A Farewell to Blackjack and Balls

Within the past week, the professional wrestling world lost two brothers in Blackjack Mulligan and Balls Mahoney. Both men brought a unique presence to the industry and will be missed. Blackjack Mulligan was 73 years old, while Balls Mahoney was only 44 years of age.

BLACKJACK MULLIGAN

When I first heard that Blackjack Mulligan passed away, I was not shocked at the news. Over the years, with the high death count in professional wrestling, you become desensitized after a while upon hearing the latest wrestler that has passed away. It’s very sad that it’s gotten to this point. However, Blackjack Mulligan’s death was not one of these cases of an early death of a wrestler. At age 73, Blackjack Mulligan lived a long life. Over the past decade, Mulligan faced his share of health issues. Last year, Mike Rotundo, Bray Wyatt, and Bo Dallas were all flown home early from WWE television to be with Blackjack, as it appeared the family patriarch had little time remaining on this planet.

Whenever a wrestler passes away, the first thing I do is read that week’s “Wrestling Observer” newsletter. Dave Meltzer does a tremendous job with wrestling obituaries. This week was no different. I learned some interesting facts and some amazing stories that I had either forgotten, or didn’t know. Blackjack Mulligan was a high school football star, who received tryouts after college with the Denver Broncos, NY Jets, and New Orleans Saints. He went to the same high school in Odessa, TX as Wahoo McDaniel where Wahoo was a senior when Mulligan entered his freshman year. Wahoo McDaniel was the person who eventually told him that he should try professional wrestling as Wahoo wrestled during the football offseason at the time.

Mulligan, who started his career under his real name Bob Windham, patterned his interview style after Thunderbolt Patterson. In a quote in the “Wrestling Observer,” Mulligan explained, “He (Thunderbolt Patterson) did one of the greatest TV promos in the history of wrestling. He never got his due. I think because he went on that racial thing in Atlanta and had problems after that with some in the business. Regardless of that, Dusty started it and I came in right behind him, and we copied him. It was a soul-like down home barbeque type interview. People had never seen white boys do this type of promo interview before. We did that kind of interview and we copied it from Thunderbolt Patterson. We added our Western twang into it, and that thing just started popping left and right.”

In 1971, Bob Windham took on the moniker Blackjack Mulligan where he did a copy of the gimmick Blackjack Lanza was using. Mulligan was quoted in the “Observer” about the gimmick change, “He (Lanza) was there in the AWA and I just loved the Western (thing) he was doing. That Western thing was a natural for me, because I was the real deal. Jack was from Albuquerque and he was already a top main eventer in St. Louis and everything. So we made the deal that when I’d come to New York (WWWF), we’d team up and see what happened.”

However, their tag team didn’t start in the McMahon territory. They actually started their tag team run in Dick the Bruiser’s WWA promotion in September 1971. After Mulligan moved on, the duo wouldn’t team again until 1974 where they partnered in Texas. Eventually, they did have a run in the WWWF as the Blackjacks. The won the WWWF World Tag Team championships on August 26th, 1975 in Philadelphia, PA.

In two short months, Blackjack Mulligan was about to get the biggest run of his career, but not for the McMahons. It was a fascinating story on how Mulligan went from WWWF Tag Team champion to one of the biggest stars in the Carolinas territory. Meltzer explains the details, “In October, Ric Flair, Johnny Valentine, Tim Woods, David Crockett and Bob Bruggers were in a plane crash near Wilmington, NC. Jim Crockett Promotions as far back as anyone could remember was known as a place where you could make nice solid money but the travel was difficult. George Scott came in as booker, moved out the longtime stars from the main events and built around physical matches with McDaniel and Valentine. It started slowly, but fans got accustomed to the new more physical style, and it was growing into what would end up being probably the best territory in the country when it came to talent. Due to injuries in the crash, Valentine never wrestled again, and Flair wasn’t going to be able to wrestle again for several months. Business had gotten strong, and all of sudden, the top two heels were out of action.

Scott called Mulligan and told him he had to have him immediately, needing a new top heel for the next TV tapings. Mulligan said that Scott told him if he came in, he’d give him the No. 1 heel slot in the company. He also told him up front that he was grooming Flair for the spot, but Flair wasn’t ready for it yet. He said that when Flair was ready, Mulligan would have the No. 2 heel spot and he promised him he’d keep him at No. 2 for as long as Mulligan stayed in the territory. When Scott felt Flair was ready to carry the territory in 1978, Mulligan instead went babyface for the best run of his career. The problem was he was WWWF tag team champions, with Lanza. He said he told Lanza he was leaving, and Lanza told him that nobody in their right mind would make that decision. While the Carolinas had gotten strong, to where the top guys were making very good money, and Scott promised Mulligan considerably more money than he was making in WWWF, by reputation, nobody would leave a top run in WWWF early for the Carolinas or raise the ire of a promoter as powerful as Vince McMahon Sr. Mulligan said he and Lanza were never the same as friends again, and for the most part, that ended their team, although they did team together again for a short time nearly a decade later. He then told Vince McMahon Sr. he was giving notice. McMahon didn’t take it any better than Lanza, and told him that he wasn’t accepting his notice. McMahon wasn’t used to champions leaving on their own time or varying from his long-term booked out plans, where main events in Madison Square Garden were decided six months or more in advance. They’d have their run, however long McMahon felt it should be, and then they’d go elsewhere. Plus, promoters weren’t taking talent from McMahon. But Scott was desperate, feeling they needed to keep the building momentum.

There was a match, which may have been on October 24, 1975, in Harrisburg, PA, where the Blackjacks were defending the tag team titles against Dominic DeNucci & Pat Barrett. In the third fall of a match they weren’t supposed to lose, Mulligan was down for a near fall with DeNucci on top, and told DeNucci he wasn’t kicking out and not to get up. DeNucci & Barrett won the match. Both Vince McMahon Sr. and his son, the current Vince McMahon, were livid at Mulligan losing the title at a house show. They told him that no matter what the fans saw in the arena that night, it wasn’t a title change. But they also realized at that moment that Mulligan really was leaving. He started in the Carolinas, and came back for a November 8, 1975, TV match in Philadelphia where he and Lanza dropped the titles to Tony Parisi & Louis Cerdan. Mulligan split time between the two territories, doing his jobs on the way out in the WWWF, while appearing regularly on TV and in some of the major Carolinas cities before going full-time.”

He excelled in the Carolinas, first as a heel and Ric Flair’s running mate both in and out of the ring. Then, later, he was one of the headline babyfaces where he also feuded with Flair. According to Meltzer, Crockett would run three show circuits at the time. One headlined by Flair, a second by Mulligan, and the third by Ricky Steamboat.

He worked in several territories throughout his career, and eventually made in back to the WWF as a singles wrestler in 1982 and again in 1984. His last major run for the WWF came in 1986 under a mask. He wrestled as part of a six man “Japanese” tag team called the Machines. He played the part of the “Big Machine,” while Andre the Giant was the “Giant Machine” and the Masked Superstar (and future Demolition member) played the role of the “Super Machine.” This was all part of an angle that had Andre the Giant suspended in the WWF. Once he was reinstated, the Machines angle was dropped.

STORIES OF BLACKJACK

Some of the most legendary Blackjack Mulligan stories revolved around his penchant for fighting. According to the Meltzer story, “Once, he got into it with Harley Race, who himself was a legendary tough guy. Mulligan ended up on top of Race in a hotel room as they were on the floor between twin beds and Race couldn’t get Mulligan off him. Flair, Race, McDaniel and Mulligan were traveling partners that night, and Flair noted that he was scared to death Race would try and get retribution later, but it never happened. Mulligan knocked out Ole Anderson, who himself was a noted tough guy, at least twice, although Anderson claimed they were sucker punches. He pounded Sheik Adnan El-Kaissie, who was a world-class amateur wrestler.

On December 29, 1987, the Observer reported that “Probably the best match on recent independent cards took place in the dressing room at Miami Marine Stadium. Blackjack Mulligan saw Bob Roop (who represented the U.S. in Greco-Roman Wrestling in the 1968 Olympics) in the dressing room and pummeled on Roop so badly that Roop needed medical help. Apparently there were some problems going back to when Roop booked Florida.”

But his most famous fight, or fights, were incidences with Andre the Giant. In one, Andre threw him into a wall in a hotel or motel so hard that Mulligan went through the wall and into the next room which was occupied by people.

The other, more famous, was in Virginia Beach, after a show in Norfolk, when the wrestlers had a party in a beach front hotel. Mulligan winked at Murdoch and then sucker punched Andre. Andre was so mad that he grabbed both Mulligan and Murdoch, dragged them out of the room, down the beach and into the Atlantic Ocean and held both under water until it was broken up.

In 1989, Scott hired Mulligan as an assistant booker and road agent for WCW. Less than two weeks later, Mulligan, in a suit and tie, had a discussion with Lex Luger after being told he was going to wrestle Dutch Mantel. Luger apparently said to Mulligan, talking about himself in the third person, “Why would a Lex Luger wrestle a Dutch Mantel.” Mulligan allegedly wanted to punch Luger, but instead got so frustrated, that he quit on the spot, telling Scott that he couldn’t relate to modern wrestlers.”

One of my favorite Mulligan stories that Meltzer talked about happened in a match with Pedro Morales on May, 15, 1971 at the Boston Garden, where Mulligan was stabbed in his leg by a fan with a butcher knife.

“Mulligan was using roughhouse tactics to bring on a disqualification and a rematch,” remembered music executive Mike Omansky in a letter to the Observer. “As Pedro was being beaten on, two fans jumped into the ring and one stabbed Mulligan in the leg. Gorilla Monsoon, at that point a babyface and also working behind the scenes, raced out in street clothes and literally threw the two fans out of the ring. Monsoon was accompanied by two non-wrestlers. As a result, there was no Morales vs. Mulligan rematch in Boston, and in fact, no subsequent appearances in Boston by Mulligan. The crowds during Morales’ reign were such that these sort of instances were constantly feared.”

Mulligan blamed himself to a degree, saying he was green as far as headlining went, and didn’t understand controlling heat and brought the crowd up too much in beating on Morales and didn’t know how to turn it down.

The knife used had been dipped in pig fat and Mulligan’s leg got infected. He was out of action until July, and left the territory to work for The Sheik out of Detroit. He returned for one appearance, on July 24, 1971 in Madison Square Garden.”

You often hear stories from older wrestlers of the territory era talking about drawing white hot heat, and some even take it as a badge of honor if a fan attempted to attack them. However, in today’s professional wrestling, a heel no longer experiences any kind of hatred that comes anywhere close to this type of fan hatred. I’m glad that this is no longer the case, because that type of heat creates a seriously unsafe work environment for the wrestlers. The closest that I have ever come to seeing this almost mythical “white hot heat” was when Jerry Lawler invaded the ECW Arena with Sabu, Rob Van Dam, and Jim Cornette. The building was so loud with hatred that I had to watch ECW’s television show the next week in order to hear Jerry Lawler’s promo. However, as wild as that night was, I never feared that someone would run into the ring and stab Jerry Lawler.

After his wrestling career came to a close, Blackjack Mulligan and his son Kendall Windham were arrested on December 26th, 1989 for trying to sell $1 million dollars in counterfeit $20 dollar bills to undercover police officers in Tampa, FL for $250,000. Mulligan served two years in prison. When he was released, he wrestled sparingly until May 23rd, 1993 when he wrestled in a six man tag team with Wahoo McDaniel and Jim Brunzell against Dick Murdoch, Don Muraco, and Jimmy Snuka in a legends match at WCW’s inaugural Slamboree pay per view.

BALLS MAHONEY

On April 12th, my iPhone beeped. Thinking it was an incoming text, I picked up my phone to discovered a Bleacher Report Alert on the passing of Jonathan Rechner, aka Balls Mahoney. I immediately clicked on the Alert, and saw that Mahoney was 44 years old. I was very surprised to see his age, because that’s how old I am. Even though I saw most of his career, for some reason, I always thought he was a lot older than I was. According to the “Wrestling Observer,” a few days before passing away, he had suffered a fall. The fall required him to use a walker. On the 12th, he was using the walker when he started throwing up in front of his wife and seven-year old son. Meltzer said that the early reports is that Mahoney got so sick that he passed away.

Like with the Blackjack Mulligan obit, I learned a few things about Balls Mahoney in this story. I never knew that he was a top level high school wrestler. According to the story, Mahoney was banned from amateur wrestling when he used an illegal maneuver on his opponent that injured him. After the referee made the call on the illegal move, Mahoney then headbutted the official.

He would go on to meet Chris Candido, and would train at the Monster Factory. Mahoney debuted in 1987 at the age of 15 under the name of Abbuda Signh. His first big break came in Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling as he performed under the name of Boo Bradley. Bradley was the naïve friend of Candido and Tammy Fytch, who the couple would make fun of. This would eventually lead to a babyface turn by Bradley against the Candido/Fytch couple. In 1995, he had an incredibly short run as Xanta Claus, an evil Santa character. Even though the character was short lived, I remember watching him perform on WWF television while I was in my college dorm room. As someone who was dying for a more realistic WWF, seeing Xanta Claus was a “what the hell is this crap?” moment for me.

His biggest run of his career came in 1997 when he joined Extreme Championship Wrestling as Balls Mahoney. The Balls Mahoney character had a great act. While he wasn’t much of a wrestler, he was a terrific hardcore brawler who fit in perfectly in the ultra-violent world of ECW. There were so many small aspects to the character that helped get Balls Mahoney over. One was billing a guy named “Balls” as hailing from Nutley, New Jersey. The other was giving him AC/DC’s “Big Balls” as his entrance song. It fit his character and the crowd perfectly as they sang each lyric of the song as Mahoney entered the ring. His most famous tag team partner was the super violent Axl Rotten. However, his biggest tag team success came with two different partners, Masato Tanaka (once) and Spike Dudley (twice). According to the “Observer” newsletter, “The original idea for Balls Mahoney in ECW was to be the world’s toughest biker, who would also come out as being gay. Paul Heyman had the idea of making him the antithesis of every gay stereotype of that era.” After reading this tidbit, I couldn’t help but think of how the ECW Arena crowd would have reacted to a gay character. The ECW crowd was extremely vulgar and not even close to being politically correct. I have a feeling the ECW crowd would have turned on Balls Mahoney, giving him a short lived ECW tenure. Instead, he was known as a violent wrestler who delivered chairshots as hard as he took them. He was famous for taking unprotected brutal chairshots to the head and bleeding like crazy during his matches.

In the article, Meltzer described a match in 2012 against Marty Jannetty where after taking an unprotected chairshot, he started throwing up all over ringside. Reading this scared me as a fan, and moreso as a family member whose brother is a professional wrestler. The first thought that I had was that I hope his family donates his brain for concussion research, because his head has to be scrambled for sure. Watching Balls take those hard unprotected chairshots in the late 90s was hard enough to see back then. This was BEFORE we started to learn about the dangers of concussions. Now, it’s downright terrifying to watch. I cringe when I see guys taking unprotected shots to the head on the indy circuit for $40 a night. I warn my brother not to be one of those people, and tell him that he shouldn’t take that kind of shot even if he’s lucky enough to one day be making six figures in the WWE. Wrestlers in this industry today need to look at Balls Mahoney as an example of what not to do. According to Dave Meltzer, Balls Mahoney has been in bad shape for years. He’s body was ravaged by injuries to the point where he walked with a limp. Meltzer said that people who saw Mahoney over the recent years said he “looked gaunt, lost a lot of weight, and looked more and more unhealthy every time they saw him.” I mentioned this line to my brother, who still trains at the Monster Factory. He agreed with that statement. He told me that Balls visited the Monster Factory a few times, and each time he should up, he did look worse with each visit. I appreciated Balls Mahoney for going all out and doing whatever he could to entertain the fans in the ring. In the end, the pops he received for destroying his body wasn’t worth it. It’s a lesson that every wrestler needs to remember. Hopefully, that will be Balls Mahoney’s legacy, and will lead to a safer industry for the wrestlers.

The old adage when it comes to celebrity deaths is that celebrities die in threes. In the last week, we had two in Blackjack Mulligan and Balls Mahoney. Hopefully, we don’t get that third one any time soon.