Issue 79 (July 3rd, 2025) 1975 Flashback: NEW NWA United States Champion Valentine in Greensboro, 1955: 2 New Tag Team Champs, MORE

Welcome to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Daily Chronicle. The daily habit for an injection of significant events that happened on this day and relative time frames in Pro Wrestling History.

Good morning! We are almost to the holiday weekend.

As always, thank you for reading my daily pro wrestling history research, presented here in the Daily Chronicle. It’s an important historical issue as today we cover a couple of great tag teams in history as two tag team titles on each side of the country change hands on the same day in 1955.

Also, a legendary date in Jim Crockett Promotions on the night before the 4th of July on 1975 at the almost biggest monthly show in the Terriotry at Greensboro in the Coliseum as Johnny Valentine, the biggest star in the territory will defeat Harley Race for the newly created NWA United States Heavyweight Championship.

It’s an importnt date in histoy, so let’s get to it!

July 3rd in the Time Tunnel:

Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:

In Memoriam:

Jack Welch 1905

Ed McLemore 1905

Shinya Hashimoto 1965

Happy Birthday:

Steve Olsonoski (72)

Kenneth Rinehurst\Jack Victory (61)

Joseph Dorgon\Johnny Swinger (50)

Joey Janela (36)

RIP Memorial: We stop & remember those who have passed on this day and gave themselves to the business for us, the fans. We salute you and thank you.

John Yachetti\The Beast 7-3-1986 at the age of 59

Billy Garrett\Medic #2 & Intern #2 7-3-2002 at the age of 64 (Garrett and Starr without their masks as Interns)

Perro Aguayo 7-3-2019 at the age of 73

Select Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Match and Event Flashbacks

Debut:

7-3-1958: Abe Jacobs

67 years ago, this excellent performer, Abe Jacobs made his professional wrestling debut. While we have the date for his debut, the actual location of the match is unclear at this time.

Jacobs was one of the first wrestlers from New Zealand to follow Pat O'Connor to the United States where he became a major star in the National Wrestling Alliance. He was one of the most recognizable babyfaces and at one time was billed as the Jewish Heavyweight Champion and had several notable matches against Lou Thesz, Gene Kiniski, Buddy Rogers, Dick Hutton and Pat O'Connor, all NWA World Heavyweight Championship matches at the time.

In particular, his match against Pat O'Connor on Capitol Wrestling's television show was the first time two New Zealanders wrestled for a championship title on foreign soil.

Jacobs won the Florida version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship with partner Don Curtis, the Los Angeles version of the NWA International Television Tag Team Championship with Haystacks Calhoun and the NWA Western States Tag Team Titles with Pez Whatley in the West Texas Territory.

Jacobs is known to many fans in the later stages of his career during the "videotape era" as a mainstay mid-card to lower card worker on Jim Crockett's syndicated wrestling shows after the glory years of his career were over. It should be noted however, that Jacobs helped get a young wrestler named Ric Flair over but doing a job for him in his debut in Crockett Promotions in 1974, helping Flair be recognized as a strong up and comer by gaining a win over such an established star such as Jacobs.

70-Year Flashback:

7-2-1955: The Riot Squad (Emil & Ernie Dusek) defeated The Whiz Kids (Guy Brunetti & Hoe Tangaro) in a one-hour match winning the only fall in the match to be awarded the NWA Southern Tag Team Championship at the YMCA in Lexington, North Carolina

Pictured: The Riot Squad, Ernie & Emil Dusk

A regular Saturday night weekly town for Jim Crockett Promotions in this era, the YMCA in Lexington was a hot bed for wrestling. Many, many important and legendary matches took place there promoted by Jim Crockett, Sr including this one.

The Dusek Brothers made my list of Time Tunnel Best Tag Teams in Pro Wrestling History I posted each day in June and they were a rough and rugged tag team that remind me of what the Anderson Brothers would be known for in the next era. They were hard-hitting and utilized many of the rough house tactics that would be prevalent in the matches of the Andersons. The two Dusek brothers in this match were part of the larger Dusek family from Nebraska, which were heavily involved in the progression and innovation of the pro wrestling business emerging from The Gold Dust Trio era, both in wrestling and also in the establishment of the booking office in Omaha where a regional town circuit was established in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Whiz Kids, made up of Tangaro and Brunetti were popular babyfaces, very athletic for the time and they did many tag team "teamwork" type spots. I am not sure who named the team, but in the vernacular of the 1950s, a "whiz" was used to describe something moving quickly, like a buzzing or whistling noise. People used it to describe something unusually fast, skilled or impressive, such as "Boy, those guys sure are a "whiz" at wrestling!" or "She is certainly a "whiz" at math!" The term "Whiz Kid" was especially popular during this period in the United States in the 1950s and would be used to describe young people who achieved remarkable success or skill level at a young age, which would perfectly describe Tangaro and Brunetti at this stage of their career.

7-2-1955: Ivan Kameroff & Doug Donovan defeated Luther Lindsay & Red McKim (CH) to win the NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship in Roseburg, Oregon

This was the second Pacific Tag Title run for Kameroff & Donovan as they had defeated Lindsay, who had as his partner George Dussette the first time they had the belts and here they beat Lindsay and McKim for the belts. Interestingly enough, this title change is not recognized in every recording of this championships history, regardless the match did take place, and the titles did change hands. So many times, through professional wrestling's history, the facts are not clear on everything and as my friend Steve Johnson always says, "Professional Wrestling doesn't have a history, it has a past, but no real history." In other words, the records are not always so clear.

Donovan worked quite a bit in the West Texas Territory for the Amarillo office and would later become one of the famous Germans in the Von Brauner tag team.

Luther Lindsay was just becoming a legend in the Pacific Northwest Territory. He had broken into the business in 1951, so he was in his fourth year as a professional at the time of this match. He would hold these Pacific Northwest Tag Titles nine different times and four of them with Shag Thomas. He would go on to hold the Pacific Northwest singles titles seven times. One of his most notable matches was a match with Lou Thesz, after Thesz world title days were over, but he still scored notoriety by going to a one hour draw with Thesz on February 26th, 1969. As famous as he was in the Portland and Pacific Northwest Territory, his last days were for Jim Crockett Promotions in the east where he suffered a heart attack in 1972 and would die in the ring after executing a splash on wrestler Bobby Paul.

50-Year Flashback: 1975

7-3-1975: Johnny Valentine defeated Harley Race (CH) to win the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship at the Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina

We covered the mass of top singles titles right under the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in Issue 77 (July 1, 2025) of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Daily Chronicle.

Booking office and promotions around the world did their best to create a singles title for their area that would put prestige and honor of being the best wrestler they had control of booking that would both draw money at their various box offices and also be credible as a challenger to the World Title when the Champion made his stops in their towns on the schedule.

Jim Crockett Promotions which had just undergone a major brand transformation in 1973 had changed their Eastern Heavyweight Championship to the NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship to align with the new brand of singles wrestling they were using rather than the very worn-out tag team dominance of the previous 30 years. Johnny Weaver and George Becker, besides being tag team stars for years in the Territory were also the bookers and they kept the tag team philosophy going to a point where it was tired and worn and had long past started to fatigue the fans.

John Ringley, Jim Crockett Sr's son in law was his right-hand man and in charge of most of the operations had seen this and had convinced Mr. Crockett to bring in George Scott, who along with his brother Sandy had also been long time tag team stars in the area. Ringley, though, was convinced Scott, who had been exposed to Doc Sarpolis and other singles styles in Texas during the 1950s and 1960s was more than capable to steering the Mid-Atlantic territory in a new singles-oriented direction, which also began in conjunction with the new brand in 1973.

Ringley started slowly, he split up the long-time tag team Rip Hawk and Swede Hansen by putting them into a contentious feud with each other. Them by 1974, Ringley had recruited Johnny Valentine from his long time stand in Texas to migrate to North Carolina with his band of brothers he was comfortable with and had drawn lots of money within Texas and other places. One of those was Don Jardine, who had worked in Texas as the #2 heel next to Valentine as the masked Spoiler. In North Carolina, Jardine would take on his other persona, also a masked villain named The Super Destroyer. Ringley had recruited Bob Bruggers, a former football player who was just starting his career, but after putting the Mid-Atlantic title on Valentine at the beginning of 1974, Scott started a feud with Bruggers becoming Valentine's first program for the title. Meanwhile, George Scott booked tag team wrestler, the popular Weaver into a singles feud with Destroyer. The new style of wrestling was off and running in Crockett Promotions.

Meanwhile, Scott still kept the tag team division rolling but with a new and infused burst of energy with Ole and Gene Anderson, who were had not been used well when they had been in the Carolinas previously, so this time around Scott did something innovative for this era, he put the Andersons in a heel vs heel tag team program against Jay York (The Alaskan) and Brute Bernard and promoted the matches as a "Battle of the Bullies". The territory began to catch on fire again just as Ringley thought it would, so that by mid-1975 and after almost 16 months of Johnny Valentine defending the Mid-Atlantic Title, what most bookers and promoters would have done would have rotated another heel or babyface into the championship spot. Ringley and Scott did something different, they didn't change out Valentine, they though there was more juice in that fruit, so instead, they created a new, high-level championship for Valentine to hold.

They made the decision to make Harley Race the initial champion. I gave you my rationale in Issue 77 about why that was done. In short, Harley was a former, albeit short term World Champion and the word around was that Brisco was ready to give up the World title and Harley was the most likely candidate to get it and if the top guy in the Crockett Promotion beat Harley for this new title, it would give fans the idea that Valentine could beat Harley for the World Title when he came through next time and that would sell a whole lot of tickets on those weeks to come. It was really some great futuristic, strategic promotional booking strategy. As we will see as we move through the remainder of 1975, it didn't unfortunately play out like that.

Pictured: Johnny Valentine NWA United States Heavyweight Champion 1975

But, on this night on July 3rd, 1975, where many classic matches took place over wrestling history, the new United States Champion Race and Valentine had a titanic battle between two wrestlers who were becoming legends. While this match was not recorded (that we know of), there is three minutes and twenty-two seconds of a match between the two from March of 1975 at the Kiel Auditorium in St Louis on You Tube that can give you an idea of what a hard hitting and tough match this was in Greensboro. Both guys liked to "lay them in" as they used to say about working snug.

So, with a Valentine victory over Race and being the new elevated, more important United States Champion, the first part of the plan had been executed and worked to perfection. Now, on to the next step for the plan, which will take place later in July and we will flashback to it when we get there later this month.

One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History

He entered the professional wrestling business and became a star at such a young age, Johnny Valentine won the NWA Texas Heavyweight Title in August of 1954, an amazing 21 years prior to winning the NWA United States Title in the Crockett Territory in 1975. He also teamed with Eddie Graham (known then as Rip Rogers) to hold the NWA Texas Tag Team Titles in April of 1958. It was these years in Texas where he developed his psychology of working a rugged and extremely tough & snug style.

Thank You for Reading

I'm Tony Richards, Pro Wrestling Historian, Author and Storyteller. I share pro wrestling historical items in each issue of the Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling History Newsletter. Thanks for reading! If you enjoy my information on select events, matches and insights, please share it with folks you think might like to be a subscriber!

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