Confession – as a boy I was kind of a fan of professional wrestling. I watched it on UHF stations. My father took my cousin Jay and me to see an event or two in Philadelphia in 1962 or 1963. Oh to relive that! We tired of wrestling. Jay headed off into loving drag racing. I didn’t.
The wrestlers I remember:
Bruno Sammartino
The Sicilian Beast
Tarzan Tyler
My friend got interested in professional wrestling in the late 1990s. Go figure. He’d stop by my house and watch a few times a week. My two older children were appalled if I happened to peek in and watch for a few minutes.
Knowing of my friend’s interest in wrestling, Gabby unloaded one of his collections on my friend, a carton full of Lucha Libre magazines. My friend appreciates Lucha Libre. He knows more than the average person about El Santo.
El Santo became a superstar after winning an 8-man cattle royal in Mexico City in 1942. He was a folk hero who symbolized justice for the common man.
Gabby just liked the images. When he filled up a carton, he abandoned the collection, sending it to my friend. Here they are:
Gabby thought my friend would be interested in the magazine covers. He was right. This is what my friend said:
