I’ve been a wrestling fan since about 1976. My friend Terrance introduced me to it when I would spend the night over at his apartment. I had to be about 12 years old. The very face wrestler I saw was Mil Mascaras, the man of a thousand masks. I remember the Love Brothers though I couldn’t tell you what they were like. I also remember the big cat, Ernie Ladd.
Now in pro wrestling a mark is a fan who believes at least some of the product they are watching. As a kid I was probably the king of the marks. I thought pro wrestling was real until I was about 16 or 17. When I was 13 I thought Ernie Ladd was the boogie man.
The late Ernie Ladd used to scare the hell out of me. He was the first Black wresstler ever saw. To me though he was more real to me than the others. My mother, a huge football fan had heard of him. He was like some thug you would see at the local pool hall. He would stoop over and snear at the camera and just seem like a 6 foot 9 inch bully. And bully he did. Every week in the IWA (International Wrestling Association) Ladd would beat up somebody (I remember it being Nelson Royal) and at some point Cowboy Bob Ellis would run to the ring and beat the hell out of Ladd. I actually cheered for Ellis. Ladd’s heel persona worked on me though even when the IWA faded from existance to be replaced by the (then) WWWF. I was genuinely scared of the man. First rule in wrestling…the fans have to either love you or hate you. There can be no in between. The man did his job well, especially for his time where television coverage was a fraction what it is now. I was scared to death he would actually beat Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund or Mil Mascaras. Unfortunately Ernie ladd died in 2007 from colon cancer. I have him to thank for inducing my first huge fears in wrestling. Next big mark moment…Billy Whitewolf.
I saw Billy Whitewolf wrestle in the 1970s with Chief Jay Strongbow as a Native American tag team. They defeated The Masked Executioners. At some point on television Ken Patera, who at that time was a huge monster heel, was wrestling some prelim guy and beat the guy down Whitewolf made the save and a short feud was born between Patera and Whitewolf. Short because Patera wrestled Whitewolf the next week and applied the swinging neckbreaker on Whitewolf and didn’t release it, breaking Whitewolf’s neck. It took me close to 20 years to realize Whitewolf’s neck wasn’t broken. Even longer to realize he wasn’t even Native American. His name was also Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissy and ws a manager in World class Championship Wrestling.
Around the same time I would watch Championship Wrestling from Florida with the late GREAT Gordon Solie. I would watch Dusty Rhodes, Mike Graham, the Brisco Brothers and a young wrestler named Don Muraco wrestle. Muraco stopped wrestling for a while and I never thought twice about it with all the talent they had. One day a huge masked wrestler came into the federation and was a monster, indestructable heel. Unstoppable he would hammer his foes and defeat them with either the Asiatic Spike (thumb to the throat) or the Asian Hammer (Tombstone piledriver). He was unmasked one day and I never forgot it. He was revealed to be DonMuraco and he was just standing in the ring twitching. said Gordon Solie, “the masked man is Don Muraco! Look at him, he’s deranged!” Between the menacing look and Solie SELLING THE HELL OUT OF THE STORYLINE I had nightmares. Before Muraco left Florida he was an average sized wrestler. He came back looking like Hulk Hogan. Years later I came to realize how valuable Solie was to the business. And I realized Don Muraco took a lot of vitamins during his time off 
I was almost 20 years old when Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat faced each other in the WWF. When they wrestled on television Savage knocked Steamboat out of the ring and did his now famous move where he jammed the bell into Steamboat’s throat damaging his larynx. Bruno Sammartino was doing commentary and was reporting on the story outside the doctor’s office and attacked Savage calling him a “piece of slime”. I am embarrassed to tell you I thought that was real. even when my friend was telling me that there was no scar from the supposed operation to Steamboat’s throat. I called it microscopic surgery. Seriously.
A few years before the Savage-Steamboat feud, Bruno Sammartino was just retiring. It was 1979 and Bruno was doing color commentary with Vince Mcmahon. It was common knowledge that Larry Zbyszko was a student of Sammartino. Zbyszko was being shady to Bruno and when confronted stated he wanted to be out of Bruno’s shadow and wanted a match against him. Since both were babyface the match was billed as a “scientific match” In that nationally televised match Bruno schooled Zbyszko who got increasingly frustrated to the point he laid out his former teacher with a wooden chair and leaving Sammartino in the ring bleeding like a stuck pig. The two fought around the country ending with Sammartino winning the famous Shea Stadium cage match. BUT..for years I actually thought the two hated each other. It wasn’t until I read larry Zbyszko’s book a year or two ago that I fully realized it was a great work. The two had worked on that feud for months. Thankfully with that one I wasn’t the only mark. According to Zbyszko he got death threats for what he did to Bruno. Not from me.
Lastly, when Hulk Hogan was champ and was feuding with “the million dollar man” Ted Dibiase, the two cut a promo where DiBiase offered Hogan money to relinquish the WWE title. After a week of mystery and Hogan came out and told diBiase hell no he wouldn’t sell the belt. Yeah, for a minute I fell for it. Hell, it was still early in Hogan’s run as champ and I actually didn’t know if he would do it.
Wrestling changed not too long after that. Vince went for a more real product which included “grayer” characters. We knew wrestlers by their real names so it was harder to make certain stories fly.
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