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From left the immortal Lou Thesz, Announcer Sam Mennaker, and Mexico’s most famous international masked man Mil Mascaras.
Lou Thesz was really the Babe Ruth of wrestling and represented the NWA with class and dignity 24/7 during his many title reigns which started in 1937 and ended in the 60s. Today’s generation of young wrestlers could learn a thing or two about class and professionalism from Lou Thesz. Thesz and Danny Hodge once went to a 90 minute draw in LeRoy McGuirk’s old territory, I think it was in Springfield, Missouri, that old timers still talk about. The match was built around a head lock which today’s younger audience would hate because there were no broken tables and multiple chair shots. These two legends actually wrestled with the headlock focal point of the contest. It may sound boring to some of you but trust me it wasn’t.
Photo provided by wrealano@aol.com
I saw a videotape one time of Dory Funk Jr. vs. Giant Baba from 1969. It was an hour draw, and the first 40-50 minutes were based around doing the same spot over and over. It wasn't boring, either.
As for Sam Menacker, he always appeared to me to be right up there in top contention with Bill Mercer and Gordon Solie as someone who looked and sounded like they announced wrestling matches for 10 dollars and a half gallon of Wild Turkey.
Does anyone remember Sam Menacker when he was briefly the host of Stampede Wrestling? I saw Bill Watts's comments wherein he talks about announcers upstaging the wrestlers. The worst example of that was Ed Whalen. Unfortunately, Ed Whalen probably was more of a celebrity in Calgary than any of the wrestlers. It seemed as though he used that status to exert a negative influence on the program on far too many occasions. Anyway, Whalen left the show at one point in the 1980s over some incident which he felt was in bad taste, and the Calgary fans were treated to a replacement who was even worse.
I remember Sam well. Called matches from Indianapolis and Fort Wayne for Dick the Bruiser's WWA promotion. This was some of the first wrestling I watched back in the mid-1970s. Every Saturday at noon from a station in Fort Wayne. Sam had a great voice and style for calling matches.