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Tribute to Bob Caudle
Wednesdays Behind
the Camera in the Studio at WRAL
by Rick Armstrong
Wednesdays in the Video Tape Room at WRAL
by Tom Gallagher
A Night at the WRAL Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Tapings
by Bruce Mitchell
WRAL Promo Tapings
Interview with Les Thatcher
RETURN TO THE STUDIO WRESTLING INDEX
RETURN TO THE MID-ATLANTIC GATEWAY
Related Features
Bob Caudle Interview
Rich Landrum Interview
Discussions with Les Thatcher: Local Promos on WRAL
The Birth of
Mid-Atlantic TV Wrestling
WRAL Photos on Blackjack's Bar-B-Que
Wrestling Theme Music Library
Ray Reeve is a member of
the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame
WRAL Sportscaster Nick Pond
Pond hosted the Raleigh version of
Mid-Atlantic Wrestling in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Hear Nick Pond's Voice - 1974
Ray Reeve (R) prepares for a WRAL
sportscast. A young Bob Caudle is to his far right. Bob did weather for
WRAL during this time.
A TV Guide ad featuring Bob Caudle from
1967. See an additional ad
below.
Bob Caudle
The Voice of Mid-Atlantic Championship
Wrestling
Ad in TV Guide from 1970
Wrestling 101
by Wayne Brower
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FLASHBACK: Mid-Atlantic TV Program Wins Awards -
Article by Les Thatcher from
Mid-Atlantic Magazine in 1977
WRAL TV in Raleigh is the studio location
most closely associated with Jim Crockett Promotions and Mid-Atlantic
Wrestling. Studio A at WRAL was the site of weekly TV tapings for over three decades. In
1974, all of the remaining regional taping locations had ceased, and all
Crockett TV taping was consolidated into this location.
At that point, two versions of
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling were taped, one hosted by long
time Raleigh announcer Bob
Caudle, the other hosted briefly by Sam Menacker and then regularly by Les Thatcher. On October 8, 1975, a new
program called Wide World Wrestling, hosted by long time Atlanta
wrestling announcer Ed Capral, replaced the Thatcher version of
Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. Thatcher would continue to do the local promo
spots to be inserted in the local broadcast of each show. (Thatcher also
produced and hosted the Southeastern Championship Wrestling
program for Ron Fuller in Knoxville, TN. during this period.) Capral
left the promotion in late 1977 or early 1978 and was replaced by Tom
Miller and George Scott. In the fall of 1978, Rich Landrum became the
permanent host of the show, which was renamed World Wide Wrestling.
Bob
Caudle's main co-host was David Crockett through the WRAL period. Tom
Miller filled in during the summer of 1976 when Crockett was tending to
another family business, the Charlotte O's minor league baseball
franchise. Big Bill Ward, who hosted Championship Wrestling for
Crockett Promotions in Charlotte on WBTV in the 60s and early 70s,
briefly co-hosted with Bob Caudle on the 2nd Mid-Atlantic show
after TV tapings had been consolidated to Raleigh. Lord Alfred Hayes had a brief stint
as co-host in 1980. Landrum's regular
co-host was Johnny Weaver.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, WRAL was
actually the site of two simultaneous tapings. As they taped the matches,
they had two broadcasters calling the action separately. Nick Pond, a WRAL
sportscaster, hosted the show
that would be seen in the Raleigh market, while at the same time one desk
over, Bob Caudle called the action for a tape that was sent out to other
markets in the Mid-Atlantic area that didn't have their own local TV
tapings. (Both Pond and Caudle did sports and weather for WRAL television.) For
most of this time, the show was called All-Star Wrestling. When all of the other studio locations
ceased taping, Caudle became the sole host of Mid-Atlantic
Championship Wrestling,
which was then sent to all of Crockett's markets including the home base
of Raleigh.
Wrestling
debuted on WRAL on January 31, 1959
at 5:00 PM. The show at the time was titled Championship Wrestling.
It is not clear when the name changed to All-Star Wrestling. In the earliest days of wrestling on WRAL,
the legendary broadcaster Ray Reeve called the wrestling action before
turning over the duties to Pond, who was Reeve's assistant early in his
career at WRAL. Reeve was the long time radio voice of
the North Carolina State Wolfpack and was the first broadcaster inducted
to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. (On a side note, Charlie
Harville, the long time host of wrestling taped at WGHP in High Point
NC, in the 60s and 70s, was the 2nd broadcaster inducted into NC Sports
Hall of Fame.)
But the voice most associated with WRAL
wrestling will forever be the one and only Bob Caudle, a long time
employee and on-air personality at WRAL, who continued to
do TV for the Crocketts when they moved production to WPCQ in Charlotte
and then took the production out to the arenas. Caudle is still loved by
wrestling fans today, recently receiving a standing ovation at a
wrestling legends show in Spartanburg SC. He was an inaugural inductee
into the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Hall of Heroes in August of 2007,
which will be an annual part of the NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest
in Charlotte. Fans still call for
his trademark show closer, "Well see you next week fans, and until
then, so long for now."
- Dick Bourne |
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Wahoo McDaniel executes a back suplex on
Wide World Wrestling at WRAL(1976).
The referee is Angelo Martinelli.
 
(L) The versatile Les Thatcher (also a
wrestler, TV wrestling producer, and editor of the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling magazine) and Bob Caudle each hosted
a version of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling in 1974 and
1975. (R) Raleigh promoter Joe Murnick also served as ring announcer for
many of the matches held at WRAL.
 
(L) David Crockett and Bob Caudle open up a
broadcast of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling at WRAL (1974).
(R) US Champion Blackjack Mulligan and Mid-Atlantic Champion Ric Flair
with Ed Capral on Wide World Wrestling at WRAL (1976).
 
(L) Rich Landrum interviews one half of the
Minnesota Wrecking Crew (and one half of the World Tag Team Champions)
Gene Anderson on the set of World Wide Wrestling (1981). (R)
Landrum and US Champion Ricky Steamboat on the set of World Wide
Wrestling at WRAL (1979).
 
(L) TV guide ad for wrestling on WRAL TV-5
(1974). (R) Admission was free to the WRAL TV tapings, but tickets
were required (ticket seen above) until the early 1980's, when a letter was issued instead
of tickets (seen below).
 
The bumper graphics used for the two
different Mid-Atlantic Wrestling tapings at WRAL described above. (L)
The Mid-Atlantic "A" show, hosted by Bob Caudle and David Crockett. (R)
The Mid-Atlantic "B" show hosted by Les Thatcher.
Diana, Zack, and David Chappell, Bob and
Jackie Caudle, and Dick Bourne
at WRAL TV Studios in March 2004.
Bob Caudle is the legendary voice of
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling
that was taped at WRAL studios for the
better part of three
decades.
MORE
PHOTOS
An ad in TV Guide magazine for Late
Dateline on WRAL,
featuring Bob Caudle doing the national
news and weather.
(TV Guide, October 28, 1967)
An ad from the Raleigh NC newspaper in
December of 1980, advertising a rare double night of TV tapings at WRAL.
Jim Crockett Promotions took an annual two-week break right before
Christmas, so they would double up on TV tapings leading up to the
break, as well as tape a special year and highlights show. The result
was three weeks worth of television taped in two days. They would
typically resume regular tapings the first Wednesday after Christmas.
Wednesdays in the Video Tape
Room at WRAL
An Inside Look at a Typical
Wrestling Taping at WRAL-TV in Raleigh
by Tom Gallagher
Photos courtesy of Tom Gallagher and Lee
Collins
IMAGES FROM WRAL.COM'S
50TH ANNIVERSARY FEATURE:
Nelson Royal and Paul Jones being
interviewed at ringside by Nick Pond
(circa 1971) at WRAL TV studio wrestling.
Pond hosted the Raleigh version of Mid-Atlantic Championship
Wrestling in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Hear Nick Pond's Voice - 1971
* * * * *
Below is the text of a
post on a blog discussing a fantasy
pro-wrestling tournament held on a sports radio website in Raleigh NC:
"Can Ray Reeve and Nick Pond be the
honorary announcers for this bracket?
Are any of you old enough to remember
back in the day when Championship Wrestling was live from the WRAL
studios on Western Blvd at 6:00 on Saturdays.
Every time the Fabulous Moolah (recently
departed and sorely missed) was on the bill she would finish her match
by planting a big ‘ol slobberbomb of a kiss on Ray’s bald head.
Pond’s analysis of what constituted
“scientific” wrestling moves were priceless."
We recently received a nice e-mail from
Nick Pond's son, Randy Pond. An excerpt:
"I
was looking at your website which brought back a lot of memories. My
father, Nick Pond, announced wrestling in the late 60’s and early 70’s
for WRAL in Raleigh. I have fond memories of tagging along with my dad
on the nights when they taped the show. I remember being somewhat
afraid of the wrestlers but after getting to know them, most were just
nice regular guys."
* * * * *
WRAL Studios, Winter 1958
© WRAL.COM
Bob DeBardelaben, the "Biggest Name in
Weather", was also the familiar voice who told us it was time for the
local promos on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling: "Let's take time for this
commercial message about the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling events coming up in
your area."
© WRAL.COM
Special thanks to Bob Caudle, Rich
Landrum, Johnny Weaver, Brad Anderson, Carroll Hall, Mike Cline, Pat Buckley, Greg Stewart,
Bruce Mitchell and Wayne Brower for their assistance with this feature.
STUDIO
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STATION HISTORY
The station's first
broadcast was on December 15, 1956; an airing of the
1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street. From its
inception, the station was an NBC affiliate until 1962,
when it began a 23-year affiliation to ABC.
During the 1960s, future North Carolina Senator Jesse
Helms was a regular editorial commentator on WRAL's news
broadcasts.
In 1979, the station became the state's first to begin
using a helicopter for newsgathering (Sky 5).
In 1985, Capital Cities Communications merged with the
ABC network, making WTVD-TV an ABC owned and operated
station. As a result, the CBS affiliation moved to
WRAL-TV.
A severe ice storm in December 1989 caused the station's
2,000-foot tower to collapse, forcing WRAL off the air.
By cooperation with Fayetteville station WKFT-TV Channel
40 (which at the time was under severe financial
problems), it was back on the air in 3 hours. WKFT ran
the entire WRAL schedule during this time. The station's
new, stronger tower was launched on October 25, 1990, at
which point WKFT reverted to airing its own programming.
In 1996, WRAL-TV was granted the first experimental
high-definition television license in the United States
by the Federal Communications Commission. In 2000,
WRAL-HD aired the world's first all-HDTV newscast on
October 13. In January 2001, WRAL converted all of its
local news broadcasts to high-definition. Today, WRAL-TV
airs the entire CBS program schedule, as it has since
the late 1990s. Announced on February 1, 2006, WRAL is
now going to simulcast all programming (CBS, News, and
Syndicated) on wral.com. (If you do not live in the
Raleigh-Durham DMA, you cannot see this. It is free of
charge, but you must subscribe to view it.) (Source:
Wikipedia)
Other links:
The History of WRAL on wral.com |
Capitol Broadcasting Company |
CBC Profile on WRAL-TV
A Potpourri of Wrestling related WRAL
references on the Web:
Well as I was
commenting on oldrebel's blog pertaining to Jesse Helms,
Uncle Paul came to mind and I mentioned that Jesse,
along with Uncle Paul and of course
wrestling, were staples of the
history of WRAL. I remember them all quite
well: as a child I spent a lot of time with my
grandparents in the summer . . .
Link
He (Tommy Bland) and his
father also came to see “Mid
Atlantic Championship Wrestling” which was taped in
Studio A at the time.
LINK
From 1959-1979, Phlegar was
the producer / director behind successful programs such
as The Uncle Paul Show and
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling for WRAL-TV 5.
LINK
Doctor Steve from
Tennessee wrote: I worked at WRAL-TV in the '70s and
we taped Wide World of Wrestling and Mid-Atlantic
Championship Wrestling there every Wednesday.
The Crocketts had contracted to have Brute Bernard come
and do a show with us, and I was full of trepidation,
having watched him as a kid decimate his enemies, never
uttering a word other than a guttural growl. I knew this
guy would just be scary and probably a lot of trouble.
So there I was at the bottom of the dressing room
stairs, waiting for Brute Bernard to come down to the
studio; I was nervous, not knowing what to expect, when
he emerged from the dressing room door. And what a
sight! He had on a silk smoking jacket, thick reading
glasses, and was reading the Wall Street Journal. He
greeted me with a "hi, son, nice to meet you" and
entered the studio. He was the nicest wrestler I ever
met (and I met a lot of them). That night, of course, he
was the same old Brute that I remembered as a kid but I
had a completely different opinion of him, having seen
his "other" side.
LINK
MID-ATLANTIC GATEWAY
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I was on Uncle Paul's show and he also accompanied me on piano on other TV shows. A great guy! Back then Joe Murnick ran nearly all of the wrestling and the Rock N' Roll shows that came to town. LINK