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Also known as the "Walter Cronkite of Wrestling" and the "Howard Cosell
of wrestling", The Dean of Wrestling Announcers, Gordon Solie, is a wrestling
institution. Solie was born in January of 1929 in Minneapolis Minnesota
but began his career in Florida in 1950 after serving in the Air Force,
working on Armed Forces Radio. A part-time DJ, reporter, and announcer,
Solie found his niche truly in professional wrestling. His first job was
working for Cowboy Luttrell as a ring announcer for a mere $5.00 per night,
before he became a wrestling fan, and it wasn't long before he got his
big break in 1060 as the main announcer for Tampa wrestling, which would
later become Florida Championship Wrestling. Taking Luttrell's advice,
Solie treated wrestling with great seriousness when others thought it to
be comedic and this seriousness influenced the great broadcasters of the
future like Gorilla Monsoon, with all his medical jargon, as well as MIke
Tenay and Jim Ross.
Solie was known for broadcasting such iconic bouts as the Flair-Race Cage Match of Starrcade 1983 and the Valentine-Piper dog collar match on the same card. He developed the term "crimson mask" to refer to a wrestler bloodied in battle and the term remains part of our wrestling vocabulary to this day. Many modern fans recall that Gordon Solie was part of World Championship Wrestling during his last national years but he also spent time in Georgia Championship Wrestling and Continental Championship Wrestling. Solie moved into WCW in the late 1980s as a broadcast talent for various WCW events and was chiefly involved in its Hall of Fame, which is now defunct. He quit the company over the politicizing of the Hall of Fame and moved on to do some independent wrestling cards. His health began to fail after he was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx and Solie passed away in 2000 due to brain cancer at the age of 71. Solie's legacy can be seen in the great commentary of Mike Tenay of TNA and Jim Ross in the WWE. Ross continues to call Gordon Solie one of his great mentors and great influences in the wrestling business. Gordon Solie, no doubt, belongs here in the Hall of Fame. |
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