#larry matysik

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Larry Matysik - Kevin Von Erich demonstrates the leg scissors

Here’s a great Larry Matysik clip from “Wrestling at the Chase.” I miss the days when commentators and ringside reporters would have wrestlers demonstrate holds on them. Kevin Von Erich also does a sensational job in an understated, realistic interview. I don’t want to sound too much like an old curmudgeon here, but this is so much more compelling than scripted lines flatly recited by people who are not trained actors. 

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Larry Matysik, 1946-2018

Larry Matysik, one of the last living links to the golden age of the NWA territories, who served as the voice of St. Louis wrestling from 1969 until 1983, died on Sunday, reportedly from pneumonia. He had been in poor health in recent years, and was receiving hospice care when he died.

His name might not be familiar with younger wrestling fans, but he was a crucial connection to the era when Sam Muchnick ruled the NWA from his homebase at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis. Muchnick hired a 16-year-old Matysik to do publicity work for the promotion in 1962, and by the time he was in his mid-20s, he had replaced St. Louis broadcast legend George Abel as the play-by-play commentator for the weekly "Wrestling at the Chase” shows, broadcast every Sunday morning on KPLR, which was something of a regional superstation in Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois. For years, it was the third highest rated show in St. Louis, behind only Cardinals broadcasts and local news. One of its faithful fans during the Matysik era was a college student from Long Island named Bob Costas, who in his early play-by-play years, displayed more than a passing familiarity with Matysik’s assured, conversational style. 

These were the days when St. Louis was the capital of U.S. wrestling: champions were routinely crowned at the Kiel Auditorium or the St. Louis Arena, and you hadn’t really made it as a national-level star until you made it in St. Louis. Ric Flair, Harley Race, Dick the Bruiser, Dory Funk Jr., Bruiser Brody, and, of course, Lou Thesz, were some of the names who either solidified their reputations or were made stars in Muchnick’s territory. 

In later years, Matysik became a historian of wrestling in general and of the St. Louis territory in particularly, publishing several books and regularly penning columns about how the business today had lost its way. 

Matysik was the primary guardian of the idea that St. Louis wrestling was different, special, somehow set aside from the low-class nature of the industry elsewhere. Men and women came in suits and dresses to watch tapings of “Wrestling at the Chase,” you’ll hear over and over again once you start reading about this territory. I’ve never bought into it; wrestling is wrestling, and Sam Muchnick’s long tenure as NWA president included any number of slimy, backstabbing double-crosses. I’ve always seen the “St. Louis was the Tiffany of wrestling” stuff as similar in spirit to the “best fans in baseball” aura that Cardinals fans try to cultivate, despite being ill-behaved slobs just like all other sports fans. 

In later years, Matysik also fashioned himself as a defender of tradition against the rampaging WWF barbarians from New York, valiantly trying to save St. Louis wrestling after Muchnick’s 1982 retirement. The truth is a little more complicated, as Tim Hornbaker details in his excellent new book, “The Death of the Territories.” In reality, when Muchnick retired, he sold the St. Louis territory to the trio of Harley Race, Bob Geigel, and Pat O’Connor. Matysik almost immediately began running an independent - i.e. “outlaw” - promotion in competition, and when it became clear he wasn’t going to force the others out of business, he cut a deal with Vince McMahon that gave the WWF the fabled “Wrestling at the Chase” timeslot in 1983, one of the earliest territorial encroachments made by the WWF. Matysik also went to work for McMahon for a decade, which complicates the image he cultivated of the lone holdout keeping the torch lit for old-fashioned wrestling. 

Everyone who lives long enough has a complicated life, though. Matysik devoted his to pro wrestling, and made a lasting impact on the industry. With his death, we’re further away from the age of the founding NWA members, who for better and worse determined the shape and scope of pro wrestling around the world for nearly 50 years.

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GNN NEWS UPDATE - Wednesday, January 10th, 2018

This edition of the GNN Update features updates on the 25th Anniversary of Raw, and much more!

This edition of the GNN (Gorilla News Network) Update from Executive Editor Michael Melchor features updates on the 25th Anniversary of Monday Night Raw, Samoa Joe, the Mixed Match Challenge Series, Impact Wrestling, Larry Matysik and much more! LISTEN TO GNN FOR JANUARY 10, 2018 HERE: https://thegorillaposition.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/GNN-01.10.18.mp3

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