Sam Muchnick

Right.

So he's already got plans where he's gonna do Hawaii, but he really wants to get right to same- St. Louis, which is the head of the NWA, Sam Muchnick.

That's kind of like the, the nerve center of the NWA in 1964.

Yeah, we haven't got to '64 yet in the St. Louis history project, but we've certainly covered a lot of this talent that have come through St. Louis.

Well Jim, are you hearing a lot of buzz about WWE Raw these days?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I heard a loud noise because they were in St. Louis, and Sam Muchnick started spinning so quickly in his grave that he created like a 5.6 on the fucking Richter.

Sounds like you watched Raw.

[laughs]

See? Look at it that way.

Yeah.

Anyway, Sam Muchnick was in the war, and then, then he got out of the, the war and then we're ended.

And then Martin Fez took off.

It's probably better than the match at Texas Stadium.

But the finish of the match here in St. Louis, and mind you, this is past the time that Sam Muchnick was the promoter.

Kerry throws him into the ropes, comes off.

He gives Kerry a shoulder tackle.

And so it's slowly but surely winding down.

I mean, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Corpus, Beaumont, Waco, and all these towns were part of this circuit that Morris Siegel had built in the '20s, and those, uh, cash envelopes have been coming in for 40 years, you know? Uh, Morris Siegel was one of the real targets that Sam Muchnick wanted.

You know, if you read Tim Hornbaker's excellent book about the history of the National Wrestling Alliance, uh, Sam Muchnick wrote letters about how we have got to get Siegel in the National Wrestling Alliance.

Oh.

We've got to talk him into becoming a member.

I think this is interesting.

They st- they held out of this, uh, promotional feud.

Sam Muchnick's alliance had the authority on paper to protect a member office, which was Houston, and freeze out the breakaway.

I, I love getting sidetracked sometimes.

I mean, it always comes back to the story we're telling, but it, there's so little, so many little m- moving pieces that don't really get discussed because people are so focused on Sam Muchnick, St. Louis Wrestling, et cetera, and it's gonna be fun to, to dive into that here in a little bit.

But we move into the fall season, and they're gonna be returning to the Kiel Auditorium, they being Sam Muchnick and crew, obviously.

And so we begin telling stories.

TV, they'd just been giving us some good wrestling over the summer, but now they gotta start telling some stories to get you into the building at the Kiel.

...

this is not television, but, uh, it's just, uh, off-putting that you would put, uh, Kay Bell in your headline main event.

So Sam Muchnick coming back, but it's very peculiar the booking.

The NWA loaded up their card with all the out-of-town top wrestlers to try to stave off the Bruiser invasion.

And as a result of this, wrestlers bruiser snyder heenan blackjacks rashki were no longer allowed to work st louis because sam muchnick said hey you guys are going up against an awa card right you know promotion ed farhat so therefore until that was ended those guys who had regular gigs in st louis were no longer allowed to wrestle there until this all blew over.

They had to kill Sam because, you know, obviously you want to bring in all the stars you possibly can, but you've got to set that precedent that we can't allow this kind of thing here.

Wasn't he the president of the

And so he has to keep with his way here.

Sam, if nothing else, Sam had to honor his own self by making things fair.

It's what Sam Muchnick did at the end of the day, keeping these guys while they were competition against the NWA up there in Detroit at this point in time.

And so for the time being, these guys will not be seen in St. Louis.