Terry Funk with Les Thatcher

In 1976, Les Thatcher conducted a number of promotional interviews with NWA World Heavyweight champion Terry Funk which would appear later during the "halftime" interview slot in the Mid-Atlantic and Wide World Wrestling TV shows. The promos would only be seen in markets where Funk was set to defend the NWA title. At that time his number one challengers in the Mid-Atlantic territory were Paul Jones and Wahoo McDaniel.

Salvador Lutteroth - Father of the Ten Pounds of Gold

Don Salvador Lutteroth (right), the father of Lucha Libre, with his son Hector (left). Photo from EFE

Salvador Lutteroth (at right in the photo above), the legendary Mexican professional wrestling promoter, was known as "the father of lucha libre." He is also known here at the Domed Globe website as the father of the "Ten Pounds of Gold."

Lutteroth commissioned Mexican jeweler Manual Sabala to make the famed belt for NWA president Sam Muchnick. Sabala is credited for designing the famously familiar "domed-globe" design that was prevalent on so many of the Mexican wrestling championship belts of that era.

Born in 1897, Lutteroth founded the wrestling organization Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL) in 1933 after first seeing a pro-wrestling exhibition in El Paso, Texas a couple years earlier. That company evolved into CMLL ( Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre) which combined is the longest running single pro-wrestling promotion in the world.

During his time, Lutteroth was the most powerful man in wrestling in the country of Mexico and one of the most powerful wrestling executives in the world. By 1973, when the domed-globe belt was presented to Muchnick, Lutteroth's son was generally running things in the company and had received NWA sanction for the NWA world welterweight and light-heavyweight championships.  The belt that represented the world light heavyweight title was nearly identical in design to the belt that would represent the heavyweight title in 1973. It is generally thought the world belt was a gift to Muchnick and the NWA from the Lutteroths, as they liked staying in good graces with the NWA president.

His influence on the image of the NWA title is immense. That image still exists today in the modern NWA title belt.

Salvador Lutteroth passed away in 1987.

Paco Lutteroth: https://lastwordonprowrestling.com/2019/07/07/cmll-owner-paco-alonso-passes-away-at-67/

Jerry Brisco a Top Contender for the Harley Race's NWA TItle (1973)

Jerry Brisco and "Big" Bill Ward at WBTV studio in Charlotte, NC

The following is an excerpt from Les Thatcher's "Wrestler's Eye View" in Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Magazine from July 1973. The subject was Jerry Brisco, one of the top singles stars at the time for Jim Crockett Promotions.

JERRY BRISCO has set out to recapture the Eastern Heavyweight Championship Belt taken from him earlier in the vear by OLE ANDERSON. There have been some classic battles between Jerry and Ole. Jerry may detour briefly to get a shot at New N.W.A. Worlds Champ
HARLEY RACE.

Most wrestling experts felt that Jerry's brother Jack would be the man to dethrone kingpin of 4 years DORY FUNK JR. But Race pulled it off in Kansas City. Jerry would like to be the one to bring the World's Belt into the Brisco family.

Les wrote that column in late June of 1973, just a matter of weeks before Jerry Brisco's brother Jack defeated Harley Race for the NWA title in Houston. 

NWA Champion Harley Race with Gordon Solie

Kerry Von Erich Tours Florida as NWA Champion (1984)

When Kerry Von Erich won the NWA World title in 1984, he fulfilled the appearance contracts of the previous champion Ric Flair, which included dates in the state of Florida for Championship Wrestling from Florida. 

NWA Champ Kerry with Coach John Heath on the set
of Championship Wrestling from Florida

The magazine from Japan seen below features a photo on the cover taken during that Florida tour of Kerry sporting the Ten Pounds of Gold with Florida heavyweight champion Billy Jack Haynes.  

Originally published on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway, June 2022

www.TenPoundsOfGold.com

Thanks to Brian Rogers for providing the cover image.

"Ten pounds of PURE gold, buddy!"

Gene Gordon Photo / c. Ditchcat Photography

No champion ever spoke more reverently of the NWA World Championship belt than Handsome Harley Race.

Ric Flair: "And Then It Was My Turn."

By Dick Bourne
Mid-Atlantic Gateway

On Monday night May 8, 2000, Ric Flair appeared on WCW Monday Nitro on TNT and brought with him the old NWA World Heavyweight championship belt that he wore beginning in 1981 when he defeated Dusty Rhodes until February of 1986 when the belt was replaced by the famous "Big Gold" version of the NWA title.

It was a big surprise and a very nostalgic moment for fans from the 1970s and 1980s who so connected with the "ten pounds of gold", which was the top title and top belt in all of professional wrestling during the territory years.

Nitro was in St. Louis, MO, that night, historically the most important city on the National Wrestling Alliance map. Flair spoke generally about how important it was to work there for Sam Muchnick if you wanted to become NWA champion one day. He also spoke eloquently about seeing that belt for the first time.

That had to be a very cool moment for old-school fans of St. Louis wrestling.

Here is a transcript of Flair's remarks as they pertained to the "ten pounds of gold."

"In the year nineteen hundred and seventy eight, Terry Funk told me if I wanted to be a star in this business I had to get to St. Louis on Friday night. You know what I'm talkin' about. I had to be at the Kiel or The Arena, I had to be live at the Chase, I had to be in St. Louis if I wanted to be a star.

And then I saw this for the first time. It was around the waist of the legendary Jack Brisco. And I said, "Jack, do you think I could ever be World champion?" He said, "Kid, keep workin'. Work at it every day and every night and maybe by the grace of God you might get it some day.

And then there was Terry Funk, and then it was Harley Race, and then it was Dusty Rhodes.

And then it was my turn.

And this is what we all desired to have and be, the World Heavyweight championship. We gave up everything. We gave up life, we gave up our families, we worked every day, we partied all night. We were the champions of the World. The best this sport had to offer."

 

That episode of WCW Monday Nitro is currently available on demand on the Peacock Network. The interview with Flair is at approximately 25:20 into the program.

A very bright moment during a really sad time in WCW.

This post was originally published on the "Domed Globe" website in May of 2019, and republished on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway in May of 2023.