The following interview was conducted via telephone with Larry Nelson on April 18. Larry is a former announcer for the AWA and is currently working in the radio industry in Denver, Colorado. Special thanks to PWTorch.com reader John DuPont for his help with this article.
Hoops: Thank you so much for taking the time to visit with me today.
Nelson: It’s a pleasure.
Hoops: First of all, tell us about your background and how you got started in the wrestling business.
Nelson: I was in radio in the Twin Cities and doing the morning show at WWTC; the Am station, and this was about 1983 and the ratings were struggling as AM radio was dying out. I was trying to get the ratings up and professional wrestling was extremely popular in the Twin Cities, but nobody really covered it or if they did it was covered as a joke. So I set out trying to make contact with the AWA. It took me awhile as they weren’t listed anywhere. But I did contact them and I said I wanted to interview one of their wrestlers on my show every single week. They were leary of it as they were a very close nit group, but they figured it was free publicity. So the first person they sent over was Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. And we sat down and we did an interview on the air and I approached it as a legitimate sport and I wasn’t being comical or disrespectful and that got their attention. So a wrestler would come over and do my show once a week. Then they decided they needed a different announcer to do their interviews in Canada. And they asked me if I would be interested in doing that. So I wound up doing the interviews and play by play for their shows in Canada. Then when Ken Resnick got mad and walked off the set in Minneapolis, I wound up taking over that job. And it ended up taking off from there.
Hoops: That is an interesting start. What time period did you work for the AWA?
Nelson: This was about from 1983 1/2 until the middle of 1990.
Hoops: So right up until the end of the promotion?
Nelson: That is correct.
Hoops: You briefly mentioned this, but can you expand upon your roles in the AWA?
Nelson: I hosted, we had three or four different shows; the ESPN show that is currently airing on ESPN Classic, and on that one I interviewed the wrestlers, I did some play by play work and some ring announcing; and basically that is what I did on all the shows. I hosted, I interviewed the wrestlers and I did play by play work. Not all the time, but I was always the host. Sometimes I was the ring announcer, sometimes I did play by play.
Hoops: I always thought you were underrated as far as your interview ability.
Nelson: Oh, thank you.
Hoops: When you were announcing or more specifically when you were doing your interview work; who were some of favorite or least favorite talent to work with?
Nelson: The most famous one was Stan “The Lariat” Hansen. We had Wrestlerock in Minneapolis at the MetroDome, and on his way to the ring; all the guys on the way to the ring; I was supposed to step out with the microphone and ask them a quick question. So I stepped out to ask Stan a question and he reached out and knocked me on my butt and stomped on me for a while and then went to the ring. Another time with Stan I was doing some ring announcing and he was supposed to wrestle Curt Hennig for the championship. Curt said to Hansen, “you run out there and grab Larry and hoist him above your head, and then I’ll run out there and rescue him and this is how we will get this thing started.” Well they never told me anything about it. So Hansen comes out and grabs me, heaves me up in the air, I have no idea what is going on. Hennig comes out to rescue me but stops and says to himself, “I wonder what Hansen will do if I don’t come out to rescue Larry.” So Hansen gets tired of holding me up in the air and says to me, “Sorry Larry” and throws me over the top rope into the ring. I wound up with a few bruised ribs in that one. I knew the wrestlers would grab the top rope to break their fall, but they let go; I held on and I suffered a whiplash effect into the ring apron. Probably my favorite character to work with was Wally Karbo the promoter. I remember one time myself, Nick Bockwinkel, and Bobby Heenan were following Wally unto an airplane. We were getting ready to leave Denver and come back to Minneapolis. Wally had a reputation of a beautiful woman in every town and he would disappear with a big bottle of liquor and a woman as soon as we got there and then show up again after the matches to collect the money from the promoter and then disappear again. So we are following Wally onto the plane and Wally has a sock on his left foot but not on his right. We got on the airplane wondering what happened to Wally because you could tell Wally was really hung over. Now we are getting off the airplane and we are following Wally again and now he has a sock on both feet. So Bobby Heenan caught up to Wally and asked him “Wally were did you find your other sock?” and Wally said “they were both on the same foot.”
Hoops: I have heard a lot of “Wallyisms” over the years.
Nelson: If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as Wally Karbo. Another guy I really enjoyed interviewing because he was so terrific at it was Larry Zbyzsko. You could just throw a question at him and get out of the way because he could take it from there.
Hoops: I have really enjoyed watching your segments with Larry on ESPN Classic recently. A lot of people are out spoken about the Gagne’s and the demise of the AWA; I know Al DeRusha has mentioned that when Verne Gagne bought out Wally Karbo, that was the actual peak of the AWA and it was downhill from there for the AWA. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Nelson: The AWA was pretty much doomed when Hulk Hogan left the AWA and went to the WWF. That started the thing. There was no way the AWA could, without Hulk Hogan, continue to bring in the amount of money it before Hogan left. And the WWF was going to bring in more money than it had been with Hogan. So sooner or later, the quality of their television; because they could spend more money on it, was going to beat our television. There television productions were so much better than ours and let’s face it; that is the core of wrestling; it is where you sell your product. Wally Karbo leaving had a bad effect on the wrestlers, because Wally was the good guy. He was the guy that stood up for everybody, he was the guy who could talk to Verne. He would say “wait a minute, you have this guy in a bad light and Verne would listen to him. When Wally left, we didn’t have that and Verne decided to take over all the operations by himself; the filming and the television is what I am talking about. Al is right about that; that was probably the last straw.
Next week, I will publish part 2 of my Larry Nelson interview.
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