Do you remember your first time? Was
it in an intimate setting with just you and a single partner, or did a whole group
get involved? Was there lots of
sweating, lots of grunting and groaning?
Was it everything you expected?
Did it leave you wanting to come back for more?
I can distinctly remember my first time.
I was just 3 years old. Yeah,
that’s right. We got started early in my
family. I was 3 years old the first time
I attended a live wrestling event and it definitely left me wanting to go back
for more.
I was living in East Los Angeles and I
remember how excited I was that night in 1971, and my adrenaline was flowing
not just from the anticipation of the upcoming live wrestling event, but
because it seemed like my Stepfather and I were in danger of being late for the
start of the event. I can remember my
Stepfather hopping our back fence so that we could take a shortcut to the bus
stop and my Mother trying her best to help me up the side of the chain link fence
so that my Stepfather could pull me over the other side. We then crossed the huge dirt lot that was
part of our neighbor’s property, a lot that would become bigger still in about
a year when their house burned down. I
must have been a little bit of a sadist as a kid because I remember as the
whole neighbor watched that family’s house burn to the ground; my very young
uncle and I were munching on popcorn as we watched the blaze.
My Stepfather and I had managed to catch the bus that would take us to
the wrestling venue, and I would stare out the window of the bus at the lights
of the city, with wonder as they contrasted with the darkness of the night
while also trying to imagine what it might be like when we arrived at our
destination. Finally we had arrived at the
historic Olympic Auditorium on 18th and Grand in Downtown Los
Angeles. We finally took our seats which
between the fact that they were probably fairly high up in what was a packed
house, and the fact that I was only a little kid, made the ring seem as if it
were a world away. I could see cigarette
hovering above the ring and I stared in wonder at the men with funny little red
and white striped paper hats who with unerring and amazing accuracy, could toss
a bag of peanuts to the waiting hands of anyone, regardless of how far away
they were.
I slowly ate my bag of roasted peanuts while watching the wrestling
matches, and I wish I could tell you who wrestled in those matches prior to the
main event or even on what exact date the event took place. But those facts escape me. What doesn’t escape me was the fact that the
main event was something I knew was of great importance. I don’t remember what events, what angles had
led up to this particular event, but I knew that it meant something. For in the main event, the bitterest of
enemies in Southern California wrestling, not only at that time, but perhaps in
all of Southern California wrestling, were about to engage in a war. And “Maniac” John Tolos and Freddie Blassie
didn’t disappoint.
What I can also tell you is that I was in the minority. I wasn’t in the minority because I was a
Mexican-American, hell, in the Olympic Auditorium you were probably in the
minority if you weren’t. I was in the
minority because I was there to root for John Tolos. Blame it on my upbringing if you will, but
this 3 year old would be cheering for a man nicknamed “Maniac.” John Tolos was the most hated wrestler in Los Angeles
Finally the main event began and a chill ran down my spine as the
combatants were introduced. And the
match did not disappoint. It was a
melodrama, and being seated so far from the ring, the epic battle was almost a pantomime
of sorts, with the only audible sounds or soundtrack being the screaming of the
fans. The match consisted of peaks and
valleys and I sat with my eyes and attention riveted to the moral play
unfolding in the ring. There was blood…lots
of blood…and I remember having to fight off breaking into tears as I saw
Freddie Blassie bite into the head of my then-hero John Tolos.
If I remember correctly, Blassie won that match, much to my disappointment. However to my delight, Tolos would return to
fight another day. Their feud would become
the stuff of legend, and all throughout their 4 four years of battling off and
on, they’d participate in every conceivable type of match against each other,
including stretcher matches, cage matches, matches involving brass knuckles,
chain matches, and “Gladiator Death matches.”
They would even return many years later in 1980 to square off in a tag
team cage match. Blassie would be in his
early 60’s in this one and while the match was hardly a classic and the arena
was less than half full, the “pop” they got from the crowd made it seem as if
there were many more in the crowd than there actually was.
The first wrestling “maneuver” that I ever learned was the “corkscrew”
that John Tolos used on the temples of his opponents head. My stepfather was gracious enough to
demonstrate it’s effectiveness on me and I in turn couldn’t wait to show my
brother how effective it was in producing a headache.
But why did a 3 year cheer for such a hated guy like John Tolos? I guess I didn’t know any better. On the other hand, I think I did. Tolos was compelling, magnetic, and both his presence
in the ring as well as his unique and intense interviews made you want to watch
his every move, hang on his every word.
While the goal of Tolos and the storylines may have been to make the
fans hate him, more importantly, the goal was to get us to watch him. And watch him we did, he and Blassie
both. That year in 1971, the two would
meet at the Los Angeles Coliseum in August and set what was then a record gate
for a wrestling event as 25,847 fans paid $142,158.50 to watch Blassie defeat
Tolos 2 falls to one in their “battle of the century”.
And as a whole, pro wrestling itself was still very compelling at that
time. Even if we had the technology
available back then, I guarantee you that no one would have been sending or
checking their text messages or updating their facebook status. For the only status they were concerned about
was what was going on in a 20 x 20 foot ring and the only world they knew for 2
hours or so was the world within that arena.
And just as the world outside the wrestling arenas have changed so have
the worlds inside them. - RR
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