Despite the name, this article is not a comment on the mess that is currently going on in the Sunshine State as teams of lawyers head south for the recount. Actually, I'd love to see somebody down there promote a best two-out-of-three falls match between Bush and Gore with the winner getting the presidency. Of course I'd book Gore as the heel and have him try to take the win by hitting the Texas Governor with a large bag of ballot chad. Put in Reform Party Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura as the impartial referee and you have the makings of a great angle.
Seriously, the Chief I'm talking about here carries a lot more respect and reverence here in the Carolinas than anyone short of Richard Petty. That man is "Chief" Wahoo McDaniel. Wahoo McDaniel is more to me than just a great wrestler (which he was) or a very nice man (which he is). In many ways, Wahoo McDaniel became a symbol to me of many things that made growing up in my part of the country so much fun and the source of many fond memories. In the words of Scott Teal, I am a "Wahoo mark" and damn proud of it.
When I was a kid growing up on "Tobacco Road" here in North Carolina, Jim Crockett's Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling was one of the primary sources of entertainment for those of us in "rural" areas. Crockett's weekly television show came on at an hour that most kids would be in bed (11:30 p.m. on Friday nights for many years), but somehow, many of us managed to talk our parents into letting us stay up to watch. For me it was even more special because Friday night was spent with my grandfather. "Daddy Frank," as he was called by both his children and grandchildren, was a tobacco farmer who also worked third shift at a local textile mill. However, he was off on Friday nights and would drive to my parent's house to eat dinner, pick me up and take me to the farm with him. Since my grandmother worked second shift at the textile mill (and still works a second-shift production job at age 76) that meant Daddy Frank and I had the house to ourselves. After a quick nap, I'd get some popcorn and a couple of ice cold Pepsi's and we'd watch Bob Caudle and the Mid-Atlantic show. Of course, Wahoo was a prominent part of that show.
Crockett had a very successful formula for his promotion during the 70's. The promotion was built around a core of popular faces and a series of heels that would come through the region in a series of very well booked matches that followed the angles of the TV show. Matches were taped at the WRAL television studios in Raleigh, despite the fact that the Crockett's offices were located in Charlotte. This gave the territory a very wide area to promote shows in with regular shows in Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, Rocky Mount, Charleston SC and other cities. The promotion also had a very strong group of veterans who worked "enhancement" matches on TV and mid-card matches at the house shows, which gave the headliners a lot of credibility to the TV audience. Abe Jacobs, Jacques Goulet, Haystacks Calhoun, Mike "The Hippie" Boyette, Bill White and others were regulars on the show and their talent did not go unnoticed by the fans.
For quite some time, the main faces in the promotion were Wahoo McDaniel and Paul Jones, with the Anderson Brothers as strong heel mainstays. I had always admired McDaniel because he was a real Native American (as opposed to several "fake" Indians like Jay Strongbow and Billy White Wolf. I also noticed a strong resemblance between McDaniel and my grandfather. I asked my grandfather about it and he never made much comment for many years. It wasn't until much later that I would find out that my great-grandparents were Native Americans.
As I got older and had access to the "kayfabe" magazines, I found out more about Wahoo's career. It seemed that everywhere I looked, he had been in that area at least for a short span. Texas, Florida, the AWA, Japan, Mid-South and WWWF had all seen the Chief in their rings over the years, and in each promotion, McDaniel usually held that promotions regional title. While he wore his familiar head-dress and used two moves called "Tomahawk Chop" and "Indian Deathlock" during his matches, he lacked a lot of the typical "Indian" stereotypes in his matches. He was a legitimate athlete with a well-known background as a high school, college and professional football player. Dory Funk, Jr. did a story on his website about McDaniel's football days and his time working for Dory Sr. in the old Amarillo territory. It always seemed that McDaniel's "Indian" image was secondary to his talent in the ring. Wahoo was always the hero of the "common man" and as the "60 Minutes" feature on him said, "The people here ... will spend the milk and egg money for a ticket to see the Chief ..."
After becoming a regular at the old "Funking Message Board," I got into a discussion with Dory Funk, Jr. about Wahoo. Funk told me of driving up to the arena in Houston, Texas as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion and seeing his name on the marquee with Wahoo as his challenger. What was different about this match was that it had a 90-minute time limit. As I read this, my jaw dropped. 90 MINUTES! In a time where some "star" wrestlers gripe and fuss about doing a 15-minute match, a 90-minute match seemed almost inhuman. I had seen several hour matches over the years that were classics, but an hour and a half? In the back of a show for Slim Baucom's current Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling promotion, I got a chance to talk to Wahoo. I was talking to McDaniel and Ricky Morton (and trying hard not to "mark out" over it!) Of course, I asked him about Dory's comments. His face lit up as he talked about that particular match. "Man, yes! I remember that Houston match!" McDaniel said. "Dory was the champ and we were working hard. We were on the mat when the ref leaned over and said, ‘Okay, boys. Sixty minutes gone. You've got thirty minutes left.' I was wondering if I was going to make it!" We then spent a minute talking about Dory and the Chief's golf game while I felt like the luckiest person on the face of the earth.
McDaniel was also popular in my home area due to the fact that most of his feuds resulted in matches with more than their share of blood. In a classic match that's still talked about in Raleigh, NC to this day, McDaniel lost the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Title to a young Ric Flair. Both men were wearing the "crimson mask" by the end of that match, which saw Flair taking the win after hitting McDaniel in the head with a board from a broken platform. Problem was, the board still had a nail in it and it opened up an impressive gash over McDaniel's eye. Needless to say, when the young Flair, who drew heat hard and fast when he came to Mid-Atlantic, damn near started a riot when he won the strap. McDaniel also had a memorable series of matches as a heel against Manny Fernandez several years later in which a great deal of red stuff hit the mat. McDaniel and Fernandez took their series of matches to the AWA and an Indian Strap Match between the two was one of the featured matches in the AWA/WCCW/CWA/CWF Superbrawl III card. The fact that both men bled all over the place in that match was used as part of the angle when Kerry Von Erich lost the WCCW title to AWA champ Jerry Lawler. Supposedly, the ref stopped the fight because AWA President Stanley Blackburn didn't want "another bloody mess" like the McDaniel/Fernandez match.
In the second part of this article, we'll take a look at the many regional titles (and one little known World title) that McDaniel held as well as the interesting angle that turned him heel in the Mid-Atlantic area. That angle had a lot to do with the later creation of the greatest heel "stable" in all of professional wrestling …The Four Horsemen.
But regardless of that, Wahoo McDaniel will forever be to me a link to some of the happiest days of my childhood. He will forever symbolize that special love for the professional wrestling that my grandfather and I shared. Because of this, my grandfather became my closest friend. When he died in 1989, I sat by his bed and talked with him about all those evenings spent watching wrestling and all the fun we had together. It is a bond that I will always cherish, and for that reason, I continue to respect and love this crazy business.
After meeting Wahoo that night, I got the opportunity to climb into a wrestling ring during a show and participate in doing a promo for an upcoming match. I looked up as I climbed through the rope and hoped that somewhere, Daddy Frank was able to see. If he did, I know that he loved it ...
NOTE: At the time of this article, I was informed that both wrestler Eddie Sullivan and the mother of wrestler/commentator/producer Les Thatcher had passed away during Thanksgiving week. Our condolences go to the families of both.
