Georgia Championship Wrestling

History

Georgia Championship Wrestling got its start in Atlanta in 1944 when promoter Paul Jones—a retired wrestler born Andrew Lutzi, not to be confused with the later Paul Frederik who was given the name—founded the promotion under the name ABC Booking. Friday night matches were held at Atlanta’s Municipal Auditorium. Jones ran the show for three decades until he retired in 1974, but from around 1970 to 1972 his booker Ray Gunkel handled most of the work because Jones was too unwell to do it himself.

The promotion first appeared on television with a special Christmas program on December 25, 1971. Its regular series, Big Time Wrestling, started airing Saturday afternoons on Atlanta’s WQXI-TV in late January 1972, with recordings also sent to WJBF in Augusta and WTOC-TV in Savannah. Ed Capral hosted the show, Charlie Harben served as ring announcer, Leo Garibaldi was the referee, and wrestlers gave interviews about their upcoming bouts. Major shifts came in 1972.

The promotion began running events at the new Omni Coliseum, and it moved its TV home from WQXI-TV to UHF independent station WTCG, owned by Ted Turner. That station later became a satellite-distributed superstation in 1976, changed its call letters to WTBS in 1979, and eventually turned into the national TBS cable channel. This television deal was one of Gunkel’s last moves. He died of a heart attack later that year after a match against Ox Baker in Savannah.

His widow Ann, who had worked closely with Ray and expected a share of the business, was pushed aside in favor of Bill Watts, and the promotion was renamed Mid-South Sports. Ann Gunkel then launched her own promotion outside the National Wrestling Alliance, calling it the All-South Wrestling Alliance.