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The Golden Age of Professional Wrestling

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published May 19, 2015 at 11:15 AM EDT

Greensboro native John Hitchcock attended nearly every professional wrestling show in the Greensboro Coliseum for 15 years. He was a part of a group of troublemakers who sat in the front of the coliseum cheering loudly for the bad guys and getting a rise out of the crowd and the wrestlers.Author Jim Hitchcock talks about his new book and the “golden age of professional wrestling”

Hitchcock captured his reflections from what he calls the “golden age of professional wrestling” in a new book, Front Row Section D: Glory Days for Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. We'll talk with Hitchcock, owner of the comic book store Parts Unknown in Greensboro, about his lifelong passion for professional wrestling, spanning from staying up late to watch matches as a 10-year old, to being a part of the show himself in the late 1990s.

 

John Hitchcock (R) with Arn Anderson of the Four Horsemen, a notorious group of fans. John christened the name of the group after Arn said something like, "The only time this few people wreaked this much havoc was the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!"
John Hitchcock /
John Hitchcock (R) with Arn Anderson of the Four Horsemen, a notorious group of fans. John christened the name of the group after Arn said something like, "The only time this few people wreaked this much havoc was the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!"
This is one of the screen printed wrestling cards used to advertise matches in the 1960s and 1970s.
John Hitchcock /
This is one of the screen printed wrestling cards used to advertise matches in the 1960s and 1970s.

Copyright 2015 North Carolina Public Radio
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio