Evansville Museum's Spotlight On The History Of Pro Wrestling In Evansville, Indiana

 Blessings to the Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science for putting on an exhibit that I never thought I would ever see in any mainstream museum in America. My wife April & I walked down an amazing aisle, as we enjoyed the Evansville Museum's spotlight on the history of pro wrestling in Evansville, Indiana (this exhibit runs through January 31, 2027), featuring lots of newspaper articles, posters, photos and costumes, covering the various wrestlers, venues and crowds from the 1890s through the present day, that have made this form of entertainment so colorful and enduring in the River City near the Ohio River. During my career, I did some ring announcing in northwest Indiana, and I've known wrestling personalities who worked in Evansville and other parts of Indiana.

At this exhibit, we saw some things on display that you don't exactly see every day: Bosse Field in Evansville is the third oldest ballpark still in use for professional baseball (April & I always enjoy watching Evansville Otters baseball games there) and it was also a site for professional wrestling bouts during the early 20th century...the first women's professional wrestling match in Evansville took place on June 13, 1927, sponsored by the Eagle's Club, in which "women's world champion" Virginia Mercereau from Chicago defeated Ms. Teddy Meyers of Youngstown, Ohio, at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Coliseum in downtown Evansville (April found this part of history quite interesting)...wrestlers' robes and outfits were on display, which were made by Jan Rhodes of Jan's Fashions & Costumes in Evansville; Jan made wrestling attire for a number of pro wrestlers who wrestled in Evansville, including a kid from Downers Grove, Illinois named Randy "Macho Man" Savage...and at this museum, it was a delight watching a little kid hitting a hammer against a wrestling ring bell!

An old radio colleague of mine, Bill McCown, worked as a wrestling manager named J.D. Costello, managing a heel tag team called The M.O.D. Squad (the Masters Of Destruction, Spike & Basher), for the old Continental Wrestling Association (later known as the USWA), run by Jerry Jarrett and Jerry "The King" Lawler, which ran weekly wrestling events in Evansville, Indiana, Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, Louisville, Kentucky and other towns within what the "Bill Apter wrestling magazines" called the "Mid-Southern area". 

Bill/J.D. worked as a wrestling manager there in 1986, and he told me that every Wednesday night in Evansville, not that many fans showed up (partly because by that time, the World Wrestling Federation's national expansion was hurting the smaller regional wrestling territories), but he told me the amount of money he made every week (which was pretty good), and he had fun while it lasted (Bill/J.D. told me he became a wrestling manager because he got burned-out in the radio business, but then he returned to radio because he got burned-out in the wrestling business). By the way, the late wrestler-promoter Jerry Jarrett asked me if I'm related to his friend Tojo (the late wrestler-manager Tojo Yamamoto, who was a mainstay in Jarrett's CWA/USWA wrestling circuit), and I replied to Mr. Jarrett "no sir, no relation" (if you're wondering why Jerry Jarrett would ask me that question, Tojo Yamamoto's real name was Harold Watanabe).

Several local community members made this museum exhibit possible, including Sean Delaney, who has written books on Evansville's pro wrestling history. Some of my brothers and sisters in the Lord from Calvary Chapel of Evansville have fond memories of watching the old regional wrestling on local Evansville television every Saturday and at the live wrestling events every Wednesday at downtown Evansville's Coliseum...with my brothers and sisters in the Lord, it's fun to talk about wrestling history, as we learn His story (the Bible/God's Word).