McGuirk Wrestling Territory: September 1972

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 In September 1972, the tag team title situation is cleared up, Tarzan Tyler swings his way up the cards & more!

Here are the SPOT Ratings for the month.


COMINGS AND GOINGS

Newcomers to the territory this month are babyface Suni War Cloud and heels Gene Lewis and Jerry Miller.

A few different wrestlers used the name Suni War Cloud over the years. This one, real name Pedro Valdez Cordero, mostly wrestled in the late 60s and 70s. He had wrestled here previously as Pedro Valdez. This was Gene Lewis’ first territory as a full-time wrestler as he transitioned from being Dale Lewis’ driver to his “brother”. Miller had been wrestling for Joe Dusek in Nebraska.

Leaving the territory during the month were babyfaces George Strickland, Igor Putski, Jerry Goodvoice and Terry Lathan and heels Don Duffy and Gypsy Joe Rosario.

Strickland’s next full-time territory is East Texas in November. Igor Putski went to Japan for IWE (as Rick Ferrara). Goodvoice has a few matches in Amarillo later in the year and next shows up in Portland the following summer. Lathan goes to Gulf Coast. Duffy also goes to Gulf Coast briefly and then goes to work for Gulas. Rosario goes to Mid-Atlantic, where he wrestled as Pancho Valdez.

Other wrestlers not listed in the SPOT Ratings: Chuck Bowman, Mike Paidousis, Red McKim and women wrestlers Ann Casey, Dawn Lemke and Kay Noble.

CH-CH-CHANGES

Danny Hodge held on to the NWA World Junior Heavyweight title during the month, as did Bill Watts with the North American title. The US Tag Team belts went to Duke Myers & Terry Garvin on September 4th after a confusing two weeks. On August 21st, Ken Mantell & Tom Jones beat Bobby Hart & Lorenzo Parente to win the titles, but Hart & Parente ran off with the physical belts. A week later, Mantell & Jones beat Myers & Garvin in a title defense when the match was restarted after the third fall saw Jim Garvin interfere on behalf of his “brother” Terry & Duke. All this led to a three-team, round-robin one-night tournament on the 4th, with teams facing off in traditional tag bouts and when one team lost two matches, they were eliminated. Hart & Parente were eliminated first, followed by Jones & Mantell.

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Here are the FEUD Scores for the month.


ANATOMY OF A FEUD

This month we'll look at the feud between Dale Lewis and Ivan Putski, looking at all of the known matches between them with stipulations noted where available. The matches are arranged chronologically by city, so you can easily see which cities had multiple matches between them.

Keep in mind that some newspapers didn't list details, so just because a match isn't specified as a title match, we don't necessarily know for a fact that it was non-title and the same can apply for stipulation bouts.

TULSA OK
8/21/72 Dale Lewis beat Ivan Putski
8/28/72 Ivan Putski beat Dale Lewis
9/18/72 Ivan Putski beat Dale Lewis

CHALMETTE LA
8/31/72 Dale Lewis beat Ivan Putski
9/7/72 Grudge match: Ivan Putski beat Dale Lewis by disqualification

FORT SMITH AR
9/13/72 Dale Lewis vs Ivan Putski
9/20/72 (Gene Lewis barred from arena): Dale Lewis vs Ivan Putski

WICHITA FALLS TX
9/14/72 Dale Lewis no-contest Ivan Putski (referee stopped the match as “both fighters were injured”)
9/21/72 No stopping for injury: Dale Lewis beat Ivan Putski

MONROE LA
9/19/72 Ivan Putski beat Dale Lewis by reverse decision

JACKSON MS
10/4/72 Dale Lewis vs Ivan Putski

BATON ROUGE LA
10/18/72 Ivan Putski beat Dale Lewis by disqualification 

SHREVEPORT LA
10/23/72 Ivan Putski beat Dale Lewis by disqualification

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Here is the calendar of known house shows.


SELECT HOUSE SHOW LINEUPS
(unless stated otherwise, these lineups are from my own personal research)
Stipulations listed when known; keep in mind that some matches not specified as title matches may have actually been title bouts and the same can apply for stipulation matches.

8/29/72 Little Rock, AR
Bill Watts & Ken Mantell vs Bob Sweetan & Dale Lewis
Ann Casey vs Kay Noble
Don Duffy vs Jim Valiant
Jerry Goodvoice vs Treach Phillips

9/6/72 Fort Smith, AR
Bill Watts & Ken Mantell vs Duke Myers & Terry Garvin
Don Duffy vs Johnny Eagles
Plus one other bout, likely a singles match involving participants from the tag bout

9/11/72 Shreveport, LA
US Tag Team titles: Bobby Hart & Lorenzo Parente vs Duke Myers & Terry Garvin
Grizzly Smith vs Tarzan Tyler
Dennis Stamp vs Terry Lathan
Gene Lewis vs Johnny Eagles
George Strickland vs Treach Phillips

9/20/72 Baton Rouge, LA
Doctor X & Tarzan Tyler vs Grizzly Smith & Tom Jones
Ken Mantell vs Lorenzo Parente
Dennis Stamp vs Silento Rodriguez
Prelim: Tarzan Tyler vs Tom Jones

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