Argentina Rocca & Jim Crockett running opposition to Vince McMahon Sr. and the old WWWF
Articles provided by J Michael Kenyon (1943 - 2017)

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SUNNYSIDE GETS TELEVISION SHOW OKAY
(unidentified New York City newspaper, September 1963)

The State Athletic Commission yesterday approved a weekly televised professional wrestling show to be held on Monday nights at Sunnyside Garden starting on September 30.

The Commission action was taken despite the objection of Madison Square Garden, which also has wrestling on Mondays. It was pointed out that the rules provide for shows to be run on the same nights in different boroughs.

Manny Heicklen, who will promote the Sunnyside cards, said they will be aired on WOR-Channel 9. Sunnyside has a non-TV mat card coming up this Saturday night, and occasional non-televised programs will continue to be offered.

(JMK's NOTE--The TV listings showed the 9:30 p.m. program as "Wrestling With Antonino Rocca.")

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TELEVISION WRESTLING AT SUNNYSIDE GARDEN

Weekly televised professional wrestling will debut at Sunnyside Garden tomorrow night when promoter Manny Heicklen presents a seven-bout card.

"New faces" is the theme of the opening show, which will present a completely fresh lineup of grunt-and-groaners for the Sunnyside fans and those who tune in the channel 9 TV show which will be emceed by Lonnie Starr.

Only familiar name in the Sunnyside lineup is that of Antonino Rocca, most popular matman of the past decade. He'll face Jose Romano in the feature attraction.

Sharing the top billing is a tag team match pitting Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson against Angelo Martinelli and Jesse James.

The opener is scheduled for 8:30 p.m.

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ANTONINO ROCCA TRIUMPHS AT SUNNYSIDE

Antonino Rocca won two straight falls from Jose Romano last night as weekly televised wrestling started at Sunnyside Garden.

Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson took the tag team event in straight falls from Angelo Martinelli and Jesse James.

In other matches, Pepe Figueroa beat Joe Lopez, Ramon Crespo won from Jaime Del Valle, Isago Rosario whipped Miguel Camacho, Gino Lanza triumphed over Gene Anderson and George Becker defeated Joe Tomasso.

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ANTONINO ROCCA VS. JOSE ROMANO
(Wrestling Revue, circa 1963)

Professional wrestling in the U.S. has one thing in common with the underworld: the entire country is divided into territories, with one overlord (Chief Promoter) in control of each specific area. And, as is the case in the underworld, there always have been -- and always will be -- invasions into an overlord's territory.

Long time master of the buzzing and lucrative Northeastern coast -- extending from Virginia to Maine and west to Ohio -- is Vince McMahon, who operates out of Washington, D.C., and whose big gun is his Thursday night TV show out of Washington's Capitol Arena (McMahon also has a weekly TV show originating from Bridgeport, Conn.)

It is understandable why rival promoters have always cast envious eyes at McMahon's vast empire. A few invasions were attempted over the past five years, but all wound up in failure, mainly because of logistics -- it costs too much to import talent from outlying territories to appear on only one show even if that show has the benefit of a TV sponsor; also, McMahon controls 99 per cent of the arenas in the territory, including the 18,000-capacity Madison Square Garden. Thus, any prospective invader of the Northeast faces a seemingly impregnable Maginot Line.

But Antonino Rocca, a former employee of McMahon and, as such, once the New York area's top attraction, must have remembered howed the German army sliced through the Maginot Line as if it were made of cream cheese. And Rocca, with no longer any love for Vince, evidently concluded that his old boss was ready for slicing.

Rocca and his associates found the crack in McMahon's Maginot Line -- Sunnyside Gardens, a small arena on Long Island, a stone's throw from Manhattan. They also found a sponsor -- Schaefer Beer -- and a network to televise the show -- WOR-TV (Channel 9). The beer company, trying to further develop its product in the flourishing New York City Spanish-speaking market, was very optimistic because Rocca, who is really an Italian, had succeeded in making Puerto Rican mat fans accept him as one of their own.

For talent, a deal was worked out with Jim Crockett, overlord of the Carolina territory, who was in a position to feed wrestlers into New York at comparatively small cost. The idea of bringing in new talent which had never before been exposed to the McMahon legions, was a key point in the Rocca group's master plan. And it made a lot of sense, for even a big operator like Vince has just so many wrestlers to go around, and it can get a bit boring to look at the same faces week after week, month after month, even year after year.

So the stage was set. With veteran disc jockey, velvet-voiced Lonnie Starr, at the mike, "ALL-STAR WRESTLING WITH ANTONINO ROCCA" was unveiled to Eastern audiences on the night of Sept. 30. Announcer Starr explained that this was the start of a new wrestling series and that "The Great Rocca will be the feature attraction each and every week."

If Vince McMahon watched the show, which he undoubtedly did, what he saw must have made him feel ten feet tall. And to all the other "educated" eyes who watched, the conclusion was pretty unanimous: McMahon's Maginot Line, unlike the French fortification of the same name, was impregnable.

The five-bout card was uninspired and dull. Even the "Great" Antonino seemed as if he couldn't care less. With Joe Tomasso as his foe, Rocca spent 80 percent of the time sitting on the canvas, tugging at Tomasso's big right foot and talking -- in Spanish, naturally -- to the ringsiders, who found nothing all night to make them stand up and cheer.

Aside from Rocca and a few others, the talent hardly lived up to "All-Star" billing. Rip Hawk, Swede Hansen and ex-Brooklynite George Becker were familiar names -- but few fans in the area had heard of Gino Lanza, Gene Anderson, Jose Romano, Jesse James and Angelo Martinelli.

Because we wanted to recreate what TViewers saw on that night of Sept. 30, we photographed the action directly off the TV screen. And after studying the highlights, all we can say is that if future "ALL-STAR WRESTLING WITH ANTONINO ROCCA" programs are not livened up substantially, beer drinkers will be doing their toasting with a brand other than Schaefer's when they're having more than one.

(JMK's NOTE -- The above article was, indeed, surrounded with shots of the television screen: Lonnie Starr interviewing Rocca, Rocca sitting atop Romano (not Tomasso, as the article's careless author wrote), a "heated interview" between Starr and tag teamers Hawk and Hansen, and Rocca's arm being raised in victory over a fallen Romano. That the one-sided article would appear in such an important publication -- published by the legendary Stanley Weston -- shows the power that McMahon yielded, even over the ostensibly "objective" press corps.)