Classicvintageprowrestling

“You know why you’re wearing white and I’m wearing blue? Because they haven’t caught me yet.” That’s what my dad used to tell the inmates he was in charge of. He was quite the popular figure working for the Dallas County Sheriffs Department. He retired from there in 1994.

One day in 1961, not long after my dad had moved to Amarillo, he was driving down the road and saw this teenager walking with two bear cubs on chains. He said, “Man, I gotta pull over and meet this kid.” That kid turned out to be Dick Murdoch, the son of Frankie Hill Murdoch. Dickie helped handle the wrestling bears for his father as a kid. My dad would go on to help train Dickie and became a huge influence on his style in the ring. They would become absolute best friends. Both of these guys could get pretty wild around each other, and some poor, unlucky soul could end up becoming part of a contest between my dad and Murdoch to see who could knock a guy out with the shortest punch. Both absolutely hilarious and unbelievably tough guys.