Highway Run

 

Gateway Card

Look what I got. An original Mid-Atlantic Gateway website promotional card for the website that they gave out to fans at the first couple of Mid-Atlantic fanfests in Charlotte back in the mid-2000s. Even has the old website address on it!

My favorite website - - the Mid-Atlantic Gateway!

On the Road Again

 

Gateway!

 

Final Moments

Mid-Atlantic Wrestling show featuring Flair vs. South now on WWE Network

by Dick Bourne
from the Mid-Atlantic Gateway

The WWE Network recently uploaded a couple dozen episodes of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling from 1984 and 1985. One of those episodes is the 6/22/85 show from the famed Shelby Recreation Center, site of many Crockett TV tapings over those years.

On that show, Ric Flair wrestled George South in a nice little match that not only showcased Flair in the babyface champion role he played on in our area, but also South as the up and coming young talent that all of the big stars liked working with on TV.

Over the years, Flair has talked about how much he enjoyed working with George in those TV matches. And he was always unselfish with South, letting Mr. No. 1 have a little offense in those matches, including this one in 1985 where George got to go full-heel on the NWA champion.

The match itself can be seen on YouTube:

This match has several little things about it that make it special to me:

• It's Flair vs. South, always a good TV match-up and one of several memorable TV matches the two would have over the years (including the time Flair told South, "Today, you're Ricky Steamboat.")
• Bob Caudle and Johnny Weaver were doing commentary, and they were a favorite broadcast pairing of mine during that time. Johnny even sings "Turn Out the Lights, The Party's Over" at the end of the match.
• Tommy Young is the referee, my (and many other's) favorite ref of all time. 
• It's a rare TV match with Flair as a babyface NWA World Champion.
• Always a hot crowd in the Shelby Rec Center!

There are several signature moments for Flair in the match, but my favorite is one he would often do during those years, particularly when wrestling as the good-guy, where he would shout out "Now we go to school!" and then apply the figure-four leglock for the victory. In this match he adds a nice little touch: as he spins into the move, he stops for a brief second to give the ringside camera a thumbs up, and then locks in the hold. South submits moments later.

Finally, a funny moment to finish it off:

After Flair's win, Tommy Young hands Flair the "ten pounds of gold" and Flair walks over and offers his hand to South, still prone on the mat. George, staying true to the bad-guy role he had thoroughly enjoyed playing in this match, waves off Flair in disgust and roles over away from him.

George laughs about that to this day. "What was I thinking," he said to me once when we watched this match together.

Check out that complete show on the WWE Network. The match is above is from YouTube and not from the WWE-owned footage.

If you have never tried the network, they still have a 30-day free trial. There are well over 100 complete programs in the years 1981-1985 available now, and many more reportedly to be added soon. Plus there is lots World Class, Mid-South, and other territorial wrestling action from the 1980s to enjoy.

If you already have the WWE Network, the direct link to the show is here:
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling 6.22.85 (Shelby NC)

Also on the show film footage of Tully Blanchard burning Dusty Rhodes' eye, Omni footage of Nikita Koloff challenging Ric Flair.  Plus in action: Arn Anderson, Sam Houston, the Russians, Buddy Landel, Ron Bass, and many others. And to cap it off, an interview from Florida with Chief Wahoo McDaniel, who was about to return to the area to come to the aid of Dusty Rhodes.

There is also a "World Championship Wrestling" show from WTBS in Atlanta that features another famous Ric Flair vs. George South match. You can read about it here.

Gateway article from 2003

This is an article the Mid-Atlantic Gateway wrote back in 2003 when I took them to visit Paul. They just reposted it. Good memories.

A Visit with Number One" Paul Jones and George South (2003)
http://www.midatlanticgateway.com/2018/05/visit-with-paul-jones-george-south.html

Reward for Good Work: J.J. talks about George South on "The JJ Dillon Show"

by Dick Bourne
Special from the Mid-Atlantic Gateway (midatlanticgateway.com)

On James J. Dillon's recent podcast "The JJ DIllon Show" (episode #10 which dropped Thursday 8/31), co-host Rich Bochinni read an email from a listener of the show. The listener asked about some of the enhancement talent that the main event guys liked to work with. J.J. answered by also talking about how one guy in particular meant a lot to him in those years:

"I always mention George South's name because, what would happen when I would line up the TVs and I would know how many enhancement people I would need, instead of going down a list, I relied very heavily on George South. And George took a big load off me knowing that he had people who he knew were going to be reliable, were going to show up dressed properly, have a respectable match, and it took a burden off of me not having to worry, especially if I hadn't seen the guy before. And as a result George worked a lot. In fact, and goes back a couple of years ago, there was one day when I was somewhere in Charlotte, and George South came up to me, and he said, 'I want to thank you because i just paid off my home and I woe you.' I just stopped him dead in his tracks and said 'George, you owe me nothing. Whatever good fortune you had was becasue you were smart enough to save your money and because I relied on you and you earned that distinction. I knew with all the other things that I had to do, if I had to have four people there, you were one of the four, and I trusted you to give me the name of the others, and you weren't going to give me the same four guys all the time, so it wasn't like you were gaining favor with certain guys, I totally trusted you and that trust was rewarded by George South.' And so I said, 'George, you owe me nothing. You earned everything that you have, and I'm just glad that you got maybe a little more work than some of the others, but you earned that right to get it.'

"Sometimes on the house shows, we would have a spot or two on the card to fill, and so I would call George and he would get some extra bookings and that was kind of a way of compensating him for what he did for me in terms of when I had a million other distractions and needed guys for TV and he made me look good. So I was dead sincere when I told George you don't owe me a thing. If anything, I owe you because you earned everything that you ever got.

And George was a great talent in the ring, I know Ric loved to work with him. But to answer your question, I don't know that there were handpicked guys. It's just everybody that was kind of like surrounding George South were all of that kind of quality, that went you went out there, they looked presentable in the ring, their ring gear looked professional, and when the bell rang, regardless of how many minutes there was or what was called for, you were gonna get a quality match."

You can listen to J.J. Dillon's weekly podcast on the MLW Radio Netowrk or download from wherever you like to get your podcasts.

The Last Wrestlecade

Selling Books in Charlotte

With Dick Bourne of the Mid-Atlantic Gateway

Me and my buddy Dick Bourne in Charlotte at the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Legends Fanfest. Dang, I sold some books for him that weekend. Next plate of chicken wings in on him!

Check out all of his books over at the Mid-Atlantic Gateway, including the one on "The Last Rassler." Who could that possibly be??

And don't forget the "second greatest book ever written!"  - Dad You Don't Work You Wrestle!

Monthly Greeting - August 2016

AUGUST 2016
I know, I know. Where you at, Mr.No.1 ? You're late!  Well, actually I have been spending the last 4 days with the real "No. 1" Paul Jones!

"No. 1" Paul Jones and "Mr. No. 1" George South at Fanfest in Charlotte

What a great time I had at the NWA Legends Fanfest here in Charlotte, N.C. I met so many great people and I want to say thank you to everyone that bought a copy of the "Second Greatest Book Ever Written." Spending time with Paul Jones and getting to see my old friend Paul Diamond from my Georgia Wrestling days were my favorite moments.

Ladies and gentleman, from ''the Headlock Ranch'', well actually, the hospital near the headlock ranch, weighing in at 9 lbs. 6 oz.,  AXL GREY SOUTH'. He is here, live and in color! He is beautiful. Thank you Jesus for blessing me with another grandbaby.

I want to ask everyone to please pray for my student, Tessa Blanchard, who leaves for a 4-week Japan tour this week. I am so proud of her. What a very special young lady. Also keep my other student Cedric Alexander in your prayers as the Lord has opened up some amazing doors for him. I spoke to old friend Terry Taylor this week and he loves them both.

I spoke to Brad Armstrong's family this week and told Lori about wearing my "BA" tights at the legends wrestling show. I love her and Jillian so much.

Congratulations to my buddies Dick Bourne and David Chappell for going into the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Legends Hall of Heroes! It was special to share their night with them. They were honored for how they keep the memories of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling alive through thier website. I wrote in my book that when I found the Mid-Atlantic Gateway, I found my Noah's Ark, and it was filled with wonderful wrestling memories. The Mid-Atlantic Gateway. And congratulations to the Road Warriors, Paul Ellering, Baby Doll, Boogie, and Dusty Rhodes and his family.

 

Can you believe my Dallas Cowboys will be kicking off in a few weeks? I cant wait. Football season is almost here. Peyton Manning fans can sit back, relax, have another hotdog, bask in the glow of his retirement going out on top. I got to still sweat it out over Romo every week!!

Are you freakin' kidding me? Bob Lilly of my great Cowboys talks about coming into the league and having to buy his own football shoes, but the NFL cancels the HOF game because of the ''grass''? hahahahahahah Somewhere Wahoo is laughing his butt off. What a work!! It can snow 20 feet deep in Green Bay but that's OK, heck, my guys wrestled on the ground, but I guess the grass just wasn't ''cut''just right. We done here folks! Long live the "ice bowl''!!


Please let me know if I can help train, rent a ring, sell a book or show you a picture of my new grandbaby. Remember, talk to Jesus, He loves you so much. Got to go, AXL wants another piece of pizza!!!     

See you at the matches.  God Bless!

- George

Throwback Thursday: Somebody Take The Money

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway
This updated story was originally published in 2011 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway


Jason Jones told us about showing an online video to Harley Race while kicking back one afternoon in the World League Wrestling office.

Jason is a great young wrestler who was trained by George South back in the early 2Ks, and has wrestled for NOAH in Japan and had a few appearances in the WWE. Wrestling as Harley's son Leland Race, he is currently the World League Wrestling Champion for Race's WLW group in Missouri, and is heavily involved in running the front office for that company.

Back in 2005, George South was involved in a feud with Brad Anderson (son of the late great Gene Anderson of the Minnesota Wrecking Crew) over the EWA championship in North Carolina. George put a bounty on the head of Anderson in hopes that he wouldn't have to put the title up against him. We got the idea at the time to do a video about the bounty and copy the memorable video Harley Race did in similar circumstances back in 1983 with Ric Flair. Then for fun, we took both videos and blended them together.

It was that edited video that Jason showed Harley in the office that day:

Harley is like a lot of the veteran stars from days gone by. He appreciates the respect shown him by the younger generations. Harley had a smile on his face as he watched the video, and seemed to appreciate the tip of the hat.

But he also had one more comment to Jason about George:

"That kid is nuts."

From the Mid-Atlantic Archive Series
"Cokes & Popcorn"

"Cokes and Popcorn" are little stories of humor and respect that I come across along the way of putting the Mid-Atlantic Gateway website together, and they are little stories I want to hang onto. Not sure where the name of the section comes from; I just find these little stories refreshing.

More Cokes & Popcorn: "Never Let 'em See You Sell, Kid."

My Letter from Sandy Scott

Please go to the Mid-Atlantic Gateway and read their article about a letter I got from Sandy Scott when I was a young teenage fan in 1975. This letter meant so much to me and I still have it to this day.

The story is titled "A Letter from a Childhood Hero" and it is also featured in the book "The Last Rassler".

"Today, You're Ricky Steamboat"

The Mid-Atlantic Gateway has posted a story about my 1988 match with Ric Flair on Superstation WTBS.  The Gateway is my favorite website, by the way. I wrote in my book "Dad You Don't Work You Wrestle" that I found my own Noah's Ark and it was full of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling stuff. That's the Gateway.

Here's the first part. Click the link below to read the whole story!
 

Ric Flair Tells George South: 
"Today You're Ricky Steamboat"

by Dick Bourne,  Mid-Atlantic Gateway

I've written before about all the stories that George South has told me over the many years we've been good friends, and usually I find myself not believing half of them. I mean, come on - - wrestlers tend to tell tall tales, am I right? And George loves to tell a good story. But then someone comes along that was involved in one of those stories and says something that confirms his story and I wind up calling him and confessing  - - "You were right!"

Such was the case on a recent episode of the "WOOOO! Nation" podcast, when Ric Flair and co-host Conrad Thompson were taking questions sent in by fans. One question dealt with wrestler Mike Jackson and why he never quite got a break to move up the cards back in the day. Jackson was thought of at the time (and still to this day) as one of the best underneath workers in the business and all the main event guys liked working with him.

But Flair moved on quickly from Jackson and said this, which confirmed part of a story George had told me long ago:

"You know who was actually the best worker back then, was George South .... I got in the ring with him one time and I said, 'Buddy, today you're Ricky Steamboat'. And we tore it down."  - Ric Flair, WOOOO! Nation, December 9, 2015

Read the entire story of match with Ric Flair RIGHT HERE!

Finding Gold in a Dallas Cowboys Book

by Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

George South has a knack for finding the most obscure references to wrestling in just about any book he picks up. It's uncanny. The best example of this was probably the time he found a book in a used bookstore for $1.00 that talked about the first season of the NFL Carolina Panthers in Charlotte. In that book, which had been tucked away in the back of this old bookstore, covered in dust, probably never to be read again, George finds a picture of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling legend Johnny Weaver when he was a deputy sheriff for the Mecklenburg Sheriff's Department. Johnny was helping with crowd control in security at a Panthers game.

What were the odds? Only George could find that! There are countless other examples, too. There have been references to Wahoo McDaniel in a New York Jets football history book, more things like that.

The most recent example was in the book "Legends of the Dallas Cowboys" by Cody Monk, which was a collection of stories and memories about the great legends in Dallas Cowboys history.

I had given this book to George for his birthday. We were meeting at a local Hickory Tavern restaurant for dinner and to watch the Cowboys play the Giants the opening weekend of the 2015 season on Sunday Night Football. I even told him when he was first looking through it, "I bet you anything you will find some reference to wrestling in there."

I figured it would be perhaps a reference to one of the old-timer players having been a wrestler at some point. A lot of professional football players were part-time pro wrestlers back in the day before the NFL and AFL players made a great deal of money. Some, like Wahoo McDaniel, made more money in a summer of pro wrestling than in an entire season of football.

So about a week later George sends me a text with a photo attached of a passage in the book about Kerry Von Erich winning the NWA world title from Ric Flair at Texas Stadium in 1984.

Well, I'll be darned, he did it again!

The passage was in a section of the book devoted to memories about the old Texas Stadium in Irving, TX that was home to the Cowboys until a few years ago when they moved into the new AT&T Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX.

Once again, George had found wrestling gold in a random book. And I can just about guarantee you it will happen again at some point down the road.

The following is an except from the "Texas Stadium" chapter in "Legends of the Dallas Cowboys" by Cody Monk, pg. 187:

"Non-football events: In September 1971, Texas Stadium opened its doors with a 10-day revival from noted pastor Billy Graham. Johnny and June Cash performed and future President and First Lady Laura and George W. Bush attended. The event was simply the first of a litany of major events. In 1972 and then from 1984-88, Dallas-based World Class Championship Wrestling, featuring the legendary Von Erich family, held its annual "Parade of Champions" shows at Texas Stadium. The most famous match happened on May 6, 1984, when Kerry Von Erich beat "Nature Boy" Ric Flair for the NWA title in front of over 50,000 fans, only months after Kerry's brother, David Von Erich, died in Tokyo. On the music side, the Jackson Five, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Metallica, Alabama, and Madonna all played at Texas Stadium...."

George and I enjoyed a big plate of wings, thanks to our friend Doug Joyner who had given George a gift card for his birthday. It wound up being a great night as quarterback Tony Romo led the Cowboys down the field in the final minute of the game and threw the winning touchdown pass to my old Tennessee favorite Jason Witten. Dallas defeated the New York football Giants 27-26.

How 'bout them Cowboys?

Sadly, I wasn't with George to celebrate. I had left at the end of the 3rd quarter because of the long trip home late on a Sunday night. I enjoyed listening to the voice of the great Verne Lundquist (filling in for the usual voice of the Dallas Cowboys Brad Sham) make the call of that final drive on XM satellite radio. As Romo threw that winning touchdown, I could only imagine George, being one of only a few people left in the restaurant at midnight, running around like NC State Coach Jim Valvano after winning the 1983 NCAA national basketball championship - - looking for someone to hug.

Sweet Child of Mine

by Dick Bourne, Mid-Atlantic Gateway

It was the summer of 1988 - - - Bull Durham and Rambo were packing them in at the box office, Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child of Mine was rocking the Billboard charts, and Charlotte's Memorial Stadium was the hot stop on Jim Crockett's "Great American Bash" tour.

My friend Kyra Quinn recently sent me a link to a YouTube video she found of a vintage Charlotte television report about that Bash. There were several shots of various wrestlers arriving and congregating out behind the old Charlotte Park Center which sits adjacent to Memorial Stadium. Among the mix of wrestlers featured were Dusty Rhodes, Magnum, T.A., Jim Cornette, Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, and many others.

And then this quick shot appeared. At right is George South with his wife Missy and their first son George Jr.  They are talking to Gary Royal who is under the mask as Gladiator #1.

In the video you can see George softly stroking the back of his young son's head. "Little George" was surely having a ball that day, getting to hang out with some of the greatest wrestlers in the business. What kid wouldn't be having a ball? I sent this screen shot to George and it made him a little emotional. His son is now married with kids of his own.

Of course, I had to give George a hard time about that huge head of hair and those Paul Jones tube socks.

But I also thought to myself how sad it was that Jim Crockett Promotions has been gone for almost 28 years.  The summer of 1988 was the 53-year old company's last summer and its last Great American Bash in Charlotte. I'm sad that Little George doesn't have a Great American Bash to take his own son to this summer.

Fireworks. David Allen Coe. Skydivers. The "Nature Boy" arriving for the main event in a channel-9 helicopter. Guns N' Roses blasting on the radio. Wrestler's families hanging out before the show.

"Reminds me of childhood memories where everything
was as fresh as the bright blue sky...Sweet child of mine."

Those were special days.