'It was a form of entertainment': 50-year wrestling roots at ATV
In the early days of ATV, professional wrestling was staged in what is now the CTV Newsroom.
"In many cases, the wrestlers had to wrestle the night before at the Halifax Forum,” said long-time wrestling announcer Clary Flemming.
Wrestlers, along with roughly 100 fans, crammed into the Robie Street studio.
Shows also took place in Moncton.
“It was taped Wednesday morning and ran Saturday evenings around 7 p.m.,” said Flemming. "It was all for promotion purposes, to sell tickets for the next week at the Halifax Forum, North Sydney forum, Saint John or wherever they were wrestling the next week."
TV ratings were consistently high.
“Mostly, it would be a young guy watching with his buddy, or his brother or his granddad," said Flemming. "They would watch it together.”
According to Flemming, wrestling had a huge following.
“I can remember one evening at the Forum, The Beast and The Stomper were in a chain match," said Flemming. "There were 6,000 people at the Halifax Forum to watch that.”
Sports fan Alex Joseph said names like Leo Burke, Bobby Bass, Leaping Lanny and The Beast, to name a few, were stars.
“It was a form of entertainment," said Joseph. "They would be in Berwick one night, Fredericton, Saint John and Prince Edward Island.”
After all of these years, people still ask Flemming if wrestling is fake.
“I would say, if John Wayne is shot in a movie, is he really dead?" said Flemming. "Were you entertained? If you were entertained, that’s all you really need to know.”
A rich chapter in Maritime wrestling history and a 50-year ATV historical fun fact.
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