Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 29, 1995 TAG: 9511290064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Only pro wrestling could offer a competitor who draws more cheers for his hip shaking than his headlocks.
There he was Monday night, part of the World Championship Wrestling card at the Salem Civic Center.
Disco Inferno.
A dancer first, a wrestler second.
Inferno was defeated by his bigger and more sculpted opponent, Alex Wright.
But that didn't matter.
Disco grabbed a microphone. He yelled to the crowd: "Thanks for your support in that match I just won," seeming to forget the drubbing he had taken minutes before. "But I know why you're here. You came to see me dance!"
With a backbeat only John Travolta could love, Inferno - who wrestled in a white polyester suit with the words "Monday Nitro Fever" pasted to his backside - then proceeded to bring back memories of the '70's with an arsenal of disco moves.
"My hair's not even messed up!," he bellowed.
Some jeered. Many roared their approval.
"Disco's the man! Disco's the man!" yelled Ferrum College students Brant Ruskin and Jared Patton.
Inferno, however, wasn't the reason a raucous crowd of 3,424 - five more people than Bonnie Raitt drew at the Roanoke Civic Center in May - turned out Monday night.
Two pro wrestling legends were there: Hulk Hogan and "Nature Boy" Ric Flair.
Hogan and Flair are to wrestling what the Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders are to NFL football.
Rodney Hairston, Brian Roberts and LeRoy Penn said they drove up from Martinsville to see Flair, who has won the world championship belt more times than any other wrestler.
The fans were treated to an end-of-the-night fracas in which Hogan and two other popular wrestlers, Lex Luger and Sting, squared off against Flair and two members of the Flair-led Four Horsemen - Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman.
The card was part of Turner Network Television's "WCW Monday Nitro" show, which is broadcast live nationwide each week from different spots around the country. It comes complete with fireworks, high-tech props and a slew of technicians.
Civic Center Director Carey Harveycutter said Monday's wrestling card generated the largest stagehand bill - the money paid to local workers who help set up and run a show - for a one-night event held in Salem: more than $9,000.
The crowd, which contained just as many characters as WCW could offer, screamed, cussed and laughed its way through the event.
Steve Harmon, an assistant softball coach at Ferrum College, came ready to rumble.
He reached over a fence barrier and slammed an elbow down on WCW's mascot, Wildcat Willie, near the start of the show.
The rest of the crowd whooped and hollered.
Wildcat Willie offered a return blow.
Harmon, the cousin of professional wrestler Van Vader, spent the majority of the evening hanging over the fence, yelling into wrestler's faces.
Then there was 13-year-old Nick German of Roanoke, a pro wrestling encyclopedia.
He knows what wrestler holds what belt.
He can recite the results of recent wrestling cards held in the Roanoke Valley.
But he couldn't get his parents to take him to Monday's show.
Enter German's uncle, David King of Roanoke.
"I'm the only one he can get to bring him," he said. "But I enjoy it; it's good entertainment."
"Some of it's real, and some of it's fake," added German, who was wielding an oversized purple plastic foam hand endorsing Sting as No.1.
But to Linwood and Marty Kelum, Gorgeous George is No.1.
Gorgeous just happens to be their son.
He called to let mom and dad know that he was flying to Salem from a wrestling event in Puerto Rico.
So the Kelums drove six hours from their home in Jacksonville, N.C., to see their boy in action Monday night.
"He knows his stuff," Linwood Kelum said.
Gorgeous, who wrestled first, before the TNT show started its live broadcast, didn't disappoint.
Wearing a frilly pink cape, Gorgeous sprayed WCW emcee "Mean Gene" Okerlund with deodorant and said, "You stink, old man!"
Gorgeous then pranced into the ring and pinned his opponent, the Cobra.
Growing up, Gorgeous George not only watched professional wrestling, he studied it, said Marty Kelum.
"It's what he's always wanted to do," Linwood Kelum said.
And anyone who believes all pro wrestling fans are a little warped should take note of who was sitting ringside a few rows back Monday - state Del. Tommy Baker, R-Dublin.
Baker brought his son, Jefferson, 4.
Baker said Jefferson is always watching wrestling on television and said he sneaks a peek sometimes, too.
"It's the soap opera of sports," Baker said.
by CNB