MITCHELL'S TAKE MITCHELL: Remembering the Ever Popular Johnny Weaver Feb 20, 2008 - 7:15:45 AM

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By Bruce Mitchell, Torch columnist

The Dean of Professional Wrestling, Johnny Weaver, died last week at the age of 73.

He was never going to get the familiar black screen send-off on Raw, or get inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame like his old rival/admirer Blackjack Mulligan or one of many pro wrestling stars he helped groom, Ric Flair. He really never was New York's type of wrestler. He wasn't ethnic enough for Vince McMahon Sr. and his prime was long over by the time Junior took over. Aside from Flair and some agents I doubt anyone in WWE knew who Johnny Weaver was.

That's all right. The Dean never much cared for World Wrestling either.

Weaver was one of a type that used to be the backbone of the sport - the white meat babyface- the nice guy who did his best and won in the end because, in this world, if you were a good neighbor and a good citizen and tried your best your sincere effort would see you through.

Johnny Weaver's sincere effort, his smooth work, his under-rated promo style, and his knowledge of how to paint a picture in and out of the wrestling ring saw him through many years on top in the old Carolinas/Virginia Mid Atlantic territory. From the early 1960s, when he teamed on top with George Becker and Haystacks Calhoun against Aldo Bogni & Bronko Lubich (with their manager Homer O'Dell), The Bolos, and Rip Hawk & Swede Hanson, to the years when he worked as the "ever - popular Dean of Professional Wrestling" in the mid-card against the likes of Baron Von Raschke and Lord Alfred Hayes, to his work as a booker -noted as a "good finish man" - including booking a very young Bret Hart in Toronto and his time as "the party's over" warbling color man, who shared a great chemistry with play-by-play man Rich Landrum on the syndicated World-Wide Wrestling show, Johnny Weaver did everything in the business but work heel.

He was the top babyface in the territory, the one who was always "the next world champion". Weaver challenged every NWA world champion from Lou Thesz to Jack Brisco. He had a long program with perhaps the most successful world champion of the era, Dory Funk, Jr.


"Around here, you're a punk until Johnny Weaver says differently."

- Ric Flair


It may have been just a wrestling promo, but it was true in its way. Johnny Weaver helped groom a lot of big stars for bigger things later on in their careers. Roddy Piper started his national break-out run winning a feud with Weaver over the Mid Atlantic TV title. When Johnny Valentine came to change Mid Atlantic wrestling forever, he first dumped Weaver. His son Greg Valentine first
got over in his biggest territory (besides WWF) by injuring Weaver on television. Future Four Horseman Tully Blanchard made his first impression in the area slapping Weaver ass-over-tea-kettle in the announce booth.

In his way, Johnny Weaver took the measure of a lot of influential professional wrestlers over the years.

By the late eighties Weaver spent most of his time in announce booth and the Crockett office. He got one national television run when booker Dusty Rhodes used his signature hold - re-named the Weaver Lock - to spice up the Dream's battle with Lex Luger. He had his last match during this time with J.J. Dillon.

Weaver may have played your responsible next-door neighbor in the ring and on the mic but, in the way of professional wrestling, things weren't always what they seemed. He liked his whiskey and he had a volatile marriage with women's wrestling star Penny Banner, who accused him in her autobiography of abusing her over the years.

Also in the way of professional wrestling, when Weaver left the sport in 1989 he had to work a new career, as a deputy sheriff in Charlotte, N.C. He was looking forward to retiring from that job in October when he passed away.

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