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Retired grappler gets firm grip on another award
By HARLAN WEIKLE
| Article published on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/090507_bee-06.jpg) |
| Photo by HARLAN WEIKLE |
| George and Jean Scott |
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INDIAN ROCKS BEACH – It has been a few years since George Scott threw his opponents around the ring, but for the IRB resident it seems like just yesterday that fans clamored for his autograph and the chance to shake the hand of the Great Scott.
In fact, it was just last month that Scott received the latest of a long list of awards as a Hero of Wrestling during the NWA’s Wrestling Legends Fanfest in Charlotte, N.C.
Scott has been to many such events in his 60-plus year career. He began wrestling as a teen at the YMCA in Hamilton, Ontario, but it wasn’t until four years later, in 1945 that Scott at age 17 had the moxy if not yet the mature skill to climb into the ring with seasoned pros like Buddy Rogers and Gorgeous George.
Scott had taken on a group of football players from the Hamilton Tiger Cats.
“I beat two or three of them pretty good and they wanted me to try out for the team,” he said.
Scott was more interested in Greco Roman wrestling than football, so plying his slim claim to fame Scott sent some photographs to promoter Jack Pfefer who was then booking a string of wrestlers called the Angels and soon found himself wrestling five to six matches a week out of Toledo under the ring name Benny Becker.
During a match in Florida in 1952 Scott was kicked in the back by fellow wrestler “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers suffering three ruptured discs. Scott moved back to Hamilton to recover. After six months the young wrestler was ready to start over and against the wishes of his parents he returned to the ring.
In 1953 he introduced his younger brother, Angus, billed as Sandy, to fans and together they became a wrestling tag team sensation thrilling fight fans into the late ’60s as both Canadian tag team champions and 2-time AWA team champions.
Scott spent the next six years perfecting his trade in Calgary where he met and formed lasting relationships with some of wrestling’s most influential insiders, including Canadian wrestling icon and promoter Stu Hart. Scott began to assist Hart with his Canadian promotions, eventually traveling to the United States where he teamed with Carolina promoter Jim Crockett Sr.
“Jim always tried to keep me around, whenever I was offered something away he came up with a booking for me in Carolina,” Scott said.
Soon Scott became Crockett’s booker and his second career began.
It was while managing the mid-Atlantic region for Crockett in 1982 that Scott met his wife, Jean, who was then working at WGST in Atlanta with Brad Nessler’s radio program “Sports Final.”
“One day I was assigned to cover a wrestling match at the Omni in Atlanta. Brad said I should do some interviews, since George was in charge,” she said. “I made it a point to meet him.”
Scott asked her out for six weeks before she agreed. They married three years later in 1985.
Jean tells the story that on the eve of their honeymoon George was thrown out of the ring during a “Battle Royal” and suffered three cracked ribs.
“I guess wrestling has always been an influence on my life,” she said.
Jean credits her grandmother with her early interest in wrestling saying, “We used to watch wrestling together on TV, she was a big fan too.”
Over the next 15 years Scott became the driving force behind much of wrestling’s rising popularity promoting the fertile mid-Atlantic region, and a wrestling phenomenon known as Wrestle Mania into the national prime time event and in the process elevating wrestling of such super stars as Johnny Valentine, Ric Flair and Bill Eadie who performed as The Masked Superstar among other names.
Of Scott’s years as both a wrestler and booker he said he remembers best his friendship with Vince McMahon Sr., whom he describes as a great gentleman and good friend. He offered a plain piece of paper bearing the distinctive tapped imprints of an old-fashioned typewriter spelling out McMahon’s detailed instructions for Scott’s stewardship of the WWF once McMahon retired, a role Scott never realized.
In 1986 Scott retired from the WWF, citing a tortuous work load recalling among other distractions the pressure of maintaining a drug free venue.
“I knew a lot of fantastic athletes that died before their 60s,” he said, “All because of steroids. They burned themselves out.”
But he also recalled happier times like a match in Tampa during his early career at which another athlete refereed – that was the day he met baseball great and sometimes wrestling fan Babe Ruth.
Then there was a match in the mid ’60s in Texas with Johnny Valentine followed by a meeting in the ring with some politician named Bush, Scott recalls.
“Valentine made a gesture and walked out so I got to spend a half hour with the guy back stage,” he said. “I don’t remember what we talked about.”
A picture on the wall in Scott’s trophy room of a great red pit bull prompts an inquiry to which Scott offers up this memory.
“That’s my Sampson,” he said. “I took him everywhere; he guarded my bag back stage when I was wrestling.” Staring back through the years Scott reflected, “He died one night in Raleigh; that was the only match I ever missed.”
The Scotts moved to IRB in 1987 where they keep busy in local politics, volunteer service, golfing and supporting the Brad Johnson Celebrity Golf Classic, which raises money for cystic fibrosis research.
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Article published on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007
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