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The
legends of ...
and more in John Hitchcock's
1970's
TV shows on DVD
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Two Ton George 'Two Ton' Harris was always one of my favorite guilty pleasures and only old time fans even know who he was. But that is true of all the old timers these days. Only old farts like me remember them. Two Ton was one of the reasons for me realizing that Pro Wrestling was a show. It was apparent to me in the fifth grade that Two Ton's matches were always the same routine. If you had seen one match well, you had seen them all. I would not have missed them for the world. Two Ton always wore the same dark blue body suit to make him look smaller, I guess. His matches always started with the classic Wally Dusek introduction. "Ladies and Gentlemen" - pause three seconds, " From Louisville?" (That is a guess), Pause three seconds, "302 pounds" - pause three seconds, " George, "Two Ton, "Haaaaaarrisssss!" Two Ton would be smiling in his ring corner, running his fingers thru his curly hair. (What a vain guy.) After his name was spoken, he would stride out to the center of the ring to a chorus of boos and say,"SHUT AAP!" (That is shut up in English.) Two Ton always lost the match and whenever he would put an opponent in a headlock, he would yell out for all to hear, "I GOT HIM NOW!" (This is said very fast.) Now with this happening every match even I began to think that wrestling must be fixed or fake. Or both. (Except for the main events because they really did not like each other.) Two Ton had a run as a manager in the Mid Atlantic too. He was the manager of Aldo Bogni and Bronco Lubich. I guess he got this job because Homer O' Dell got fired or something. I wish that I had known Two Ton's phone number when Scott Hudson and Steve Prazak stopped by Greensboro to talk Graps. We were talking about our favorite wrestlers, jobbers and matches at a local Mexican restaurant when Steve started talking about Two Ton. I said I could do an impersonation of him and did the "Shut Aaap!" It was that or my Lord Littlebrook that brought the house down! There was not a dry eye in the house that night. George Harris would have loved it. I did get to see Two Ton Harris once. At one of the big Greensboro cards, they were putting up the cage and out comes Klondike Bill and his ring crew. And I could not believe it, out came Two Ton! He was part of the ring crew! I went nuts and told everyone who he was. Sadly few remembered him. But as he walked by me I said, "George Two Ton, Haaaaaarrisssss!" He stopped for a moment and kept walking with the crew. But he knew someone remembered him.
I hope he got a thrill out of that half as much as he gave me. Writing these things is really a drag. All of these forgotten stars are passing now and it seems so unfair that they did not receive the cash value equal to the memories that they left behind. They all would be very wealthy men now.
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As
the ring crew left the ringside he walked up to Klondike Bill (seen
right) and said something about my intro to him and they laughed.
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