I’ll admit it. When I was young I was into wrestling. I’d watch it Saturday afternoons on our small black and white TV set. When I was growing up black and white was all we could afford, so when Star Trek came on I would go across the street to my friend’s house and watch it on his parent’s 19 inch color set. Anyway, it didn’t matter. I think wrestling in the Sixties and early Seventies was suited to monochrome. It just looked right. It wasn’t the big mega show production it became. But it was Bruno Sammartino, Moose Cholak, The Sheik, Fritz Von Erich, and George The Animal Steel.
Once when the big event came to town a bunch of my friends and I got together on a Saturday night to go and see it. I decided to bring my camera with me. Trying to remember, it was either my Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic F or my Nikkormat FTn. One of my happiest moments was when I was able to save up finally a brand new Pentax with its wonderful multi-coated Super-Takumar 55mm f1.8 screw mount lens. It was my first brand new camera purchase! One of my saddest moments occurred when the camera’s pentaprism got dented while sitting on the seat of a car during a fender bender. Being a hard worker, I was able to save up and get its replacement, a brand new Nikkormat FTn with a 50mm f2 lens. I enjoyed both cameras very much; they were fine pieces of equipment and their lenses served me well!
One of those cameras loaded with Tri-X film accompanied me to the matches that night. We were in the cheap seats, but I slowly and discretely moved my way down toward the ring where the action was fast and furious. Maybe those around me thought I was part of the press, but I was eventually ringside where I managed to just miss getting hit with a large paper cup filled with mustard that was tossed by a fan towards the proceedings.
As you can imagine the lighting was bad and I didn’t know anything about pushing film speed or film speed testing so box speed it was. I also didn’t have a fast 1.4 lens. So any pictures I made would be with a slow shutter speed, while holding my breath, using a steady grip and hopping for the best!
In the end all worked out well. If my memory serves me, the best picture was of Greg Valentine lowering his signature “hammer” onto his helpless victim. His motion is a little bit blurry which is perfect for what I wanted to show. I love this picture but it is difficult to print, due to the very difficult lighting. Getting the ropes surrounding the ring to stand out from the dark background is particularly challenging!
This picture is very special to me. I have fond memories of that night, just as I do about taking my son to the matches years later.
Stay well,
Michael