Twenty-Four Years and One Day Ago
- Thread starter donbosco
- Start date
- Replies: 5
- Views: 117
- Off-Topic
Saw Swede wrestle the Nature Boy in the old gym at Elon quite a number of years ago. Also saw him wrestle George Becker a long time ago. If I remember rightly it was in Lenoir.
Born March 27, 1933 in East Orange, NJ — Passed On in Columbia, SC on February 19, 2002.
Robert Fort “Swede” Hanson.
donbosco
Legend of ZZL
- Messages
- 6,742
Went to WRAL or was it the station in Durham on a couple of dorm (Everett) trips to watch them film wrasslin. Hard to believe they let us in with stagger and swagger we had going on. Caught lots of little high school gym events when I was growing up. Went to the Greensboro Coliseum big time cards a few times too. My Uncle Pete loved it and I'd go with him. (He was a big Greensboro Generals fan too -- went for the fights)
- Messages
- 2,069
Never saw any professional wrestling in person. But on Saturday evenings my brothers and I would go over to our grandparents' house and watch professional wrestling on WRAL, Channel 5 in Raleigh. (Because we didn't have a TV in our house.) Same channel as Jesse Helms was on. Professional wrestling and Jesse Helms seemed like a match to us.
Sometimes my father would check-in on us and we would say stuff like, "You're big and fat just like they are, you should wrestle too. You could be 'The Marine.'" Our father was not amused. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when Johnny Weaver switched from being a good guy to being a bad guy. My whole world was turned upside down.
Our grandparents never joined us when we watched wrestling. But when we watched surfing on ABC's Wide World of Sports, our grandfather would join us and exclaim if he was young again he would be a professional surfer. And he would urge us boys to become surfers. He poo-pooed our claims that surfing was harder than it looked by saying that everything looks hard until you throw yourself into it. It was almost like he viewed our lack of enthusiasm for becoming professional surfers as being a character flaw.
Sometimes my father would check-in on us and we would say stuff like, "You're big and fat just like they are, you should wrestle too. You could be 'The Marine.'" Our father was not amused. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when Johnny Weaver switched from being a good guy to being a bad guy. My whole world was turned upside down.
Our grandparents never joined us when we watched wrestling. But when we watched surfing on ABC's Wide World of Sports, our grandfather would join us and exclaim if he was young again he would be a professional surfer. And he would urge us boys to become surfers. He poo-pooed our claims that surfing was harder than it looked by saying that everything looks hard until you throw yourself into it. It was almost like he viewed our lack of enthusiasm for becoming professional surfers as being a character flaw.
Last edited:
My mother’s parents lived in Anderson, SC. My grandfather was a Baptist minister and loved wrassling. My brother and I were visiting one weekend. On Saturday evening we were watching Popeye cartoons. My grandfather came in the room and asked what we were watching. It was time for Big Jim Crockett’s wrassling on WBTV. He told us the cartoon we were watching was a preview of a cartoon that would come on later. We believed him and we changed the channel. He got to see his wrassling. I related the story years later to one of my older cousins. She laughed and said she absolutely believed our grandfather would have deceived his grandsons so he could watch his beloved wrassling. I wish he had lived long enough for me to be able to take him to a match in person.