BENCHPRESS

BENCHPRESS

WRESTLING -THE FINAL FRONTER

Billy Altman

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As one not generally regarded as an easily impressible type, I would like to hereby confess to having been dutifully inspired to open-mouthed awe by the incredible sights emanating from my television set at approximately 12:15 a.m. on the evening of December 4, 1983. There on the box, in living color, stood a six foot, six inch, 400 pound giant of a man wearing a red lumberjack shirt, rendered sleeveless without any apparent aid from a tailor, and blue denim overalls cut off at the knee in quite the same tear now, wear later fashion. That’s not what got me, though. What got me was that, atop this bizarre hulking frame, there nestled a feathery mask of bright yellow and orange, a mask that resembled the almost unimaginable results of some unholy alliance between Big Bird and Tweety Pie, and from underneath its colorful plumage could be heard the following number, sung in acapella, to the tune of a recent well-known hit record: “Oh, duckie, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind. Hey duckie, hey duckie.” In front of the singer, resting quietly on the desk belonging to the program’s host, was the object of the mammoth man’s midnight serenade—a duckie indeed, and of the plastic variety, the kind with the little wheels on the bottom and the long piece of twine attached to the front, suitable for tugging.

When the giant finished his musical tribute to webbed-footdom, he lifted off the mask, revealing the smiling countenance of that benevolent gladiator of the squared circle known to both the un-landed gentry of the Sunshine State as well as family and friends back home in the Pocono Mountains region of upstate New York as the one and only Big Daddy. “Gordon,” said Mr. Daddy to the afore-mentioned program host, Gordon Solie, “that song was for my little friend Jonathan, who I met at the children’s hospital a few weeks ago. He’s sick right now, and can’t go out and play with the

other kids, so he gave me his duck to look after and asked me to bring it with me into the ring for good luck.”

As Big Daddy and Solie continued to talk, the mood darkened; yes, Daddy had indeed heard the threats hurled in his direction by none other than Abdullah the Butcher, that personification of evil, an evil bigger in girth than even Big Daddy himself—the same Abdullah who had been viewed, only moments beforehand, eating a wad of bills taken from an attache case filled with the 10,000 dollars

that his manager, “Gentleman” Jim (better known as “Cheap Shot”) Holliday, was contemptibly offering to anyone who could successfully pin the unruly, unpredictable Butcher. The threats of violence towards his own person, Big Daddy assured us, were not what bothered him. After ali, he was a professional. No one, though, was going to lay a finger on that duck.

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“Some people,” said Big Daddy as the camera moved in on his immenseness and the words BIG DADDY flashed across the screen, “Some people think they can abuse the duck.” He was soon stammering, fighting back his emotions. “That duck, that duck means a lot to me and if anyone—and I guess that means you, Abdullah—if anyone tries to hurt the duck, they’ll have to answer to me first.” As Big Daddy finished his quiet warning, the camera again zoomed in, cutting to the desk top, for a closeup of the wee beaked one itself. New words now appeared on the bottom of the screen in bold relief: THE DUCK.

Welcome, friends, to Championship Wrestling From Florida.

If, in the lightning-paced world of “now”—a world increasingly presided over by the likes of People Weekly, Entertainment Tonight, USA Today and PM Magazine—it is becoming nigh unto impossible to look forward to anything that goes on publicly, then CWF (as we of the faith refer to it in reverent, hushed tones) has helped to at least somewhat restore this observer’s belief in the possibility of untainted natural culture in the modern age. I mean, even the basic transmission of this show is a mystiqal unsolvable mystery: a 60-minute program of local wrestling is taped (and presumably shown) in Tampa, then broadcast up here in the New York Metropolitan area about a month later through the humble facilities of Linden, New Jersey’s UHF Channel 47, WNJU, a station that, aside from this lone show, transmits almost exclusively in Spanish and other non-Anglo languages. (Even the supposedly omniscient TV Guide still posits that Monday night 11:30-12:30 time slot is occupadoed by the Latin variety show, Lucha Libre.) No matter. For whatever reason—be it simple fate or complex contractual Jersey muscle—and for however long it stays on the schedule (remind me sometime to tell you all about Fiebre, the Mexican American Bandstand show from 1980 that sought to bring disco and punk together under one crazed roof, and disappeared without a trace after four glorious months on the air), CWF is visible proof (yes, I’ve got tapes) that the rock ’n’ roll of sports is indeed alive and well and living not only in Tampa, but in Lakeland, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Miami—yea, even in Tallahassee, ancient home of the Pharoahs and Freddie Cannon’s hi-fi chassised Lassie.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself, “C’mon, everyone knows that wrestling is just plain terrible these days. We all have cable. We’ve seen those idiotic cards from Madison Square Garden on USA Network, with that burrhead of a champion, the World Wrestling Federation’s Bob Backlund, who’s been on top for over five years Only because he was the first Caucasian that the predominantly Third World New York wrestling crowd took any kind of shine to. We’ve even watched Georgia wrestling, hosted by that Solie fella you named before as the announcer for Florida wrestling. It’s all fixed anyway. Who cares?”

To which I can only reply—psychology, my friends, psychology. The Butcher-Big Daddy cauldron .of trouble is simply the appetizer for the unfathomable twisting and turning menu of human drama served up each week on Championship Wrestling From Florida. What? Have you not heard of the Boots ’n’ Spurs Bunkhouse Match? The Brass Knucks, falls-count-anywhere-in-thebuilding Match that ended in the parking lot, with tire irons? The Steel Cage, Loser Leaves The State final confrontation between the Midnight Rider and Lucifer? How about the Purple Haze, who rose from the sea in boots and tights, ready for action? Yes, there is much to tell and not enough time. I leave you with this image: Two black destroyers of gargantuan proportions, dressed in official Idi Amin camouflage regalia, both with Mr. T haircuts, headbutting a supine opponent from opposite corners of the ring. Depending on their mood, they claim to hail from either Gambia, Nigeria, the lowlands of South Africa, Chicago, Illinois, Detroit, Michigan, or (gulp!) PARTS UNKNOWN. The “small” one is six foot four and tips the scales at a mere 340 pounds. He is known as Mister Kareem Muhammad. His “associate” is six five and a “trim” 310; he wished to be addressed as Mister Elijah Akeem. Together they are the dreaded Zambuie Express, U.S. Tag Team Champions. If they get their way, and they might, all of America will soon crumble before them.

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Till next time, then, fellow pencil-neck geeks. %