Jammie Ward

Jammie Ward is a life-long fan of professional wrestling, and has dabbled in the newsletter scene with his own "The Squared Circle," and was a popular tape trader in the mid '80's. Jammie was also a frequent participant in the UAWF fan conventions of the 1980's, and maintained friendships with various tape traders and promoters in wrestling, including Dennis Coralluzzo.

You can follow Jammie on Twitter @JammieWard

## Episode 20 - Transcript (from the Dennis of the Week)

*So Jammie, how did you first meet Dennis?*

**Jammie:** Well. I met Dennis through a guest of yours a few months ago – one
Thomas Robinson. Tom went to some show over in New Jersey and said “You’ll
never believe who I met. I met this guy, Dennis Coralluzzo-“ I don’t know who
the name is. He said “You know, from the radio show that Joel Goodhart used to
have.” Dennis used to call with a bad-guy personality every week, and he was
Dennis the Menace. He just harassed Joel and his partner Carmella Panfil – that
was her name – and it was called Rasslin’ Radio. Carmella and Joel then turned
around and they started doing a lot of promotion for a guy who’s name was John
Burzichelli, and he was doing the Lawler / Idol Cage Match, where Tommy Rich gets
involved.

*Oh, the VHS Cassette of it.*

**Jammie:** Yes, OK. So they started promoting that, and next thing you know,
they’re running the trip to Memphis. So I said to Tom, “Let’s go.” So we went
down to the trip, and here, Dennis was on the trip also. Tom introduced me to
Dennis, and, you know, I was hanging around with him but I really wasn’t that
tight with him, but after that trip was over, Tom started going over to the
Monster Factory all the time. I’d go along, Tom would go here, there; we
started attending all the different shows that Dennis and Larry (Sharpe) were
doing, and just as time went on, I got tighter with Dennis; fabulous guy.
Greatly missed. A one of a kind individual, that’s the best way to describe
Dennis.

*When do you next run into Dennis after the Memphis trip?*

**Jammie:** After the Memphis trip, um, Tom and I probably went to a show – matter
of fact, I can tell you that where it was. It was at the Salem County Farmers Market,
and they had – not farmers market, a farm show. Larry and Dennis were putting
on a show that night, and that’s when I met Dennis for the next time, and it
just continued after that. I just kept going to the shows with Tom and just got
tighter with Dennis as time went on, and next thing you know, we’re going over
to Dennis’ house to watch videos and then going out to dinner and just all
kinda stuff.

*I know you have some stories about times you’ve traveled with Dennis and things that you’ve witnessed around Dennis – what are some of the good ones you can recall?*

**Jammie:** Well, I’ll start off with my best Dennis story that I have, and then
we’ll cycle back. 1990 – I’m going to Memphis with him as part of one of the
Joel Goodhart trips, and Dennis said to me – I’m gonna try to do my Dennis
voice here – “Hey man, I don’t feel like getting up that early in the morning.
The frickin flight’s at 7 o clock! You’re up early anyway, you’re a frickin’
mailman. Why don’t you go down there, get the tickets, and then go back home
and I’ll meet you down there about 10:30/11 o’clock?” I said “Dennis, how are
we gonna get another flight? This flights-“ “Don’t worry about it man, I’ll
take care of it. I’ll take care of it.” (laughing) So I go down, I meet Joel
outside the, where you go in, and he gives me the plane tickets and he says “Are
you sure you and Dennis are going to fly later?” and I said “Hey, that’s what
Dennis wants to do,” and he says “Ok, we’ll see you down there.” So I’m waiting
outside US Air, and sure enough, here comes Dennis, pulling up about 11
o’clock. He gets out and I said “What do we do now?” “Well whatever I say, just
follow with me man. Don’t’ worry about it! Just nod your head, say yes.” So we
go into the ticket counter and some young girl is in there, and he says “Hey,
hey honey. Lookie here. Me and my buddy here, we gotta get to Memphis and we
missed our early morning flight.” I’m sorry sir, but there’s nothing we can do
for you, and Dennis goes “Uh, listen here, sweetie: you see this guy here and myself?
We’re heart surgeons. We HAVE to be in Memphis by 2 o’clock this afternoon! You
gotta get us out of here as soon as possible!” and she’s like “Really?”
“Listen, listen. Would I lie to you? Look at me – I’m, I’m, I’m dressed in a
suit! I wouldn’t lie to you!” Next thing you know, she’s calling a supervisor
over, click click click – not ONLY do we get on the next flight, ‘cause we only
have carry-on baggage, we don’t need to check anything, the next flight is in
20 minutes and they put us in 1st class!

*Oh wow. (laughing)*

**Jammie:** On a flight to Memphis, and it’s even better than that, because not
only did he finagle for that, he finagled 1st class for us coming
back the following Tuesday – this is a Thursday or Friday morning, and he
finagles for us coming back the following Tuesday morning.

*That’s amazing. (laughing)*

**Jammie:** Him and I fly First Class both ways.

*What do the rest of the gang think when you get to Memphis and everyone had that early morning flight and you know, you waited and you end up flying First Class –when you tell everyone that story, what are they saying?*

**Jammie:** Oh, well I wasn’t allowed to tell that story! (laughing)

*Oh, OK! (laughing)*

**Jammie:** Dennis said “When we get there-“ Well, first of all, Dennis doesn’t
hang with groups – how did he word it – in today’s political correctness, I
don’t want to say the wrong thing. Dennis didn’t want to be with Joel Goodhart’s
‘special people.’ You can probably figure out what he said – every other word
was usually eff’in that. (laughing) So not only did we show up late, we had our
own hotel – hotel room – at a separate hotel because he didn’t want to mingle
with Joel’s ‘special people.’ Even though we did, he didn’t want to stay in the
same place. He – we rented our own van, did our own thing, and that was a, just
an awesome weekend. Also who stayed with us when we were there was the late
Brian Hildebrand.

*Oh yeah, I was friends with Brian.*

**Jammie:** Brian Hildebrand and most of the weekend we spent with Brian, Eddie
Gilbert, and Sam Lowe. So, you know, there’s 5 of us and I’m the only one left,
unfortunately.

*Anything else funny happen during that trip?*

**Jammie:** Aw, what didn’t happen during that trip? Well, the first one was, the
next day we went to the Memphis TV tapings at the studio, and – like I said –
we didn’t go with the rest of them. Dennis likes to make the big entrance, so
we get there after they’re all in, and we come walking in the front doors of
the studio, and Dennis is like “Where’s Lawler, man?! I’m gonna sue that mother
– beep beep beep,” (laughing) and then we find our way through the studio. We
wind up meeting with Gilbert, and Gilbert tells Brian and I to make sure we sit
in the front row – Dennis stayed in the back with the talent. He didn’t’ come
out and sit in the audience. So, anyway, just real quick: Gilbert tells us to
sit in the front row, and tells Hildebrand “When I call you up, come up to the
podium.” So Gilbert’s doing some kind of interview, you know, ripping – or how
much he loves the Memphis fans but he hates Jerry Lawler. He brings Brian – Brian
yells “Yeah Eddie!” and he brings Brian up, and he has Brian take a picture of
him, and then he goes to shake Brian’s hand, he winds up slapping Brian across
the face. (laughing) So Brian takes that epic dive down to the ground, and then
I’m allowed to get up and I gotta go help Brian and bring him back to the
bench. After the TV taping, we go to a Piggly Wiggly to eat, and Dennis is
telling Eddie “Man, this food is just horrible, man! Don’t they have any good,
like, BBQ places around here?” Eddie says “You want good BBQ?” “Yeah man, I
want some good BBQ!” So we get into the van, and Eddie says “I’ll take you to
good BBQ.” Eddie takes us to this worst section of Memphis – we park the van,
and Dennis is like “I’m gonna have to make sure I lock the doors here because
I’m not paying for this van if it gets stolen!” and Eddie said “Don’t worry.
These are my people – don’t worry about anything.” We park, we walk around a
corner and up an alley. We get halfway up the alley and here is a lady who
sells Ribs out her kitchen window. She had two picnic benches set up, and I’ll
be damned if they weren’t the best ribs I’ve ever eaten in my life. (laughing)
Um. Another story from that weekend – we had gone to, oh! Later on that night,
Lawler’s supposed to ride with us to go to Nashville, and we’re supposed to
meet him at some place at 5’o clock. Well, it’s almost 5:30, and Dennis is
saying to Hildebrand and I “You know what, I think the guy’s stiffin’ us! He
don’t wanna ride with us! I’m leavin’!” and Brian and I are like “Dennis, no,
you gotta stay. He’s comin’,” and he goes “F him – I’m leavin’!” We left
without Lawler, and we drive to Nashville, and we go in and we start mingling
around and stuff, and we get introduced to Eddie Marlin’s wife. Dennis says to
her “Hey, Mrs. Marlin…I bet you were pretty hot in your day. You’re really hot
now!” (laughing) She kinda blushes and is like “Oh! Well thank you.” He goes
“Oh I really mean it!” So we continue to mingle around some more and stuff, and
here comes Lawler. He says “Dennis! How come you guys didn’t wait for me?!”
“Aw, Jer! Jer! It’s not my fault – these guys didn’t want to wait around for
ya!” and he points to me and Hildebrand, and we just look at each other “Really
Dennis??” Dennis had never taken the blame for anything! (laughing). Alright –
this was just a great weekend all together. The next night, we’re driving back
from Nashville and we go to the show in Jackson. After the show in Jackson, we
stop at a Shoney’s, and after the Jackson show, somehow we added Sweet Daddy
Falcone for the ride, and some Spanish wrestler – I wanna say his name was Aldo
Marino? Um-

***(**That’s Ricky Santana, isn’t it?**)***

**Jammie:** It wasn’t Ricky Santana but the guy was wrestling underneath that name,
and I forget what it was, but he was working both the Dallas and the Memphis
part, and he was going back and forth. Anyway, long story short-

***(**Chico Torres?**)***

**Jammie:** That’s it. I think that was his name. We stop at a Shoney’s and we’re
sitting there eating, and all these waitresses – like four of them – are all
gathered and looking at our table. They come over to give the bill, and the one
girl goes to Sweet Daddy Falcone first, “Are you Brutus Beefcake?” That’s all
Dennis needed to hear, and he looked around and goes “Hey, honey. Yeah! That’s
Brutus Beefcake! You see this guy right here? He’s Tito Santana – you know who
that is, right?” and then he points over at me and goes “See that guy right
there? That guy’s Paul E. Dangerously – the world famous wrestling manager!”
and he tells the girl that Hildebrand is Eddie Gilbert, and that he is Gene
Okerlund.

*(laughing) Cause he had his mustache at the time!*

**Jammie:** Yes, he had his mustache at that time! (laughing) They wind up giving
us the meal for free but we leave them a hundred dollar tip out of all of us. We
didn’t stiff ‘em, but (laughing) that’s Dennis at his best, right there.

*Aw man.*

**Jammie:** The next night – now Dennis had told me before that one of the purposes
of him going on his thing was that he was gonna start a new angle with Lawler,
and this time, he is playing a lawyer for the estate of Andy Kaufman. I don’t
– you guys ever hear about that angle?

*I’m not sure – I know the ‘92 stuff he did with Fred the Elephant Boy and Kid Vicious at the illegitimate children of Jerry Lawler-*

**Jammie:** It never made television down there, but I guess they didn’t like his
promo in the ring that night. So that Monday night, we’re in Mid-South Coliseum
and – or, that afternoon, Dennis told me to put on the best clothes I brought
with me, so I did. We get to the arena and he gives me a pair of sunglasses and
he says “Come on, let’s go; it’s our turn” and I said “What are you talking
about?” and he says “Hey man, you’re gonna go down to the ring with me. I’m
gonna tell Lawler how it is!” I wound up standing with him – like his bodyguard
– in the Mid-South Coliseum and he’s talking, calling them the Memphis rednecks
with their no intelligence down here, I have more teeth in my mouth than the
rest of all the audience does together, you know; every slur that he can say. He
talks about how he is a lawyer representing the estate of Andy Kaufman and
he’s gonna sue Jerry Lawler for every penny he’s got, and while he’s at it, he
might even take this promotion and bring real New Jersey wrestling to Memphis
because it’s 100x better. The next thing I know, we’re getting pelted with
trash (laughing) and that’s when he grabs me and says “Hey man, we better get
the f out of here now.” We make the bee-line to the locker room (laughing).

*And they decided not to air it, you said.*

**Jammie:** Evidently they never aired it, yeah. I never got a, you know, copy of
it or anything. He would have given me a copy if he had gotten it, so that was
that one weekend in Memphis. It was – it was something else. I have great
memories of Dennis; ‘lotta great times. The man – I know I’ve said it a couple
times already – the man was great, and truly missed.

## Episode 21 - Transcript (Dennis of the Week addendum)

*Jammie, what’s the famous story of Dennis meeting Nate the Rat?*

**Jammie:** Nate. The ‘Effin. Rat. As Dennis would say. We’re at the UAWF
convention in Memphis in 1988. I wanna say that we’re coming back from the TV
studio back to the hotel, and Dennis is in the front seat. In the back was
myself sitting behind Dennis and then Frankie the Thumper I believe was there,
and he was sitting behind the cab driver. This guy’s talking and, you know, him
and Dennis are kibitzing back and forth and I tap Dennis on the shoulder and
say to Dennis (whispering) “You know who that is?” Dennis says “No, who is it?”
“That’s Nate the Rat – the former manager.” He goes “Get outta here! Hey buddy,
are you Nate the Rat?” He goes “Yeah, I used to be a manager here!” The rest is
history – we get back to the hotel and he tells Nate “Aw man, they misused you
down here! I’m gonna bring you up to New Jersey – I’m gonna make a legend outta
you!” (laughing) So we get back to the hotel and I have pictures of us with
Nate the Rat right after the ride, and then he comes back later in the evening
because we were having something, and he brings Keith Eric with him. Keith Eric
was a cab driver also, so we got pictures with Nate and Keith Eric, and then
the next night is, like, the big ceremony of the weekend, and here comes –
Dennis talks Nate in showing up in full costume, and Nate shows up (laughing),
including Paul E. Dangerously making fun of Nate about never having a career to
begin with. Here, Dennis, after that was true to his word. He flew Nate up a
couple times to his shows in Jersey and Nate got good heat, believe it or not.

## Episode 28 - Transcript (Interview)

*So Jammie, I know you had a newsletter called ‘The Squared Circle’ from 1983 to 1990. Tell us a little bit about that – what made you want to start a newsletter and how did you get it going?*

**Jammie:** Well, what made me want to really start my own was back in the early
80s, I’d read the wrestling news and wrestling revue magazines, and, you know,
and the other magazines – they always had the pen pal sections. But, this one
had different newsletters that people were doing from all over the country, so
I would subscribe to a couple. There was Scott Dickinson’s WWF Happenings, Ron
Lemieux’s Arena Report…I think a guy named Bob Klassen used to do one out of
Ohio called ‘Mat Results’ I think it was? I used to get one from a guy that
lived in Dulward (sp.) County outside of Philadelphia called ‘Leonard Orner’s
Wrestling Corner,’ where he would just list results from all these different
promotions and I remember just how great it was – instead of waiting 2-3 months
in a magazine to find out what’s happening in the other promotions, here I was
getting it a week or two later; I thought that was just great. So finally 1983
rolls around, and I’m like “You know what? I’m gonna do my own,” and it was
real simple: I would just do the weekly WWF TV results, Georgia Championship
Wrestling TV results, and the Spectrum or wherever else I was finding stuff out
from. I started advertising in the Wrestling News, people would contact me – as
a matter of fact, I was doing it I think for free in the beginning; just send
me a self-addressed stamped envelope because it would only be like a page or
two. Next thing I know, I’m meeting correspondents from all over the country
who are all sending me results from their promotions, and I eventually morphed
from just results into a quick little news section about what was happening in
each promotion, and I just let it – you know; it went on for 7 years. I had a
good run: met a lot of nice people – including, as time went on, the same names
that I saw doing the newsletters morphed into things like the UAWF convention
both in 88 and 89 and went to there; met a lot of great friends which I’ve
reconnected on Facebook lately through the ‘Cool Kids of Wrestling and MMA’
Facebook page. Back to my newsletter: it gradually grew with the more people
that I had giving me information, and there’s one guy who I used to trade tapes
with back in this time named Larry Liable, who was from Hillsville, VA, and he
ended up doing a thing called ‘The History of JCP’ – Jim Crockett Promotions –
and he would do, like, re-cap 2 or 3 months from 1973. He had notes that he had
written as a kid and I put that into the newsletter, and that kinda took ‘The
Square Circle’ to kinda like the next level because I was getting all kind of
requests now, because they wanted to read the history of JCP. As a matter of
fact, I got a call one day from Bill Apter because he wanted to get a hold of
Larry Liable to find out all this old information on Jim Crockett Promotions.
After that, Brian Trammel and I had become friends again through tape trading
and through the newsletter. I kinda gave him half the newsletter and he would
do half of it, I would do half of it, and we even got more popular. We probably
reached our top around 1988, but then, you know, life starts getting in the way
– you don’t have time to do things – and probably by the beginning of ’90, I’d
shut it down.

*Did you interact at all with the other newsletter writers that were out there at the time – the Dave Meltzer’s, Wade Keller’s who were starting up in the late 80's?*

**Jammie:** Absolutely! As a matter of fact, Dave in the beginning – I’ll show you
what kinda guy Dave was: I had this stupid little newsletter and he’s trading
me the Observer for my newsletter at the time. So, you know, so did Keller back
in the beginning, and that’s how I met a lot of these guys; just through the
newsletter. Mike Rodgers used to do Pacific Northwest wrestling news: I still
talk to him every now and then.

*‘Ring Around The Northwest’.*

**Jammie:** Yes – Ring Around The Northwest; that was it.

*You mentioned tape-trading: when did you start trading tapes and what were you trading?*

**Jammie:** I guess it was around 1983 I got my first VCR – my parents bought it
for me for, I guess it was my 16th birthday? Yeah; my 16th
birthday. So I started putting advertisements along with my newsletter, I’d
advertise that I wanted to trade tapes, and that’s how I met this guy Larry
Laible – he wanted movies, and I had the Prism Network, where the Spectrum
Wrestling would be shown. So, he would send me stuff from Mid Atlantic and other
stuff that he was trading for, and I would send him the Spectrum Wrestling
shows along with 2 or 3 movies that I would copy off of Prism each month. So he
was one of the first guys, and then from placing that ad in the wrestling news,
I think I ended up trading with about 20 different people at one time from ’83
right up through the mid 90’s I was still trading tapes.

*And in those early days, it was mostly Spectrum WWF shows?*

**Jammie:** Yes – that I was trading off; yes.

*What were the tapes that you specifically looked for and were trying to get?*

**Jammie:** I just wanted any promotion. I had a Florida supplier; I had a
Mid-South supplier; I had a World Class supplier; I had a Northwest supplier;
AWA supplier; WWA with the old Dick the Bruiser. I was getting regular tapes
from Southwest; A guy named Roy Kukik (sp.) out of Calgary, AB, used to send me
all the Stampede stuff after Vince bought it and he allowed Stu Hart to start
back up again when they had Muraco and the Junkyard Dog there. I had, you know,
weekly episodes of all that stuff.

***(**I actually used to trade tapes with Roy too, like 10-12 years ago?**)***

**Jammie:** Oh, okay! So he still goin’ strong! (laughing)

***(**He stuck around for a while, yeah.**)***

**Jammie:** Yeah – good for him.

***(**Is there anything you remember getting back then – or you still have or whatever – that you’ve noticed has not shown up on YouTube or among people that trade DVDs or anything like that?**)***

**Jammie:** Um – you know what, it’s been a long time since I looked at my tapes.
As a matter of fact, I sold off my collection back in the – I wanna say – 1999;
I sold all my tapes off. But, there was a couple that I made copies of and just
kept for myself, but yeah. I’m sure I have stuff that never aired on YouTube.

***(**Was there a certain promotion that became your favorite as you were trading for tapes of stuff from either that wasn’t from the Northeast or on cable here, or whatever?**)***

**Jammie:** Mid-South was the best; love Mid-South and of course, Memphis. Now, the
tapes that – I had a guy named Richard Vicek out of Chicago that I used to
trade with, and he would trade me instead of the entire Memphis shows, it would
be “Best Of” highlights – that way, you wouldn’t have all the squashes – but he
would send me a list with everything, and those tapes were just gold. I had
stuff from, I wanna say, 82 right up through ’85 that were all Best Of, and
that was the stuff I looked forward to the most; the Memphis and the Mid-South.
But, the Mid-South was complete shows.

***(**Back then, were there any fans that were, like, anti-Memphis like people in the business were and occasionally you’ll find some fans who are now, or back then, were most of the newsletter and tape trading fans pretty heavily into Memphis?**)***

**Jammie:** Heavily into Memphis. Really, only WWF got bad reviews. Every other
promotion (laughing) – you know – because back then, Vince was doing squash!
You know, squash matches, and then when you’re introduced to - like myself, I
first watched wrestling back in ’74 or ’75. I have a half-brother that used to
come up and spend weekends with us every now and then, and he was 10 years
older than me and he watched wrestling, so I’d watch it with him. Then, here
one Sunday night, I just – in my bed – and my parents let me watch TV until I
fell asleep; here I’m watching an interview with Stan Hansen with a tombstone
of Bruno Sammartino. It was right after he broke his neck, but here, it wasn’t
a WWF show – it was Florida Championship Wrestling being aired in Philadelphia.

***(**Did you get it off the New Jersey TV Station, or did you-**)***

**Jammie:** No, no. I wanna say it was on Channel 17 in Philadelphia at the time,
and it was on Sunday nights at 10 o’clock, and I watched that for a little bit
and then I kinda drifted away from wrestling again. Then, in ’77 – yeah, what
year did Backlund win the belt? 77 or 78?

*’78.*

**Jammie:** OK. In 1978, my neighborhood finally got cable television and we got
Prism, and the first show – I remember how excited I was to start watching
wrestling again - because I knew the shows were live on Prism - and the first
show I ever watched was the Bruno / Graham cage match where Bruno kicks Graham
out the door.

***(**Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that around on video tape or anything either.**)***

**Jammie:** Oh yeah – I have it. That was one of the tapes I kept. I have a guy
that was a friend of my dad’s that gave my dad a tape to give to me that had a
bunch of these Spectrum matches on from ’78, ’79, and ’80.

*Wow.*

**Jammie:** And that’s one of the matches that’s on there, and then I kinda got –
watched WWF for a couple of years, and then in ’81, we got TBS so I got hooked
into Georgia Championship Wrestling. Right around the same time, there was a
station called the Satellite Program Network – SPN?

***(**Yes – which later became Tempo.**)***

**Jammie:** Yes. Well, every Saturday afternoon, they aired – like at 1 or 2
o’clock - World League Wrestling presented by Lars Anderson, and it would have
matches on from Mid-South, Lanny Poffo’s – or Angelo Poffo’s – ICW; there’d be
some matches mixed in there; a little bit of Florida’d be mixed in. Then, on
Sunday nights – almost the same time, 9 or 10 o’clock – they had Florida
Championship Wrestling on there for a year or so. Also, (laughing), there was a
Spanish station out of Philadelphia, and they’d air the L.A. Sports Arena shows
right around the same time, and that ended up going off the air, I wanna say,
in ’84 when they had the World Cup; it got preempted – wrestling got preempted
for the world cup and never did come back. I think LeBell closed his promotion
up around the same time.

***(**There used to be a guy who had a lot of that later stuff on YouTube – which, like, I think Brian – you would agree with me on this – had NEVER shown up anywhere before, right?**)***

*Yeah, for the most part; yeah.*

***(**I guess you’d say ‘81 to ‘83 Los Angeles?**)***

*Oh yeah; yeah. That stuff you never saw around and all of a sudden, it popped up on YouTube.*

***(**Then the guy got rid of his YouTube channel for some reason and no-one had thought to download any of it.**)***

**Jammie:** Oh really. Well, was it in Spanish or was it in English?

***(**It was the usual Spanish with English interviews type of deal they did, I think.**)***

**Jammie:** Yes – that’s what this was; with Jeff Walton doing interviews.

*Yeah.*

***(**Yeah. I thought that stuff was interesting because even though there are less ‘stars’ and name Americans or whatever than previous years in L.A., it’s like a weird mix of guys coming in from Mexico. I think it was Chris Adams’ first territory in the US.**)***

**Jammie:** When I used to watch, Adams was there, and what really threw me for a loop
when I was watching that was that I wasn’t really smart yet: here was Freddie
Blassie kissing babies on the show. He was going to do one more match for John
Tolos – that’s what they were building up for – and how popular Blassie was,
and it threw me for a loop. Here he’s hated, but he’s loved in California.
Also, like you said, there was Chris Adams was on there, and they had that
gimmick of the Monster – somebody dressed like Herman Munster?

*Yes. I think that won the Observer Award for “Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic” in 1982.*

**Jammie:** Probably of all time! (laughing)

***(**Although, doesn’t Dave explain it now when people ask that the reason that it won was not that it because it was a stupid gimmick, but because they said the promotion actually had the monster built as opposed to the manager?**)***

*I don’t know (laughing).*

***(**Apparently that’s the distinction, though – that the promotion had the monster created.**)***

*In those early days of tape-trading, Jammie – what was the quality like on the tapes that you were receiving from people?*

**Jammie:** I was getting pretty decent quality. I mean, every now and then you’d
get a tape that was obviously 5th or 6th generation
because you’d have all the – what’s the word I’m looking for – the tracking
lines going through the bottom. But, you know, for the most part, I was dealing
with people who were doing the same as me – recording right off the original;
the original airing. So, for the most part, I was getting good stuff.

*Who did you trade with the most?*

**Jammie:** Probably Larry Laible out of Hillsville, VA. I also – later on down the
line – did some business with Johnny McAdam, who wound up being a big tape guy,
and then Brian Tramel, Roy Kukik (sp.), John Carrish (sp.) – a guy out of San
Francisco – used to be my AWA supplier. Aw man – I just tripped into another
guy through Facebook the other day: a guy named Jack Lefsito (sp.) from
Minnesota that I used to do some trading with in the 90’s when I was one of the
only guys around – as stupid as it sounds – that was getting ECW when it first
came out, and I was trading that stuff off for, like, Japan or Mexico. That’s
where my interests went into the 90’s; that kinda stuff.

***(**Now, what – I guess – as far as you know, where did some of the people who were, I guess, taping their local shows: did they disappear over the years? Because I mean, most of the time when we find people who, even if they had big collections or whatever, it’s not usually people who were the original source of something. It’s a very occasional thing where you track someone down who – oh, this is the guy who taped all the Memphis, this is the guy who taped all the Mid-South, this is the guy who taped all the Texas stuff. You were saying that most of the people who you were trading with were, if not, everyone’s source, then were people who were a source as far as taping themselves. Where did all these people go? Did they just kinda disappear from wrestling fandom, or what?**)***

**Jammie:** Probably. They probably just didn’t have – drifted away. Think about
it: back in the ‘80's, I remember buying 10 tapes for $100 bucks. I mean, it
wasn’t – it was an expensive thing back then!

***(**That actually sounds cheap by ‘80's standards, though. I mean, with later – because I’m thinking about people who were charging $20 or whatever in the '90's or early 2000’s and stuff.**)***

**Jammie:** Naw, I mean – when I say a hundred bucks, I mean for the blanks.

***(**Oh, for the blanks! (laughing) I got confused for a second.**)***

**Jammie:** Well, let me rephrase that – not so much what you’re buying from
people, but just to buy the blanks, they were almost 10 bucks.

***(**Right, right – then they were $20 as high as early '80's?**)***

**Jammie:** Yeah. So maybe that had something to do with it.

*So Jammie, here you are – you have a newsletter, you’re trading tapes with all these different people: what is it like at a UAWF convention or in Memphis – wherever it may be – where you actually come face to face and finally meet these people you had been corresponding with?*

**Jammie:** Oh, it was great because, like you said, someone that you have talked
to over the phone and make these tape deals, some of them that you’ve never
even – you’ve only ever corresponded through writing. It was really neat to
meet all these people that you felt like you already knew, but you had never
met, and everybody just – I mean, there was people that just obviously just
didn’t get along, but for the most part, it was a brotherhood and people just
connected. There’s still people back from those days that I lost track of for a
number of years, but then with the advent of the internet going on different
wrestling websites and stuff, I’ve reconnected with guys who really became good
friends back in the day and it’s great to be able to reconnect and talk to ‘em
today, especially with the advent of Facebook. You know; made a lot of great
friends.

*And in the days when you had your newsletter, what was your favorite newsletter?*

**Jammie:** (sigh) I mean, obviously The Observer was the best; Keller’s was good,
but my own personal favorite newsletter was Mat Watch by Steve Beverly. I think
that was the name of his – Mat Watch.

***(**Yep.**)***

**Jammie:** OK. Steve Beverly’s was my favorite, and Steve was a hell of a guy
also. He’s also – I wonder if he’s still involved with the TV news business.

***(**He is.**)***

**Jammie:** I get back to that Dennis trip in ’90, I got to meet Steve Beverly in
Jackson at that Softball game – very soft spoken guy. He actually called
Goodhart’s and Carmella Panfil’s show and busted them for reading HIS material
and Meltzer’s material word for word on their show, and saying “Our sources tell
us…” (laughing) They were reading their newsletters word for word on the radio.
So Steve actually, he called up and said “This is Steve from such and such” –
some place around here in Philadelphia – and then after they answered a
question, he goes “That’s interesting. I read that exactly word for word in the
newsletter Mat Watch,” and they were like “Oh, well we don’t know what you’re
talking about,” and he goes “Well this is Steve Beverly.” Busted! They were all
apologetic and everything – “Aw yeah, that’s right! We know about your
newsletter, but we didn’t read it word for word!” (laughing)

*What was it like when you first saw The Observer compared to all the other newsletters?*

**Jammie:** I first joined in with the Observer when it was the legal sized paper
before it became the small print thing, and that just took everything to a
whole ‘nother level. There was a guy named Daniel Billings – I forget what
newsletter he ran but he was out of Portland, Maine. This was before the
Observer, and he was the first one I ever read where he was telling who people
were behind the scenes. He was – what blew my mind when I was reading his one
time, he was talking about Hacksaw Sawyer up in Northwest was Buzz Sawyer’s
brother, and then when he showed up in Georgia, he said that he was Hacksaw –
yeah, Hacksaw Sawyer. That was the first time I ever learned about somebody who
wasn’t what they were saying they were, and then that – so he was the one with
all the behind the scenes information. Then, I started reading the Observer and
that just took it to a whole ‘nother level.