The basic job of a professional wrestling promoter is to garner as much publicity and interest in each event as possible, and they use all the avenues open to them to do so (TV, radio, handbills/posters, newspapers, etc.), but when they receive an added boost from a completely unexpected avenue, it means nothing but added gate revenue, and that is the bottom line of wrestling.
Often, I've been asked the question, who was the best mike man in the business (a.k.a.: who was the best talker/interview man on television). This is really a lopsided question, because only the "rulebreakers" are given the freedom to get carried away during their three minutes of announcer-wrestler gab. The scientific wrestlers always must have a sense of composure about them, except for the few seconds when they promise to break their opponent's arm.
During the history of T.V. interviews there have been many talented talkers, but even non-talking talents were able to get their message over. For example, Abdullah the Butcher. He spoke only two words of English. "Me beat!" he would repeat this two word paragraph over and over again and his expressions were so meaningful that that's all he really had to say to get his point across.
Gene Kiniski was also at the top of the talking ladder, and who can forget those unequalled interviews with the Tolos Brothers. ". . . 'ain't that right Brother Chris?" ". . . that's right Brother John."
Of course, Tough Tony Borne talked more with his facial expressions than his vocal chords and Mad Dog Maurice Vachon didn't need to talk at all. He would just stare into the red light of the camera, and after three minutes, the viewer would swear they just heard the greatest interview of any wrestler on television.
A trio of rulebreakers hold top honors in my book. Ripper Collins was one of the greatest talkers there was from a promoters viewpoint. You would tell him 30 seconds before his interview about 20 upcoming spot shows and somehow he would be able to mention each town, each building that held the event, each date, and each opponent he was facing, without ever having to do a retake; and on the really big shows, he would even be able to recite the address of the advance ticket outlet.
Perhaps the greatest mike men I ever worked with were the California Hell's Angels, Chris Colt and Ron Dupree. Dupree, who broke into the business in Boston as Golden Boy, would usually just stand next to his partner and nod his head up and down to accentuate the points about splitting their opponents heads open; but it was Chris Colt, one of the most controversial wrestlers any promoter could ever book, when given free reign could fill up the Astrodome on a day that Bill Gates promised to give out free computers to anyone sitting in their car on the LBJ Freeway. Colt was indeed a nightmare, bordering on the uncontrollable side, but the cost of Excedrin was small compared to the house he could draw by talking on television. He worked for a lot of promoters (The Sheik in Detroit, Nick Gulas in Tennessee, Ernie Mohamad in Arizona, etc. etc.), and he learned from the top talent in each territory. When he was finally given the opportunity to administrate everything he had learned from all around the country, there was no one that was in his class.
Earlier I mentioned about unexpected sources of publicity. Lumberjack Luke was responsible for perhaps the biggist promotional surprise in Northwest history. While on a radio station in Yakima, Washington, he objected to having to wrestle in front of the local people, who for the most were common ". . . pig farmers." Now pig farming is a noble and important profession, but the tone of his voice and the way he referred to the local people as a bunch of pig farmers, was expressed in such a way that the listening public was outraged. They created such a commotion that Luke decided he had accidentally stumbled onto a good thing; a raw nerve that was like a keg of dynamite ready to go off. Naturally he used the "pig farmer" bit five times during his three minute T.V. interview. This wrestling show was seen in eight states and three western Canadian provinces each week; however, it was aired first on Yakima T.V. and then duplicate copies of the hour tape were bicycled to all the other stations in various markets. Again, his remark about pig farmers caused such anger from the viewers that the T.V. station, before sending out the tapes for the other stations, actually "bleeped" the words "pig farmer" all five times from his interviews. After the tape was played in each market, the viewing public was curious as to what had been said and apparently they swamped the television station and sports editors of newspapers to find out what that no-good bum had said.
"Lumberjack Luke calls us pig farmers." That was the headline in over 25 local newspapers and the lead news story on God knows how many local T.V. newscasts. All of a sudden, newspapers that before refused to even print wrestling results (although they gladly accepted our revenue to place an advertisement), and T.V. stations that earlier said ". . . televise wrestling, you must be joking", were reporting Lumberjack Luke's comments like he was solely responsible for the Watergate break-in.
Publicity in those days was a remarkable and unforgettable experience. And oh yes, then there was always Silento Rodriguez, but that's another story.
