RIP Vern Gagne for you AWA Wrestling fans
- Thread starter Redblooded
- Start date
Don't forget the tag-team matches when he teamed up with Reggie Parks against the Vashon brothers or Baron Von Ratske and Hans Hoffman.
Grew up watching the former Gopher football and wrestling star on TV. He had been sick for awhile.
In rassler heaven, I'll bet these guys can club each other over the head with a metal folding chair and just laugh it off.
And, there's an unlimited supply of Joe Zweiback's Gera-speed...
And, there's an unlimited supply of Joe Zweiback's Gera-speed...
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Ah, childhood memories. Mom would drag us to Piccolo Pete's for dinner and then on to the Civic Auditorium for Vern, Cowboy Bob Ellis, Reggie "The Man With The Iron Stomach" Parks, Pampero Firpo "The Mad Bull Of The Pampas", the Duseks, Mad Dog and on and on. RIP Vern, you were a great athlete and entertainer.
And don't forget the lovable losers: George "Scrap Iron" Gadaski and Kenny "the Sod Buster" Jay.
He had killed another person in the Facility he was in. Had dementia and body slammed the guy. Pretty sad deal.
Guy owned half of Minnesota and lost almost all of it.
Guy owned half of Minnesota and lost almost all of it.
Mad Dog Vashon chased a lady heckler out of the Sioux City Auditorium because she would not stop making fun of his shorts. I know because I saw it with my own ten year old eyes. She kept yelling that he had a sock stuffed in his shorts. Verne Gagne was there also with his magic elixir Geritol.
I remember as a kid hearing about Verne, and those announcers saying "next week, we'll have the heavy weight champion, Verne Gagne here." I totally had a different picture in my head of what he would look like, never thought a dude with an above average size gut and going bald was the champion! Met him in Denver years ago at a diner close to the Auditorium, my dad was a U. P. worker and had night shifts but would see them there quite a bit when he ate lunch there. He took my brothers and I down there after the matches and we met Verne, Von Raschke, Bockwinkle and a few others. Pretty nice people, very low key but went out of their way to hang with the fans when they were trying to get a bite to eat.
