Black Hills Championship Wrestling
Thursday, January 31st, 7pm
Sioux Falls Armory, Sioux Falls SD
Referees: Bart Batton, Mike Chioda
 Ring Announcer Tony Schiavone
Attendance- 400
 
In the opening match athletic young rookie Angelo Mosca, Jr. won his professional debut by overcoming veteran British star Mick McManus with the Sleeper Hold.
 
Match #2 saw Strong Kobayashi go to a 30 minute draw against the German Hans Schroeder.   Both competitors showed great respect for each other and their sport by shaking hands after the hard fought contest.  Stating that he felt the result was “unfinished business” Schroeder challenged Kobayashi to a rematch next week, which was immediately accepted.
 
 Match #3 was for the European Cruiserweight title, currently held by Englishman Johnny Saint.  Saint faced the challenge of newcomer “Handsome” Jimmy Del Ray.  Saint’s technical wizardry frustrated Del Ray, leading him to try to cut corners to bring the match back in his favor.  His rule “bending” didn’t have the desired effect, however, as Saint always had a counter.   Near the end Englishman appeared to be toying with his opponent, his trademark “Lady of the Lake” move in particular infuriating Del Ray.  Saint finally put him away with a variation of a step-over key lock.
Following the match, Saint’s countryman Mick McManus appeared at ringside and loudly berated him, calling himself the “Greatest European Cruiserweight of All Time”.  It appeared the two would come to blows, before McManus backed off, returning to the locker room with his arm around Del Ray, apparently giving advice to the young American.
 
Match #4 was a wild brawl between Buddy Wolfe and Apache Bull Ramos.  The Sioux Falls crowd was predisposed to root against the Minnesotan Wolfe, until Ramos’ viciousness and rule-breaking became too much for even cross border rivalries to overcome.  The match spilled out of the ring and around the arena, with Wolfe giving as much as he got, but the raw power and sheer violence of Ramos made this his kind of match, and he beat Wolfe badly.  The finish of the match saw Ramos deliver a nasty piledriver to Wolfe and covering for the three count.  He didn’t stop there, however, and proceeded to whip his defeated opponent with a leather strap he had brought to the ring.  He was finally cleared out of the ring by Angelo Mosca, Jr, and the refs.  
 
Intermission
 
Main Event
The final match of the evening was a hard fought battle between former NFL star “Big” Jim Wilson and the Wild Scotsman Black Angus Campbell.  The two men fought back and forth, with neither able to gain a lasting advantage.  Campbell seemed to be on the verge of winning when Wilson, capitalizing on a momentary lapse when Black Angus turned his back on him to yell at the crowd, landed a chop block that left him holding his leg in pain.  Wilson managed to lock on a figure-four, and Black Angus was forced to submit.
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Great Salt Lake Wrestling
Thursday, January 31st, 1983  6pm
East High School, Salt Lake City, UT
Referees: Rick Davis
 Ring Announcer Larry Nelson
Attendance- 621
 
Prior the show, NFL Pro Bowl Tight End Russ Francis of the San Francisco 49ers spoke to the crowd about working hard and avoiding temptation on the road to success, and signed autographs for the fans.
 
In the opening match, The Mighty Inoue and Villano III set the stage for an outstanding evening of action with a fast paced, hard fought 30 minute draw.
 
Match 2 featured native son Steve Gatorwolf facing “Master Sargent” Al Tomko.   The wild Tomko was the aggressor for the majority of the match, but Gatorwolf used the energy of the crowd to stage a big comeback and get the pin after a big discus punch left Tomko on Dream Street.
 
Match #3 was another exciting match, fought under Lucha Libre rules (2 out of 3 falls).  Villano I won the 1st fall using La Majistral.  Dr. Wagner won the 2nd fall when Villano I was unable to return to the ring after being repeatedly rammed into the ringpost by Wagner.  Dr. Wagner won the 3rd fall, and the match, after catching Villano I with the Gory Special.
 
-Intermission-
 
During Intermission, Russ Francis signed autographs and spoke to the young members of the audience.
 
Match #4 was fought under Australian Tag Team Rules.  The Samoan Connection (Farmer Boy Ipo and Leroy Brown) had a decided home town advantage with the large number of Pacific Islanders in the audience.  Their opponents, the veteran team of Eddie Sullivan and Rip Tyler, gave them all they could handle, but a nasty Savate kick by Ipo, followed by a serious of humongous splashes, left Sullivan down for the count.
 
The Main Event saw “Dynamite” Jack Evans, seconded by his brother “Bomber” Ray, face Bill Francis.  Francis had a huge advantage in height and weight, which was countered partly by Jack’s speed, but mostly by the outside interference of Ray.  By taking advantage of one brother distracting the ref while the other took cheap shots at Francis, ”Dynamite” Jack was able to keep one step ahead of his more powerful opponent, and eventually to get the pinfall, with an assist from “Bomber” Ray.  Following the controversial decision, the Evans brothers put the boots to Bill, which brought Bill’s irate brother Russ charging into the ring.  With the numbers disadvantage gone, the Francis Brothers put a beating on the victors until the Evans’ were able to flee the ring like scalded dogs.   Russ got on the house mic and challenged Jack and Ray to a Tag Team Match next week… “Unless they were cowards!”
 
 

Solid, smart booking. Putting the young Mosca and Del Rey with the vets Ramos, Saint, and McManus will be entertaining and experience building. Having used Wilson in my first efforts here, I was excited seeing you chose Wilson for a feature match. Getting Campbell to submit was big. Lucha Libre being a staple of Badlands could really fit well. Nice to see The Villanos used. Loved Russ and Bill Francis teaming together. That pulls me in here, as well.
 
Boy, I wish I could do posters like this. Realy add to the deal. What did you use to do it?  
 
Can't wait to see more Badlands.

Jimmy Del Ray - working as Jimmy Randolph in '83 - was really skinny at this time so putting him with Johnny Saint is a near perfect marriage.
the Francis Bros. are bigger but they don't have the ring intelligence of the Evans Bros. I'm really looking fwd to this one.
good to see Jim Wilson getting some work. He wasn't World Champion material by any means but he wasn't nearly as bad as he gets "remembered" as being.
I'm not sure about the Apache in '83 but Buddy Wolfe was still fun to watch. I'd love to see you pick up Lars Anderson and then watch the great Anderson/Wolfe team run roughshod over the Badlands.

Very strong debut. Good stuff!

Thank you all for the kind words, and great suggestions.
Don Leo Jonathan is definitely on my radar as a promotional rep/president type role.
The posters are just Paint, with text copy and pasted from Word docs.  I didn't know that would work until I started trying to add text to these images.  I hope to have posters for all the shows Badlands promotes, so hopefully I will get the feel of the old school images down.
I was really surprised at how good, or maybe how acceptable, Jim Wilson was when I started researching him.  His NFL background makes him easy to push in a territory like this, and I think he will be able to hold up his end in the ring.
The plan for now is to keep the two sides of the promotion as separate as possible for as long as I can.  Once I run out of ideas, or have completely booked myself into a corner, I can merge them and have an entire new set of potential feuds, and now there will be some back-story to the participants involved.