Paul Jones and the early Mid-Atlantic belt

[cwh47]

Actually I want to believe it did show that before the vcr chewed on the tape.Now there is
several seconds of colored lines where you can't see the picture.I would like for you to take
a look at the video sometime so you can see what you think.

[Baltimore Jack]

Mac W Richmond confirms what you have, he has that tape, too. He says the full pin isn't on his copy, so I don't think your VCR chewed it up too bad.

Ironically, I have just come across an audio tape of a radio interview Paul did on 11/24/75 for WFBC AM radio in Greenville SC. A caller asks Paul his opinion of films being used to overturn decisions in matches (like the NFL had just started trying) and Paul recounted this whole storyline with Valentine.

The key was that Johnny Valentine sent the film of the match to Sam Muchnick and the "Board of Directors" of the NWA in St. Louis, and after review, Muchnick said since Valentine's foot was one the rope and Paul pulled it off, the pinfall should not count and they returned the title to Valentine.

The caller to the radio show wondered why the NWA didn't then give the NWA title to Wahoo McDaniel, who had recently cleanly pinned Jack Brisco only to have the match restarted by the referee who after the count noticed that Jack Brisco's leg was on the rope. What the referee didn't see, but the film clearly showed, was Brisco putting his leg on the rope well after the three count. The referee thought he had missed seeing the leg on the rope, and based on what happened earlier with Jones and Valentine, felt he should restart the match. It's a great story line that made sense and raised viable questions. And it was based on simple things like rules and review of films. We don't have that anymore in wrestling today.

This is great fun piecing all these things together. Next I want to see if there are any references to this angle on the audio tapes we’ve recently uncovered from 1975. I think it would all add up to a great feature on the Gateway at some point (sort of like the 30th anniversary piece currently up with newspaper clippings, audio, even video if we could transfer your film CWH), just to retell that story.