keith on May 24, 2009, at 07:21PM – #1

Gosh I remember back then when Dick Lane announced wrestling, and it seemed pretty phony. But up in the desert, Apple Valley, we didn't get that many TV stations or shows to choose from.

Think the reason WWE comes to town is because of the conflict with basketball game the Lakers played last night at the Pepsi Center.

Juanito on May 24, 2009, at 09:46PM – #2

Gosh, I remember when Lane did live used-car commercials and if you ever saw one, you never forgot it. The tires were the LAST thing he'd kick! I never saw a fender fall off, but I heard stories about one falling off after he'd kicked it good. And Roller Derby: oh what I'd have paid to see him meet up with Rachel (Myra Breckenridge) Welch in person...

Doubtless, he would have been speechless, for once.

Dennis Smith on May 25, 2009, at 12:51AM – #3

My moment of wrestling fandom came in the late 1960's and was spent watching those broadcasts on KTLA, interspersed as they were by used car commercials (the laconic "Hi friends" of Ralph Williams and the hyperbolic "I'll stand on my head to make you a deal" of Cal Worthington). Among some of the other names I remember was John "The Golden Greek" Tolos who had a long standing rivalry with Freddie Blassie who referred to his opponents as "pencil necked geeks" and threatened to "squeeze his head like a pimple 'til it pops" Others who shared the ring were Bruno Sammartino and Mr. Moto as well as the tuxedo wearing Jimmy Lennon, the Olympic Auditorium's dapper ring announcer who presented the genuine sport of boxing and the staged spectacle of wrestling with equally authentic enthusiasm. He was much favored by Latino audiences because he managed never to mangle a Spanish surname and forty years later I can still hear his enunciated pronunciation of the name of a particular "scientific" style wrestler from Mexico, R-r-r-a-ul Mah-tah (Raul Mata). "Lucha Libre" was already being televised and I saw my first masked wrestler, Mil Mascaras in matches broadcast from the Olympic. Despite his name, he always only seemed to have one mask.

Juanito gave props to Dick Lane for his appearance in "Kansas City Bomber" with Raquel Welch but it was just one of more than 170 movie and t.v. credits he managed to rack up in his career. You can check out his catalog on imdb. For that matter, Jimmy Lennon made it into both "Raging Bull" and Rocky...3...I think. As for Freddie Blassie, rent a copy of "My Breakfast with Blassie" if Andy Kaufman is/was your cup of tea.

For years I would drive by the Olympic Auditorium, with its giant faded painting of a boxer on its north side facing the freeway, but I never actually went into the building. My older brother and his buddies had gone a lark to see the Los Angeles Thunderbirds in a roller derby contest once. Having outgrown wrestling, I didn't know if I would ever actually venture inside. THEN PUNK ROCK HIT....and the world was never quite the same. The Sex Pistols never played Los Angeles in their heyday but John Lydon brought P.I.L. and they played the Olympic Auditorium. Goldenvoice produced many of their early concerts at the Olympic and Black Flag, Fear, the Minutemen, the Offspring and many others played musical accompaniment to a kind of testosterone fueled and amphetamine amplified moshpit pugilism that made the televised blood sports of an earlier era seem quaint and reserved in comparison. Even into the early 1990's the venue continued to play host to shows played by Green Day, Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine.

Its a church now. Kind of like how the early Catholic Church tried to consecrate the Coliseum in Rome in order to exorcise the venal brutality of a previous period. Yet the place is still best remembered for the gladiatorial contests held within.

Walter Melton on May 25, 2009, at 07:50AM – #4

Wrestling was something I watched with my grandmother every night. Bobo Brazil was her favorite. Dick Lane was to Wrestling what Vin Scully is to the Dodgers. I would know that voice anywhere. It was amazing to hear my grandmother scream and vent each time she saw the wrestling show. Then she would wait and hour and watch roller derby.

Norbie 7 on May 25, 2009, at 10:32AM – #5

I'll never forget the hilarious headline one day in the paper. I forget whether it was the Mirror or the morning Times. But on the previous night there had been a boxing match at the Olympic and at the end, whoever toted up the score threw the match to the combatant which the audience didn't particularly favor.

The audience proceeded to tear the hell out of the place in protest and I and my brother laughed our heads off over the crazy headline in 96 point type. Afterwards, the Olympic had to be totally refitted with new seating. You'd have thought it was a prison riot.

MarkB on May 25, 2009, at 11:19AM – #6

When I was a kid I remember seeing a match won by the Japanese Kinje Shibuya [sic]. In the after-fight interview, he grabbed the microphone and yelled into the camera, commenting on his winnings, "I...buy... cash registah... with ahh my American dollah!" Good times.

BobJ on May 30, 2009, at 12:17PM – #7

Technically, I believe the Olympic Auditorium phone number was given as RIchmond 9-5171... not RICHman.

Dennis Smith on June 01, 2009, at 05:31PM – #9

Obituary in today's Los Angeles Times for John "The Golden Greek" Tolos.

R.I.P.