A rare reunion of The Four Horsemen has been announced for WrestleCon during WrestleMania35 weekend in New York City. There will be photo-ops with two combinations of the Horsemen: the 1987 version with Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, Tully Blanchard, JJ Dillon, or the 1988 version with Flair, Anderson, Blanchard, Dillon, Barry Windham. The 1988 version is the group that was inducted into the 2012 WWE Hall of Fame class.
Tickets for the photo-ops are going for $150 on the WrestleCon ticket website. Details on the reunion are in the tweet below:
Cauliflower Alley Club took to Facebook to announce that Willis Kirby, better known as “Roger Kirby” in the ring, passed away at the age of 79. Kirby recently suffered a bad fall that left him with a broken hip and lead doctors to discover that he had stage four pancreatic cancer. He then developed a case of pneumonia that ultimately brought on his passing.
Kirby leaves behind a wife, Lila, their seven children, and several grandchildren. At 79, Willis spent nearly thirty of those years performing in professional wresting after his debut in 1960.
Although he had stints in the United States, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, Kirby spent most of his career wrestling throughout the various territories of the National Wrestling Alliance. In the entirety of his career, Kirby held championship gold over 35 times in NWA, including the coveted NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship.
Kirby wrestled in the Memphis Wrestling territory – CWA Memphis Wrestling
Kirby did have a brief experience working with WWE in 1986 but decided to give it up and retire from pro wrestling with the legacy he had created prior to that. He once told SLAM! Sports, “[I] want to be remembered as a top wrestler. I’d done everything that I wanted to do…I didn’t want to go back down the ladder.”
You can read the full Facebook post about Kirby’s passing below:
wRESTle in Peace, Roger (Willis) KirbyI don’t have the words to say just how broken-hearted I am at this moment. I just got a call from Roger Kirby’s wife, Lila. Roger passed away this afternoon at age 79. He fell three weeks ago and broke his hip. In the hospital, they discovered that he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He contracted pneumonia and died today.
Roger and I traveled together whenever he came to Tennessee. At our reunion here in 2009, he stood up in front of everyone and told them that I had always been his best friend; and that I was the only person who stayed in touch regularly in the years after we got out of the business. We talked regularly, and every time, before he hung up, he always thanked me for being his friend.
Many people come in and out of out lives during our lifetimes, but there are only a select few we can truly say we loved. For me, Roger is one those special few.
I will never forget Roger or the great times we had together on the road. God bless you, Roger. I will never forget you. Thank you for your friendship. wRESTle in Peace.
Photo taken by Scott Teal at the Trevecca Nazarene College yearbook office/studio in 1977.
The full Facebook post and some matches from Kirby’s legendary career are featured below:
WWE Hall of Famer “Bullet” Bob Armstrong apparently wrestled the final match of his career Saturday night in Pensacola, FL, according to F4WOnline.com. At 79, this will be Armstrong’s 59th year as a professional wrestler.
Members of Bob’s family were present at the show, including his son and soon-to-be Hall of Famer, Brian “Road Dogg” B.G. James, who introduced him to the ring. One of Armstrong’s great granddaughters was also in attendance to watch the retirement match.
Armstrong, who’s real name is Joseph Melton James, was best known by his ring name, “Bullet” Bob Armstrong. In the span of his near six-decade career, he held championship gold as part of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) over 55 times. Armstrong was also inducted in to the WWE Hall of Fame class in 2011 for his contributions to the company.
Since 2010, Armstrong has worked occasional matches around Florida and Georgia, mainly working for promotions like All Pro Wrestling, Superstars Of Wrestling and Combat Sport Pro. On October 13, 2018, he had also wrestled a match that was billed as his farewell bout, teaming up with Georgia Premier Wrestling’s Ernest Miller and Glacier to win a six-man tag team match.
Despite how it may have sounded to some … Santino Marella says his comments about transgender women in wrestling were about AMATEUR, not professional wrestling.
As we previously reported, Santino recently spoke on an Impact Twitch stream about how he dislikes intergender wrestling. He then shifted the conversation to transgender women and said “There’s cases now in MMA and wrestling where there’s trans girls that were born boys that are beating the sh*t out of females and that’s wrong.”
Marella reached out to Pro Wrestling Sheet to clarify that he was NOT talking about pro wrestling in this moment. “In legitimate combative sports, I don’t want to see women get hurt unnecessarily,” he tells us. “Professional wrestling welcomes everybody”
Adding, “I consider myself an ambassador to professional wrestling and my view has always been that it is welcome to all, I have gay students. I have trans students. I have students from every race and creed, we are all one big happy family.”
The video of his original comments can be found at link below.
Double or Nothing is still a few months away, but The Young Bucks vs. Lucha Bros went down anyway Saturday night and ended with new tag champs in AAA.
Matt and Nick Jackson made a surprise appearance at AAA’s Rey de Reyes following the main event — which saw Pentagon Jr and Fenix capture the tag titles — and an impromptu match began.
In a shocking occurrence, The Young Bucks defeated their the Lucha Bros to become the AAA World Tag Team Champions after hitting the Meltzer Driver.
The Young Bucks has become the first tag team in history who has won the AAA, IWGP, ROH and PWG tag team championships.
The full show (which also includes an appearance from Cody Rhodes) can be FOUND HERE.
Wrestling legend Jerry Jarrett has partnered with Adam Parsons for a new a new Roku channel – Jarrett Parsons Wrestling TV.
Jarrett Parsons Wrestling TV – Professional wrestling from the 1950’s to the current day. Featuring weekly programs, hosted by legends such as Jerry Jarrett, Rip Rogers, Shane Douglas, Bill Eadie, Bill Apter and many others. Also includes documentaries and specials from such notables as Highspots Inc.
Jarrett-Parsons TV Wrestling contains decades of championship wrestling action from many different organizations. All of the content is shown in its original format. Footage is sourced from many different wrestling organizations which are listed below.
Reliving Memphis Wrestling: 4 episodes from the Memphis Wrestling organization
International Championship Wrestling: 4 episodes from this show
Southwest Championship Wrestling: 4 episodes from this show
IWA Wrestling: 3 episodes from this show featuring popular 70’s wrestlers
Highspots: a collection of interviews and documentary films
Indy Retro: various ages of wrestling and wrestling organizations
Matchology: Career highlights fro Dick the Bulldog Brower, Luis Martinez and The Love Brothers
One on One: Interviews with Tommy Rich and Jerry Jarrett
Continental Championship Wrestling: Wrestling footage from 1985
Pro Wrestling Time machine: A collection of matches from the 1950’s – 90’s
Portland Wrestling: 4 videos from this organization
This is the 70’s: Best of the 1970’s wrestling
Vancouver’s All Star Wrestling: Best of videos from this organization
Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling: 4 episodes from this show
Real Quality Wrestling: 4 episodes from this show
Each of the “shows” contains the original broadcast footage featuring the pioneers of professional wrestling including Ivan Koloff, Ernie Ladd, Mil Mascaras, Shane Douglas and Eric the Red.
They are working to provide content from independent wrestling promotions, they’ve already got an independent wrestling promotion out of England featured on the channel.
We are working on getting Jerry Jarrett for an upcoming episode of the Wrestling News Blog Podcast. For those unfamiliar with Jarrett, below is some information on his background history in professional wrestling.
Jerry Jarrett is the father of WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett and former co-owner of what was known as the Memphis Wrestling territory. Jarrett is a key figure in the history of professional wrestling in the Mid-Southern United States. Described as a “wrestling genius”, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Alliance Hall of Fame in 2009.
Jarrett founded the Memphis, Tennessee-based Continental Wrestling Association in 1977. In 1989, Jarrett merged his promotion with the Dallas, Texas-based promotion World Class Championship Wrestling, creating the United States Wrestling Association, which Jarrett sold to Lawler in 1997. He made another foray into promoting in 2002 when he co-founded NWA:TNA with his son Jeff Jarrett, selling his controlling interest to Panda Energy International later that year.
Jerry Jarrett was exposed to the wrestling business at a very early age. His mother worked as a ticket vendor, and Jarrett began selling programs for a promotion owned by Roy Welch and Nick Gulas at the age of seven. After receiving his driving license at fourteen, he became a wrestling promoter, renting buildings, advertising shows, constructing the ring, selling tickets, and stocking refreshments. He worked as a promoter until he left Nashville to attend college. Upon graduating, Jarrett worked for Welch and Gulas as an office assistant and became a referee by default after a referee no-showed. He soon returned to promoting, working his way up from local promotions to regional, then national promotions.
While working as a referee, Jarrett decided to become a wrestler and was trained by his friend and future tag team partner Tojo Yamamoto and veteran wrestler Sailor Moran. He wrestled his first match in Haiti in 1965.
Jarrett became a successful wrestler in the South, particularly in his home state of Tennessee, forming tag teams with Jackie Fargo and Tojo Yamamoto.
After a dispute with Gulas in 1977, Jarrett opted to break away and found his own promotion, the Continental Wrestling Association (CWA). With the support of Buddy Fuller, Jerry Lawler and his mother, Jarrett built the CWA into a successful promotion, staging events each Monday that regularly sold-out the Mid-South Coliseum and airing television shows each Saturday morning on WMC-TV. In 1981, NWA Mid-America folded due to competition from the CWA with Gulas selling his territory to Jarrett.
In 1979, The Freebirds wanted Jarrett to allow them to play Freebird on their entrances. They first tried it in the Mid-South Coliseum along with twirling the house spotlights. So Jerry Jarrett became one of the first promoters to use music and videos to promote his roster of wrestlers.
In 1984, Jarrett entered into a talent exchange with Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling promotion. Jarrett and Lawler advised Watts to bring more young performers into his territory to attract a younger generation of fans; especially females since they bring their boyfriends to the shows.
In 1988, Jarrett entered talks with Verne Gagne, owner of the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based American Wrestling Association, about a potential merger. After the talks were abandoned in 1989, Jarrett instead entered into a merger with the Dallas, Texas-based promotion World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) to create the United States Wrestling Association.
The United States Wrestling Association began promoting shows in Tennessee and Texas in 1989, with Jarrett aspiring to take the promotion national. In 1990, WCCW withdrew from the USWA after a revenue dispute, folding shortly thereafter.
In 1992, the USWA began a talent exchange program with the World Wrestling Federation. By the mid-1990s, attendances at the Mid-South Coliseum had fallen sharply, and in 1995 Jarrett sold his stake in the promotion to Jerry Lawler and Larry Burton.
After stepping back from promoting, Jarrett worked as a consultant for both World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the WWF.
In 2001, Jarrett put together proposals for acquisition of WCW, calculating that he could return the company to profitability by aggressively cutting costs. The company’s assets were, however, acquired by the WWF after its programming n TBS and TNT was canceled.
After the sale of World Championship Wrestling to the World Wrestling Federation and the bankruptcy of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), the North American professional wrestling industry lacked a viable competitor to the WWF which Jerry and Jeff Jarrett attempted to fill with the formation of NWA:TNA. On May 9, 2002, the Jarretts announced the formation of J Sports and Entertainment (JSE), the parent company of NWA:TNA, a new professional wrestling promotion that began airing weekly pay-per-views on In Demand on June 19, 2002.
In October 2002, JSE sold a 72% controlling interest in NWA:TNA to Panda Energy. Jarrett remained part of the NWA:TNA management team until departing in late-2005 over a dispute about the direction of the company.
Jerry Jarrett now hosts the podcast Booking Memphis along with Sean Reedy.
We have seen a flurry of activity on the professional wrestling intellectual property front recently with All Elite Wrestling’s Cody [Rhodes], professional wrestling podcaster Conrad Thompson, and professional wrestling great Arn Anderson all filing for trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
On March 10, 2019, Cody Runnels, also known as Cody in professional wrestling circles, applied to trademark the moniker he has used on the indie scene, ‘The American Nightmare’. Of course, ‘The American Nightmare’ is a take on Cody’s famous father’s nickname, ‘The American Dream’, which Cody also applied to trademark on March 10, 2019.
Conrad Thompson, through his business entity, Toot Toot, LLC, applied to trademark ‘Four Horsemen’ on March 10, 2019.
Also of note, recently released WWE producer, Arn Anderson, applied to trademark his ring name on March 9, 2019.
All of these new trademark applications were filed through the same Attorney Of Record, Michael E. Dockins of Toledo, Ohio. We recently reported that WWE Hall Of Famer Jim Ross applied to trademark the phrase, ‘The Voice Of Wrestling’ for appearances and podcasts. Michael E. Dockins is the Attorney Of Record for that recent filing as well.
Santino Marella aka Anthony Carelli has strong opinions about transgender women in sports, as well as men wrestling women, and expressed them on an Impact Twitch stream.
On the latest edition of Behind the Lights with co-host Alicia Atout, the ex-WWE star was asked about his thoughts on intergender wrestling — due to the upcoming ‘United We Stand’ match pitting Tessa Blanchard against Joey Ryan — and he didn’t hold back.
“If there’s a girl out there that says ‘this guy’s giving us attitude, I’m gonna step in and fight this guy because I saw that women can fight men because of intergender wrestling.’ And she goes out there and lips off and this guy’s a mental case and he just cracks her with his fist and shatters an orbital and busts her lip … and she wouldn’t have done it — perhaps — beforehand, because she didn’t get this inflated sense of confidence because of intergender wrestling.”
Carelli says that because of this, he believes there’s a social responsibility attached. He also notes that movies featuring superpowered women aren’t quite the same in his opinion.
The 45-year-old wrestler then goes on to talk about how the news is amplifying issues between men and women — as well exaggerating racial tension — and things aren’t as bad as they seem.
At this point, Santino shifts his attention to transgender athletes. “There’s cases now in MMA and wrestling where there’s trans girls that were born boys that are beating the sh*t out of females and that’s wrong,” he states.
“If you’re a guy — born a guy — and you become a woman, you’re accepted everywhere,” he continued. “But in the field of actual competitive sport, there has to be a barrier. And the barrier is based on, sorry, you were born a God damn man. You’re accepted as a human being and as a person and you are loved in every single way EXCEPT it’s not fair that you compete against women in sports because you were born with different physical biological attributes. And we have to be realistic about it and we also have to not be so sensitive.”
Watch the video at the link below (this conversation begins around the 15.30-minute mark).
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