To tell the story of Mr. Wrestling II, you have to go back to August 1, 1972, to the death of Ray Gunkel, after a match with Ox Baker in Savannah, GA.
Gunkel, an amateur star at Purdue, who was part owner of the promotion and one of the states all-time most popular wrestlers dating back to the mid-50s, had returned to a full-time schedule as the company’s top babyface after Mr. Wrestling left. Gunkel dropped dead of a heart attack in the dressing room after an August 1, 1972, match with Ox Baker in Savannah at the age of 47. His widow, Ann, a much younger stunning model, had gotten Georgia wrestling strong local television on Saturday nights on Ted Turner’s WTCG (which ultimately changed the history of wrestling). After Ray died, Ann was looking to have a major say in wrestling operations.
The other owners of the territory, Paul Jones (not the famous wrestler of that time period but an aging wrestler from the 20s who had been the promoter in Atlanta as far back as anyone could remember), Lester Welch and Buddy Fuller (father of Ron and Robert Fuller, whose last name was really Welch) wanted to pretend she didn’t exist because wrestling was considered a man’s business at the time. When she kept making noise, they decided to shut her up by figuratively screwing her. They closed down the company on paper, and then reopened it under another name, without her, basically screwing her out of her percentage.
There are those who dispute the story and that she was trying to screw them from the start. The press at the time in Georgia in covering it as well as much of the talent in interviews categorized it this way, but other evidence has indicated both sides may have been trying to screw the other.
Where they miscalculated was that Ray was extremely popular among almost everyone in the company, and even in a cutthroat business as wrestling, screwing his widow so shortly after he died left most of the company up in arms.
Suddenly, on Thanksgiving morning, the day of the company’s biggest show of the year in Atlanta, an annual tag team tournament which was an automatic sellout because it took place right after a major downtown celebration, Welch, Jones and Fuller opened up the morning paper, and saw a front page story that virtually every employee and wrestler in their company was quitting and wouldn’t be appearing on their show that night, and would be working for Gunkel in her new promotion. called All South Wrestling.
With the exception of mid-card babyface Bob Armstrong, prelim wrestler Darrell Cochran, and a referee, everyone was gone. In a panic, the NWA, still a strong organization at the time, saved the day, sending in many of the biggest names from around the country to save the show, and the city. Gunkel even got all of the local promoters to side with her, except Fred Ward, who was on the fence. Ward ran weekly shows in Macon and Columbus, the latter the company’s second best market, and was given 20% of the restructured company to keep those markets on the NWA side. As a side concession to make sure he stayed with the NWA, Ward was also named Vice President of the NWA.
Atlanta turned into a war zone, with Gunkel running with all the Georgia local favorites every Tuesday night, and the NWA running every Friday night, flying in national stars from other territories. Welch and Fuller went to Florida promoter Eddie Graham for help in rebuilding. Through her close friendship with Turner, Gunkel was able to get an hour of wrestling on WTCG, creating a weird situation in a very nasty war. Both shows were taped in the same TV studio on Saturday mornings (the same studio on Techwood Drive that housed Crockett’s tapings in the 80s) where wrestlers from both companies shared dressing rooms while their respective bosses wanted to kill each other.
In order to save the Georgia market for the NWA, the various NWA promoters from around the country immediately sent their top talent to Georgia to rebuild the circuit, and would send top talent in every Friday night and Saturday morning for TV studio tapings, to win the wrestling war. It was during this period that Gordon Solie was first brought in as announcer to replace Capral, who sided with Gunkel. Solie was not brought in right away, as there was a local host that wasn’t working out, when Graham pushed for Solie, considered the best announcer in the country at the time, to be flown in every weekend from Tampa. At times this wasn’t always popular, as flying in an announcer every week plus Solie’s pay at times had the promotion thinking it was an unnecessary expense. But Solie grew so popular so quickly with the fans, that even as Jim Barnett had qualms about him at times, he didn’t dare replace him.
Graham didn’t want a piece of the new company, but suggested to the owners to cut the key stars in for small percentages of the company to keep them from jumping to the opposition. Mr. Wrestling at this point became more valuable than ever.
Mr. Wrestling Tim Woods was the state’s biggest drawing card due to a great job building him up as an unbeatable technical wrestler from his arrival in 1967. It was the same formula Eddie Graham later used with Brisco.
But he left in 1968 after feeling he was screwed on a payoff for a sellout crowd in Atlanta against world champion Gene Kiniski. The promotion then asked him to unmask, and he felt it was too early in the run and refused, and left to work in the Carolinas.
Over the next four years, nobody in Georgia had been able to draw at the level he could. Gunkel came out of retirement at one point, but then he passed away.
Graham, in trying to rebuild Georgia, cut Woods in for 2.5 percent ownership of the new company, called Georgia Championship Wrestling. Also cut in were Bill Watts, who was brought in from Oklahoma to be the booker, Buddy Colt, who was the top heel in the South and Jack Brisco, who was being groomed by the NWA to be its next world champion.
They did a program where the NWA turned Atlanta into the wrestling hotbed. Every Friday night one of the top ten contenders would come into Atlanta to try and knock Mr. Wrestling out of his supposed No. 1 contender slot. They did a string of sellouts with Mr. Wrestling beating Kiniski, Lou Thesz and Jack Brisco in succession to lead to the rematch with Dory Jr. That match had another unique finish, as Mr. Wrestling got a series of near falls, and was continually weakening Funk Jr. with the sleeper. At the 47:00 mark, suddenly, in a planned spot, the ring broke as Wrestling hit a turnbuckle and he tumbled to the floor, “injured,” and unable to continue. This was pushed on television as the fluke of all flukes. Everyone couldn’t wait for Funk Jr. to return and Atlanta finally would get its world title change.
While Atlanta was doing well with the national stars, Columbus and Macon were struggling because the national stars were working their home circuits during the week. With Woods as a regular in Florida and doing so well, Eddie Graham didn’t want to give him up. They came up with the idea of Mr. Wrestling II, with the idea he could be the babyface headliner in the other two cities. Walker, his frequent tag partner in Florida, was chosen.
They did an injury angle in Florida, where Valentine supposedly broke both arms of Walker by smashing them into the ring post. Then they did an injury angle in Georgia, where Mr. Wrestling couldn’t wrestle in the tournament to crown the new Georgia heavyweight champion that was vacant when Roberto Soto left with Gunkel, and he brought in Mr. Wrestling II, who was put over in the tournament and became an instant success.
It ended up being such a success that Wrestling II ended up becoming more popular and a bigger draw than the original. II differed from Mr. Wrestling in that he did fired up interviews, as opposed to the articulate sports style, and did far more brawling, which was new for a pure babyface in Georgia, and made fiery comebacks, building to his “million dollar kneelift” as a finisher and the catchy chants of , “2, 2, 2.”
He defeated Sputnik Monroe to win the first of his ten reigns as Georgia heavyweight champion. His first mask vs. mask match came two weeks later against Zodiac, who he unmasked as Orton Sr.
After losing the Georgia title to Watts, the booker, II & Bob Orton Jr. beat The Super Infernos on June 9, 1973, in a television match at the Atlanta studios to win the Georgia tag team titles. He then beat Watts for the Georgia title, on August 31 1973, in Atlanta, in a match with Fred Blassie as special referee.
Times were changing in Southern wrestling. The quiet babyface who was a technician and wrestled a legitimate looking wrestling match on top like Mr. Wrestling, Brisco and Funk Jr. were losing ground to the wilder talking, brawling babyfaces who got by more on charisma, squirming their bodies and dancing, like II, Wahoo McDaniel and Dusty Rhodes.
A few months later, Welch and Fuller sold their stock in Georgia Championship Wrestling to Jim Barnett, who had been promoting for years and had turned Australia into one of the hottest wrestling markets in the world, and returned stateside after getting into tax problems overseas. Watts, who never cared for Barnett, quit to become booker in Florida. Jerry Jarrett came in as booker, and his big angle was to do the unthinkable.
Woods had left Florida since it was time to move on, and it was natural for him to come full-time to rebuild Georgia, since he was established as a top draw along with being a minority owner. Jarrett had Mr. Wrestling II turn heel on Mr. Wrestling, claiming he had disgraced the sacred mask by taking it off. While most promoters weren’t following what was going on outside their territories in those days, Atlanta was different because of the wrestling war. Vince McMahon Sr. even called Barnett to tell him what a terrible idea it was because two masked men feuding in the main event would never draw .
On June 1, 1973, Mr. Wrestling was scheduled to face Dory Funk Jr. for the World title. Funk Jr., one week earlier, had dropped the title to Harley Race in Kansas City. Mr. Wrestling went on television and said that at the Omni, he would unmask before the match and then he would beat Race for the title.
The show drew a sellout 16,000 fans, the first Omni sellout and the largest wrestling crowd up to that point in time ever in the Southeast. Woods had Race in the sleeper and the bell rang, with fans thinking he won the title. Race was asleep, but it was announced the 60:00 time limit had expired before he was fully out. To show how hot things were, the previous week, on May 25, 1973, a main event of Jack Brisco & Watts vs. Mr. Wrestling I & II had dawn 11,000 fans.
Race quickly lost the title to Brisco. Brisco had moved to Atlanta from Tampa, also getting points in the company. Since he lived in Georgia, he frequently defended his title in Atlanta. Woods, pushed as the top contender, got most of the shots. Mr. Wrestling II got shots, but not nearly as many.
At first II said he deserved a shot at the title and they had a match on January 2, 1974, with the idea the winner would be the top contender. II turned heel and won the match. II then beat Ron Fuller for the Georgia title, and as a heel, lost to Brisco via DQ in Atlanta.
They had a major and successful feud, including a run of 12 straight sellouts in the City Auditorium with II on top, which is credited with winning the promotional war for the NWA. The feud climaxed with II winning a mask vs. hair match through usage of a foreign object on February 10, 1974, at the Omni. After getting his head shaved, Woods went back to wearing a mask as Mr. Wrestling, as the feeling was that Tim Woods was not as over as Mr. Wrestling was.
II was neither a face nor heel, as he teamed with faces like Armstrong and Robert Fuller, but feuded with Jack & Jerry Brisco as well as Woods.
This led to a no DQ match and no time limit match for the title against Jack Brisco on April 26, 1974, which Brisco won. He turned babyface and on May 24, 1974, went to a 60:00 draw with Brisco for the title in what was clearly backwards booking, yet still drew 13,000 fans as part of a double-main event with Andre the Giant vs. Watts.
Barnett bought out Ann Gunkel, ending the promotional war, and giving Georgia wrestling a full-time schedule as they were able to get into the cities Gunkel controlled. Jarrett returned to Tennessee since his success in Atlanta caused local promoter Nick Gulas to give him the book. Jarrett years later ended up starting and winning a promotional war with Gulas to take the territory. And Georgia Championship Wrestling got two hours every Saturday night on WTCG in Atlanta.
at Dave talking about Dr D off the top of his head for 40 minutes while Bryan sat silently on WOR 
