Pioneer Singles Wrestler
Eddie Gilbert
Thomas Edward "Eddie" Gilbert Jr was destined to be a pro wrestler. His father Tommy began taking Eddie and his younger brother Doug to see the local wrestling matches as soon as they were old enough to walk. It didn't take Eddie long to become fascinated by what went on in the ring, but even more so by what went on behind the scenes. Eddie saw how wrestling worked at a young age and by the time he was in his teens his ambition was to be the booker and top star in the Memphis territory. Rumor has it that Eddie's desire to be a wrestler was so great that he missed his own high school graduation so he could make it to Memphis to get beaten in the first match on the undercard at the Memphis (Mid-South) Coliseum.
Eddie Gilbert's first work came in Memphis. He was "a jobber" who's only claim to fame was having a famous wrestling father. As a team, Tommy and Eddie traveled across the United States eventually ending up in LeRoy McGuirk's Tri-State Wrestling promotion in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The father-son team won the Tri-State tag team title on several occasions. Eddie also held that title with Ricky Morton
They soon returned to Memphis, to feud with the Japanese team of Atsushi "Mr." Onita and Masa "Mr." Fuchi. In 1981, this feud resulted in one of the greatest wrestling brawls of all-time, commonly called "The Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl." For ten solid minutes, Eddie & Ricky Morton battled Fuchi and Onita in the concession area of an arena in Tupelo, Mississippi, pounding each other brutally with pots, pans, garbage cans and anything else within reach. By the time it was over, all four men were covered with soup, catsup, mustard, trash and blood.
In 1982, Eddie was hired by Vince McMahon Sr. in the WWF. He worked the undercards but never received a push due to his size. It was after a WWF TV taping in Hamburg, Pennsylvania that Eddie was involved in an automobile accident which resulted in him suffering a broken neck. Doctors told him he would never be able to wrestle again. Not only did Eddie prove them wrong but he went on to thrive as a pro wrestler.
Only a few months after the accident, Eddie went back into the ring in Memphis. He was contacted again by McMahon Sr., who had an idea that he thought would draw big money. McMahon Sr. brought Eddie back to the WWF as the personal friend and protégé of then-WWF champion Bob Backlund. He was pushed as a miracle man who had managed to survive a broken neck to return to active wrestling. In a TV bout, Masked Superstar (who was next in line at a title shot) gave Eddie neckbreaker after neckbreaker and supposedly broke his neck a second time. The WWF received lots of negative heat from inside the wrestling business for using a near-fatal real-life injury to set up a wrestling angle. Still, the sight of an enraged Backlund helping Eddie into an ambulance was enough to draw large numbers of fans to WWF arenas for a series of Backlund vs. Superstar title matches.
Gilbert finally got a top spot in 1984 in Memphis when he and Tommy Rich were teamed together as Fargo's Fabulous Ones. Unfortunately, Gilbert and Rich never got over as a team. It was at this point that the team was broken up with Eddie turning heel. This stint helped him turn a corner in his career when suddenly Eddie went from lower card babyface to main event heel. His tremendous heel persona and interviews surprised everyone and his push got stronger and stronger until he found himself at the center of several major angles. One of Eddie's first booking ideas helped make one of these angles a classic. He and Rich, who had already broken up, were awarded the "Tag Team of the Year" award on Memphis television. Eddie insulted Rich and ended up getting beaten bloody by him. Then Eddie did a face turn on Rich. After a sincere speech and gaining Rich's confidence, Eddie attacked him from behind and brawled until both guys were fighting on the floor of the studio in puddles of their own blood.
Eddie's soon made his way to Bill Watts' Mid-South promotion in 1985-86. Gilbert's main role behind the scenes was teaching interview skills to young guys like Sting, Ultimate Warrior, Rick Steiner, and Kortsia Korchenko. Gilbert also acted as their manager in matches and on tv. It was around this time that Eddie and Missy Hyatt became involved and eventually married.
In 1986, Vince McMahon Jr. contacted Gilbert and Hyatt about coming to the WWF. After a series of events (mostly Eddie trying to get himself fired) Watts offered Eddie a job as head booker. This convinced Gilbert to stay on with Watts and led to the booking of one of the greatest angles of all time: Gilbert, who came to Watt's aid and befriended him shocked the wrestling world. Gilbert and the Russians he managed (Ivan Koloff, Nikita Koloff and Korchenko) attacked Watts, laid him out and draped a Soviet flag over him, the ultimate insult to a proud American. The angle came off great and Eddie's reputation as a booker began taking off. However, in 1987 when Watts sold his promotion (by then known as the UWF) to Jim Crockett, Gilbert walked out because he thought Crockett's NWA was taking advantage of the UWF by forcing all of the UWF's top guys to lose matches to the NWA's top guys.
In 1988, TV station owner David Woods bought the Continental Wrestling Association and hired Gilbert to be his booker. Gilbert revived the territory by using young, unproven guys and also breathing life into wrestlers that had long been given up on long ago. He broke up the Nightmares, Ken Wayne and Danny Davis, who had been working as a team for years. After Davis turned heel, he pulled the now-familiar fake face turn on Wayne and got a huge response. Gilbert and his manager Paul E. Dangerously nearly caused a riot in Birmingham, Alabama by attacking Pez Whatley's 14 year-old son in a TV angle.
In the NWA in 1989, Gilbert was made a booking assistant to Dusty Rhodes. He worked as a face for the first time since early 1984. His crowning moment was the angle where he brought Rick Steamboat back to the NWA as his "mystery partner" during a match against Ric Flair and Barry Windham. He also held the U.S. tag team title with Rick Steiner. Gilbert was told at one point that he would be made a member of the Four Horsemen, which he considered the pinnacle of his career. However, head booker Rhodes never made good on the promise and this.
In 1990 in Memphis, Eddie got the idea in his head to run Jerry Lawler over with a car as an angle. Soon after, on the live Memphis TV show, Gilbert and promoter Eddie Marlin had a disagreement which spilled out into the parking lot of the TV studio. Lawler came out and intervened. Marlin fired Gilbert, who got into his car and left, but as he was driving from the parking lot he swerved and hit Lawler with the car. The scene was so realistic, several viewers in Memphis called the police to report an attempted homicide. Gilbert stopped around the corner at a pay phone to call the studio and find out if Lawler was okay. He was informed that there were police at the studio waiting to arrest him if he returned. Lawler, who legitimately hurt his hip in the incident, limped back out into the studio and proclaimed that he was okay (even though he wasn't) in order to "prove" to the police that the incident was all just "part of the show."
In 1993, Eddie became involved in Tod Gordon's Eastern (later Extreme) Championship Wrestling in Philadelphia. He was put in charge of booking. He tried to establish the promotion as the ultimate hardcore wrestling group. His cards became very violent and gimmick match-oriented but always remained very entertaining. Eddie's swan song came after a dispute with the owner of the promotion. Gilbert and ECW parted company, each feeling they had been burned by the other.
For Gilbert, his career always seemed to take him back to Memphis where he started. Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett always seemed to give him another chance. He spent most of 1994 helping to book himself in a Gilbert vs. Brian Christopher feud and then in a Gilbert vs. Lawler feud with his brother Doug again being used as part of the mix.
When Eddie was not give the role of head booker, he went to work for Dutch Mantell in Puerto Rico as the top heel. Mantell, enjoying a run of great success as WWC's booker, used Gilbert in gimmick matches against local babyfaces. The highlight came when Eddie lost a main event match to Jesus "Hurricane" Castillo in Bayamon in front of a near $150,000 house. But after that, he informed Mantell that he was leaving and he was gone again.
Eddie Gilbert appeared in the NWA World title tournament in Cherry Hill, New Jersey in November and then dropped from sight.
Eddie convinced Jim Cornette to allow him to enter Smoky Mountain Wrestling as the top heel, feuding with the Rock 'n' Roll Express. Gilbert promised Cornette that he wouldn't leave Smoky Mountain because he had to prove to himself and to those in the wrestling business that he was reliable and that all the trouble in the past was due to circumstances, not to his own erratic behavior. Despite the promises, he immediately turned around and set a new personal record for hightailing it out of a promotion. He worked a single TV taping before leaving for Puerto Rico to take a job there as the head booker of WWC, replacing Dutch Mantell who had jumped to the WWF.
In Puerto Rico, Eddie settled in as booker and took an apartment in Isla Verde. He called in his friend Ken Wayne, who he had known since grade school, as his booking assistant. In a strange and trivial occurrence, Gilbert's last match was actually against a trained circus bear the night before he died. The angle was one of Gilbert's stranger ones. Somehow, he worked it so that one of the local babyfaces (Gilbert was the top heel) had him sign a contract that he thought was for a match against a pushover opponent. In fact, when Gilbert read the contact more carefully, he saw that it was for a match against a bear. The idea is that fans would come out in droves to see a heel getting mauled by a huge animal. Since the bear was trained, ironically Gilbert was never in danger. It made no difference in the end, however. The next day, Wayne found him dead in his apartment in Isla Verde and the strange and tragic saga of Eddie Gilbert had come to an end.
Eddie Gilbert loved pro wrestling with a passion that cannot be doubted. It was his life. He will be remembered as an enormously talented man with a love for wrestling which was unmatched, who nonetheless spent his life battling his own personal demons even more than his wrestling opponents. Perhaps now he can finally win that battle.
(Written by Brett Schwan)
Additional Comments:
"I just wish, first and foremost, we had one of
the most brilliant minds and talents ever in the biz back with us--Eddie
Gilbert. He's missed daily by his friends and I'll never forget the late
Dennis Coralluzzo basically putting together the world's first Eddie vs
Mick Foley Cactus Jack match, with Terry Funk and Jim Cornette around
of course; during that Tom Robinson benefit show Dennis booked and ran
with his then-heated rival Joel Goodhart. It was historic on so many levels.
I can just see Eddie and Dennis making crank phone calls up there in Heaven...for
those of us who knew those pranksters best." - Mike Lano
