Month: January 2026

From the Crow’s Nest: September, 1977

From the Crow’s Nest: September, 1977

Welcome to the second installment of From the Crow’s Nest, a series of articles looking back at Pacific Northwest Wrestling and the history of wrestling in Portland, Oregon.

In this week’s installment, we will cover available footage from September of 1977. Most of it’s on YouTube and is embedded at the end of this article.

2/3 Falls,: Jay Youngblood vs. Buddy Rose, 9/10/77

The September footage is anchored by two matches between Rose, a Portland mainstay, and Youngblood. Jay is best known for his time in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling — especially teaming with Ricky Steamboat in The Final Conflict cage match that’s widely considered the predecessor to Starrcade. He’s still in the fairly early stages of his career here.

Both Rose and Youngblood are entertaining in the ring, and this matchup doesn’t disappoint. However, the special referee that’s “assigned” adds an extra level of enjoyment. That referee is Lord Jonathan Boyd, another Portland fixture. Boyd was in and out of the territory throughout the 1970s, primarily as a heel and often teaming with Norman Frederick Charles III in The Royal Kangaroos, a team that borrowed its gimmick and base name from The Fabulous Kangaroos, maybe the first great tag team in wrestling. Boyd also was part of an iteration of The Sheepherders, who begat The Bushwhackers in WWF.

But I digress … Boyd is a fan favorite in Portland by 1977, and when he’s revealed as the referee, the crowd loves it while Rose throws a fit.

We’ve all seen matches with a special referee, but the lengths to which Boyd goes to chew the scenery — and officiate being entirely one-sided for Youngblood — truly go the extra mile. Every count that Boyd makes on Rose, be it for a pin or being outside the ring or even in the ropes, is rapid fire. Later, when Rose grabs a handful of Youngblood’s trunks, Boyd twists Playboy Buddy’s thumb to break the hold. The capacity crowd in the Portland Sports Arena cheers and laughs along throughout, creating the atmosphere more akin to a theater audience watching a farce on stage than a wrestling match. The fans are also red hot in their support of Youngblood, and their hatred for Rose. A “We Want Jay!” chant bellows through the building on a few occasions over the three falls.

There are certain sports and sequences that were pretty standard in wrestling years ago that have fallen by the wayside in 2025. The criss-cross is one of them, and Rose and Youngblood bust out a high-speed version of it here. Rose busts out a couple of nice leapfrogs during this, showing the athleticism that a lot of people might overlook from his frame and physique. Jay ensnares Rose in a sunset flip and scores the pin on a three count Boyd makes in less time than it took me to type these words (and I’m a fast typer).

Now we go to the content between falls, which is part of the retro charm of these episodes. It starts with commentator Frank Bonnema, whose outfit tonight is an epic example of late 1970s fashion.

Other highlights that a modern viewer might find fascinating:

  • A plug to get tickets to the next taping of Portland TV, either at the concession market or visiting the flea market stand run by Sandy Barr, a referee for the promotion. And today people wait in angst in a TicketMaster queue …
  • The sponsors then take their turn. On many Portland episodes, these were live-to-tape commercials, and we get one of those here from Friendly Chevrolet. Granted this was almost 50 years ago, but the prices are mind-boggling in this era of soaring costs. $5295 for a truck! $5695 for a truck with four-wheel drive and a V8 engine! A 77 El Camino for $5595!
  • Bonnema also shares the schedule for the next week of shows in the Pacific Northwest… and there literally are no days off.
  • We also get a delightful interview with fan favorites Lonnie Mayne and Dutch Savage (the latter was also a longtime booker for the promotion) where Bonnema reads a letter presumably from a 91-year-old widow who wants to help Mayne run out all the rulebreakers from the territory. Adorable.
A sample week of shows in Pacific Northwest Wrestling in September of 1977. Wrestlers, especially those still learning the business, sought out that territory for the busy schedule and better paydays.

Around all the schtick with Boyd, Youngblood and Rose work the bulk of this match around the side headlock, usually with Youngblood ensnaring Rose. The crowd is so loud and engaged that they buy right in when Jay goes right back to the headlock and he starts wrenching on the hold, as the crowd counts along! Rose, meanwhile, is paying homage to the Wrestling Gods with the way he sells the hold, slumped against Jay and hanging lifeless like a limp dishrag.

In the first fall, Rose shot Youngblood off into the ropes to counter the headlock and initiate the criss-cross that led to the pin. Rose tries again, but learns from his mistakes and counters with a fine-looking backdrop on Youngblood. Bonnema, who does a quality job as a TV host and brings a late-night DJ vibe to his commentary, calls this a “shoulder throw”, for reference.

Rose focuses in on the back, then finishes Youngblood using the same back suplex into a backbreaker that he used to beat Cocoa Samoa in the first installment of our series of articles. For the record, it still looks like something from the Roderick Strong arsenal of moves. Boyd is still in full schtick, making a very deliberate and slow three count. Rose demands his hand be raised, and Boyd ignores it … but he does make sure to stomp on Rose’s hand when the Playboy starts pounding the mat in frustration.

Another between-fall break with commercials and live-to-tape advertising, which includes a razor commercial that must be seen to be believed. There’s also some footage of Jimmy Snuka, who’s promoted as making appearances in the territory that coming week and shows up in surviving footage from the end of the year. The best part of these clips for me is that legendary wrestler Danny McShain is the referee for one of the matches.

Before the third fall begins, Bonnema interviews John Anson and Sam Oliver Bass (you probably know him better as Ron Bass), the current tag champs in the territory. Bass and Anson are set for a death match tag that same night that won’t make TV, and Bonnema urges fans to check their newspaper for the results. Weird, wild, and very different times …

The third fall is joined in progress and time is running out on the show. Rose takes control but every pin attempt is met by another glacial count by Boyd. The Playboy snaps and starts stomping Boyd, who comes up swinging off the mat to the unfiltered delight of the crowd. The opening salvo of blows ends with Rose getting sent flying in that style of bump I wrote about in the first installment of the series. The blood starts to flow from Rose’s head and Boyd continues to hammer him as the footage ends.

This is a Very Good match that you should go out of your way to watch. The final two falls are available on YouTube, but definitely track down the first, which also is available online if you know where to look, because of all the antics with Boyd’s biased officiating serving as a method to torment Rose. Yes, the third fall is rushed, but it also shows how Rose had just reached his tipping point. All told, the match weaves a compelling and entertaining story with several well-executed bits of humor. You just don’t see wrestling like it today.

Jay Youngblood vs. Buddy Rose, 9/24/77

This match is on the undercard of this TV broadcast, so it’s just one fall and what ensues is more of an angle than a match. To be fair, it’s a good angle, as Rose and his running buddy Ed Wiskowski injure Youngblood’s left arm. This is just the latest victim for Rose; on commentary early in this footage, Bonnema refers to Boyd getting taken out of the territory by the Playboy. There’s a nice bit of misdirection as the match begins with Rose distracting Sandy Barr while Wiskowski, who is seconding Rose, grabs Youngblood’s leg and wrenches it from the floor. Rose focuses a relentless assault on Youngblood’s left arm, to the point Mayne runs in for the save and removes his own boot to club at Rose. Sandy Barr eats shit to the floor during the chaos and, in one of my favorite bits of this, ringside fans go to help him up.

Jay really sells the attack and injury. He’s got a cut dripping down the injured left arm and is alternating between writhing in pain and screaming. The camera stays right with the scene and that hot capacity crowd in the Portland Sports Arena watches in a hush. Mayne and Jay’s older brother, Rick Youngblood, are out to help Jay to the back and he collapses while they’re in transit. Fantastic.

After another car commercial (all the vehicles for sale have AM radio, you guys!) Bonnema interviews Mayne from the Crow’s Nest. Moondog Lonnie vows vengeance and that he’ll break Rose’s arm next week the way Rose has done to so many. Mayne is wild and fiery here. He also lived hard; he’s 33 here and this footage is filmed less than a year before his death, but he looks 50. Given what I’ve read about Mayne’s life, when he drops his “There’s excitement in the air!” phrase, I can’t help but wonder if the excitement and whiskey have the same aroma.

As for the Mayne vs. Rose match? It will kick off the next article.

    Check out the introduction to this series.

    From the Crow’s Nest: Introduction, and a 1977 Exposition

    From the Crow’s Nest: Introduction, and a 1977 Exposition

    Welcome to From the Crow’s Nest! This will be an ongoing series of reviews looking at the history of wrestling in Portland, Oregon … specifically Pacific Northwest Wrestling.

    The history of Portland Wrestling goes as far back as 1925 (we won’t go that far back), but it’s best known for the multiple decade run under Don Owen, whose father, Herb, founded the promotion.

    The Portland territory was unique, in a few ways.

    1. It was small. Owen usually kept an active roster of just 10 to 12 wrestlers, and worked a busy loop of shows in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia in Canada. You’ll see this on some of the TV segments where they break down the upcoming calendar.
    2. Because of the small roster, episodes of Portland’s TV program had a structure that was unique but also seems a perfect fit for a television show. The main event of most episodes was best two out of three falls. Between falls, wrestlers typically went back to the locker room, and during these brief intermissions, they would either hold interviews with wrestlers or cut to commercials with sponsors. It’s a hoot watching the latter, and seeing both the style of the time and some of the prices that seem insanely low, especially by 2025 standards.
    3. Portland’s TV program was an institution in the region. Owen ran his TV every Saturday night out of the Portland Sports Arena — a renovated bowling alley that the promotion owned. Eddie Graham followed a similar tact in Florida, running his promotion out of a building he owned. The show aired live — and then, live to tape — on KPTV Channel 12 in Portland for decades, on nothing more than a handshake deal.
    4. The crowds, at least on these initial episodes, were red hot. Owen offered “season passes” to the TV tapings, which, combined with the regular loop of towns, forced his wrestlers to shake up their routine and not work the same kind of match time after time. “The first several rows of ringside, you couldn’t buy a ticket, because they were all permanent reservations,” Dave Meltzer once said about Portland crowds to Slam Wrestling. “The first six rows had the same people sit in those chairs for 52 weeks a year for years on end. The only way to get a ringside ticket was if one of them died, you literally had to be in their will.”
    5. The Portland product is, in some ways, a harbinger of what changed in wrestling in the 2000s. The promotion emphasized more smaller wrestlers and a fast-paced style. Owen also had a reputation for paying well, which left no shortage of individuals who wanted to make their way through the territory. Consequently, a who’s who of talent makes appearances in Portland over the years.

    With that introduction out of the way, let’s dive right into the footage.

    We pick up with what I believe is the oldest existing video from Portland’s TV show.

    Lonnie Mayne vs. Jesse Ventura, 5/7/77

    You may know the Moondogs more as the tag team that worked throughout different territories in the U.S., but Mayne was actually the original Moondog. He also would have a much larger legacy in wrestling if he hadn’t been lost too soon. He died in 1978 at the age of just 33 in a car accident en route to a booking in California. Mayne worked almost exclusively as a heel in the early 1970s, and challenged Pedro Morales for the WWWF Title at Madison Square Garden. By 1977, though, Mayne was a beloved fan favorite of the Portland Sports Arena crowd. There’s an excellent bio of Mayne at Pro Wrestling Stories if you’d like to know more about him.

    In this match, a best-two-out-of-three fall affair as was the custom on Portland TV, Mayne wrestles Ventura, who was at this point a fixture in the territory before going on to bigger stages in the AWA and WWF. The surviving footage starts with the first fall in progress, then jumps ahead to the third fall, with no finish. Mayne had a reputation for being wild in and out of the ring; at one point, he heads to ringside and throws a drink in Ventura’s face. One punch later and Ventura goes sprawling to the floor.

    Between the ropes, Mayne was rather fearless. In the third fall, he takes a variation of what I know best as the Harley Race bump to the floor: hooking his feet on the ropes then dropping down on his head. As if the beverage wasn’t enough, Jimmy Snuka — another wrestler who became a regular in Portland in the 1970s before moving to bigger stages — comes to ringside and tosses Mayne a cowbell to start laying waste to Ventura. Somehow, this isn’t a DQ.

    This one falls in the Worth Watching category for me. There’s nothing earth-shattering here but the crowd is hot, the action is entertaining, and there’s some significant historic value here.

    Cocoa Samoa vs. Buddy Rose , 8/13/77

    This is the earliest footage in Portland of Buddy Rose. If there’s an all-time MVP of the territory, it’s probably him. I also think Rose is one of the most underrated wrestlers of all time and, if you follow me through this journey, don’t be surprised if you end up agreeing. Rose can chain wrestle, brawl, and fly. He takes these fantastic heedless-looking bumps, and gives enteraining interviews as a villain who is either talking trash or extremely aggrieved at some perceived injustice. Meanwhile, he has a willingness to bleed buckets that I found endearing. This match with Cocoa is just the tip of the iceberg on the footage of Rose, who personally is responsible for most of the surviving footage from Portland in this era, because he had a habit of recording episodes of Portland’s TV program so he could go back and review his matches.

    The video quality is not the best and Portland commentator Frank Bonnema — whose broadcast position is referred to as The Crow’s Nest (get it?) — pooh-poohs what he perceives as a light crowd. Adding greatly to the atmosphere, there’s a granny in the front row who’s vigilant as Rose repeatedly pulls on Cocoa’s trunks while ensnared in a headlock. At one point in the match, Cocoa delivers his leaping headbutt and Rose takes what I consider his signature bump: an explosion of movement where he pushes off with his legs and sends himself flying back to the mat. The landing is more reminiscent of a cartoon character who slipped on a banana peel. It’s ridiculous taken as a snapshot, but it works because it’s so over the top. It’s a regular part of Rose’s matches and it often serves the purpose of making the opposing wrestler’s offense look devastating, which, really, is one of the major points of a wrestling match, isn’t it? Rose wins the match clean with a modified backbreaker that looks like something out of the Roderick Strong arsenal, but the decision gets overturned when he keeps attacking Cocoa, ultimately shoving referee Sandy Barr.

    This is honestly Skippable, but if you’ve never seen Buddy Rose in action, it’s a fine introduction with a low investment of time.

    Up Next: We continue the journey in 1977.