Continental Championship Wrestling was a professional wrestling promotion based in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the stat ...

, and

Dothan, Alabama Dothan () is a city in Dale, Henry, and Houston counties and the Houston county seat in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is Alabama's eighth-largest city, with a population of 71,072 at the 2020 census. It is near the state's southeastern corner ...

from 1985 until 1989, owned by Ron Fuller. The promotion evolved out of the NWA-affiliated Southeastern Championship Wrestling and Gulf Coast Championship Wrestling territories owned by Fuller, who purchased the Knoxville territory from John Cazana in 1974 and the Alabama/Florida territory in 1977. When Fuller sold the promotion to David Woods in 1988, the name was changed to Continental Wrestling Federation.

History

The Gulf Coast years (1954–1974)

Nashville promoter

Roy Welch Roy Edward Welch (December 19, 1901 – September 27, 1977) was an American professional wrestler and promoter. He is best known as the promoter of the NWA Mid-America territory (also known simply as the Nashville office) alongside Nick Gulas. ...

had purchased the Mobile-Pensacola end of Leroy McGuirk's Tri-State Wrestling. Unlike McGuirk, who only promoted in the Mobile-Pensacola area on special occasions called spot shows, Welch decided to make promoting in Mobile-Pensacola a frequent attraction in the summer. However, due to his obligations in Nashville, his son Buddy Fuller (Edward Welch) was made booker for Mobile-Pensacola, and Fuller eventually expanded the territory into Mississippi-Louisiana as well. At this point, the territory didn't even have a name, its own belts, or even its own wrestlers (aside from members of The Welch Family of course). They often relied on wrestlers and champions from Buddy's and their Uncle Lester Welch's territory. He ran in places like Tampa, Florida, and Atlanta, Georgia (which would eventually become Championship Wrestling from Florida and Georgia Championship Wrestling), as well getting help from his father in Nashville, Tennessee, and some occasional help from his Uncles Herb and Jack. These early attempts would start to unravel when Buddy Fuller failed to make payments to the territory from his father Roy Welch. Buddy's cousin Lee Fields (Albert Lee Hatfield) would save the territory and gave it the name "Gulf Coast Championship Wrestling". Lee Fields would eventually buy the territory from Roy Welch and Buddy Fuller, and run shows in the area for almost two decades with Rocky McGuire booking Dothan-Panama City and Bob Kelly booking Mobile-Pensacola and Mississippi after a falling out with promoters in Louisiana with Mobile-Pensacola only running in the summer months. Kelly turned the promotion around from holding monthly and seasonal shows in a few towns which only drew a few hundred people to holding weekly shows in a different town night after night with local television exposure in each market, which led to each arena drawing thousands. Bob Kelly left the wrestling business in 1976 to enter real estate and spend more time with family, and Lee Fields found it more difficult to operate both his wrestling promotion and

Mobile International Speedway Mobile International Speedway is a 1/2-mile paved oval track along U.S. Highway 90 in Irvington, Mobile County, Alabama, United States. It was built by Walter "Skip" Wetjen, and opened in 1965. History During the golden age of stock car racin ...

at the same time.. So he sold it to his cousin Ron Fuller around 1977-1978.

The Southeastern years (1974–1985)

In 1974, Ron Fuller purchased Southeastern Championship Wrestling based in Knoxville, Tennessee from John Cazana, where he focused mainly on the east Tennessee area. In 1977, Ron Fuller took over the territory his grandfather and father had founded when GCCW folded and Fuller expanded the SECW to run in the Southern Alabama, Northern Florida area in addition the Eastern Tennessee territory he already established. This was initially labelled ”the Southern Division” of the SECW treating them as two separate entities despite the original plan to run a talent exchange between the two involving talent spending sixteen months in one end of the territory and then spend eight months in another to regain momentum after losing steam in the previous one. In June 1979, several members of the talent roster and behind the scenes personnel left SECW out frustration involving backstage politics with Ron's brother Robert Fuller who was considered lazy in terms of booking the territory, and spent many nights partying and felt his spot in Southeastern was owed to him since he was a member of The Welch/Fuller family. Led by

Bob Roop Robert Michael Roop (born July 22, 1942) is an American retired amateur wrestler and professional wrestler whose career spanned high school, college, the United States Army, amateur and professional wrestling. He was an American heavyweight Grec ...

Ronnie Garvin Roger Barnes (born March 30, 1945) is a Canadian former professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, "Rugged" Ronnie Garvin. He is best known for his appearances with Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federat ...

, Bob Orton Jr. and

Boris Malenko Lawrence J. Simon (June 28, 1933 – September 1, 1994), better known by the ring name, Boris Malenko ( rus, Бори́с Маленко́, p=bɐˈrʲis mɐlˈɛnko, pron), was an American professional wrestler and professional wrestling trainer. ...

All-Star Championship Wrestling All-Star Championship Wrestling (ASCW) was a professional wrestling professional wrestling promotion, promotion that was founded in Knoxville, Tennessee by Ron Wright (wrestler), Ron Wright, Ronnie Garvin, Bob Roop, Bob Orton, Jr. and Boris Malenko ...

fought a six-month promotional war over the Knoxville territory. Many of these defectors later joined the Kentucky based outlaw promotion

International Championship Wrestling International Championship Wrestling was an independent professional wrestling promotion based in Lexington, Kentucky that operated from 1978 until 1984. It was run by Angelo Poffo, the father of Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo, "The Genius" Lanny ...

owned and operated by

Angelo Poffo Angelo John Poffo (April 10, 1925 – March 4, 2010) was an American professional wrestler and wrestling promoter. He ran International Championship Wrestling for a number of years, holding cards in Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas. He was th ...

. After this, the Knoxville end of Southeastern experienced financial losses, and sold to promotions such as

Jim Crockett Promotions Jim Crockett Promotions Inc. is a family-owned professional wrestling promotion headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, restarted by Jim Crockett's son and Jim Crockett Jr's brother, David Crockett. Founded in 1931, the promot ...

and

Georgia Championship Wrestling Georgia Championship Wrestling was an American professional wrestling promotion based in Atlanta, Georgia. The promotion was affiliated with what had been the world's top sanctioning body of championship titles for decades before, the National W ...

for the next five years. Fuller then made Birmingham his main end of the territory with the Dothan end continuing to flourish, giving early exposure to future stars such as

The Fabulous Freebirds The Fabulous Freebirds were a professional wrestling tag team who attained fame in the 1980s, performing into the 1990s. The team usually consisted of three wrestlers, although in different situations and points in its history, just two performed ...

, rising stars in the territory along the lines of Austin Idol, and appearances by

Ric Flair Richard Morgan Fliehr (born February 25, 1949), known professionally as Ric Flair, is an American professional wrestler. Regarded by multiple peers and journalists as the greatest professional wrestler of all time, Flair has had a career spanni ...

who would defend the NWA World Heavyweight Title in the area each year.

The Continental years (1985–1989)

Continental Championship Wrestling (1985–1988)

Five years later, Fuller decided that it was time to reach beyond the Southern Alabama/Northern Florida area and re-purchased the Knoxville end of the territory, with this expansion came a name change to Continental Championship Wrestling. After a failed negotiation with

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, he settled on moving the television show out of the small television studio and into the big arenas where they did house shows in order to give the promotion a national look and feel. While the name ''Southeastern'' restricted the promotion to a more regional feel, the name ''Continental'' gave fans the impression they toured all over the country, except Alaska and Hawaii.

Continental Wrestling Federation (1988–1989)

In 1988,

WCOV-TV WCOV-TV (channel 20) is a television station in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Woods Communications Corporation alongside Troy-licensed Cozi TV affiliate WIYC (channel 48) and low-power loca ...

owner David Woods bought the controlling interest in the promotion from Ron Fuller, and he renamed it Continental Wrestling Federation in a further attempt to compete with Vince McMahon and appear to resemble a nationwide promotion, even to the point of getting a national TV deal with

Financial News Network The Financial News Network (FNN) was an American financial and business news television network that was launched November 30, 1981. The purpose of the network was to broadcast programming nationwide, five days a week for seven hours a day on t ...

. Episodes also aired every Monday at 1:30 a.m. ET on the Sunshine Network, a regional sports

cable channel Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

that served the

Southeastern United States The Southeastern United States, also referred to as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States. It is located broadly on the eastern portion of the southern United States and the southern por ...

. Their last TV episode aired on November 25, 1989. The promotion closed after their final show on December 6, 1989.

Legacy

Despite many huge angles over the years, this territory often has the status as "the lost promotion". Such obscurity was due to the lack of media coverage during the Gulf Coast and Southeastern years since both Lee Fields and Ron Fuller believed that their promotions should not be covered by wrestling magazines and often did not allow reporters in the locker room to interview the wrestlers. This was to prevent the exposure to

kayfabe In professional wrestling, kayfabe, as a noun, is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not staged. ...

and preserve the illusion of wrestling as a sport in the area. However, Fuller relented with the changeover to Continental in order to get national exposure for the promotion from the magazines. Such exposure was at an all-time high during the Eddie Gilbert period. Due to the expensive nature of archiving at television stations before the

home video Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming me ...

boom of the 1980s, much of the footage from the Gulf Coast era and the Knoxville portion of Southeastern no longer exists, despite a few bits of rare footage turning up here and there. However, almost all of the Dothan portion of Southeastern along with the majority of Continental footage still exists. They are still owned by David Woods and Woods Communications.

Alumni

Johnathan Holliday Johnathan is a given name. It is an alternative spelling of Jonathan or a combination of the names John and Jonathan. Notable people with the name include: American football *Johnathan Abram (born 1996), American football player *Johnathan Gray ( ...

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* Andre the Giant *

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* Pat Rose *

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* Butch Malone *

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* Ron Fuller * Robert Fuller * Whitey Caldwell * Jerry "Mr. Olympia" Stubbs * Kevin Sullivan *

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* Ron Miller * Ron Wright *

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* Sterling Golden *

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* The Bullet * Wildcat Wendell Cooley * Brad Armstrong * Scott Armstrong *

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*Johnny Rich *

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* Jody "The Flame" Hamilton *

Jerry Stubbs Jerry Stubbs (born September 13, 1951) is a retired professional wrestler. Stubbs wrestled as Mr. Olympia in Bill Watts's Mid-South wrestling area (Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas) and as the villainous Jerry "Mr. Perfect" Stubbs in Southeast/Con ...

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* The Midnight Rockers (Michaels/Jannetty) *

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* Don Wright *

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* Miss Linda *

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* David Schultz * Austin Idol * "Nightmare" Danny Davis *

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* Mark Young * Eddie Gilbert * Tony "Dirty White Boy" Anthony * Brian Lee * "Nightmare" Ken Wayne *

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*Alan Martin *

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(Sika & Kokina) * Todd Morton * Downtown Bruno, manager * Paul E. Dangerously, manager *

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, announcer *

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, announcer * Charlie Platt, announcer * Robert Gibson *

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, referee *

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* Gorgeous George, Jr. * Sir Dudley Clements *

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* Ken Lucas *

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* Buddy Fuller *

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* Billy Spears * Carl Fergie *

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* The Wrestling Pro *

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* Duke Miller *

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*Curtis Smith * "Rotten" Ron Starr *

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* Eddie Sullivan and

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* The Dirty Daltons *

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* Ken Ramey * Dr. Jerry Graham *

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* Michael Hayes *

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* Mike Davis *

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* The Tennessee Stud *

Terry Gordy Terry Ray Gordy Sr. (April 23, 1961 – July 16, 2001) was an American professional wrestler. Gordy appeared in the United States with promotions such as Mid-South Wrestling, Georgia Championship Wrestling, World Class Championship Wrestling, Jim ...

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Curtis Hughes Curtis Hughes (born December 7, 1964) is an American professional wrestler, also known by the ring name Mr. Hughes. He is best known for his stints in World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation. He also worked for the America ...

Tommy Weathers Tommy may refer to: People * Tommy (given name) * Tommy Atkins, or just Tommy, a slang term for a common soldier in the British Army Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Tommy'' (1931 film), a Soviet drama film * ''Tommy'' (1975 fil ...

Mac Mcurray Mac or MAC most commonly refers to: * Mac (computer), a family of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * A variant of the word macaroni, mostly used in the name of the dish mac and cheese * Mac, ...

* Phil Rainey, announcer *

Kerry Von Erich Kerry Gene Adkisson (February 3, 1960 – February 18, 1993), better known by his ring name Kerry Von Erich, was an American professional wrestler. He was part of the Von Erich family of professional wrestlers. He is best known for his time with ...

The Great Kabuki , better known as , is a Japanese retired professional wrestler. He is famous as the first to blow Asian mist in his opponents' faces. Professional wrestling career Mera was born on September 8, 1948 in Nobeoka, Japan. He started wrestling in 19 ...

Porkchop Cash Bobby Cash (born October 22, 1947) is an American semi-retired professional wrestler. He competed primarily in promotions operated by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), like the Continental Wrestling Association and Georgia Championship Wres ...

Bill Ash William Franklin Ash Order of the British Empire, MBE (30 November 1917 – 26 April 2014) was an American-born British writer, broadcaster and Marxist, who served as a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. He was sho ...

The Honky Tonk Man Roy Wayne Farris (born January 25, 1953), better known by the ring name The Honky Tonk Man, is an American retired professional wrestler. He previously wrestled for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) ...

* Mike Stallings *

Cowboy Ron Bass A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

*Jonathan Boyd *Luke Williams (wrestler), Luke Williams *Stan Lane *The Von Brauners *the Tennessee superstars *Sheik Abdullah *Ray Candy *Masa Saito *The gladiator *

*Mick "Cactus Jack" Foley *The Superstar

Championships

GCCW (1954–1974)

*NWA World Heavyweight Championship *NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship *NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-America version), NWA World Tag Team Championship *NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Gulf Coast version) (1965–1974) *NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Championship *NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship *NWA Gulf Coast Tag Team Championship#NWA Southern Tag Team Championship (Gulf Coast Version), NWA Southern Tag Team Championship (Gulf Coast Version) (1955–1967) *NWA Gulf Coast Heavyweight Championship *NWA Gulf Coast Tag Team Championship (1967–1977) *NWA Gulf Coast 6-Man Tag Team Championship (1975) *NWA Gulf Coast Brass Knuckles Championship (1971) *NWA Gulf Coast Martial Arts Championship (1975) *NWA Alabama Heavyweight Championship, NWA Southeast Alabama Heavyweight Championship (1962–1974) *NWA Alabama Tag Team Championship (1970, 1977) *NWA Louisiana Heavyweight Championship (1964–1968) *NWA Mississippi Heavyweight Championship (Gulf Coast version), NWA Mississippi Heavyweight Championship (1958–1976) *NWA Mississippi Tag Team Championship (Gulf Coast version), NWA Mississippi Tag Team Championship (1968–1973) *NWA Tennessee Tag Team Championship (1967–1977) *NWA City of Dothan Heavyweight Championship (1973–1977) *NWA City of Laurel Tag Team Championship (1969–1971) *NWA City of Mobile Heavyweight Championship (1969–1975) *NWA City of Pensacola Heavyweight Championship (1970–1975) *NWA Panama City Heavyweight Championship (1970–1975)

SECW and CCW (1974–1988)

*NWA World Heavyweight Championship (- 1987) *AWA World Heavyweight Championship (1987–1988) *NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship (- 1987) *NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Championship (Northern Division), NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Championship *NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Championship (Southern Division: 1978–1980) *CWF Heavyweight Championship, NWA Continental Heavyweight Championship (1984–1987) *NWA Continental Tag Team Championship (1986–1988) *NWA Southeastern Television Championship *NWA Southeastern Tag Team Championship *NWA Southeastern Tag Team Championship, NWA Continental Tag Team Championship *NWA Gulf Coast Tag Team Championship#NWA Southern Tag Team Championship (Southern Division), NWA Southern Tag Team Championship (Southern Division) (1978–1980) *NWA Southeastern Brass Knuckles Championship (1983) *NWA United States Junior Heavyweight Championship (1976–1989) *NWA Alabama Heavyweight Championship (1974–1988) *NWA Tennessee Heavyweight Championship, NWA Southeastern Tennessee Heavyweight Championship (1987–1988) *NWA Tennessee Tag Team Championship (1967–1977) *NWA Southeastern 6-Man Tag Team Championship

CWF (1988–1989)

*AWA World Heavyweight Championship *CWF Heavyweight Championship *NWA Southeastern Tag Team Championship, CWF Tag Team Championship *NWA Southeastern United States Junior Heavyweight Championship, United States Junior Heavyweight Championship

References

External links

GCCWhistory.com
*[http://www.kayfabememories.com/Regions/gccw/gccw.htm Kayfabe Memories - Regional territories: GCW]
Kayfabe Memories - Regional territories: SECWNWA SECW & CCW Title HistoriesCWF Title HistoriesThe Gulf Coast Years info esp. pertaining to The Gulf Coast Heavyweight Title.Interview with Cowboy Bob Kelly which provides more info on The Gulf Coast Years
{{Professional wrestling in the United States American Wrestling Association American professional wrestling promotions National Wrestling Alliance members