PWHS Team
Chapter Two: Jimmy Wheeler - "There Will Always Be Pro-Wrestling Somewhere"
#PWHS #Interview
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Question 1
Jimmy, at age 27, many look at you as THE Pro Wrestling Historian. What led to you wanting to go beyond just watching wrestling on TV?
Answer
It's kind of a weird story, or I think it would be to some people anyway. The only books I ever really enjoyed when I was a young teenager were autobiographies by rockstars and wrestlers. Anyway, skip forward a few years, I've been expelled from school, don't really understand how the technical aspects of the English language work, but I love writing. Lyrics, poetry, stories, anything. I just love writing and being creative with words. So, I figured I better start reading again and try and learn how to write better that way.
I hadn't read a biography for a while at this point, I was probably eighteen and in a different place in my life. I read some novels, which I surprised myself by really enjoying, ya know, the classical stuff, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and even threw in some of the ancient works by Homer and the gang. Because, I also re-discovered that I loved reading. So, I started buying wrestling books.
Man, it was inevitable that I would plug Scott Teal's website at some point, but yeah, I discovered Scott Teal's site www.crowbarpress.com - I think my first was Hooker as I'd heard it mentioned on a WWE documentary or something about Paul Heyman making wrestlers at ECW read a copy - and from there my mind was open to whole new world of wrestling.
I found guy(s) who sold old school wrestling on bootleg DVDs and I was off. Then one day I went into Waterstones and they had a three for two offer on sports books. There were two WWE books I had gone in to get and nothing else I really wanted. The only other wrestling related book in there was called "Say Uncle!", didn't bother opening it or seeing what it was about, it was the free one anyway. I had nothing to lose.
My word, that book went and turned my life upside down. I learned about Frank Gotch, Karl Gotch, George Hackenschmidt and so many others. I devoured it. Then went a searching on Google, I found out about the Mabray Gang and an earlier mention of Uzile Prickett in 1867 and I was fascinated with finding out about these stars who on Wikipedia, in Say Uncle!, Gotch's biography and other places were painted as legitimate figures and I'd just stumbled onto the dirty underbelly of crime and chicanery. I'd always loved finding out about the unknown and professional wrestling and now I had the chance to combine the two.
Question 2
Did some of your books mention how matches were fixed long before the word "kayfabe" came about?
Answer
Not that I recall. J Michael Kenyon's work on the Mabray Gang at www.graftersclub.com is the first time I can remember finding out about the gambling rings in professional wrestling at the turn of the 20th century.
Question 3
What is your first memory of watching wrestling on TV? Was it American or English?
Answer
World Championship Wrestling was on free TV here on a Saturday evening, about five o'clock I think. My nan and grandad had gone to the wrestling growing up and I stayed at their house on a Saturday night, so I guess they were watching wrestling and I would watch it with them. My first memory is Sting. Surfer Sting, we're probably talking 1992. He came out down the Worldwide "stage" to the song, "A Man Called Sting" and obviously it impressed me. 24 years later I'm still a wrestling fan. When we got cable television, I flicked the channels one day and found WWF Superstars, I guess it was, well damn, I remember running into the kitchen and telling my mom what I just found and making her come look.
Question 4
I know that Shawn Michaels caught your attention on the modern scene, right?
Answer
When he jumped off of the ladder at Wrestlemania X, he became my Superman. Plus in a weird way I feel like I grew up with him, watching his character evolve over the years. It fit perfectly with my own growing from young child to "Suck It" yelling teenager, to my own quitting of drugs, although I didn't find God, I still found inspiration in the change Shawn made to his own personality.
Question 5
So, Shawn Michaels caught your attention first on the modern scene?
Answer
No, Bret Hart. (I've told this story quite a lot, so I apologize if anyone has heard this before.) I went to a show in 1995, I was six years old, just turned I might add. I was a Bret Hart fan already. I carried a Bret Hart and a British Bulldog action figure (NOT A DOLL!! - LOL) with me the entire night. I made my mom buy a shirt for me that was an adult large, and it looked like a full length dress on me, because they had sold out of the smaller sizes. I had front row, ring side tickets.
Bret comes down to the ring. He does his usual shtick, and I am so excited it's already the greatest night of my six years on the planet. Then he comes our way, but he stops at the little girl next to me. I could have cried right then and there and probably would have, if I didn't see him reach up and take his necklace off for the girl. He then stepped to me, smiled, and took off his glasses and placed them around my head. Safe to say, "BEST BIRTHDAY EVERRRRRR!!!"
Question 6
Were you a "mark" for awhile or did you know the entertaining truth from the beginning?
Answer
LOL, I don't tell this story much, because it was a sad, sad day in my world. Even sadder than finding out Santa was not real. Heck I don't even remember finding that out. But, finding out professional wrestling wasn't real, that was some hard times, brother. I am guessing it was not that long after the Bret Hart story. Me and my dad were talking about wrestling, I guess. And, ya know, just for no reason at all he says, "You know wrestling isn't real, don't you?"
"YES IT IS!
"No, Jimmy, it's not”
"YES IT IS! STOP LYING!"
"My friend, you know him (I forget his name), he goes to India as the British Bulldog, because they don't know any better over there. He just pretends to be him. It's all pretend"
"STOP LYING! I'M TELLING MUM!"
And I did, but, she only confirmed the nasty man was right. Not that it really mattered, I carried on loving professional wrestling anyway.
I'm still a mark though, EXTRA BIG. I still pay for wrestling. I still like to get sucked into storylines and pretend it's real at least for those 30 minutes the match lasts anyway.
Question 7
I must say Jimmy, those 3 last sentences were PURE GOLD! But I must go on with our interview. In your thorough studies of our Pro Wrestling Heritage, are you surprised it kept evolving and has made it to modern day?
Answer
Not at all. There's a reason why professional wrestling works so well. Since the 1800s, it hasn't really changed all that much. At first you had a literal variety show, strongman acts, singing, comedy, you name it, it appeared on the same billing as wrestling. Then the Gold Dust Trio came along in the 1920s, and they weren't the first to utilize a card that existed of just professional wrestling, but they were the ones who really institutionalized that format as the standard. Every match could be different with different characters.
There were just so many aspects to professional wrestling, much more so than other sports, that the fact it was really entertainment, could be overlooked by fans, because they got so much variety; just as the fans in 1800s had got. The most famous of the early wrestlers were the ones who could do a variety show by themselves. Like an Andre Christol who performed amazing feats of strength and performances as well as wrestling. Or Duncan C. Ross who was an expert swordsman and all-round round athlete.
Question 8
In your learned opinion, what year or time period was Pro Wrestling close to seeing it's own death, if ever?
Answer
I've seen it said when the Chris Benoit tragedies took place the WWE was very close to being done. I'm not sure how reliable those claims are though. Even then though, if WWE had died, even if professional wrestling had died in North America, no, in all of the Americas, then it would have lived on in Japan and given time it would have come back to America. This is what happened throughout history.
Pro-wrestling is banned in San Francisco, because Professor William Miller and Professor Thiebaud Bauer hoodwinked the fans, they went to New York, scamming other towns as they cross from one coast to the other. The fans in New York, while more tolerable to the entertainment aspect of professional wrestling, fans eventually got tired of their act, so they went to Cuba and other places. They eventually returned. When it was banned in Boston, it lived on Louisville, Kentucky. When it died in France during the 1920s, it lived on in America. There will always be professional wrestling somewhere.
Question 9
Excellent description. Did you ever subscribe to the Wrestler Newsletters that told the inner workings, such as The Observer or The Torch, or possibly the commercial magazines like Pro Wrestling Illustrated, The Wrestler, Inside Wrestling, Wrestling World?
Answer
Power Slam was the only magazine I ever read on a regular basis.
Question 10
Power Slam was English, right? Did it cover the world?
Answer
Yes, it was an English magazine that mainly covered American wrestling. WWE and WCW (and TNA later) were the main two features, but it had smaller tidbits on other places.
Question 11
Who do you look to when it comes to being a Wrestling Historian?
Answer
Some people will kill me for including them in this, because there's a group of people including myself, who do not really like the term historian. I always say, “ I'm just a fan who enjoys researching the history”. But, guys like Nathan Hatton, J Michael Kenyon, Scott Teal, Barry Rose, Steve Yohe, Tim Hornbaker, Hisaharu Tanabe, Ronald who does the European research on the website. Phil Lions who is probably the world's most knowledgeable guy on Bulgarian professional wrestling and wrestlers. Fumi Saito, Scott George.
To anyone I have forgotten I apologize. If you check out the "About & Contact" page on our website, everyone should be listed there.
Question 12
Do you not agree that Pro Wrestling is very much alive today with great wrestlers sprinkled all over the globe? That maybe America was spoiled in the past with its many territories in the past? Storylines are sometimes lacking in the Pro Wrestling Companies today, but the charisma and talent still shines through to the point It almost demands to be seen?
Answer
I think wrestling today resembles wrestling of the early late 1800s and early 1900s more than ever. Obviously I don't mean the in-ring style or anything. But, you've got one MAJOR troupe of wrestlers the WWE (Frank Gotch and his troupe), they tour America. Now, in each little town in America they got their own stuff going on, what we call independents (in the past local promoters and wrestlers). There's so many little promotions out there. So much talent.
I get the argument they don't make money, they have to work second jobs. I also know wrestlers in the past have had to do that if they were not high enough up on cards, just as the lowest of local guys did in the early 1900s, just like the lowest of music artists. And so on.
I think it all depends on your tastes. I think if people were willing to look, they'd find something for their tastes somewhere. I enjoy WWE on a childish level, I don't get excited for much they put out though. I love PWG, because there's very little story, but the story they do is good and the matches are always fantastic, for my tastes. But, they don't hold many shows a year. Japan, New Japan, especially has GREAT matches, but I don't watch it regularly enough to know about their storylines and stuff.
I'm very sporadic in my other viewing of promotions, so it's very hard for me to really talk about their storylines or anything. I think there are a lot of guys out there that have immediately grabbed my attention. Sometimes those guys don't transcend as well on a big stage though, they're not larger than life enough for an arena crowd and if the live audiences don't react well, it will always influence a television (or whatever) viewer. It takes a guy who is overly animated like a Shinsuke Nakamura to be able to draw not just wrestling fans in, but just anyone who sees him.
Question 13
Is there anything you think you could say that would trigger the “Curosity Button” of our readers to look beyond our generation of Pro Wrestling memories? Would you give it a shot?
Answer
I can't think of anything better than "The Mysterious Waffles." And before you ask, I will not elaborate if they want to know about "The Mysterious Waffles", "The Mysterious Horseshoer," and "The Mysterious Conductor" they shall have to use Google or search through the Pro-Wrestling Historical Facebook Group.
Question 14
One thing you said to me a long time ago, about how you wondered why America didn’t adopt the Tournament style event, has stuck with me. I have now come to that same opinion. Wouldn’t it be a great way so independents could show off their talents, and it really wouldn’t matter who won; just that their talents would be seen? What thoughts do you have on this?
Answer
I was most likely referring to the late 1800s-1920 time period in regards to the tournaments not catching on. There were a few, but they were by no means regular after the Civil War.
In this day and age, I think having a few tournaments a year, like the WWE Cruiserweight Classic, and the rumored WWE Women's Classic, and revival of the WWE Dusty Rhodes Tag-Team Classic would be great. Just like the PWG BOLA and wXw (Germany) 16 Carat Gold Tournament are fantastic for showcasing the best in the world. I'm not so sure round robin tournaments, like they hold in Japan would catch on in America or England, but it'd be nice to see one and see how it goes.
Question 15
What question(s) would you have wanted me to ask?
Answer
I don't know if I can put a finger on a question I'd like to be asked. They'd all be about pre-World War I wrestling though as that's my real passion. Guys like Ernest Roeber, Duncan C. Ross, Professor William Miller, Clarence Whistler, Homer Lane and so on. Although the story of Constantine and Billy Romanoff who were active until the 1920s and 1960s respectively have really caught my attention lately. I could if time permitted just ramble on about those seven guys forever, but I won't. It's been a pleasure answering questions for you, Terry.
There is one last thing though, to anyone reading this feel free to ask in the group about earlier wrestlers or contact me directly, I'm always more than happy to talk someone's ear off about what was going on in the 1800s. Or if anyone would like to contribute to the website through articles, bios, research or anything, also drop me a message on Facebook or an e-mail here, the more history we can preserve at the Pro-Wrestling Historical Society the better.
Terry Kent
Jimmy, its always my pleasure to talk with you and picking your brain about wrestling treasures I know nothing of. I don’t know the odds, but I am sure happy our two lives intersected, and as they say, “The Rest is History” lol.
Unique content strictly for the Professional Wrestling Historical Society.
Interview with Jimmy Wheeler.
Interviewer: Terry Kent.
Published: 2014.
PWHS Team Interview: #2.
Editor: Jimmy Wheeler.
Updated: November 15, 2018.
Unique content strictly for the Professional Wrestling Historical Society.
Interview with Jimmy Wheeler.
Interviewer: Terry Kent.
Published: 2014.
PWHS Team Interview: #2.
Editor: Jimmy Wheeler.
Updated: November 15, 2018.
An interview with Mark D. Robinson by Terry Kent - Read Here.
An interview with Brian "Bubba" Edwards by Terry Kent - Read Here.
Other interviews on the #PWHS website can be Read Here.