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Tag: death

  • Joe Jares, “Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George?” author, passes away at 78

    Joe Jares, a longtime sportswriter whose father was a well-known pro wrestler and whose early 70s book on pro wrestling was a rarity in that era, passed away on Saturday at the age of 78.

    The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about Jares, leading his obit talking about his book, “Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George?“, which was released in 1974.

    Jares was a well-known sportswriter at the time whose father, who used the name Brother Frank Jares, and on occasion, The Thing, was a journeyman pro wrestler when he was growing up.  Jares’ book, which Scott Teal just reprinted with Crowbar Press, was just about the only book of that era which wrote about pro wrestling seriously, but was in no ways knocked the profession.

    The book was derived from a 1966 article he wrote called “My Father, The Thing” in Sports Illustrated. 

    Jares’ book covered pro wrestling as best as it was remembered before historians in the last few decades separated a lot of the fiction from histories due to more extensive research.  Jares spoke to the leaders in pro wrestling telling stories about famous matches, biggest gates (most real, a few that didn’t happen) and weaving it in with how the business was and his fathers’ stories to him.

    Jares spent 15 years with Sports Illustrated and also worked for a number of Los Angeles newspapers including the Herald-Express, the LA Times, and The Daily News where he was sports editor. He wrote books on other sports as well, including basketball and tennis, and later taught sports reporting at his alma mater of USC. He was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2015.

  • Former WWWF Tag Team Champ Dan Miller passes away

    Dan Miller, a pro wrestling star for about 30 years, passed away this morning one day after his 84th birthday.

    Miller was the younger brother of Hall of Famer Big Bill Miller.  The two were often tag team partners including a run in 1965 where they defeated Bill Watts & Gorilla Monsoon to win the WWWF U.S. tag team title, the forerunner of today’s WWE tag team title.

    Miller consistently held regional titles throughout North America as well as the All-Asia tag title with Frank Valois in Japan.

    He had settled in Florida where he worked for years behind the scenes for the Florida wrestling office.

    Brian Blair sent a letter on Saturday informing a number of his friends that Miller was in hospice care and it wouldn’t be long until he was in a better place.

    Miller made the request to go into hospice care a few days earlier.

    Miller was best known for a tag team with his older brother, but also held major tag team tiles with Ron Etcihison, Whipper Billy Watson, Nick Kozak, Fred Curry, Jose Lothario and Fritz Von Erich.

    During his career he also held the top singles titles in Texas, Florida, the Mid Atlantic region as well as for Leroy McGuirk’s promotion in the days before the Mid South era.

  • Blackjack Mulligan dead at 73

    Robert Windham, better known as Blackjack Mulligan, the patriarch of the Windham wrestling family that includes three performers on the current WWE roster, passed away.

    Windham had been in poor health for some time after suffering a heart attack and other assorted ailments.

    Windham, 73, was a major star in pro wrestling during the 70s and 80s. He was only in the business for two years, working under his real name, before he got his big break in the WWWF in 1971, taking the Blackjack Mulligan name, copying the gimmick with the black cowboy hat and black glove of Blackjack Lanza (Jack Lanza), who had become one of the top heels in the business a few years earlier.

    Mulligan was the first contender for Pedro Morales after he won the WWWF title from Ivan Koloff in 1971, and used the name until his full-time career ended in 1989. During that period he was a top of the card star, usually as a heel, although he was a very successful babyface in the Carolinas and Florida.

    Mulligan’s strength as a performer was his size and his interview ability.  As 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds, he was often billed at 6-foot-9, and frequently opposed Andre the Giant.  There was also a famous story of Mulligan sucker punching Andre at a beach front party, but Andre came back and dragged Mulligan into the Atlantic Ocean.

    During the 70s, Mulligan & Lanza became a tag team, the Blackjacks, who had successful runs in Indiana, where they were managed by Bobby Heenan, as well as in Texas and the WWWF.

    But his biggest success came after the team broke up, when working in the Carolinas, often teaming with Ric Flair, who he was best friends with and shared a van, and also feuded with him.  During that period, he won the U.S. title, the main championship in the promotion, four times.

    Mulligan also had unsuccessful runs as a promoter, after he and Dick Murdoch purchased the dying West Texas territory from the Funk Brothers, and later as a co-owner of a Knoxville based promotion.

    Mulligan’s career largely ended in 1989 when he served time in prison, with son Kendall, for counterfeiting.

    Mulligan’s son Barry and Kendall Windham, were both wrestlers and Barry was one of the best wrestlers in the world in the late 80s.  His son-in-law, Mike Rotunda, was also a star wrestler and Mike’s three children, Windham (Bray Wyatt), Taylor (Bo Dallas) and daughter Mika work for WWE.

    Windham had been sued by WWE in July, which was strange since his serious health issues were well known and his sons were stars with the group. The lawsuit was a preemptive move as the company believed Windham was going to sue them on the concussion issue.  The lawsuit was thrown out of court two weeks ago when all the concussion related suits and WWE’s counter suits except two were thrown out.

  • Popular TV personality Joe Garagiola Sr. passed away at 90

    Joe Garagiola Sr., one of the most popular television personalities in the U.S. during the 1970s, who got his television broadcasting start in pro wrestling, passed away today at the age of 90.

    Garagiola, a native of St. Louis, grew up in a neighborhood now known as Hall of Fame place because of how many baseball players it produced. Garagiola and Yogi Berra grew up across the street, and ended up being major league catchers.  When both were growing up, Garagiola was considered the better player.

    Both also became known for their comedic skill and timing.  Garagiola often poked fun at his own mediocre major league career by saying not only was he not the best catcher in the major leagues, but he wasn’t even the best catcher on his block.

    He started as a radio announcer with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1955.  A few years later, when Sam Muchnick, a lifelong Cardinals fan, created the local “Wrestling at the Chase” television show, he hired Garagiola as his first announcer.  Garagiola was more a personality with a smooth delivery and not an expert on wrestling, but he greatly respected the wrestlers and was a lifelong friend of Gene Kiniski.

    He was very proud of his association with the business and talked fondly about socializing with Kiniski, and the antics of people like Dick the Bruiser, Pat O’Connor, Rip Hawk, Cowboy Bob Ellis and other stars of the show.

    “Wrestling at the Chase” was a unique wrestling show, held in an expensive hotel ballroom where fans attended in suits and ties, and women in evening gowns. Garagiola felt Muchnick should have syndicated the show, which featured the top talent in the country, but Muchnick, who was the backbone of the NWA, felt it was better for the overall business to not put his television into the territory of other promoters.

    Garagiola’s success on local television led to him being hired by NBC in 1961, which ended his run as a local wrestling announcer.  His brother, Mickey, who is in the St. Louis Wrestling Hall of Fame, remained the ring announcer for Wrestling at the Chase into the early 80s.

    Garagiola was a fixture on NBC as the sportscaster on The Today Show, a frequent replacement host for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, and announcer for the weekend Major League Baseball Game of the Week.

    He had a falling out with NBC in 1988.  He later worked as an announcer for the Arizona Diamondbacks from 1998 to 2012, where his son worked as General Manager, and announced his retirement from broadcasting in early 2013.

  • Charlie Fulton passed away at 67

    Gary Fulton, one of the best known of the prelim pro wrestlers in the 70s and early 80s as Charlie Fulton from Marion, OH, passed away last night at the age of 67.

    During his career, Fulton wrestled everyone from Bruno Sammartino to Antonio Inoki, and in most of the major territories and was known as something of an Iron Man performer for never missing matches due to injuries.

    He also worked under a mask as part of the Mighty Yankees in Tennessee with partner Frank Morrell, as The Black Demon in WWF in the early 80s and as Mr. USSR in Japan as the tag team partner of Alexis Smirnoff.

    Fulton had suffered from heart issues for years, and worked as a prison guard after retiring from wrestling in 1985.

  • Former ECW wrestler Hack Myers passes away at 42

    Donald Haviland, better known as Hack Myers, passed away today, reportedly from complications after brain surgery at Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore. He would have turned 42 on Monday.

    Haviland was an independent wrestler who was brought into ECW in February, 1994, by Paul Heyman, largely as an enhancement wrestler. Because he used to grunt and say “Sha” when doing offensive maneuvers, fans in Philadelphia would start chanting “Sha” during his matches whenever he’d do something.  He became a cult favorite quickly, and even though he almost always lost, he was wrestling some of the biggest names in the company at the time, like Tommy Dreamer and Terry Funk, within a few months of his arrival.  Eventually that led to his moniker as “The Shah of ECW.”

    Heyman used him better, not as a  headliner, but he was a featured undercard act who usually got a big reaction.  The gimmick started running its course and he was going to leave the promotion, so he did a loser leaves town match with Too Cold Scorpio on the 1996 November to Remember show, which he lost.  He did a couple of matches as a nostalgias act later, and wrestled mostly Florida independent shows through around 2011.