The passing of Captain Lou Albano of WWWF/WWE wrestling fame last week seems to be the end of a chapter of the book of my childhood. As many kids did in the 70’s my Saturday mornings were spent watching cartoons and then professional wrestling on TV. Growing up in the Lehigh Valley was unique since Allentown was the epicenter of pro wrestling in the greater Philadelphia region. For several years, the pro ‘rasslin’ we saw on local, New York and Philly TV was taped at Ag Hall at the Allentown Fairgrounds. Agricultural Hall was the entertainment capitol of Allentown in the 70’s hosting frequent rock concerts (I never saw one there, but my older brother Bob saw a lot of bands there…. Including Blue Oyster Cult several times) and once a month would host a pro wrestling card. They would tape for 3 hours, getting 3 different shows out of 1 night of wrestling. We knew this since if you went in person, the ring announcer- Joe McHugh, a Lehigh Valley staple who was the ring announcer for boxing matches held at the old Americus Hotel in downtown Allentown (which now sadly sits vacant and deteriorating waiting to be re-developed. It not only hosted weekly boxing matches, it happens to be where I took my wife on our first date.) McHugh would come out and “Welcome you to Professional Wrestling” once an hour, including his famous “…AAANNND IIII’’MMM JOOOOOE McHUGH””Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding.” That’s the sound of the bell that would immediately wring and was an essential part of the imitation of Joe that we would do as kids. You could also tell it was Ag Hall on TV by how dimly lit the place was and by the unshaven and overweight men who were in the audience (boy would I fit in there right at this very second!!)
The shows were taped for several years at Ag Hall and many of the wrestlers would train at local gyms and some ended up living here. My friend George used to see Ivan Putski… that’s right, the “Polish Power” working out at his gym quite frequently. The Wild Samoans and Rocky Johnson settled in the area… Rocky’s son Dwayne was friends with my best friend Chris’s younger brother Matt: I remember Dwayne as a nice kid and a heck of a football player at Freedom H.S. I was surprised one day when Matt mentioned that Dwayne was actually “The Rock.” The Samoans (The Rock’s Uncles from what I understand) still run a wrestling school in Allentown. Attending the matches at Ag Hall was fun and informative: It was just as dark and smoky in person as it was on TV. The “dressing rooms” were actually a series of curtains set up away from the ring. I once stood just outside the entrance to see my favorites up close: I was also disillusioned when I saw a shocking site. Don Muraco had just finished beating someone… probably poor S.D. (Special Delivery) Jones who always got the snot kicked out of him even when he won… when the curtain was held open for the next wrestlers as they were being introduced. I looked in the “locker room” and saw Don Muraco smoking a butt and laughing heartily while playfully slapping his opponent! I was heartbroken. The same match I watched as they replaced one of the turnbuckle coverings and noticed it was a different color than the others. Sure enough, George “The Animal” Steele come out next and eventually ripped said turnbuckle apart with his teeth. Again, heartbroken. Could pro wrestling REALLY be this fake I thought? Hey, I was about 14 at the time and was hoping a LOT of things were more real than they seemed….
After a few years, wrestling became too big for Ag Hall and started to be taped at bigger venues. It returned to Allentown for several years as part of the Allentown Fair at the outdoor grandstand. The best match I went to featured a bout with Sgt. Slaughter vs. the Iron Sheik (who actually was from Iran and sang the Iranian national anthem stirring the crowd into a frenzy); a woman’s match featuring “The Fabulous Moolah,” the ONLY female wrestler I would I could name; and the headliner: a battle royal featuring Andre the Giant and every “name” wrestler you could imagine. Andre was still a good guy back then, and several bad guys attempted several times to gang up on him and throw him out of the wring. Needless to say, no one could and Andre tossed everyone out and won the match. Something that always bothered me about the WWWF: If Andre the Giant was undefeated and unbeatable, then why was little Bob Backlund the Champion for so many years and not Andre the Giant?
The point is, back then wrestling was fun and entertaining. Now, it’s just downright stupid, violent and corporate. There were clear “good guys” and “bad guys” and the managers were as entertaining as the wrestlers. The in-between match interviews with Vince McMahon and these managers with their wrestlers were the most entertaining part of the show. McMahon would always have this stunned look on his face and would often lean away from these guys as if they would possibly bite him; Lou Albano, who would always throw up his hands in disgust and storm out of the interview; “Classy” Freddy Blassie, who would frequently call McMahon “a pencil- necked geek”; Bobby Heenan who always looked like he was going to punch out a young and skinny Vince; and my favorite, the “Grand Wizard”… whose interviews would always start with: “Listen here McMahon” and with a big grin would nod approvingly in the background at everything his wrestler said and who would always threaten to sick his lawyers on Vince would just crack us up and inspire us to imitate the manager’s interviewing techniques as well as the moves of the wrestlers. The Grand Wizard died in 1983, Freddy Blassie in 2003, and now “The Captain” Lou Albano joins them. Albano helped take WWWF wrestling to new heights when he appeared in Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” video, but to us kids in the Lehigh Valley he was part of an entertaining group of athletes that kept us glued to the TV set every Saturday morning for several years…. a traveling circus that we felt was part of our town. I’m not sure what Lou Albano was captain of…. But his ship has sailed into the sunset taking with him a part of my childhood. Long Live The Captain.
The shows were taped for several years at Ag Hall and many of the wrestlers would train at local gyms and some ended up living here. My friend George used to see Ivan Putski… that’s right, the “Polish Power” working out at his gym quite frequently. The Wild Samoans and Rocky Johnson settled in the area… Rocky’s son Dwayne was friends with my best friend Chris’s younger brother Matt: I remember Dwayne as a nice kid and a heck of a football player at Freedom H.S. I was surprised one day when Matt mentioned that Dwayne was actually “The Rock.” The Samoans (The Rock’s Uncles from what I understand) still run a wrestling school in Allentown. Attending the matches at Ag Hall was fun and informative: It was just as dark and smoky in person as it was on TV. The “dressing rooms” were actually a series of curtains set up away from the ring. I once stood just outside the entrance to see my favorites up close: I was also disillusioned when I saw a shocking site. Don Muraco had just finished beating someone… probably poor S.D. (Special Delivery) Jones who always got the snot kicked out of him even when he won… when the curtain was held open for the next wrestlers as they were being introduced. I looked in the “locker room” and saw Don Muraco smoking a butt and laughing heartily while playfully slapping his opponent! I was heartbroken. The same match I watched as they replaced one of the turnbuckle coverings and noticed it was a different color than the others. Sure enough, George “The Animal” Steele come out next and eventually ripped said turnbuckle apart with his teeth. Again, heartbroken. Could pro wrestling REALLY be this fake I thought? Hey, I was about 14 at the time and was hoping a LOT of things were more real than they seemed….
After a few years, wrestling became too big for Ag Hall and started to be taped at bigger venues. It returned to Allentown for several years as part of the Allentown Fair at the outdoor grandstand. The best match I went to featured a bout with Sgt. Slaughter vs. the Iron Sheik (who actually was from Iran and sang the Iranian national anthem stirring the crowd into a frenzy); a woman’s match featuring “The Fabulous Moolah,” the ONLY female wrestler I would I could name; and the headliner: a battle royal featuring Andre the Giant and every “name” wrestler you could imagine. Andre was still a good guy back then, and several bad guys attempted several times to gang up on him and throw him out of the wring. Needless to say, no one could and Andre tossed everyone out and won the match. Something that always bothered me about the WWWF: If Andre the Giant was undefeated and unbeatable, then why was little Bob Backlund the Champion for so many years and not Andre the Giant?
The point is, back then wrestling was fun and entertaining. Now, it’s just downright stupid, violent and corporate. There were clear “good guys” and “bad guys” and the managers were as entertaining as the wrestlers. The in-between match interviews with Vince McMahon and these managers with their wrestlers were the most entertaining part of the show. McMahon would always have this stunned look on his face and would often lean away from these guys as if they would possibly bite him; Lou Albano, who would always throw up his hands in disgust and storm out of the interview; “Classy” Freddy Blassie, who would frequently call McMahon “a pencil- necked geek”; Bobby Heenan who always looked like he was going to punch out a young and skinny Vince; and my favorite, the “Grand Wizard”… whose interviews would always start with: “Listen here McMahon” and with a big grin would nod approvingly in the background at everything his wrestler said and who would always threaten to sick his lawyers on Vince would just crack us up and inspire us to imitate the manager’s interviewing techniques as well as the moves of the wrestlers. The Grand Wizard died in 1983, Freddy Blassie in 2003, and now “The Captain” Lou Albano joins them. Albano helped take WWWF wrestling to new heights when he appeared in Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” video, but to us kids in the Lehigh Valley he was part of an entertaining group of athletes that kept us glued to the TV set every Saturday morning for several years…. a traveling circus that we felt was part of our town. I’m not sure what Lou Albano was captain of…. But his ship has sailed into the sunset taking with him a part of my childhood. Long Live The Captain.
Check out this great wrestling web site:http://www.obsessedwithwrestling.com/
What do you mean its FAKE?
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