Gagne vs Robinson

Verne Gagne vs Billy Robinson, 20 November 1974 (International Wrestling Enterprise)

I was in college at the time. My dorm mates and I battled each other in underwear on a hard tile floor. Ten times out of ten I got pummeled. We didn't see this match on TV. We weren't allowed to have a TV in our room, and even if we had one, Japanese TV was not broadcast in the USA. We didn't know this match existed. Around ten o'clock we dimmed the lights or taped flashlights to bookshelves for matches that lasted anywhere from two to ten minutes.

It was in that decade that I discovered Gagne and men like him in wrestling magazines, which were plentiful in magazine racks in gas stations and magazine shops at the time. Gagne caught my eye. Bald and soft-bellied, Gagne and other wrestlers like Jack Brisco and Dory Funk were nowhere close to the muscle gods who eventually took over TV wrestling. But they sweated hard and clung to each other in attempts to force an opponent's submission or knock his headlights out. More than leaps off the corner ropes and mike drops, I lust for unbearably long bear hugs.