"This Should Be a Stinger!"

Rocky Columbo vs Larry Chene, 25 September 1953, International Amphitheatre (NWA Chicago)

Probably color is this match's outstanding feature, given that it was shot almost 67 years ago. Color film was not the norm in the early 1950s, making this TV relic a rarity. Both wrestlers are babyfaces. Rocky Columbo, in red trunks, having turned 25 just three days earlier, seems to be the crowd favorite, but it's Larry Chene, not quite 30, with a lithe muscular build ahead of its time, that takes the harder bumps.

Neither man is the pretty-boy type usually featured on this blog, but apart from a blah ending, the wrestling makes up for the lack of glamour. The draws for me are the hard body slams and the fleeting body contact, mostly armlocks and headlocks. Chene was doing high-flying maneuvers when they were still rare in the USA.

It turns out that both men died in 1964, Columbo of a drug overdose and Chene in a car wreck. I had heard of neither of them before seeing this match - though evidently they were big deals back in the day. They put up a stinger of a fight in '53.