Tri-State Wrestling: Week of 10/8-10/14 1979
Our coverage of Tri-State in 1979 continues with a look at the week ending October 14th: McGuirk goes back to a couple of his former towns in Missouri, several new faces come in as the roster slowly fills up & more!
Here's a look at the talent roster along with their SPOT ratings for the week.
Columns: TW=This week's SPOT rating; ME%=Percentage of main events. 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 - Tulsa, OK
Wednesday - Springfield, MO
Sunday - Joplin, MO
(Joplin data comes from cagematch.net)
Notes/Analysis: After running Fort Smith, AR on Wednesdays for a couple of weeks, McGuirk runs Springfield, MO on Wednesday this week. He also runs Joplin, MO on Sunday. Both towns had been weekly stops for many years in the 60s and early 70s. Springfield hadn't been run in over a year while Joplin had last been run about five months earlier.
Tor Kamata came in this week and faced Haystack Calhoun in Tulsa and Joplin. Like several other wrestlers McGuirk was using here, Kamata was a regular in east Texas at the time, but came in for several shows here in between his Texas bookings. In both of the matches against Haystack this week, Kamata lost via disqualification.
The Tulsa card featured several other non-clean finishes, as Oki Shikina beat Brian Blair by dq, Troy Graham beat Don Bass by dq, and Tom Shaft wrestled Sugar Bear Harris to a double countout.
In addition to Tor Kamata, newcomers this week included Jim Garvin, Jim Dalton and Butch Malone (all three came in to work the Joplin card and then stayed). Garvin came in from Florida. He had been here previously in the early part of the decade managing his "older brother" Terry Garvin.
Others making appearances this week but not listed in the SPOT ratings include Scandor Akbar, Ted Heath, Ron Starr and Gary Young. With so few shows being run, I only list SPOT ratings for the wrestlers who are on pretty much every show for a several week period. I think Akbar is managing Oki Shikina & Sugar Bear Harris here and wrestling part-time, but I'm not positive. Young and Heath will be regulars starting next week, and Starr comes in as a regular later in the year. This week, Starr teamed with Brian Blair to face Oki Shikina & Sugar Bear Harris in Springfield, while Young was Blair's partner in Joplin against the same heel team.
Midget wrestlers Ivan the Terrible and Butch Cassidy were booked in Springfied against one another. The tiny twosome then spent a week in Central States followed by a week in Mid-South.
Frequent matches:
Haystack Calhoun vs Tor Kamata
Don Bass vs Jim Garvin
Brian Blair vs Oki Shikina
Frequent tag team combinations:
Oki Shikina & Sugar Bear Harris
Here's a look at the talent roster along with their SPOT ratings for the week.
I have data for the following house shows this week:
Monday - Tulsa, OK
Wednesday - Springfield, MO
Sunday - Joplin, MO
(Joplin data comes from cagematch.net)
Notes/Analysis: After running Fort Smith, AR on Wednesdays for a couple of weeks, McGuirk runs Springfield, MO on Wednesday this week. He also runs Joplin, MO on Sunday. Both towns had been weekly stops for many years in the 60s and early 70s. Springfield hadn't been run in over a year while Joplin had last been run about five months earlier.
Tor Kamata came in this week and faced Haystack Calhoun in Tulsa and Joplin. Like several other wrestlers McGuirk was using here, Kamata was a regular in east Texas at the time, but came in for several shows here in between his Texas bookings. In both of the matches against Haystack this week, Kamata lost via disqualification.
The Tulsa card featured several other non-clean finishes, as Oki Shikina beat Brian Blair by dq, Troy Graham beat Don Bass by dq, and Tom Shaft wrestled Sugar Bear Harris to a double countout.
In addition to Tor Kamata, newcomers this week included Jim Garvin, Jim Dalton and Butch Malone (all three came in to work the Joplin card and then stayed). Garvin came in from Florida. He had been here previously in the early part of the decade managing his "older brother" Terry Garvin.
Others making appearances this week but not listed in the SPOT ratings include Scandor Akbar, Ted Heath, Ron Starr and Gary Young. With so few shows being run, I only list SPOT ratings for the wrestlers who are on pretty much every show for a several week period. I think Akbar is managing Oki Shikina & Sugar Bear Harris here and wrestling part-time, but I'm not positive. Young and Heath will be regulars starting next week, and Starr comes in as a regular later in the year. This week, Starr teamed with Brian Blair to face Oki Shikina & Sugar Bear Harris in Springfield, while Young was Blair's partner in Joplin against the same heel team.
Midget wrestlers Ivan the Terrible and Butch Cassidy were booked in Springfied against one another. The tiny twosome then spent a week in Central States followed by a week in Mid-South.
Frequent matches:
Haystack Calhoun vs Tor Kamata
Don Bass vs Jim Garvin
Brian Blair vs Oki Shikina
Frequent tag team combinations:
Oki Shikina & Sugar Bear Harris
