LeBelle Promotions and their booking of Frankenstein's Monster

This is the script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the video version here: https://youtu.be/2gaAr622FXA

The inspiration for this video came from one of the more interesting of the annual Wrestling Observer awards, the 'most disgusting promotional tactic'. The first winner if you can call it that of this prize was in 1981, and is referred to as "LeBelle Promotions' usage of the Monster, saying he was built in a laboratory". As a sign of the times, California based LeBelle Promotions was the first of only four territories to achieve this award, with WWE winning it twenty four times out of the past 40 years, most recently because of this man, I mean usually because this man, but last year directly because of this man. But why LeBelle promotions though, and what was so disgusting about The Monster?

Promoter Mike Lebelle is the brother of 'Judo' Gene Lebell, but the two apparently didn't get along to the point that they would spell their names differently to not be linked to each other. Gene Lebell by the way is maybe best known to modern fans as the innovator of the Lebell lock, made famous in recent years by Bryan Danielson when he made it to WWE, partly because they weren't thrilled with his previous finishing hold being called Cattle Mutilation.

Mike LeBelle first got into promoting by taking over the independent WWA around 1965. At the time they had their own World Champion, Bobo Brazil, who held what was considered to be a major title comparable to the NWA, AWA or WWWF championship. This would change in 1968 when Lebelle and another California promoter Roy Shire were convinced into joining the NWA by Sam Muschnick, who served many years as a trusted figure and problem solver amongst territories. Being a member of the NWA back in this era meant that promoters had to adhere to several rules, the most important of which was that they couldn't have their own World Champion anymore, and would have to acknowledge the NWA champion, who was Gene Kiniski at the time they joined.

In the 1970's Mike Lebelle would often sell out the fifth-teen thousand seat Olympic auditorium in Los Angeles where shows would be held on Wednesday and Friday nights. The venue was famous for various sports, most notably Boxing, Wrestling and Roller Derby. The building was also used as a venue for the 1932 Olympic games, hosting Boxing, Wrestling and Weightlifting. Opened in 1925, the venue briefly closed though much of the 80's in part due to the closure of LeBelle Promotions, but was active from 93 to around 2005, even hosting an ECW pay per view, Heat Wave in 2000. The building is still there, but now operates as a Church. The venue is also notable for being used in many Boxing and Wrestling films, including the first three Rocky movies, Raging Bull, and even the David Arquette classic Ready to Rumble. I suppose not being far from Hollywood made it a great place to film such scenes.

Another accomplishment of LeBelle was that in 1971 he is credited as promoting the first known closed circuit wrestling event. The event held on July 30th would not only sell out at the Olympic Auditorium, but also drew four thousand more fans to the nearby Warren and Orpheum theatres to watch the closed circuit broadcast. This would take place fourteen years before Wrestlemania 1, which relied on closed circuit screenings to turn a profit before pay per view would take over.

One of the more notable feuds that LeBelle would promote would be John Tolos versus Classy Freddie Blassie, even drawing an estimated number between eighteen and twenty-five thousand fans at the much larger LA colosseum on August 12th 1971. In May of that year they had began a story where Blassie had been blinded by powder and may never wrestle again. He would return in July to build the big match that would take place at the Colosseum. According to Dave Meltzers obituary of LeBelle from his passing in 2009, Mike was considered very business minded, so when the Blassie Tolos rematch didn't draw as much, he ended the program, possibly leaving money on the table for more rematches. Despite being LeBelle's top draw for much of the 60's, Blassie in particular didn't get along with LeBelle stemming from what he thought was a low payment for the Colosseum show. In his 2003 autobiography Freddie Blassie would write "Even during the best of times I was waiting for him to put a hatchet in my back." It's safe to say that Mike wasn't popular with a lot of wrestlers over pay related issues, but thats not a complaint exclusive to him in the territory days.

Later into the 70's LeBelle would hit it big with another headlining feud, as his top heel Rowdy Roddy Piper would battle the beloved Guerrero family, Chavo Guerrero in particular, the brother of Eddie Guerrero and Father of the Chavo Guerrero who is still around wrestling today. Mike Lebelle is credited as being the promoter that would discover and elevate Piper, and from LA he would go on to Portland where he would become a star in that territory too. Chavo, as well as his brothers Mando and Hector (who by the way would play the Gobbledy Gooker in WWE), would be young stars for Lebelle, but by this time business was declining from the glory days of the mid 60's to 70's.

By 1980 the promotion was doing badly, drawing four thousand at the Olympic Auditorium where they used to draw much more. By this time Lebelle was surviving based on his Spanish language broadcasts being aired internationally. In 1982 the promotion would finally close its doors, and in 83 Vince McMahon would buy television time in LA as part of his national expansion. Mike Lebelle would briefly work for Vince to help promote WWF shows in Los Angeles, but this relationship fell through once Vince had established his shows in the area and no longer needed LeBelle.

So now let's get to The Monster. The wrestler this is referring to is a man called Cornelio Hernandez better known as Tony Hernandez, who seems to have spent most of his career wrestling in Arizona and California. Later in his career perhaps with a little influence from Hollywood, Hernandez would adopt a new gimmick, inspired by the many, many films starring Mary Shelley's 1818 creation. He would be billed as the Monster, basically a blatant ripoff of Frankensteins monster. As you might expect The Monster would lurch around the ring and barely sell his opponents offence. Does that remind you of anyone?

It should remind you of a few different wrestlers, going to show just how much wrestling has changed. If you go back and watch the first year or so of the Undertaker in WWE, you'll find a very different performer than the man who stole many a Wrestlemania decades later. Undertaker would often plod slowly around the ring and perform very simple offence, much of which being chokes. The Frankenstein's monster influence was obvious, but not overbearing which may be why he got away with it. From what I can gather the Observer award was given because once The Monster arrived in LeBelle Promotions in 1981. He was promoted as being a man built in a laboratory, a real life Frankensteins monster as opposed to clearly a gimmick. While it's easy to look back with modern eyes and not see much wrong with such a wacky gimmick given some of the things we've seen over the years, when Hernandez arrived in LeBelle promotions, the fans hated him, and not in the way a wrestling promoter wants you to hate their heel.

You know how the likes of Jim Cornette like to talk about the old days when people believed in wrestling? Well the fans he's talking about would have been the ones that hated this gimmick so much. Imagine what they would have thought of PCO being restarted from a car battery? The fans who were going to the Olympic Auditorium were likely also going to the weekly boxing cards in the same building, and showing those fans a supposed horror movie character was likely not going to go well.

Legend has it that there was someone else who despised the Monster gimmick, Andre the Giant, who himself for a time wrestled using the name Monster Roussimoff. There is a story of a match that took place between Andre and the Monster, where the real life giant was so offended at being asked to sell for The Monster, that in the ring he worked rough with him, going as far as to rip his Frankenstein mask off. This caused a big problem for LeBelle Promotions, what do you do when your big unstoppable monster has just been embarrassed by Andre the Giant? Well, you turn him babyface of course! The promotion apparently went as far as to put on "picture with the monster nights", going full gear into making him family friendly.

Heres a random trivia note that fits in around this time too. One year after after the Observer award, Hernandez would appear in the 1982 film Losin' it, which according to imdb is the first starring role of Tom Cruise. His role is credited as 'big guy in jail'.

When you look at some of the later winners of the 'most disgusting promotional tactic' award, this one feels a little tame. Many of the ones that would follow would revolve around the exploitation of a wrestlers death, or capitalising on other real life tragedies. Had Tony come around a decade later maybe he wouldn't have that dishonourable award, but if he had come around later would I be still be talking about him right now?