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From 3e6r.net Latest News Headlines Article courtesy of Roanoke.com:
SHAWSVILLE - Handsome Jimmy "The Boogie Woogie Man" Valiant was the star attraction at Shawsville Middle School Saturday night as he wrestled for the home - town crowd one last time. But he worked the crowd like he was an eager up-and-comer, not a retiring hall-of-famer. If anybody didn't get a warm personal greeting from him, it wasn't because The Boogie Woogie Man didn't do his part. He chatted, he hugged, he signed autographs and posed for photos, he sold T-shirts that said "Boogie's Farewell Tour." It's been 40 years since Boogie started wrestling. Nearly 30 since he and his "brother," Luscious Johnny Valiant, ruled the World Wrestling Federation, fighting off other tag teams to keep the championship belt for a year. It's been 12 years since he open ed Boogie's Wrestling Camp near Shawsville and eight years since he and Johnny were inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame. Though Boogie will continue running his camp, his days in the ring are drawing to a close this year, with a farewell tour that will end in Greenville, S.C., this Christmas. While Boogie, 61, basked in the love of his fans near the gymnasium entrance, other wrestlers clobbered each other in the ring. Many of them had learned how to clobber - and, more importantly, how to take a clobbering - from Boogie himself. "He's taught me so much not only about wrestling, but about life," said Frank "The Tank" Parker, the very first student at Boogie's Wrestling Camp. For some time he was the only student, giving him a chance to learn one-on-one with a master of professional wrestling. Later, the two went on the road together, wrestling as a tag team. "He's great. He's a sweetheart," Parker said. In the ring and in the audience were others who'd learned from or worked with Boogie over the years. "He's one of the best men that you can meet," said Jeffrey Payne, a 13-year-old West Virginian who debuted as Boogie's tag team partner at age 9. Boogie's retirement, he said, "will be a great loss for the wrestling business." "It's very sad to see," said John "Flash" Buchanan. "It's just like it's a big bad nightmare." "I hate to see him retire, man," said Mike "Rolling Thunder" Staples, who has toured with Boogie before and will team up with him again in Roanoke this summer. "I'm gonna miss him, man. [He's a] good guy. You can't beat him." Johnny Eagle, a former WWF wrestler who first met Boogie around 1970, said Boogie is "one of the best, in my book." "Wrasslin' was wrasslin' back in the early days," he recalled. "The place would be dead. Boogie would walk out - he would bring it alive." But Boogie wasn't done yet. And he was about to prove that he could get this crowd rocking. Minutes before his match, he was fluffing his beard and flexing his tattoo-covered arms. He had taken off his shirt, revealing the big let ters that strut across his stomach: "Come to Papa." "I'm very excited," said Boogie. "This is my home, you know. "Forty years I've been doing this," he said. "I made a living out of recess. This is recess to me." Time to play. When Boogie and his tag-team partner, Crazy Tony Fitzgerald, made their entrance, Boogie headed straight for the bleachers - dancing, clapping, grabbing hands, flashing the thumbs-up sign and basically doing everything you would expect from a boogie-woogie man. His theme song, "The Boy From New York City," played and the crowd clapped and had a big time. When he finally made it to the ring, he laid a big, theatrical "kiss" on the ref. The match, against Bruiser Graham and Superstar Scotty Rocker, was in three acts: Act I: Boogie taunted and fooled his opponents. He twisted a nose. He poked a butt. He rode and spanked Bruiser Graham like a horsey. By the time he was done with the other team, they'd done much more damage to each other than to him. Boogie isn't a big man anymore. In fact, he's as skinny as a turnbuckle post. But this opening act was his way of saying: I may not weigh as much as this guy's biceps, but I know every trick in the book. Heck, I practically wrote the book. As the WWF/WWE Hall of Fame Web site puts it: "With their bleached blond hair, rugged ring moves and \overall flamboyance, the Valiants were revolutionary, giving fans a taste of what sports-entertainment would look like in the future." Act II: The opponents clobbered his teammate, while Boogie hammed it up outside the ring. He couldn't go in until his partner tagged him, and his partner was busy getting thrashed. Act III: Boogie finally got tagged and he and Crazy Tony went to town on the bad guys. Boogie unleashed a wild series of wacky wind-up wallops. No time for tricks now, just good old-fashioned headbanging and choke-holding. Another victory for the Boogie Woogie Man! A herd of wrestlers stormed the ring for a celebration and lots of hugging. When Boogie finally got to the microphone, he plugged his upcoming show in Roanoke and left Shawsville with these final words: "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. God bless. Whoo."
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