Tri-State Wrestling: Week of 7/24-7/30 1961

Our coverage of 1961 continues with a look at the week ending July 30, 1961.

For new readers, this post and this post will help you understand the SPOT rating and what it means.

Here's a look at the talent roster along with their SPOT ratings for the week.

The first number to the right of each wrestler's name is their SPOT rating for this week and the second number is their rating for the previous week. Babyfaces are in blue on the left-hand side, heels in orange on the right. They are listed in descending order; wrestlers at the top were mostly in main events while wrestlers at the bottom were mostly in preliminary matches.

I have data for the following house shows this week:

Monday - Shreveport, LA & Tulsa, OK

Tuesday - Little Rock, AR & Monroe, LA

Wednesday - Baton Rouge, LA & Fort Smith, AR & Springfield, MO

Thursday - New Orleans, LA & Wichita Falls, TX

Friday - Oklahoma City, OK

The Tulsa info comes from oklafan.com

Analysis/Notes:

In their second week in the territory, the Fargos move up the cards. Notable matches for them this week were in Tulsa against Red McKim & Oni Wiki Wiki, in Wichita Falls against the unusual team of Danny Hodge & Bruiser Collins, and winning a one-night tournament in Oklahoma City, beating Hodge & McKim and then Mike Clancy & Wiki Wiki in the finals.

Hodge defended his NWA World's Junior Heavyweight title against Corsica Joe in Springfield, as Joe continued to move slowly up the cards. Nelson Royal continued his descent down the cards as well. While one might think that Royal was being phased out on his way out of the territory, he sticks around for several more weeks.

In addition to wrestlers listed in the ratings, Al Galento, Bob Clay, George Curtis and Pepper Martin all had one known booking during the week. Galento and Clay were part-timers at this point in time, with Galento serving as the storyline matchmaker in Little Rock. Clay was sometimes used as a referee in addition to wrestling part-time, and around this time he was getting into the promoting side of things. Pepper was booked against Bruiser Collins in Shreveport. Most historians have him as the masked Mighty Bolo in the territory at this time, so this was a rare booking as "himself" instead of as a Bolo. George Curtis, aka George Culkin, had been active through the 1950s, but looks to have been wrestling more on an infrequent basis by this point in time. He was the brother-in-law of Jack Curtis (Sr.), so I believe that would make him the uncle-in-law of Jack Curtis Jr. George was booked against Ronnie Fargo in Little Rock and Fort Smith.

Frequent tag team combinations:
Donnie Fargo & Ronnie Fargo
Great Bolo & Mighty Bolo
Danny Hodge & Mike Clancy

Frequent matches:
Danny Hodge & Mike Clancy vs Great Bolo & Mighty Bolo
Danny Hodge vs Great Bolo
Corsica Joe vs Danny Hodge
Corsica Joe vs Jack Curtis Jr