One of the most exciting performers in the Midwest area was Omar Atlas. Many people gave this super athlete from Venezuela more credit then he deserved. He was a great superstar in the Central States area. He was the Central States Heavyweight Champion a couple of times. He battled odds that most men wouldn't fight against.

Omar came to Kansas City from Texas, where he was tag partners with his older half-brother, Cyclone Negro. He was an overnight sensation with fans, and with fellow wrestlers as well. Omar did all the aerial moves that men like Argentina Rocca, The Amazing Zuma, Ricky Starr, Flying Fred Curry, and other high-flyers did on a nightly basis. He would exercise religiously every night before the matches.

I had never seen a pushup done the way Omar did it. He would get near the wall and do a handstand and then begin to do a pushup with ALL of his own weight on top of him. He sometimes did 10 to 15 pushups in a single set. If you think this is easy, try it sometime ... it will make a believer out of you.

Emporia, Kansas was never a famous town like New York City or Boston or Las Vegas. In fact, it never did much until a young man, AWOL from the Navy, got on top of the post office and started shooting at passers-by. He ended up being shot to death by SWAT team members. It made national headlines a number of years later.

Black Angus and I had been on the previous card in Emporia just a month earlier and nearly caused a riot because fans didn't understand our interpretation of the wrestling rulebook. Omar must have been in the back of the building as our match progressed against Terry Martin of Halifax, Nova Scotia. We were beating the breath out of his body and teaching him a lesson about wrestling for breaking rules and cheating. Omar came running from the rear of the arena and attempted to jump Angus from behind like some kind of White Knight.

I had seen him coming and threw my briefcase at him, just missing his legs in an attempt to stop him from getting at my meal ticket. Omar stopped his ascent into the ring to try and deal with me. This would prove to be his biggest mistake, as we both jumped him on the outside of the ring. I picked him up from the floor after he slipped on a soft drink spill and held his arms, while Angus pummeled him into a bloody mess.

We left him in a mess on the floor and proceeded to give Terry Martin another beating and then pin him in the middle of the ring. While we were basking in the limelight of victory and enjoying the accolades, Omar jumped into the ring and started in on Angus. He jumped him from behind like a coward would do and then punched him in the face until blood flowed from his busted-open eye. We got out of the ring, went to our dressing room, and tended to the huge opening in Angus' head. It took 16 stitches to close the wound.

In our era of the glory days, we didn't put up with people running in to save somebody getting the wrestling lesson that they deserved for bad mouthing us. We put a stop to the problem before it escalated into a melee we couldn't handle. Of course, I always had a solution for any problem ... that's why I was in management and why I was the EPITOME of Wrestling Managers.

We arrived in Emporia early that afternoon to be a part of a local TV program that turned out to be one of the best things that could ever happen to Emporia, Kansas. The switchboard lit up, and people were very aggravated at my comments about this little landed immigrant. I was not a very nice person. But then, I wasn't the guy that came running to the ring just a month ago to SAVE a buddy that was getting a lesson taught to him by a master.

As it was only 2:30 in the afternoon, we went and had an early dinner at one of the finer Coney Islands that Emporia had to offer. It definitely was not cuisine that was found in Kansas City, and the heartburn would stay with me for the rest of the day.

The opening match had Bob Orton Sr. facing the Viking. They had a knock-down, drag-out battle that went the entire 30-minute time limit with neither man getting the duke. Matches like this bore some of the fans nowadays ... but they were a test of the real wrestlers in our day to see who really ruled in the ancient art of hand-to-hand combat.

The second match was a tag team match that had Ray Candy and Pat O'Connor vs. Black Jack Black and Benny Ramirez. It was always a real doing when you went up against a former World Champion (O'Connor). Black Jack Black, who was a good friend of Angus', got beat with a Kiwi-rollup by O'Connor after about 30 minutes of action that left us with a hard match to follow.

To be continued...

Percival A. Friend, Retired
The Epitome of Wrestling Managers