Milestone

I've reached a milestone in my life today. It was on this day sixty long years ago that I came into this world. I've written before about how as a boy of about five or six years old, I would watch pro wrestling matches in our old black-and-white television (this was around 1967-1968). The explosive action on the screen, the thrilling battle between good (the babyface) and evil (the heel), the big, strong, beefy bodies of the wrestlers...I found it all so fascinating and that fascination has stayed with me ever since. I still watch a lot of "classic" matches from the 1950s-1960s (thank you, YouTube!) and enjoy the simplicity of the matches and the wrestlers' gear (just trunks and boots most of the time). Here's a look back at some of my favorite wrestlers from the 1960s as well as some magazine covers from the year I was born, 1962.

I took my nom de plume from my favorite
wrestler of the 1960s, Bruno Sammartino.

Cowboy Bill Watts. Once Sammartino's tag
team partner, the two had a vicious feud after Watts 
turned heel. Sadly, I haven't been able to find a 
video of one of their matches on YouTube. 

The Lisowski Brothers, Stan (left) and Reggie.
Reggie is better known as The Crusher.
He and Dick The Brusier were my favorite 
tag team of the 1960s.

Edouard Carpentier. For such a huge, 
muscular man, he was amazingly quick
and nimble.

Mark Lewin. He looked like a movie star and 
was tough in the ring. His later personas (Maniac
Mark Lewin, Purple Haze) were bizarre
and never appealed to me.

Me at 60. Where will my fascination
with pro wrestling take me next?