Some wrestlers are born into the business. Some stumble into it. And then there’s Bob Armstrong—the Georgia firefighter and Marine Corps veteran who walked into the ring in 1960 and never really walked out, even after six decades, a shattered face, four wrestling sons, and one last match at 79 years old. They called him … Read More “Bullet Bob Armstrong: The Fireman Who Never Put Out His Own Flame” »
Wrestling has always loved its strongmen. From Bruno Sammartino to Mark Henry, promoters salivate at the idea of a guy so strong he could snap a turnbuckle with his bare hands. In the mid-1980s, Vince McMahon thought he had struck gold with a man who could actually do it. His name was Ted Arcidi—the first … Read More “Ted Arcidi: Wrestling’s Heavyweight Paperweight” »
If you grew up watching wrestling in the 1950s and 1960s, you didn’t have to look far for a villain. Every generation gets the bad guys it deserves, and for postwar America, nothing got heat faster than a wrestler in a black robe, bowing to the crowd, sneering at Uncle Sam. That was Mitsu Arakawa. … Read More “Mitsu Arakawa: The Atomic Heel” »
Pro wrestling is full of strange gimmicks, but few enter the ring blowing “Taps” on a trumpet like David Sheldon. He was billed as The Angel of Death, and for a few wild years in the 1980s, he looked the part: 6’5”, terrifying, a bodyguard for the Freebirds, one-half of The Russian Assassins, the first … Read More “The Angel of Death: Wrestling’s Trumpet-Playing Phantom” »
In the grand circus of professional wrestling, every so often two guys get shoved together by a booker and told, “You’re a tag team now.” Most of those pairs vanish before anyone remembers their names. But in the early 2000s, Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens beat the odds long enough to leave skid marks on … Read More “The Naturals: Wrestling’s Afterthought” »
Ole Anderson never smiled. At least not in public, not in the ring, and not when he was tearing apart opponents, wrestlers, promoters, or anyone dumb enough to cross him. If Ric Flair was the limousine-riding, jet-flying symbol of excess, Ole Anderson was the gravel stuck in your boot, the whiskey burn in your throat, … Read More “Ole Anderson: The Grouch Who Built the South” »
If Ole Anderson was the mouth, Gene Anderson was the hammer. He wasn’t the loud one, the promo machine, the guy who cut your ego to ribbons with his tongue. Gene was the other kind of killer: the kind who stared through you, then broke you down piece by piece until you stopped moving. Together, … Read More “Gene Anderson: The Twitching Hammer of the South” »
Some wrestlers live in the spotlight. Billy Anderson lived in the shadow it cast. Born William Laster on November 12, 1956, in Arizona, he became “Billy Anderson”—sometimes “Big Bill,” sometimes “The Black Knight,” sometimes “The White Shadow,” sometimes just the guy lying on his back while Randy Savage posed. Anderson was never meant to be … Read More “Billy Anderson: Wrestling’s Eternal Shadow” »
Ted Allen never looked like a nightmare. He wasn’t some painted ghoul with blood capsules in his mouth or a chainsaw in his hands. No, Ted Allen looked like your uncle who knew every backroad in Georgia, who’d give you a cigarette when your mom wasn’t looking, who’d fight a man for cutting in line … Read More “Nightmare Ted Allen: The Ghost of the Southern Territories” »
Professional wrestling has always been a world of masks and deception. Yet few figures blurred the line between kayfabe and reality quite like Jerry Bibb Balisok. Known in the ring as Mr. X, and later infamous as a fugitive who faked his own death in the Jonestown Massacre, Balisok’s story is a bizarre collision of … Read More “Jerry Bibb Balisok: From Mr. X to America’s Great Pretender” »