| Wrestling has made it in Pittsburgh! This statement was graphically borne out this past month when nearly 8,000 fans braved a 12-inch Pittsburgh snowfall to view the Buddy Rogers - Crusher Lisowski free-for-all at the city's new Civic Arena. A recent indoor card, staged in the mammoth, domed Arena drew a capacity throng of 12,500 wildly enthusiastic fans while the last outdoor event staged in the city pulled in 14,000 to Forbes Field, the sprawling home of baseball's National League Pirates. These figures are not the exception, either. Rather they seem to be the common thing these days. For further proof, four Forbes Field shows held last summer drew an average crowd of over 10,000 while the past six Civic Arena cards have attracted an average of over 8,000 paying customers. Pittsburgh's phenominal upsurge in wrestling interest has carried over into many neighboring communities as well. Now, regular wrestling shows are staged in local high school gymnasiums and auditoriums, in fact anywhere big enough to hold an over-flowing crowd. Nearby Steubenville, Ohio, has climbed on the mat bandwagon and now holds monthly shows which pull in an average of just under 2,000 fans to the Diocesan Community Arena there. Pittsburgh has always been a great sports town but had never before allowed wrestling to grab the spotlight from the up-and-down Pirates or the area's numerous big-time college athletic programs. But now, the names of Crusher Lisowski, Buddy Rogers, Johnny Valentine or "Big Moose" Cholak are synonymous with such well-known Pittsburgh athletes as Dick Groat, Vernon Law, and Don Hoak of the Buccos or Buddy Dial, Ernie Stautner and Bobby Layne of the pro football Steelers. What has ignited this wrestling skyrocket in an area where always before a mat show couldn't draw the wrestler's relatives? What has transposed wrestling promotions into sure-things at the box office and turned many unknown athletes into full- fledged celebrities? Well, it's been a four-year metamorphosis but it all began very dramatically one Saturday night in 1958 when a Pittsburgh television station gambled on the success of the sport. Thus was born WIIC-TV's live "Studio Wrestling" show, a savior to the sport in the Greater Pittsburgh area. The past four years have seen the sport's most rapid growth and nearly all of the credit can be attributed directly to this 90- minute, thrill-packed television production which each week books the top pro grapplers in the nation. The TV series has received nothing but praise from those in the know in professional mat circles. From dyed-in-the-wool fans to officials, promoters and wrestlers, all credit the WIIC-TV series with completely rejuvenating the mat sport. Paul Sullivan, the slight, greying athletic commissioner for Western Pennsylvania, is most enthusiastic about the WIIC-TV "Studio Wrestling" productions. He commented emphatically, "There's not the slightest doubt in my mind that the key to the revival of wrestling in Pittsburgh has been the WIIC show. There's no question of the program's impact. this show has added a new dimension to entertainment in Western Pennsylvania." Sullivan, the man who keeps a stern vigil for the sport in Pittsburgh and who once fined Lisowski, Rogers and Bobby Davis for a rough-and-tumble brawl staged before the television cameras, also feels that the ladies have had their interest in the sport whetted by the WIIC-TV series. "Women who have never seen a wrestling match before are now rabid fans. And, the ladies are the real backbone of the sport, you know!" "Studio Wrestling," televised each Saturday night at 6 p.m. and hosted by Bill Cardille, has become so popular that the 300 studio fans sometimes arrive six hours before the first match gets underway. The show's longtime sponser, American Heating Company, has a major problem each week supplying tickets to the thousands who clamer for them. One tiny old lady who somehow manages to scrape up a ticket is Mrs. Ann Bopp Buckalew, better known to thousands of television viewers as "Ringside Rosie." Rosie, who has attended every TV wrestling show staged at WIIC-TV except two and missed those only because of death in the family, was never a fan at all until the Channel 11 show hit the air. Now, she says, "I never miss a one. Why, I'm a real celebrity in my own right now. Everyone on the street stops me and talks about wrestling. It's tremendous, just tremendous." The wrestlers, too, have come to depend on WIIC-TV's mat programs. Perhaps the hulking Hungarian champion Ace Freeman sums it all up best. He says: WIIC-TV are the eyes of wrestling. |
| by Robert D. Willis |
| Note: This article originally appeared in the April 1962 issue of "Wrestling Life". |
| Here are the photographs that appeared with the article: |
