The article primarily
focuses on the promoter who proceeded
Crockett in Charlotte, one John Francis
"Irish" Horan, and his shenanigans (as
Hornbaker calls them) that almost killed
wrestling in Charlotte in the early 1930s.
When some of Horan's fraudulent credentials
were exposed by the Charlotte sports media,
it left the door open for Jim Crockett.
There is much to be
digested here, including nuggets of
information woven into the article of
Crockett's involvement in wrestling in
Greensboro before coming to Charlotte, that
one of his three brothers was involved in
the wrestling business with him, and that
long time Richmond VA promoter Bill Lewis
partnered with Crockett in getting a
foothold in the tumultuous 1934 Charlotte
wrestling scene.
Check out the article on
the Legacy of Wrestling website:
The
Prelude to a Wrestling Empire – The
Introduction of Jim Crockett to Charlotte
by Tim Hornbaker.
- D. Bourne
December 2007
Updated July 2011
Earliest
Promotion of Pro-Wrestling
by
Carroll Hall, "All-Star Championship
Wrestling"
Pete
Moore and James Allen Crockett formed the
Southeastern Corporation in Bristol,
Virginia during 1931 with Pete Moore as
President and Jim Crockett as
Vice-President.
Jim
Crockett came to Greensboro, North
Carolina in December 1933. Mr. Crockett
converted a warehouse into an arena. He
promoted his first Greensboro wrestling
event there on December 20,1933. Mr.
Crockett donated a percentage of the
proceeds from that event to the Empty
Stocking Fund.
On
January 3,1939, Bill Lewis of Richmond,
Virginia and Jim Crockett bought out Pete
Moore for the reported sum of $8,000
dollars, dissolving the Southeastern
Corporation. Bill Lewis and Jim Crockett
then began promoting as the Bill Lewis
Athletic Corporation.
Newspaper
articles that I have researched that are
related to Mr. Crockett's history are on
the front page of my blog.
http://allstarchampionshipwrestling.blogspot.com/
Bill Lewis and Jim Crockett, 1939
In 1985, Jim Crockett
Promotions, then led by Crockett's sons Jim
Jr. and David, celebrated the 50th
anniversary of the company, 1935-1985, with
special cards throughout that year. Recent
research has shed further light on Crockett
Sr.'s history as a promoter which began at
least four years earlier in 1931 in
Crockett's hometown of Bristol, VA. Crockett
apparently promoted several towns in
southwest Virginia and east Tennessee,
including Kingsport, reflected in one of the
articles below. According to his obituary,
also below, he came to Charlotte in 1934 and
set up shop there and established the
wrestling dynasty known as Jim Crockett
Promotions. We don't know for sure, but
we're guessing the 1935 date as established
by the Crockett family in their silver
anniversary celebration was based on the
date when the company was
incorporated. - D. Bourne
Early Office
Locations
from a 5/25/87 article in
the Charlotte Observer by Tom Sorenson
"Crockett first worked out of
his home. Then he owned a series of
restaurants - the Queen's Soda & Grill,
a predecessor to the Town House on
Providence Road; the Ringside Soda Grill in
Elizabeth; Wesley Heights Grill; Jim &
Jake's. The restaurants were his office. And
they fed his 300 pound frame."
JIM CROCKETT PROMOTES
TENNESSEE IN 1933
Two powerful and
ponderous mat men, Leo Walleck, German
sensation, and Jack Sexton, Indiana plowboy,
have been signed for the mat card to be
presented at the American Legion Carnival
Thursday night. These two men will meet in a
45 minute match, one fall.
Another match will be
arranged for the evening. The card at the
American Legion is being staged by the
Legion through Main Street Arena promoters
Jim Crockett and W. S. Waddell. Mr.
Waddell and Mr. Crockett are cooperating
with the local Legion post this week and
there will be no match at the Main Street
Arena Saturday night.
Kingsport
TN Newspaper Clipping, September 21, 1933
SUCCESS STORY
Jim
Crockett was making news early in his
career. This is from the nationally
syndicated "Sports Round-Up" column found in
the Reno Evening Gazette newspaper
on August 5th, 1936:
Success story: Five years
ago Jim Crockett, Charlotte NC wrestling
promoter, borrowed $50, hired a hall, and
put on a match in Bristol, TN. Today he
features the grunt and groaners in twenty
leading cites between Norfolk and Miami. He
has offices in five cities and pays three
publicity men $100 a week each. Jack Curley,
dean of all wrestling promoters, thinks well
of Crockett.
Sports
Round-Up, Reno Evening Gazette, 8/5/36
OBITUARY
From the Charlotte Observer, April 1973
Susan
Jetton, Observer Staff Writer
DEATH
ENDS AN INSTITUTION
Susan
Jetton, Observer Staff Writer
Jim Crockett, the
man who brought wrestling, “My Fair Lady”,
the Lone Ranger and Lassie to Charlotte,
died early Sunday morning in a local
hospital. He was 64.
“It is a great
loss. He is an institution. It’s like taking
away Trade and Tryon,” said close friend and
business associate Paul Buck, the Coliseum
manager.
Crockett came to
Charlotte in 1934 with about $5,000 in cash
and a budding reputation as a promoter. He
built himself into “the premier promoter in
the Southeast.”
“He had everything
it takes for the business. He was honest, he
was tough, and he was direct. But like one
of the secretaries out here said, ‘He was
the sweetest big man I’ve ever seen,’” Buck
said Sunday afternoon.
From his office at
1111 East Morehead Street, Crockett – who
tipped the scales at 300 pounds plus –
directed hundreds of shows yearly across the
Southeast. He brought the big bands in the
‘30s and ‘40s, rock and roll in the ‘50s,
country and western, Broadway plays and
musicals, the Harlem Globetrotters, and
cowboys and Indians.
“He kept us in
business here when we were just beginning,”
said Buck of the shows brought by Crockett
to the Coliseum and Ovens Auditorium.
But his first love
was wrestling. And Crockett made
wrestling a weekly ritual in the Carolinas.
About ten years ago, however, he stopped his
practice of stepping into the wrestling
ring.
What happened was
that one of his wrestlers went berserk, and
Crockett climbed into the ring to cool him
off. The wrestler floored Crockett with one
blow.
Funeral services
will be at 10 am Tuesday at Hankins and
Whittington Funeral Chapel. A graveside
service will be at 4:30 pm Tuesday at
Glenwood Cemetery in Bristol, Tennessee, his
hometown.
He is survived by
his wife, Elizabeth, who lives at the family
home at 4023 Arbor Way. Other
survivors are a daughter, Mrs. John R.
Ringley, and sons, James Allen Crockett,
Jr., David F. Crockett, and Charles J.
Crockett, all of Charlotte, and three
brothers, Raymond Crockett of Bristol,
Tennessee, Walter E. Crockett and Claude H.
Crockett of Bristol, Virginia.
Honorary
pallbearers will be some of Crockett’s best
friends – area sportswriters, radio and TV
announcers, promoters and arena managers.
In keeping with
his wishes, friends may send memorials to
the Shriner’s Crippled Children’s Hospital
in Greenville, South Carolina, or to the
Mecklenburg Association for Retarded
Children.
That was the side
of Crockett he tried to hide from the public
– his regular signing of three-figure checks
for charities.
“That’s how I knew
him. As a quiet man who, busy as he
was, had the time to help someone in need,
to offer advice, or to help those less
fortunate,” said City Councilman Jim
Whittington.
Whittington
related a story of a friend of Crockett’s
who went broke after several bad business
ventures. “Nobody else would even speak to
him,” said Whittington. But Crockett
got the man a job at which he is “now very
successful.”
Crockett was born
on the Virginia side of the street in the
mountain town of Bristol. He played football
at Bristol High with Gene McEver and
Beattie Feathers, both of whom went on to
become All-Americans and members of
football’s Hall of Fame. It was in high
school that he began setting up boxing
”battle royals” to warm up crowds before the
main matches.
He continued on
the sideline while starring on the baseball
team at Norman Park Junior College in Norman
Park, Georgia. But he quit college when his
sideline became a main and successful
activity. Crockett came to Charlotte as a
full-time promoter a year after leaving
college.
In Charlotte, he
was a member of Joppa (Masonic) Lodge
and the Oasis (Shriners) Temple.
Charlotte
Observer NC April 1973
Dory Funk Jr. on Jim
Crockett Sr.: Jim Crockett
weighed in at 300 pounds and was a
dominating personality. He ran his territory
with authority from an old house on Morehead
Street in Charlotte, North Carolina. The
first time I met Jim, I walked into his
office as NWA world champion in my second
week. He looked at me and said, "I just want
you to know you are our champion and you are
not a f*cking recruiter for your father.
Keep your hands off my talent." I knew not
to recruit his talent. Crockett's territory
was one of the largest in that he ran four
towns a night throughout Virginia, North
Carolina, and South Carolina and kept a
large number of wrestling talent. In the Mid
Atlantic territory I faced Johnny Weaver,
Paul Jones, Bronco Lubich, and J.J. Dillon
in world title matches.
http://www.kayfabememories.com/Stories/doryfunkjr/df1-2.htm
The
Mid-Atlantic Gateway is working on a feature
to eventually be published here on the the
patriarch of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, Jim
Crocket, Sr., as well as the entire Crockett
family.
If you
have photos or biographical material related
to the Crocketts that you would like to
share with others on the Mid-Atlantic
Gateway website, please contact us at
midatlanticgateway@gmail.com .
Thanks
to Carroll Hall, Mark Eastridge, Jared
Neumark, and Peggy Lathan for their
assistance with this feature. Special thanks
also to Tim Hornbaker.
Research
by Carroll Hall, Mark Eastridge, and Dick
Bourne.
LINKS
Jim
Crockett 1940
Jim
Crockett & The Becker Brothers 1954
The
Introduction of Jim Crockett to Charlotte
Early Charlotte Booking Office Information
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