Going to get overshadowed by Bruno, but the Mid-Atlantic Gateway has reported that #1 has died.

rip not saying that i, as a rule, happen to be overly familiar with his work but still press f to pay respects

Sad day for wrestling fans of the old school. I only saw his work in his feud with Boogie Woogie Man and thought he was a solid heel foil and heard a lot about him in the various shoots and mid atlantic features over the years.

 

RIP to Paul Jones.

I only knew him as a manager of second tier guys, so seeing him wrestle on the Mid Atlantic stuff on the Network was a nice education.

I know he wrestled fairly regularly in Toronto as a babyface, back when Jim Crockett and George Scott owned minority shares in the Maple Leaf Wrestling office run by Frank and Jack Tunney. He wrestled a fair bit at Maple Leaf Gardens as a midcarder. My main memories of him mostly center around when he ran a stable in JCP that was obsessed (for reasons I never totally understood) with destroying "The Boogie Woogie Man" Jimmy Valiant. I might be wrong, but I think he managed the Powers of Pain when they were feuding with The Road Warriors, before they took off for the WWF.

 

RIP "#1."

Well, *that* is bad timing. (happens more often than you'd think though)

He was a much bigger deal as a wrestler in MACW (and I think Florida too)
in the 70's than he was in the 80's. I think most will remember his feud vs. Jimmy Valiant
more than anything else.

 

RIP.

Great obit by the guys from SLAM! Wrestling :

 

http://slam.canoe.com/Slam/Wrestling/2018/04/19/22776774.html

The guys at SLAM Wrestling are always doing a great job with obits.

I hated that feud with Jimmy Valiant until I rewatched that stuff a few years ago. The matches still sucked but I enjoyed that there always felt like there was a degree of danger to their encounters. The injuries they inflicted on each other really made it interesting. The Paul Jones promo after Valiant broke his arm was good stuff.

The Boogie Woogie Man feud did go on forever, but it was entertaining. There were a never ending parade of guys Paul Jones brought into his Army to face Valiant.

I know him as the manager of the Powers Of Pain and Uncle Ivan. I really enjoyed the Mighty Wilbur feud. The back story of Red Bastien had tricked him into managing Mighty Wilbur was very amusing.

I never got to see him wrestle, but I did see him a lot in magazines from the 70s. Hopefully I can see more of him.

When I first discovered NWA/ Crockett, it was 1985 and an episode of Worldwide that had Jimmy Valiant returning from a Loser Leaves Town stip, and he and Avalanche Buzz Tyler paying off Sam Hoston and Denny Brown to take their place to get at Paul Jones' team of Barbarian and Kabuki. It was a new world as I'd only known WWF wrestling before.

Jimmy Valiant became my favorite wrestler that day, and his Lex Luthor, Paul Jones, became my favorite villain. I was lucky and privileged to be at ringside in the third row at Greensboro for Starrcade 86 to see the final battle and end of the fued, while Paul had his head shaved.

He was great.