Sonny Fargo holds the NWA title

A friend forwarded this photo to me he came across on Facebook. One of my favorite referees growing up was Sonny Fargo. Always dressed in colorful attire, Sonny is pictured here in a fan snapshot holding the ten pounds of gold up before the a match between Ric Flair and Blackjack Mulligan, Jr. (Barry Windham.)

NWA Referee Sonny Fargo

(We don't know the origin of the photograph. 

If you know who took the photo, we'd love to post credit here.)

www.TenPoundsOfGold.com

Harley Race Japan Covers

Japanese Magazine Covers of Harley Race wearing the Ten Pounds of Gold.

Ten Pounds of Gold (book cover)

TEN POUNDS OF GOLD

This book is a complete history of this belt, the famous ten pounds of gold, including who made it, where it was made, how it was delivered that first night it was presented, and the ceremony that awarded it to the first champion to wear it.

Plus a look at the eight NWA champions who wore it, and a complete title history of this belt from 1973-1986.

Featuring rare photographs provided by Harley Race and champion portraits from some of wrestlings great local photographers. 

www.TenPoundsOfGold.com

More Great Pretenders

...pretenders to the throne, that is.

Last September (2012), we posted some cool photos of some great pro-wrestlers who came close to getting the ten pounds of gold, but in the end fell just a bit short. Each of those wrestlers were photographed holding the gold, and as we stated before, no doubt that some fans may have left the buildings that night thinking the title had changed hands.

We came across one more, thanks to our friend Brian Rogers, who found this photo of the famous Jumbo Tsuruta with the belt after a match with Harley Race in a Japanese wrestling magazine.

Tommy "Jumbo" Tsuruta

Don't miss the other pictures that we featured in that post last September, including Bruiser Brody, Mr. Wrestling II, Wahoo McDaniel, Jerry Lawler, and Buddy Landel. (Great Pretenders)

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I know there have to be more photos like this out there. If you have a photo similar to these of someone who came close to winning the NWA title (1973-1986) and want to forward it to us, please do so using the mail link on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway or send to us via Facebook.

Check out Ten Pounds of Gold, the book that takes a close look at the 1973-1986 NWA title belt: www.TenPoundsOfGold.com

Dr. Tom Prichard: The Night Brisco Became Champion

Tom Prichard's ticket stub for wrestling at the
Sam Houston Coliseum, July 20, 1973

     While surfing the internet, I came across a great article by pro-wrestling superstar Tom Prichard on his "Doctor's Note" blog.   In his article "Harley Race vs. Jack Brisco: The Night Brisco Became NWA World Champion", Prichard looks back at the significance the date July 20, 1973 had for him in several ways, not the least of which was the historic title change between Race and Brisco, also the night the belt known as "the ten pounds of gold" was first presented to the champion.

     Prichard, who grew up in El Passo, TX, watching wrestling out of the Amarillo territory, was there in Houston that night and the pomp and circumstance surrounding the big night left a lasting impression on him. I greatly enjoyed his first hand account.

     Included in the article are images of the actual newspaper reports that week (not reproductions) as well as programs, magazines, and his row 12, seat 8 ticket stub. All very cool, indeed.

     Many of the clippings seen in Prichard's post are also featured in the "Ten Pounds of Gold" book, copies of which were provided to us by Harley Race.

     Click the link the below to go to Tom Prichard's blog and relive the night history was made in Houston.

"Harley Race vs. Jack Brisco: The Night Brisco Became NWA World Champion" 

 

Dr. Tom's blog is "The Doctor's Note" and is located here:

http://drtomprichard.blogspot.com/

 

Republished on the Domed Globe and the Mid-Atlantic Gateway in February of 2022.

Rick Rockwell Reviews

Thanks to Rick Rockwell for his great review of the "Ten Pounds of Gold" which can be found on both Examiner.com and ProRasslin.com.

Excerpt:

The 2nd edition features an additional 70 pages that includes these great photos and more chapters of informative details. However, if you still want to get the 1st edition, which is a hard cover with colored pictures, then you can order either or at the official website.

The authors do a great job setting the stage for why the belt was created, how it was introduced and who the major players were behind the title's creation. In fact, you get a detailed account on the belt's construction and all of the tweaks that were made over its existence.

Perhaps, my favorite part of the book was the introduction of the belt in 1973. The unveiling of the belt took place right before a world title match between Harley Race and Jack Brisco in Houston. The new belt received almost as much media attention as the match itself.

In addition to the details about the title's unveiling, the book also has numerous copies of newspaper articles about the championship match and the world title. I found it highly enjoyable reading the old newspaper clippings and applaud the authors for putting these clippings in the book.

Another nice feature of the book was the timelines of the wrestlers who wore the belt, the exchanging of the world title and all of the repairs done to the belt. It was a quick and easy way to peruse through wrestling history.       (FULL REVIEW)

TV Ad with Ric Flair and The Belt

A cool little TV ad from 1984 featuring Ric Flair and the Ten Pounds of Gold. (Clipping courtesy of Carroll Hall at "All Star Championship Wrestling" blog.)

"Drenched in History": Mooneyham plugs "Ten Pounds of Gold"

Thanks to Mike Mooneyham for his kind words about "Ten Pounds of Gold" at the end of his weekly column on the Charleston Post & Courier website:

A revised and expanded second edition of “Ten Pounds of Gold: A Close Look at the NWA World Championship Belt” has been released.

The book, written by Dick Bourne of the popular Mid-Atlantic Gateway website along with veteran beltmaker Dave Millican, contains a wealth of information about pro wrestling's most revered title.

This version of the 2009 volume contains 70 additional pages of photographs, memorabilia and historical information, plus a new title history chapter with behind-the-scenes details, and an expanded chapter on the night the belt was first presented and defended.

The 151-page book takes a close look at a belt that was defended by the likes of Harley Race, Jack Brisco and Ric Flair, and examines its origin, construction and evolution.
It's a must for longtime NWA fans and old-school wrestling fans in general.

The book, beautifully illustrated and drenched in history, is worth its weight in gold.
For more information, visit www.TenPoundsOfGold.com or www.midatlanticgateway.com. The book also is available on Amazon.com.

Mike Mooneyham's excellent wrestling column appears every week in the Charleston Post & Courier newspaper, and online at http://www.postandcourier.com. His column is frequently one of the featured links on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.

The column from which this plug appeared can be found here.

Reach Mike Mooneyham at 843-937-5517 or mooneyham@postandcourier.com, or follow him on Twitter at @ByMikeMooneyham and on Facebook at Facebook.com/MikeMooneyham.

NWA Champ Kerry Von Erich vs. Terry Gordy

In the image above, Kerry Von Erich hands the "ten pounds of gold" to referee Bronko Lubich before his NWA title defense against Terry Gordy in May 1984. Lubich knows the belt well; he was the referee who was first handed the new belt to Jack Brisco when it was introduced on July 20, 1973 in Houston, TX. 

In the video below, Kerry defends the NWA world championship against Terry Gordy in Ft. Worth, Texas during his three week reign as champion.

The match took place at a "Championship Sports" taping, the weekly two hour wrestling show that aired on KTVT-11 out of Fort Worth. The commentator is Marc Lowrance.

www.TenPoundsOfGold.com

A Sure Bet to be Champion?

The story has been told so many times over the last 26 years that it's accepted as fact. "Magnum T.A. was going to win the NWA title at Starrcade '86" or "Magnum T.A. was going to win the NWA title in 1987."

I think a lot of that, especially the Starrcade part, is wishful thinking by many fans over the years for a guy they love whose career was cut short by a tragic automobile accident.

Hey, not that he wasn't getting ready to get in line. But it wasn't happening then.

A sure bet to be champion? Magnum T.A. leaves the ring with the Ten Pounds of Gold
after a confrontation with champion Ric Flair on the nationally televised
"World Championship Wrestling" program in June of 1985.

There is no doubt Magnum T.A. would have been a top choice for the NWA title once it basically had become a Jim Crockett company-title by 1986, and especially with Dusty Rhodes in charge. Magnum was his guy. But it would surely have been a short term deal, similar to the Rhodes, Von Erich, Baba, and Rich reigns that came at the end of the NWA territorial years. Magnum T.A. wasn't the guy for a long term run. At least not in the NWA as existed then.

In the WWF, maybe it would have worked. The WWF booked for a babyface champion to be fed monster heels, one after the other. From Bruno to Backlund to Hogan, this had been the pattern in Magnum's era. He might have clicked as a WWF champion in that time.

But in the NWA, including the dying days of the territories and the single company Crockett era, things were booked so that charismatic babyface challengers chased the cocky heel champion, who would always barely escape with the championship in the end.

Magnum T.A. was perfect in this challenger role. He was brilliant in it, in fact, and had already proven to be so three times over in his relatively short main event career.

1. After arriving in Jim Crockett Promotions in late 1984, he chased Wahoo McDaniel for the U.S. title, and beat him cleanly in front of a crazy Charlotte crowd in March of 1985. The message was clear - Magnum had defeated a bona-fide wrestling legend in McDaniel, and it immediately propelled him into the upper tier of babyfaces in the promotion, second only to Rhodes.
2. Then in the summer and fall 1985, he chased Tully Blanchard for the same title. These two guys who were opposite sides of the same coin. It didn't come easy for him in this feud. It was a long hard five month chase that culminated in one of the most memorable Starrcade matches of them all - the 1985 "I Quit" match in Greensboro.
3. Finally, after having the U.S. title stripped from him by an overly-legislative NWA president Bob Geigle, Magnum would chase the title again in a legendary best of seven series with the "Russian Nightmare" Nikita Koloff in 1986. This was made to order during the era of the cold war: the American hero vs. the commie Russian. Magnum found himself down 0-3 in the series before heroically battling back to tie the series 3-3 in what was the best match of the series in Asheville, NC. But then the unthinkable happened. Koloff won the title in match #7 in Charlotte, once again setting up Magnum as the classic babyface challenger chasing the title. Except this time it wasn't a regional battle against venerable aging legend in Wahoo McDaniel. It wasn't a national battle seen cross-country on the Superstation against the man on the other side of the mirror in Tully Blanchard. No, this battle now seemed world wide in scope - - the U.S.A. vs. Russia. And there can be little doubt that this program, which started way back at the beginning of 1986 would culminate in Magnum's greatest triumph in at Starrcade '86. It was one of the greatest wrestling stories ever told, except sadly we never got to see the finish.

That last summary pretty much shatters the Magnum-wins-the-NWA-title at Starrcade theories, because Magnum was going to win the U.S. title back at Starrcade. And it doesn't even matter if Dusty Rhodes or Jim Crockett tried to say today that it was going to happen at Starrcade '86, I'll never be convinced that it was going to happen. Nothing about that would make any sense at all, and up until Magnum's accident in October 1986, everything about the booking in Jim Crockett Promotions made sense. 1985-1986 was a magic period where everything clicked.

My guess would be that Magnum would have likely won the title from Flair within a year or so after that, perhaps a chase that culminated with a victory at the Great American Bash or more likely Starrcade 87. Or perhaps it would have been put on Magnum for a few months to build for Flair getting it back, much like they eventually did with Ron Garvin  in 1987.

Nothing can be really known for sure. Keep in mind that during the Flair/Crockett era of the 1980s, guys that were "certain" to win the title like Barry Windham (going back to Florida in the early 80s) and Lex Luger in the late 80s, never got the strap in that era. And both were Dusty's boys just like Magnum was. Windham certainly more than Luger, the latter being an attempt to develop their own Hogan, but still both were the apple of Dusty's eye.

A sure bet to be champion? One can envision Magnum carrying the Ten Pounds of Gold, if only for a short time. The photo above lets us actually see what it might have looked like. I love photos like that.

Still, though, the best story would be Magnum chasing the belt, as was always the case.

www.TenPoundsOfGold.com

More photos of Pretenders to the Throne

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Additional edit on 10/12: In response to various posts to a Facebook thread -  Not sure how Flair was going to "drop the title to Magnum at Starrcade 86" since there was no way I can see Flair wrestling Magnum at Starrcade 86. Magnum's accident was on 10/12 (if memory serves), which was only six weeks before Starrcade. There was NOTHING at that moment in time that even had Flair and Magnum in the same time zone, much less in the main event at Starrcade. In fact all of Magnum's final interviews that were taped the weekend of the accident were focused on Jimmy Garvin, which was to run a few weeks to keep him out of the ring with Nikita. He was most surely going to face Nikita at Starrcade to get the U.S. belt back, a match Dusty had meticulously booked toward since February of that year. Six weeks out, he wasn't going to put Magnum with Flair completely out of nowhere and abandon the Magnum/Nikita program, which was solid gold at that time. Like was stated in the article above, perhaps sometime in 1987, but not at Starrcade '86.

Classic Audio: Terry Funk confronts Paul Jones

Baltimore Jack · NWA Champ Terry Funk confronts U.S. Champ Paul Jones (1976)

"In the Tiger's Den"

On the February 14, 1976 episode of Jim Crockett Promotions' "Wide World Wrestling" television show, host Ed Capral interviews NWA world champion Terry Funk. Funk was frustrated with the fact that Paul Jones held a victory over him which took place only a few weeks before Funk won the NWA title from Jack Brisco.

That victory was on the annual Thanksgiving night show at the Greensboro Coliseum when Jones pinned Funk to win the United States Heavyweight Championship. Jones' win paired with the title made him the undisputed number one contender for Terry Funk's NWA World Championship.

In this vintage audio recording, Funk calls out Paul Jones and a brief confrontation occurs. It takes place during the 2-minute "halftime" interview segment of the program. This is a classic Terry Funk promo during his reign as champion.

Republished in May 2021 on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.

www.TenPoundsOfGold.com