On weekends, during my high school days, I used to love to hop the bus and go downtown to the taping sessions of “Championship Wrestling from Florida…With Gordon Solie.” There was no admission fee, they needed an audience for the cameras, so it was all on a first-come, first-served basis. They filled the place up every Sunday.

The matches were televised all over the SE USA, and all the greats showed up: Eddy Graham, Kurt and Karl von Brauner, Joe Scarpela, and Hiro Matsuda. It was a clear-cut world, with easily recognizable heroes and villains, both the colorful wrestlers and their bombastic managers. Even the referees were fun to watch. They seemed eager to punish even the most minor infractions and violations of the rules by the “good guys”, while blindly overlooking and missing altogether the worst crimes and outrages perpetrated by the bad guys. This was especially the case during the tag-team matches, it seemed to fill some need in the audience to see themselves as victims, and when the inevitable violent vengeance was finally visited on the iniquitous, it was all the more satisfying. Revenge dramas, after all, have been popular since Shakespeare’s day.

Solie, the on-camera emcee, was famous for his dead-pan, scrupulously fair delivery. No matter what manner of mayhem was happening in the ring, or just off camera, he interviewed his guests, pitched his sponsors and delivered commentary in a quiet, cool fashion. Nothing fazed this guy.
The show, of course, had to continue even when he was being taped. Otherwise the crowd would lose interest.

Of course, the real drama was the audience. People really got into it, booed and hissed, and often rushed into the ring, challenging the wrestlers, even throwing their drinks, popcorn boxes and sometimes, folding metal chairs into the ring. It was wonderful.

It was a lot like a Trump campaign rally. Same show, same crowd, same shoot-em-up, same rodeo. Same people.