fan sitting somewhere in that spot and I would go to work on him. If I was lucky, he would have a girlfriend with him. If he did, I could get more excited because there would be no doubt in his mind as to whether I was putting on this pre-fight show for him, or for his girlfriend. I looked cocky, real self-assured. I started to unzip my jacket; then I would look slyly at this fan and say, Aw, no! Then I d zip then jacket up again. The guy would start to boo. I d look at him and say, Come on, coax me! Then, I d unzip the jacket and stick my head inside, looking at myself. I d pull my head out and look at the fan and say, Eat your heart out! or It s mine, all mine! By that time, that fan had attracted a following. They were all booing me now. Once I got the boos really going, I would open the jacket and hold both sides of it as I paraded around the ring, showing my body. From time to time, I would stop, look down at it, admire it myself. The parade around the ring with the open jacket also gave me the opportunity to count the house. I knew the manifest of every arena in the country. I knew what my percentage was and I wanted to make certain Pfefer was playing straight with me. The irritation from that one spot in the audience would spread as I walked around the ring. It was particularly noticeable among the female fans. Women love a cocky guy and hate themselves for loving him, and hate him for making them love him. They were my greatest fans. All of this took only three or four minutes after I entered the ring. Rogers had such a marvelous sense of humor and wonderful sense of self-parody he was impossible to sincerely hate. He became known to wrestling fans as the man you love to hate. 30 For awhile, he ran the risk of concentrating on his entrance to the detriment of his ring work. Then, in 1949, an incident took place in St. Louis, which restored his perspective: I was in Keil Auditorium when I ran into the old man, Ed Lewis. He asked me to sit with him. Georgie Wagner, Gorgeous George, was wrestling that night. We watched that entire ten minute routine, as he walked down the aisle with his valet holding the mink bottom of his robe, so that it wouldn t get covered with dust. He threw gold bobbi-pins to the fans all the way down the aisle. You could see the other wrestler in the ring resented it. He leaned on the ropes waiting for an opportunity to show what he had, while this one-man show went on across the way from him. Once Wagner got into the ring, the valet had to spray the mat, which took a couple more minutes. Then the valet had to help Gorgeous off with his robe, which took another three minutes. Finally the valet left and the bell rang for the match to begin. At that point, Ed Lewis looked at me with his half blind eyes, and chuckled. He said, Well, that s it! That was the show! The show is over before the fight starts! He cast a glance in my direction. I got the message. The name of the game was still wrestling. He entered that period of his life when Jack Pfefer became his guide and mentor. The two were inseparable. From Pfefer, Buddie learned the Yiddish language so akin to German. I know the wrestling people considered Jack a bastard, but he was my kind of bastard. Pfefer s objective was to turn his client into the hottest property in history. To do that, he sought out communities where wrestling was dead and offered Buddie as a stellar attraction which would rejuvenate the box office. In return Pfefer wanted the impossible and he got it. 11

12 The normal headline attraction got 10% of the net, after promotional expenses, which were usually 20% off the top, this meant an 8% portion of the gross. The highest paid wrestler in history had been Jim Londos; during the 1930 to 1935 period he had commanded 25% of the net or 20% of the gross. Pfefer now demanded 30% of the net or 24% of the gross for Buddie Rogers. In 1950, he negotiated with Cliff Mophet, promoter in Toledo, Ohio, an agreement whereby Rogers would appear in the 12,000 seat arena once a week for 52 weeks, at the 30%-24% fee. Buddie sold the place out 44 times. When the word got around, promoters in Cleveland and Akron quickly fell in line.31 Pfefer began to work his magic all over Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, states Buddie still regards as the three best in the Union for Nature Boy. In all of these cities, cities of the first or second rank where wrestling had lain prostrate for years, the object was the same: to pop the town or to pop the town s cherry. 32 To do this, Pfefer advertised Buddie as the All American Heel the Arrogant One who wrestled the honest, straight forward, All-American good guy and defeated him by cunning and trickery. The formula had been used before, but few audiences were used to Buddie s cool heat or to the concept of heel who was also a pure American. Actually, he was still having trouble reaching his ideal of sequencing, a by-play where absolutely wonderful things could happen. He missed working with Darnell: Roughie was a fantastic straight, much better than I was, but he simply didn t have the flexibility. He used to forget. Once, in Pittsburgh, we were sequencing to stop and go into a hold. He tried to sequence to finish and I had to shut him off. He started to drop into the pin-fall and I had to pull him back up and remind him, during a quarter-nelson, that we still had ten minutes to go. If his artistry was giving him a problem, he was having no difficulty at all with his image, his persona. He made a thorough study of fan psychology and put himself in the place of a member of his audience. He was thus able to determine what that fan wanted; that made him able to give that fan what he least expected: I decided it was no good to over-heel. Sometimes I would give them a totally clean match, figuring I could do, in the last ten seconds, enough to leave the impression I was the same old bastard they had gotten to know and hate. I put on a terrific exhibition of straight wrestling for 59 minutes and 50 seconds. I could hear them saying, Wow! He s really changed his ways; he s become a new guy; this guy is really a terrific wrestler! Then, in the last ten seconds, I d line the guy up in the turn-buckle and give him the most illegal straight punch right in the throat. You could see them leap to their feet screaming, You bastard! You had us again; you re the same dirty son of a bitch we always knew you were! But there were a lot of things I didn t do. I never hit a man in the privates. To me, that was always the lowest way to try to get heat. I did like some of the later Jim Londos stuff: I d get a man when he was down and really rough him up; then, when he got up and turned on me, I d run like a rabbit. With some of those guys it was rather easy. Silverstein, for example, was really scary when he came at you. By working off my natural emotions, I knew I was not trying to sucker the fans. That wouldn t have worked anyway. So great was his success it began to spawn a host of imitators. Fred Blassie and Gene Stanlee tried to copy the Rogers style. Promoters called them vest-pocket Rogers. Buddie commented: Those guy s peaks were my highlights ; what they didn t realize was that the fans relate to showmanship and put themselves in the place of the wrestler, the genuine article, not some phony imitation of another wrestler; life is built on love and hate and wrestling exploits that; you can t love or hate a mannequin, a puppet, a doll; you have to love or hate a real personality, so that it doesn t do any good to imitate anybody. There was, however, one wrestler who very much impressed him with his showmanship. This was Antonio Argentine Rocca, 33 who came to New York, by way of Texas in A wrestler, Kola Quarani, saw Rocca in a soccer match in Argentina and felt his acrobatics would have instant audience appeal. They did. Quarani signed Rocca to a management contract and brought him to Texas. Then he took Rocca out of Dallas, violating a contract the Argentine star had 12

13 with Morris Siegal, and turned him over to Toots Mondt in New York. Never a great wrestler, Rocca was a man of extraordinary personality, dazzling speed and power and super-human energy. Many of his fans were Italian, since he was of Italian extraction, and, by 1950, he was such a power in the wrestling world that crowds would follow him in the streets. I loved his stuff; he was my kind of wrestler. He wasn t as tricky as I was, but he was much faster and he had certain acrobatic maneuvers I could do variations on. He was too out of control to be a really first rate sequencer. But, my God, he had good guy heat! By the end of 1950, Buddie was listed by the television broadcaster Guy LeBow as one of the 20 top professional wrestlers in America and one of the three top drawing cards.34 In 1951, he broke with Jack Pfefer. It was a tremendously upsetting experience. Pfefer taught him a great deal about running the financial aspects of his own career. However, the little man presented major problems for Rogers. Superstitious, suspicious, combative and highly eccentric, Pfefer was widely hated in the world of professional promoters because of the length to which he went to revenge a real or imagined wrongdoing. Always a lone wolf, Pfefer looked upon himself as a ten percenter, a manager rather than a promoter. He never easily joined any groups of managers or promoters, looking upon all other members of the industry as real or potential adversaries.35 While Pfefer loved wrestlers, he did not respect them, always referring to them as palookas. He insisted on holding their money throughout the wrestling season. He firmly believed wrestlers would be impossible to control of they had money.36 Pfefer changed languages when wrestlers were present and he was talking to promoters or managers. Since a number of these businessmen were Jewish, Pfefer would switch into the Yiddish language as soon as one of his proteges entered the room, a habit calculated to arouse suspicion. On top of that, Pfefer never wrote anything down, fearful that his signature or handwriting would be copied. He printed everything and changed his printing style from note to note, making it difficult for people to discern with absolute certainty just who they were getting the communication from.37 Finally, Pfefer had really upsetting dietary habits (sardines from the can while sitting in a car with a number of wrestlers, pickle sandwiches with buttermilk) and personal hygiene (he cut his own hair and pulled his own teeth, allowed his nails to grow long and refused to clean them) which made him difficult to be around on a sustained basis. For all of his hostility, Pfefer was basically a frightened man, fearful of physical contact. It is difficult to understand why he chose a profession that would put him in frequent contact with physically strong individuals, or that, having done so, he would go to such extremes to provoke them. Pfefer was a diabetic and liven on aspirins. Many of his clients used to fear to torment Pfefer psychologically; one of them was his sometime girlfriend Lillian Ellison ( The Fabulous Moolah ).38 Pfefer was a man tragically doomed by his own behavior to relationships alternating between extreme aggression and extreme defensiveness, hardly an atmosphere conductive to prolonged friendship. Still, both men were in tears when the rupture occurred and Rogers finds it difficult to talk about the episode today.39 From the point on, Rogers would function as his own manager and booker. I didn t need someone to think for me. Pfefer, true to form, did not let the relationship end there. He set a series of shooters against Rogers, in order to try to bust him up ; but, Buddie was too cute for Jack ; he would discover who these shooters were and refuse to get into the ring with them.40 However, Rogers was not to be successful in avoiding Pfefer s goons forever. During the 1950 s Rogers was in constant action. He seldom wrestled less than five times a week and frequently, Sunday Law permitting, wrestled as often as nine timed per week. In the east, where cities were close together, he would wrestle a matinee in one arena and an evening in another. Cities, promoters, women, pay-offs tended to merge together and become a blur. He found working out in the morning to be very calming and relaxing after the hectic evenings. You are what you do, eat, and exercise; you can perform at any age; think big and you ll do big. 13

14 Most of the promoters were whores, 41 but he found St. Louis a well-promoted city. Sam Muchnick was an excellent manipulator, a good match-maker, paid off on time and always kept his word.42 He began to team up with Billy Darnell again. The youngster had moved to Chicago and began booking with Fred Koehler in the late 1940 s. He became a hot television item and his career was soaring. Always a fast thinker, agile and well equipped, Darnell was to provide Rogers with his most artistically satisfying matches during the 1950 s: The two of us could do 30 minutes working out of a basic headlock. We would sequence out of the headlock and then go back into it, at then end of the build. It was ideal. We would take the audience up and down before reaching a peak. But each sequence rose a little bit. Billy and I could feel each other s peaks and when we finally reached the top, we would both know instinctively that we had to close, leaving that audience up there. In the headlock, we didn t even have to tell each other whether the next sequence was to got to a stop or to a finish. We telegraphed because we had such a great feel together. We had to know stop or finish because each of us got to use his favorite hold at the end of the match. Talking in the headlock, we selected a leader. One guy directed this entire act. I was always that guy. We would count out our sequences by the numbers. Our timing was critical, because we had to move from the hold (which is the low cycle of the sequence) into the heat (which is the high end of the cycle) within each step of the sequence. There had to be a build to each sequence and within each sequence. Otherwise, it would start to get dull and be like throwing water on a fire. Punches were rarely used and had to be properly placed. We were going for basic straight wrestling very rapidly done, where the holds were only held for a few seconds and where there was just a few dirty things tossed in to build heat toward or at the end of each sequence. I had to be one hundred percent certain I could lead a match without overdoing and still have enough in reserve to do a ten second peak at the end. It wasn t simply a matter of the audience, or the dollars in the till anymore; it was a matter of the wrestlers. I had learned that the thing wrestlers admired most in other wrestlers was performance. I never prepared in advance. Why talk to another wrestler in the dressing room and fill his head with all sorts of nonsense, so that he gets confused before he even enters the ring? I spoon fed my partner in the ring. My wrestling reflexes were mature. I could touch his wrist and tell which way he was going. I could look at his hands and feet. If he was close to me, he would go for my neck or upper body; if he was some distance away, he would go for my legs and feet. My job was to make him look good, not to walk all over him. I knew I had to cultivate competition; it was good self-promotion. Billy and I would start slow and would always be controlled. It was important we project to the fans that we had it in reserve, a lot of it! We taught ourselves to project with precision. We would move into a collar-and-elbow.43 I go down and get his leg. He pushes over and gets my chin. I knock his legs forward, out from under him and grab his neck with my feet as he comes down. He bridges and spins out, grabbing my foot in a toe-hold.44 I kick out and we come up together. He gets me in the head-lock. End of the first sequence. That s a low one.. Boom.. Boom.. Boom.. While we are in the head-lock, possibly for a minute, I give him the second sequence. We had about 40 variants of these sequences ;45 you ve got to cook when the pot is hot. Once the public starts promoting, they are ahead of you and then you re dead! The second sequence would peak a little higher. The third would go higher than that and eventually we were into the swing of things. Darnell would slip out of the head-lock and get me in a crotch-hold. He d lift me and bump me on the floor. I d get him into a scissors, which he would spin out of, taking my foot into the toehold. I d kick out of it and go to the ropes. I d bounce off the ropes and come at him. He would turn and catch me in a flying mare 46 over the head. When I came to the ground, I d hang on to his arms and bring him over me, so that we were both sitting, his back to my front.47 I d get a chin hold on him and he would butt out. He d go to the ropes and I would go to the opposite ropes. He d come at 14

15 me, with a modified tackle; I d leap into the air, with a flying-pile driver, and dump him. He would shake his way out, rolling around on the floor in pain. I would go to the turn-buckle and climb up onto the top rope, ready for a pin fall. Billy would come to his feet and catch me as I leapt off the ropes into the air. He would catch me in the center of the ring with a crotch hold, walk backwards to the ropes on the other side of the ring and dump me into the audience. He would have to be careful to turn me over as he dumped so that I would go out feet first. Boom then Boom, BOOM!, a pretty high sequence. The first time you fly out of that ring, you re scared. You have to set up your mark in advance so that fan in the audience will cushion that fall. If you miss him, try to get someone else around him. You won t hurt him; the fan will love it; it makes him part of the act. Tuck your head under and get your feet and ass heading toward the mark. Try to go between the top rope and the middle rope, if it s possible. Most arenas have folding chairs. The stationary arena chairs are dangerous; they don t have any give. If you hit the cement, you have to hit your heels first and keep loose. I used to get tossed out of that ring as far as four rows into the audience. I could take a 15 foot fall, straight down, if necessary. You take the initial contact in your heels, then in your ass, and finally in your back. It s a rolling, soft thing. The three weakest parts of the body are the ankles, the wrists and the neck; they have to take the softest part of the fall. When the fall is complete, try to make it as flat on the back as possible, the flatter the better. In wrestling, the part of the body that takes the most punishment is the back; give it a rest. If you fall on your shoulders, you can hurt your neck; if you fall on your ass, you can hurt your lower back. Sometimes the two of us would be scheduled for a quickie, usually at a matinee, when I would have to show somewhere else that evening. On these occasions we might decide to finish on the first turn-around.48 If so, this sequence would have to be a really good one, so that the partner who started could really dish out a lot of punishment to the man scheduled to win when the turn came. The aggressor would have to build that audience into raging, murderous indignation, so the turn could let them get their jollies. If I was doing the dishing, and I usually was, they d be roaring for Billy when he came back at me. Those things would usually end with him ready to pin me and me getting a reverse pin-fall by bending the rules. That would really leave them pissed. 49 During this period, George Wagner ( Gorgeous George ) was wrestling for Cal and Eileen Eaton in Los Angeles. Jules Strongbow and Hughie Nichols were Los Angeles promoter in opposition to the Eatons. They brought Rogers into Los Angeles in opposition to the Eaton- Gorgeous card. Buddie more than held his own. Both promoters made a big mistake. They never allowed Nature and Gorgeous to go against each other. We should have bumped. On a promotion like that, we would have each made a million. 50 On the east coast, a new combination was forming. Young Vincent McMahon, son of Jesse,51 had been promoting successfully in Washington since after World War II. His promotions had extended into Baltimore and Philadelphia. In 1956, he brought Joe Toots Mondt out of retirement as a partner to handle promotions in New York City and White Plains. Between the two sat Willie Gilzenberg,52 also brought in as a full partner, who handled Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Camden and other communities located in New Jersey. This syndicate was to give Rogers a tremendous amount of employment throughout the remainder of his career. In one of their first promotions, Buddie challenged Argentine Rocca on NYC Channel 5 and then went into New York City and defeated him in a wild match. During this period of time, he became known as a swerve artist and, as a consequence, an outstanding television interviewee. Swerve is a wrestling term. It is not quite a lie. It contains a seed of truth, but is sufficiently exaggerated to be misleading. This particular talent, while excellent for interviews, made Rogers a very difficult subject for biography. His social activity increased as his stature in the profession rose. It has been said that it is difficult to be married in wrestling. Far too much time is spent on the road. The availability of women has to be seen to be believed. It was in front of you all the time. It was thrown at you. It was expected of you. The promoters, the managers, the hangers-on would lay out all that candy on the table for you; you ve got to try it sometime. How much candy can you eat? How much candy 15

16 can you inhale? I remember a bunch of Hawaiian girls who wanted to get together with us wrestlers in Los Angeles. I d just finished a match and there I was, up in their hotel room, with about four other wrestlers. They had real pot to smoke. Imagine that! Pot, in those days.53 Long about 4 o clock in the morning, we were all naked. Each of us wrestlers took one of these naked girls and put her in his shoulder. Then we ran up and down the halls, knocking on doors, waking people up. Can you imagine what thought when they opened the door and saw Buddie Rogers, stark naked, with a naked girl on his shoulder? After I left the part, I put on my running gear and ran ten miles; then, I worked out in the gym. 54 He was obviously over-exerting himself, but his constitution seemed strong. He felt he could tolerate it. He was now in demand as a teacher, as well as a wrestler, and he took the assignment of training former heavyweight champion Joe Louis for the wrestling circuit. Shortly after Louis began wrestling he had to stop. The Brown Bomber had developed a heart problem. In 1959, Toots Mondt went to war with Vince McMahon. Willie Gilzenberg, a traditional peacemaker, was caught in the middle and swung his influence toward young McMahon. Gilzenberg realized that Toots was old now and that wrestling could no longer afford the promotional wars on the 1930 s. It had grown up. Gilzenberg spoke to Buddie Rogers and persuaded him to go to work for McMahon. Buddie was very busy during this time. He did 39 sellouts in Chicago in 1960, working the Stadium and the Amphitheatre. Nevertheless, he made himself available for McMahon promotions. Early in 1961, Buddie and former heavyweight boxing champion Primo Carnera drew 20, 400 fans to Madison Square Garden. They pain $62,562, the 14 th largest gate in history of professional wrestling until that time. Later on that year, the promoters of the National Wrestling Alliance, led by Sam Muchnick, persuaded Mondt to make his peace with McMahon. There were serious economic problems in wrestling. Television, once a great boon, had deserted the entertainment and attendance was down throughout the interior of the country. The Golden Age was finished. Pat O Connor, an Australian wrestler, ad been a popular champion since But he generated no heat. Rogers was, at that time, the greatest box office attraction in the history of the game. True, he was a heel, but he understood the limits of heeldom. He, himself, had said: Heat; you are born with; trial and error teaches you how far you can go; there is a very thin line between heat and disgust. The eastern establishment was asked to loan its chief gate attraction and asset to the National Wrestling Alliance in order to revive the interior. Rogers, having made his fortune, agreed. Late in 1961, he reached the pinnacle of his career when he took the National Wrestling Alliance title from Pat O Connor in Comiskey Park, Chicago, before 38,662 fans, who paid a gate of $128,071, the largest gate in wrestling history until that time. It was not a particularly fortunate decision. While he drew fans, he was not a popular champion. The first villain crowned since Wild Bill Longson, he became perhaps the most unpopular title-holder of modern times. He had countless imitators that fans clamored to see, but the general feeling in that broad expanse existing between the nation s two coasts was that a champion ought to represent more of the positive qualities of sportsmanship. Fans turn out in the thousands to see Rogers with his trade-marks of the golden ring-jacket and strutting walk, hoping he would be demolished by a local hero. When irate spectators joined in the contest themselves, as they did on one occasion when Rogers was stabbed in the arm and a wound requiring sixteen stitches was open, promoters wondered whether or not this was the type of champion the National Wrestling Alliance really needed. Perhaps Buddie was a big city boy and didn t realize this heat would not play in Little Rock or Omaha. Then, there was the matter of his wealth. Wrestling fans in the middle-west heard the rumor Rogers drew over $2 million in gate receipts in Chicago alone during his appearances in that city. They knew he had a satisfactory bank-balance and thriving business interests. Could it be he looked down on them? His style in that ring lent credence to such rumors and made for a very unsatisfactory relationship between America s heartland and it s champion. 16

17 Willie Gilzenberg maintained a correspondence with Jack Pfefer from 1959 to The correspondence for the eight-month period between July 1962 and February 1963 is illustrative of the progress of Buddie Rogers as National Wrestling Alliance Champion: July 6, 1962: I just received word from Babe that Pittsburgh drew $35,000 last Monday night. This is really phenomenal. Surely the boys will be paid for both shows. This is a tribute to Buddie Rogers and Buddie alone. Never in the history of any sport has a man been able to get the job done as Buddie has to make himself so hated by wrestling fans that there is no way of telling how much he really could draw if there was an opponent, plus and arena, to see Buddie flattened out. I say this from experience because of gates I have been able to draw with Rogers in a building that is as old as we are and more with no parking facilities and no way of seeing a match properly, except in the balcony and in the first few rows. A $35,000 gate with the Crusher for an opponent a wrestler Pittsburgh fans saw flattened out is really and truly a miracle. Simply proves that TV is the answer along with the proper wrestler to sell. TV without the proper wrestler doesn t mean a thing. July 21, 1962: I put Rogers and Bobo away from May until August. Only, this time, Vince believed me and took first crack at it in Washington last Monday. I should say Tuesday, because it rained very hard on Monday which forced a postponement. But, a good match is the same on Tuesday as it is on Monday and the gate - $43,000. So you think San Francisco is a Ft. Knox? You know how many places Rogers and Bobo could draw big real big. In every city in the United States where there is a colored population. I would be willing to wager the Rogers and Bobo could draw at least $150,000 in Yankee Stadium or at the Polo grounds. 56 August 8, 1962: The first show in Montreal tomorrow (Thursday) night finds Rogers taking on Carpentier And, the following night, at Pittsburgh, Buddie Rogers meets Bobo Brazil, Saturday, it will be Rogers versus Rocca in Atlantic City Rogers goes to Texas for the first four days next week and then returns to Chicago on Friday and comes to Newark on Saturday. September 6, 1962: Babe also wrote and told me about the Buddie Rogers incident at Columbus. The only details Babe knew were that Bill Miller and Krauser walked into Buddie s dressing room and damaged his arm so much so that he now has it in a cast. That Buddie had Miller and Krauser arrested and that it was said that Al Haft was standing outside the dressing room. Also, that people in attendance were given their money back because Buddie couldn t go on We have Buddie booked for September 29 th, but he has many important engagements scheduled ahead of ours. Just to name a couple with Lou Thesz at Montreal on the 20 th and at Madison Square Garden on the 21 st. 57 Pfefer must have found the Gilzenberg letter of September 6 th informative. Karol Krauser was a wrestler who had been continually in the employee of Pfefer since He was one of two men detailed to get Rogers. Pfefer paid the two men $1,500 for the job.59 September 13, 1962: It seems that Buddie Rogers was damaged more than it was first thought because he will now have to stop wrestling for at least one month. Buddie was hoping to be able to make Montreal on the 20 th Madison Square Garden the following night and other dates, including Newark Armory on the 29 th. He has some kind of a concussion I have been told due to a couple of hard falls he took while fainting after the assault in Columbus. November 23, 1962: Just a quick note Buddie Rogers broke his ankle a clean break and my show is all mixed up. So is the Garden, Pittsburgh, Washington, Cleveland and Chicago. November 24, 1962: Rogers has a clean break in his foot and I am afraid you won t see Buddie wrestle many more times. He told me this is the end and he will be looking to the promotion end for his future in wrestling. In the meantime, programs are broken up right and left. I came up with a gimick put Buddie on TV with his foot in a cast and on crutches have Buddie tell the television audience that Killer Austin broke his leg. Then, I got on with Austin and told my audience that I came up with the man who broke Buddie s leg Austin said he will do the same thing to Bobo Brazil so that s the best I could do under the circumstances. November 25, 1962: Rogers and Kowalski were scheduled for the main event. I released Apollo from New Brunswick so he could taker Rogers place in West Hempstead. Kowalski will 17

18 substitute for Rogers in Chicago. Johnny Barend will replace Rogers in Madison Square Garden I forgot to ask who substituted for Buddie in Philadelphia. 60 December 4, 1962: I spoke to Vince shortly after you called and, just as I expected, it is all whistle-blowing. Rogers is being checked in the same manner as any individual that earns big monies and if his books are correct, he need not worry about anything. 61 If he was not acceptable to the interior, the communities of the Atlantic Seaboard certainly wanted him back. The McMahon-Mondt office informed the National Wrestling Alliance they intended to name their own champion. They had the largest arenas, the greatest crowds and the most frequent needs for quality talent. Rogers was their kind of performer. A verbal agreement was struck between Samuel Muchnick, representing the alliance, and Toots Mondt at the end of On January 24, 1963, Buddie Rogers was defeated by Lou Thesz (who thereby broke Strangler Lewis record in winning the championship for the sixth time). The following day, Vince McMahon declared the creation of the World-Wide Wrestling Federation and recognized Buddie Rogers as its first champion. The title would be recognized only on the east coast and, by written agreement with the National Wrestling Alliance, the east coast promoters pledged that the word World-Wide would always precede the name Champion in their publicity. The theory given to the public as grounds for the formation of the new federation and the recognition of Rogers as champion was that Rogers had been defeated in a single fall and that all championship matches ought to be best-of three-falls. Did the loss of a title, or the acquisition of a new and untested title, cause Buddie any artistic or monetary problems? Gilzenberg provides an answer: February 5, 1963: When a promoter is able to draw $14,460 I simply would like you or anyone else to tell me which one of the fans who paid their way into Kiel Auditorium cared which wrestler is a recognized champion? Certainly Muchnick the executive secretary who is a wee bit interested cared less because on February 1 st, last, he advertised the Rogers-Carpentier match in the circular you mailed to me for the World s Heavyweight Wrestling Champion as recognized by the National Wrestling Alliance. Since Buddie lost to Thesz on January 26 th Muchnick cannot blame the printer.62 Rogers will be Rogers as long as he lives. The greatest gate attraction of this era. Jack Dempsey became the world s greatest attraction after he lost his title to Gene Tunney via the long count in Chicago. Tunney couldn t draw a satisfactory gate for any promoter. I wonder just how much Thesz will draw as champion in the same arena that Buddie Rogers appears in? 63 It was during the bout with Thesz that Buddie first began to feel the chest pains. They became progressively worse as the weeks wore on. He would generally get them during a match and on the morning following. By March they were so severe he could no longer bear them. He spoke to McMahon and Vince arranged for him to enter the hospital at Johns Hopkins University. The tests revealed he had suffered a series of small heart attacks and was working himself up to a major one. His career was finished. Buddie wanted to go out like a champion. The World-Wide Wrestling Federation had been grooming a young wrestler by the name of Bruno Sammartino, a performer with no color or heat, but one representative of an extremely important ethnic minority in New York City and a very good strait wrestler who could make a showman look great. Buddie realized his health could tolerate no more than a brief encounter. He was also aware Sammartino s reputation would be made if he could beat Rogers. Always an admirer of the Joe Louis quick knockout, he choreographed his last match. He agreed to look up. 64 On May 17, 1963, when the bell rang, Sammartino grabbed Rogers, threw him into the ropes, caught him on the rebound, enfolded him in a bear hug, lifted him high in the air, applied a back breaker and pinned Buddie in 47 seconds. Buddie retired immediately after the match. The career of Buddie Rogers in retirement is somewhat unique. Unlike most wrestlers, he did not remain in the field as a trainer-teacher, booker, or promoter. On at least two occasions he tried to enter the field of booking. The word given out in the industry was Buddie was reluctant to use any of his own money. One promoter said: He was a poor boy who made a lot of money out of wrestling and invested it in other businesses; he never got into the habit of putting money back into 18

19 the game; it s strange; he had money and invested in bars, restaurants, Laundromats, the stock market, but, when it came to putting money up in a booking venture, he was always looking for an angel. He retired to a beautiful home he had built on Coles Mill Road, Haddenfield, New Jersey. As a local boy made good, he was quite a celebrity. Always noted for his wonderful sense of humor, he became a natural front man for a number of business ventures into which he did not have to put his own capital. None of these engagements ever lasted very long. There was always some problem, some misunderstanding. Nevertheless, he was Buddie Rogers and always good for another engagement.65 However, in the past few years, Buddie Rogers has become something more than a retired sports hero, a wealthy man who looks after his business interests and sits quietly on his estate waiting for the final trumpet. Buddie Rogers has become a folk figure, recognized as a primary innovator of confrontation entertainment, which did not exist as a recognized from during the period when he was practicing his are. Andy Kaufman, of Saturday Night Live, is the seminal confrontation comedian : Buddie Nature Boy Rogers was the hero of Kaufman s youth. The saddest night of Andy s life was May 29, 1963, when Nature Boy lost his world title to Bruno Sammartino at Madison Square Garden in an orgy of smears and cracked bones. A totally pure villain, Rogers was voted the most unpopular wrestler of 1962 in a fan poll, beating out Killer Kowalski and Crusher Lisowski. I once saw Buddie Rogers beat a guy unconscious so they had o carry him off on a stretcher, says Kaufman in awe. Then Buddie kicked the stretcher over. Buddie Rogers knows ways of manipulating a crowd like no one in the world. Since he retired in , Rogers has been wheeling and dealing in real estate in Haddenfield, New Jersey. For the past few years he has also been Kaufman s wrestling trainer, appearing in his corner on S N L in Andy thinks like I did about wrestling, says Rogers. I didn t care if you loved me or hated me. What the hell s the difference? As long as you intrigue your fans. Rogers is confident that with Andy under his tutelage, no woman can beat him. But he gleefully concedes, There are an awful lot of broads who would pay to see him get killed. I tell Buddie that some comics resent Andy for the wrestling and his other bizarre bits. He reminds me of Gorgeous George, Rogers says. He came in with a gimmick and every other wrestler hates his guts. But he cashed in 11 million bucks in seven years. Andy has a chance to be the Gorgeous George of entertainment. Andy has balls. 67 He is not much enamored of the modern crop of wrestlers: Ricky Flair and Terry Funk have ability as showmen, but they just don t stay in shape. Flair, who has borrowed the Nature Boy moniker, has a great deal of talent, but he has a lot to learn; his timing is way off and he builds his heat too high from the beginning and blows his peaks. Very few of them use sequences. The current National Wrestling Alliance Champion, Harley Race, has a pretty good understanding of the beats in sequencing, but he gets too much of his heat by throwing punches. Today, many of the wrestlers need violence in order to get heat. It s really kind of pathetic. It makes 85% of modern wrestling just lousy. Why don t they just watch someone like Muhamad Ali? I ll tell you, Ali was the Nature Boy of boxing. He really knew how to steam up an audience before a match, but he also knew how to perform in that ring! Today, the wrestlers concentrate too much on rapping on television before, or after, the match. It seems, in order to be a decent wrestler today, you ve got to be a good rapper. Look at Dusty Rhodes; he s a great rapper, but a lousy wrestler. He doesn t keep in shape, he doesn t work on his performance in the ring. That s a pity, because every business has to have class. You just can t stray away from it. Look at what The Shiek 68 has done to wrestling in America, with all those ridiculous gimmicks, all that blood! These guys are turning people off and it s really too bad, because once a wrestling fan is cultivated, you have him forever; he really doesn t care that much about the match; he is excited by the process and the audience. Andy Kaufman is a perfect example; he s a frustrated wrestler and typical of our audience. Our audience is not just composed of janitors, bartenders and gas station owners. Our audience is also composed of doctors, lawyers, accountants and psychologists, who all know exactly what is going on in that ring; but they love the performance. You don t have to demean that 19

20 performance in order to get heat. That audience knows what you re doing up there; they want you to be so good at it you make them believe that it s true. At 60, Rogers is in perfect physical condition. He has very broad shoulders which require special tailoring for all his jackets. He has the spring of a 16 year-old in his step. He loves to develop bodies and one of the reasons he wanted to manage a health spa was to install a special 90 day program he had put together involving the moulding of the body shape. Which wrestlers had the greatest influence on him? Well, you steal anything you can from any wrestler. The best wrestler I ever saw was Ed Strangler Lewis; the second best was Roughie Silverstein; the third best was Lou Thesz, who had no heat at all. But, I was also strongly influenced by Jim Londos, Everett Marshall (an absolutely wonderful wrestler), Ernie Dusek and Yvonne Robert. Has he ever thought about getting into promoting? Oh, yeah, I d love to! If I could only get a backer. The best promoter is still Sam Muchnick, out in St. Louis. Paul Boesch, who took over from Morris Siegal in Houston, and George Scott, of the Carolinas, are very good too. Vince McMahon and Verne Gagne are pretty good, but people like Eddie Graham of Tampa and Jim Barnett of Atlanta are just fair. The problem is you have so many phonies in the business that the angels get turned off. The television executive Eddie Einhorn went into promotion in this area with Pedro Martinez and got screwed out of seven figures. Whenever that happens, it gives promotion a black eye. But, then, Buddie was back on modern wrestling again: You know, Bruno Sammartino never had anything going for him except television and Vince McMahon s control of the east coast. I really like the heat this fellow Ken Patera has, he s a great showman but he gets beat too much; it could really affect his career. But, you know, if he could beat the right guy, the way Bruno did when he beat Buddie Rogers.. FOOTNOTES 1 Patwardhan, Gangadhar-rao Ganesh. The Science of Wrestling; Volume I. Shree Ram Vijaya Printing Press. Mujumdar Wada, Raopura, Baroda, India Pgs IBID Pgs IBID Pgs IBID Pg Working matches are matches which are pre-arranged and discussed by the participants. The pre-arrangement may extend to the pin-fall. Conversely, they may extend only for a duration of time within the match after which the participants are free to engage in a shoot. A shooting match, quite rare now adays, is one in which there is no pre-arranged scenario. 6 Heat is that process by which a professional wrestler arouses passion in his audience. 7 The scissors is the most common submission hold secured with the legs; Stecher was its greatest student. 8 A policeman is critical to the conduct of organized professional wrestling and his function is described precisely in his title. Professional wrestling on a nightly basis would not be possible if bouts were shooting matches. The profession is dominated by wrestlers who are workers. That is, they perform pre-arranged matches. The most important economic ingredient in working matches is the showman, that pretty boy, or heel, who can generate heat and thus cause a large audience to pay large dollars to attend the event. A shooter who upsets or threatens to upset this economic order must be dealt with rapidly and effectively. For that reason, showmen are protected by outstanding wrestlers who understand their profession thoroughly, but who have the misfortune of being unable to generate heat. Such wrestlers protect the showmen from the shooter. Within the industry, great policemen have a place as honored and exaulted as great champions have with the public. 20

21 9 Joe Toots Mondt was Ed Strangler Lewis policeman. Ray Steele (real name, Peter Sauer) was the policeman, for Jim Londos and, afterwards, became heavyweight champion in his own right. Johnny Pesek, the Tigerman, was such an uncontrollable shooter the industry turned him onto a policeman to save him from himself, as well as others. The most outstanding policeman in the decade after World War II was Ralph (Rufus) Roughie Silverstein. 10 Kovacs after became a celebrated television comedian, noted for the development of the Question Man series. He married the singer Edie Adams (of Muriel Cigar fame) and was tragically killed in an automobile accident while in his early 40 s. 11 Herman Rhode (Buddie Rogers) has been married a total of five times. A number of wrestlers have had multiple marriages, although the total number rumored is frequently excessive. George Wagner ( Gorgeous George ) was rumored to have had nine wives although there is no evidence he had more than two. Professional wrestling is not the type of activity conductive to the establishment of a happy family and home life. There is far too much time spent on the road. 12 A pretty boy is a hero, a good guy a scientific wrestler. A heel is a villian, a bad guy a rule breaker. 13 The AT Show is the athletic show of a carnival. 14 Mare than he had been earning, on average, as a professional wrestler. 15 A shill is that member of the AT Show strong man team who stands outside the ring and is lured into it by the opportunity for victory. 16 A mark is a dupe, the target of the worker wrestler performing in a carnival AT Show. 17 To book means to work out of a booking office, a central location from which wrestlers receive working assignments. The standard booking office is run very much like any talent agency. Pictures and resumes of wrestlers are received. Dates and partners are cleared by discussion with promoters of various arenas. Financial arrangements and permits are transmitted between wrestlers and promoters through the booking office (unless each party is well known to the other, in which case such communications are handled directly). 18 A glove is a wrestler whose style is a carbon copy of his partner and presumed adversary. 19 Eddie Gottlieb was a formidable figure in sports for many years. His activities as wrestling promoter were but a minor part of his total scope. He was the founder of the Philadelphia Warriors Professional Basketball Team, a charter member of the National Basketball Association. The author met him during the last few years of his life when he was charged with making up the 82 game schedule for the Association. So retentive was Gottlieb s memory, even in his 70 s, that he made this schedule for fourteen teams by hand, a process that is done today by computer. 20 Tracoma is a debilitating disease of the eyes that used to cause blindness in wrestlers. Indian wrestlers were accused of bringing the disease from the Orient with them. This was not true. The disease came from dust, dirt, perspiration, improperly cleaned mats, inadequate or nonexistent shower facilities and the failure to use Argurald (the old prescription remedy) on the eyes directly before going to sleep. Modern drugs, such as penicillin, have eliminated it as a serious problem in professional wrestling. 21 The singer Buddie Rogers subsequently sued Rhode for using his name. The lawsuit never reached court. Herman Rhode had his name legally changed to Buddie Rogers in Columbus, Ohio, in A baby face is a handsome pretty boy. There are pretty boys who are not attractive, but play their role by virtue of something heroic in their manner which type-casts them. Dominic Di Nucci and Bruno Sammartino have always been pretty boys although one would hardly call them handsome. 23 The words rusty dusties means fannies. 24 Years later, the referee had to call for a stretcher to take the injured Jerry Novak away from an unmerciful beating administered by Billy Darnell in Michigan City, Indiana. As the bearers lifted the stretcher, Darnell dashed over, upset the stretcher and sent Novak crashing to the cement floor. 21

22 25 An undercard wrestler is one who wrestles in preliminary events. 26 Bumps are falls to the mat and a mechanic is someone who can give up a pin-fall and made it appear real. 27 The Zeharias technique, developed with the assistance of the legendary strong-man Milo Steinborn, was to cringe, kneel and beg for mercy when caught in an act of villainy by the pretty boy. When denied mercy, he would turn to the audience and beg their assistance. When the audience hissed him, he cried. 28 Being counted out, outside the ring, involves the failure to re-enter the ring before the count of ten. 29 To hang your wash is to go out of the ring, feet first, during the match. There are two variations: between the ropes and over the top rope. 30 LeBow, Guy. The Wrestling Scene. Homecrafts Sports Division. New York Pg Rogers estimated his total personal revenues from the State of Ohio during his wrestling career at $2.5 million. 32 To pop a town, or to pop a town s cherry, is to take it from the virginal state of disinterest in wrestling to a point where it becomes enthused and box office receipts rise dramatically. When transformed, it is good for all wrestling, not just a particular act. 33 Rocca s real name was Antonio Baisetton. 34 LeBow, Guy. The Wrestling Scene. Homecrafts Sports Division. New York Pg Jack Pfefer never joined the National Wrestling Alliance, or any other professional wrestling organization; however, he would attend meetings. 36 Pfefer s treatment of professional wrestlers is so legendary it demands a separate paper. The author has heard so many stories concerning Pfefer s theory from so many interviewees and read so much about it in so many publications and newspaper articles (especially those of Dan Parker) that it would test the scope of this paper to recount them all. It will suffice to recall but a few of them in this footnote: Houston promoter Paul Boesch, who wrestled for Pfefer as a young man, recalled: Jack was always very emotional about his wrestlers, but very cold and logical about money. He once had Boesch endorse a check which was face down on Pfefer s desk and then paid him an amount equal to 20% of the face value of the check a few weeks later. The wrestler Hans Stenke once hung Pfefer by the heels out of a 4 th floor window in the Picadilly Hotel in New York City, threatening to drop him, until Pfefer finally agreed to pay Stenke the money owed him; afterward, Pfefer plotted revenge on Stenke for years. 37 Pfefer had a unique was of making the letters J and K which identified his writing to those really close to him. 38 Pfefer developed Lillian Ellison from a relative amateur, just returned from South Africa after having turned professional, into an Indian Princess and finally into The Fabulous Moolah, the greatest success in female wrestling since Mildred Burke. Ellison repaid him with alternating moods of affection and terror; the terror would include episodes in which she would ride around in cars with other boyfriends, waving pistols and rifles at Pfefer as he walked along the street. 39 Buddie Rogers has informed the author of the circumstances surrounding the separation. He has, however, requested those circumstances not be made public and the author will honor his request. 40 Anthony Santos, owner Pfefer-Santos collection, Norwell, Mass. Interview. March 16, Whore is a common designation for the promoter among wrestlers. 42 Muchnick is generally conceded to be the most socially committed of America s wrestling promoters. A founder of the National Wrestling Alliance, Muchnick is a natural negotiator and peace-maker. Dubbed the Secretary of State by his fellow-promoters, he respects everyone in his profession and, consequently, has the respect of everyone. 43 Collar and elbow is a basic starting hold. The wrestlers face each other and place their right arms against each others chest. The left hand is on the opponent s right elbow. The name is taken from collar and elbow style wrestling, which was the most popular type of wrestling in the United States from 1840 to the end of the Civil War. 22

23 44 A bridge is a backward push-up, stomach, chest and legs elevated, feet and top of head only on the mat; a spin-out, which follows a bridge is done by spinning on the forehead, clock- or counter-clockwise, out of a pin-hold. It frequently causes baldness in professional wrestlers. There are about 35 variations of the toe-hold, which was developed by Martin Farmer Burns and America s first world wrestling champion, Frank Gotch. Some toeholds are so dangerous they are considered submission holds and are banned in amateur wrestling. Gotch s favorite was the most-dangerous up the back toe hold, which could break an ankle and tear ligaments and cartilege in the knee if the submission call did not come rapidly enough. 45 Rogers and Darnell could wrestle 20 times and never repeat themselves. Quote from Anthony Santos, owner of the Santos-Pfefer archives. Interview. Norwell, Mass. March16, A flying mare is a ju-jitsu execution. It is a spectacular shoulder carry-and-throw. It is most exciting when the opponent s back is to the wrestler executing it and the victim is grabbed by the chin and pulled over he back and head of the initiator. 47 What Rogers is talking about here is a double-flying mare, which cannot be executed back-to-back. The victim copies the aggressor, executing the mare as soon as he reaches the mat after coming over his opponent s head. It requires a rapid transfer of leverage from one wrestler to another and, if well done, is a beautiful thing to behold. 48 A turn-around is that phase of the match when the aggressor becomes the victim and visaversa. 49 Billy Darnell had to retire from wrestling prematurely. He broke his neck in a match during the early 1960 s. He is today a chiropractor, practicing in southern New Jersey. 50 It is easy to understand why neither promotional group would have wanted such a match. Rogers at that time was getting 30% of the net, 24% of the gross. Gorgeous George could hardly have been expected to accept less. This meant that the two star attractions, plus the promoter s overhead, would have totaled 68% of the gate. It is difficult to see how advertising costs, television charges, booker fees, arena rental and payment to preliminary wrestlers could have been covered in the remaining 32%. 51 Jesse McMahon started as match-maker and referee for Madison Square Garden, under Jack Curely and Tex Richard, in numerous boxing promotions. He switched to wrestling promoter in 1930 and made matches in Brooklyn in partnership with the Duseks and in opposition to Jack Pfefer. 52 Gilzenberg based his operation at Laurel Sports Activities, Inc., 207 Market Street, Newark 2, NJ. He was a peace-maker in the Muchnick mold. 53 Rogers was serious showman, drunk or high. Quote from Anthony Santos. op. cit. Interview. March 16, Rogers mast notorious affair was with Barbara Baker, a female wrestler of the 1950 s. Never a Mildred Burke or Lillian Ellison ( The Fabulous Moolah ), she was a credible wrestler of the second rank. 55 Gilzenberg, Willie. An unpublished correspondence with Jack Pfefer. The Pfefer-Santos archives. Norwell, Mass. 56 Bobo is the black wrestler, Bobo Brazil. 57 Al Haft was, for many years, the National Wrestling Alliance promoter in Columbus, Ohio. 58 Contract between Dodger A.C. Inc. by Jack Pfefer and Karol Krauser, 1938 (undated) running to December 10, 1939, guaranteeing Krauser not less than $3,600 per year. Pfefer- Santos archives. Norwell, Mass. 59 Anthony Santos. op. cit. Interview. March 16, Killer Kowalski, The Golden Apollo, Killer Austin and Johnny Barend were all contemporaries of Buddie Rogers. Kowalski was the most memorable, a genuinely outstanding wrestler for many years. 61 It appears someone suggested Rogers received more that his due. Buddie was his own manager and booker and, therefore, entitled to the first box office count. It is hard to imagine him as capable of being dishonest with that count when he was headlining the card 23

24 in the ring. It was far more likely his mind was on the performance during the time the count took place, inasmuch as it would usually occur 30 minutes before the intermission and Buddie usually performed in the second-fall event. 62 Gilzenberg had the date wrong; it was January 24, Gilzenberg, Willie. op. cit. 64 To look up is to be underneath in the pin-fall position. The wrestler being pinned looks up. 65 When Professor Sally Sommer and the author interviewed him on January 9, 1981, he was general manager of a health spa, a job he was to leave within 60 days of the interview. 66 The date is incorrect. Rogers retired in Hirshey, David. Andy Kaufman: Beyond Laughter. Rolling Stone Magazine. April 30, Page Edward Farhat, an American of Lebanese extraction, wrestles under the name of The Shiek (final h dropped) and promotes in the Detroit area. His act features malignant malice, illegal weapons, live snakes and plenty of blood. 69 Ken Patera is Missouri native who got his start in St. Louis under the guidance of Sam Muchnick. A former weightlifter, he has a magnificent, if inflexible, physique. He started as a pretty boy. A few years ago he dyed his hair platinum and began to wrestle as a heel. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauthes, Roland. The World of Wrestling, an article in Mythologies. Boesch, Paul. Biographical resume of unpublished. Boesch, Paul. The Eleven Who Took The Step. An unpublished poem. Boesch, Paul. Hey! Boy, Where d You Get Them Ears? Parts I and II. An unpublished autobiography covering years 1912 to Boesch, Paul. Much of Me in Each of These. Premier Press, Houston, Texas Boesch, Paul. Rasslin Round-Up. Ed McElmore; Sportatorium. Dallas, Texas Boring, Warren, J., H.S.D. Science and Skills of Wrestling. C.V. Mosby Company. St. Louis, Missouri Bothner, George. Scientific Wrestling. Richard K. Fox Publishing Company. Franklin Square, New York City Burns, Martin. Farmer. Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture; Books No. 1 thru 6; Lesson No. 1 thru 12. Farmer Burns School of Wrestling. Omaha Carson, Ray F. The Encyclopedia of Championship Wrestling Drills. A.S. Barnes and Company, Inc. Cranbury, New Jersey, Deford, Frank. Five Strides on the Banked Track; The life and Times of the Roller Derby. Little, Brown and Company. Boston, Massachusetts Encyclopedia Brittanicia. Pages 474, 804 thru 807 and 1119 thru Encyclopedia Judaica. Volume 9. MacMillan Company Jerusalem, Israel Felischer, Nat. From Milo to Londos. The Ring Athletic Library Book No. 13. Press of C.J. O Brien, Inc. New York City Gallagher, E.C. and Rex Perry. Wrestling. The Ronald Press Co. New York Gotch, Frank. Wrestling and How to Train. Richard K. Fox Publishing Company. Franklin Square, New York City Griffin, Marcus. Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce. The Reilly and Lee Company. Chicago Hackenschmidt, George. Complete Science of Wrestling. Athletic Publications Ltd. Link, House, Greville Street, E.C.I. London. The Humboldt Republican. Recollections of Frank Gotch; on the occasion of the 50 th anniversary of his death, Nos. 3 thru 6 and 9 thru 12. May 10 thru June 10, 1967 and one recalling the first Frank Gotch Day, June 10, 1908, in honor of his first victory over George Hackenschmidt. Jares, Joe. Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George? Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

25 Keen, Clifford P., Charles M. Speidel and Raymond H. Schwartz. Championship Wrestling. Arco Publishing Company, Inc., 219 Park Avenue, SO. New York, New York Kent, Graeme. A Pictorial History of Professional Wrestling. Spring Books; Hamlyn Publishing Group, Ltd. Feltham, Middlesex, England Kietzer, Norman H., ed. Ring Wrestler Magazine. Ring Publishing Corporation. Mankato, Minnesota and New York, New York. December, LeBow, Guy. The Wrestling Scene. Homecrafts Sport Division. New York Leonard, Hugh F. A Hand-Book of Wrestling. E.R. Pelton, Publisher, New York Lewis, Ed. Strangler and Billy Sandow. Self-Defense. Volume V. Sandow-Lewis Inc Lewis, Ed. Strangler and Billy Sandow. Wrestling; Part One, Part Two and Part Three, Volumes VI, VII and VIII. Sandow-Lewis, Inc (Three Volumes.) Meyers, John C. Wrestling from Antiquity to Date. Published by the Author. St. Louis Minkowski, Helmut. Das Rangen Im Grublein. Band 16. Karl Hofmann Schorndorf. Stuttgart Morgan, Robeta. Main Event: The World of Professional Wrestling. Dial Press. New York, New York Patwardhan, Gangadhar-rao Ganesh. The Science of Wrestling; Volume I. Shree Ram Vijaya Printing Press. Mujumdar Wada, Raopura, Baroda, India Pfefer, Jack. Pfefer-Santos Collection. Norwell, Mass. See supplement. Robbins, George S. Frank A. Gotch; World s Champion Wrestler. Joseph B. Bowles. Chicago Robinson, Rachel Sargent. Sources for the History of Greek Athletics. Rachel Robinson. Cincinnati, Ohio Rockwood Wrestling Club. The Sportsman. Club Program. Fort Worth, Texas. April 30, Rogers, Phillips. The Mighty Milo. Hermitage House. New York, New York Sharpe, John S. Television and Boxing An article in Ring Magazine. Nat Fleischer, ed. And pub. May, Thompson, Elizabeth L. An unpublished correspondence of 20 letters to Paul Boesch Time Magazine. Time-Life Publishing. New York, New York. 88:76. August 19, Walton, Kent. This Grappling Game. Neville Spearman Ltd. London Wilson, Charles Marlow. Those Magnificent Scufflers. Stephen Greene Press. Brattleboro, Vermont Winningham, Geoff. Friday Night at the Coliseum. Allison Press; Wetmore and Company. Houston, Texas WRESTLING BIBLIOGRAPHY SUPPLEMENT PFEFER-SANTOS COLLECTION, NORWELL, MASS. 45th Annual Convention of the World Boxing Association and National Wrestling Association of America. Norfolk, Virginia. August 26-30, P-SC. Anonymous. vs. Joe Toots Mondt, a roast sheet at age 60. New York. Madison Square Garden. February 15, P-SC Bowser, Paul. Joint venture agreement with J. Pfefer. August 9, P-SC. Bowser, Paul, Jack Curley, Ray Fibiani, Rudy Dusek s office and Joe Toots Mondt. Settlement Sheet. February 27, P-SC. Boyce, Frank. Statement of Policy of Wrestling Equity Association, Applications for Membership and Article in Sports Trail by Whitney Martin. May 8, P-SC. Brown, Ned, ed. NWA Official Wrestling. Vol. 2, No. 10. Collector: final issue. New York. August, P-SC Buck, Al. Thief flips Bruno. New York Post. New York. September 28, P.95. P-SC. Carroll, Ted. Jack Pfefer, master of ballyhoo. Ring Wrestling Magazine, Vol. 6. No. 2. August, 25

26 1969. Pgs and 56. P-SC. Chest pains oust Rogers. Pittsburgh. April 18, P. 31. P-SC. Colby, C.B., ed. Official Wrestling; Vol. 1, No. 1. Who makes wrestling tick, no.1: Mr. Joseph Toots Mondt ; Lone star lady: June Byers, from Texas, meets them all ; Wayne Griffin, TV s voice of wrestling; Old timers on parade: Stanislaus Zybysko. New York. April, Pgs. 6, 28, 42 and 44 resp. P-SC. Collins, Mike. Newark Armory crowd sees Bruno team win. Newark Star-Ledger. Newark, N.J. March 15, P-SC. Cranwell, Fred. Blassie uncrowned and unpopular scores disputed win over Sammartino. Jersey Journal. Jersey City, New Jersey. June 27, P-SC. Curley, Jack. Joint Venture agreement with J. Pfefer. June 16, P-SC. Del Greco, Al. For the record. Hackensack, New Jersey. January 11, P-SC. Eagle, Don and Chief War Eagle. Agreement with Paul Bowser and Al Haft. June 9, P-SC. Everything s all settled for Wednesday night. Max Baer, Pfefer and lady wrestler picture and story. Newark Star-Ledger. September 16, P-SC. Fabin, Norris K. Death of Jack Pfefer verified; nobody else like him! Ring Wrestling Magazine. March, Pgs and 63. P-SC. Fibiani, Ray. Joint venture agreement with J. Pfefer. November 15, P-SC. George signs for title Go; ex-champ agrees to meet O Mahoney at Garden. October 28, P-SC. Gilzenberg, Willie. An unpublished correspondence with Jack Pfefer. March 4, 1959 to January 6, letters. P-SC. Grunt and groan Greats exposure Hickman after Herman s expose. New York World Telegram and Sun. New York. February 13, P-SC. Israel champ visits Standard office. Jewish Standard. New York. March 19, P. 2. P-SC. Jacobs, Michael, Pres. And Twentieth Century Sporting Club. Indenture and General release between William F. and Charles B. Johnson. August 4, P-SC. Keefer, Pat. Letter to Pedro Martinez. November 7, P-SC. Keefer, Pat. Letter to J. Pfefer. November 12, P-SC. Kohler, Sally. Letter to J. Pfefer. June 22, P-SC. Krauser, Karl. Agreement with Dodger A.C. Inc P-SC. Lane, Glenn A. Letters to J. Pfefer re Maurice Judgement. January 4 & 5, P-SC. Lanza, Tom. Toots Mondt, Grand vizier of Grappling. Wrestling Magazine. January, P. 7. P-SC. Leone s mat skill won medal from Il Duce. Newark Star-Ledger. March 24, P-SC. Levy, Martin. Agreement with Dychman Sport Stadium. January 9, P-SC. Loubet, Trudie. Golden Greek Jim Londos dies at age 80. Ring Wrestling Magazine. March, Pgs P-SC. Luce, Bob. Mondt puts steel city back on top. Wrestling Life. August, Pgs P-SC. Marenghi, Anthony. From pillar to post. Newark Star-Ledger. March 19, 1963 and November 22, P-SC. Mayberry, Jodine. Mangy Moolah mesmerizes moose masses. Trentonian. Trenton, New Jersey. April 5, P-SC. Mercer, Sid. Mondt tosses Shikat, but wins no title. New York American. New York. P-SC. Merton Fur Associates. Live wrestling on channel 47 news release. November 5, Million dollar smiles. New York Enquirer. June 21, P-SC. Mondt, Joe Toots. New York Yankees; Star Wrestling Team. Promotional booking brochure. New York P-SC. Mondt, Joseph Toots. Agreement with Fred Kohler and James Barnett re services of Antonio Brasetton (a/k/a Argentina Rocca ). February, P-SC. Mondt, Joe Toots. Letter to Judge I.T. Flatto re Dave Levin. January 16, P-SC. Mondt, Joe Toots and Jack Pfefer. Settlement book season. P-SC. Mondt, Joe Toots. Western Union telegram to J. Pfefer. December 30, P-SC. Moran, Sheila. Wrestling the groans and frenzy. Newark Star-Ledger. March 9, P

27 P-SC. Morgan, Herbert. Letter to J. Pfefer re Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. June 23, P-SC. Morgan, Herbert. Letter to J. Pfefer and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures agreement re short subject photoplay entitled Jake s Juggernauts. dated respectively June 12, 1939 and August 22, P-SC. Morgan, Herbert. Letter to J.Pfefer. June 18, P-SC. Moyer, Chuck. Joy and thrills in Pittsburgh. Wrestling Review Magazine. Fall, Pgs P-SC. Murphy, John. Agreement with Charles B. Johnson. April 12, P-SC. Newark Star-Ledger. Article Wrestling is better today, says Mondt. A.P. July 8, P-SC. Ogle, Jim. Male pachyderms stage protest parade; march but Pfefer appeases them. Newark Star- Ledger. Newark, New Jersey. September 25, P. 15. P-SC. Only phony wrestling title eliminations are possible because there s no honor among thieved. Sports Week. June 9, Pgs P-SC. Parker, Dan. Wrestling Rabbi loses faith in Toots Mondt, Culture scores at Prof. Mondt s revival, Impertinent questions. Daily Mirror. New York. January 24, 1954, May 13, 1950 and March, 1961 resp. P-SC. Pfefer, Jack. Letter to Schapiro, Wisen and Schapiro, Esqs. Re Estate of Jack Curley. March 15, P-SC. Photographs: J. Pfefer with Chief War Eagle, both in Indian garb; Pfefer alone in an Indian garb; three of Pfefer in Galveston, Texas; one with Doc and Mrs. Sarpolis; Tony Galento; Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney in May, 1951; Joe Toots Mondt and Dick Shikat; Pfefer s black pussycat logo; Pfefer in Primo Carnera s clothing; caricature of Willie Gilzenberg; three of Joe Toots Mondt in Gorilla costume taken by photographer Charles Heath on March 17, 1942; two of Pfefer with his stable of 20 wrestlers; three of Pfefer tombstone at Congregation Agudas Achim Cemetary in Brockton, Mass. June, P-SC. Pittsburgh partnership statement. Unpublished. August, 1961 to July, P-SC. Poster Layouts: Gagne vs. O Connor, Newark Armory, April 24, 1954; Rogers vs. Valentine, Pittsburgh Auditorium, October 17, 19-; Rocca vs. Valentine, Patterson Armory, April 9, 1960; Firpo vs. Rocca, Newark Armory, April 2, 1960; Rocca vs. Zuma, Newark Armory, October 10, 1959; Rogers-Valentine vs. Wright-Siki, Newark Armory, November 26, 1960; Sammartino-Brazil vs. Monsoon-Kowalski, Newark Armory, November 30, 1963; Rogers- Brazil, Newark Armory, August 15 and 18, 1962; Rogers-Barend vs. Brazil-Carpentier, Newark Armory, September 29, 1962; Rocca vs. Schmidt, Newark Armory, February 27, 1954; Rocca vs. Valentine, Miami Baseball Stadium, January 14, 1961; Rocca vs. Van Hess; Newark Armory; October 27, 1956; Sammartino vs. Miller, Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, June 21, 1965; Rocca vs. Halpern, Newark Armory, March 27, 1954; Rocca vs. Rogers, Patterson Armory, June 25, P-SC. Program Layouts: Rogers vs. Carpentier, Cleveland Auditorium, February 14, 1963; Kowalski vs. Wright, Boston Garden, April 18, 1961; Culnana-Gilzenberg 30th Anniversary Program, Newark Armory, March 24, 1962; Sammartino vs. Ramos, Boston Garden, March 30, 1968; Sammartino Valentine vs. Miller-Watts; Elizabeth Armory, October 11, 1965; Rivera- Calhoun vs. Graham-Gordon, Jersey City Auditorium, May 10, 1969; Wrestling Guide(s) Vol. 1, No. 1 and Vol. 2, No. 14, Newark Armory, November 1, 1953 and March 27, 1954; Gagne vs. O Connor Scorecard, Laurel Garden, April 24, 1954; Sammartino-Rivera vs. Ramos-Scicluma, Moose Hall, Trenton, 1968 (Pfefer promotion, Sammartino and Scicluna names misspelled as, journeymen wrestlers substituted); Kangaroos vs. Wright-Siki, Fordham Skating Palace, Bronx, December 5, 1960 (Joe Toots Mondt opening). P-SC. Ratner, Willie, Punching the bag. Newark Evening News, Newark, N.J. March 19 and August 16, 1962, March 6, April 13 and May 20, P-SC. Ritchie, Al. Unpublished letter to J. Pfefer, March 5, P-SC. Sahadi, Lou. Today s wrestlers are better. Article in Wrestling Confidential Magazine. September, Pgs P-SC. Sammartino creates turmoil Globe and Mail. Toronto. October 17, P-SC. 27

28 Schapiro, Wisen and Schapiro. Letter to J. Pfefer re Estate of Jack Curley. March 14, P-SC. Schwartz, Herschel. Gagne-O Conner Newark Armory News release. April 24, P-SC. Sheffield, Dann (a/k/a Gorgeous George Grant ) Agreement with Fred Kohler and J. Pfefer. May 23, P-SC. Spelman, Robert H. Letter to Judge I.T. Flatto re Dave Levin. January 20, P-SC. Sullivan, Alex. How Dave Levin, First Jewish Mat King, Became World s Wrestling Champion. Promotional literature of Joe Toots Mondt, Mgr P-SC. Toot s Mondt: Matdom s modern day Tex Rickard. Wrestling Life Magazine. February, Pgs P-SC. Tzizicos, Demeros Steppanos. (a/k/a Jesse James ). Agreement with Paul Bowser and J. Pfefer P-SC. Unusual role for Gilly, a place in the limelight and Newark Gilzenberg tribute attracts 850 guests tonight. Newark Evening News. January 30, 1966 and February 14, 1966 resp. P-SC. Wenzel, George (a/k/a Dave Levin ). Agreement with Joe Toots Mondt. June 17, P-SC. When rasslin moguls fall out. New York American. New York. P-SC. White, Bob. Headlocks put Toot out on mat; Garkawienko wins in two straight falls. Boston Post. June 3, P-SC. Wrestling Groups form merger; Sam Muchnick, Mississippi Valley reorganization. St. Louis Wrestling Club. September 12, P. 2. P-SC. 28