Johnny Weaver

	Stub This article is astub, an article too short to provide more than rudimentary information about a subject. You canhelp Pro Wrestling Wiki byexpanding it.

Johnny Weaver

Career[]

1960s[]

Weaver's career spanned four decades in many different territories in the NWA. He held championships across the southeast United States, the first of which was theMid-Atlantic (Carolinas, Virginia) version of theNWA Southern Tag Team Championship, which he won withCowboy Bob Ellis on December 2, 1963. His best known run was with partnerGeorge Becker in the Mid-Atlantic in the 1960s. The two held the NWA Mid-Atlantic Southern Tag Team Championship five times together, and they were household names in the territory for a period of nearly eight years. The team had memorable feuds withRip Hawk andSwede Hanson,Lars Anderson andGene Anderson,Gene Anderson andOle Anderson,Aldo Bogni andBronko Lubich withmanager "Colonel"Homer O'Dell,the Infernos with managerJ. C. Dykes, and many others.

Weaver's next major success came inChampionship Wrestling from Florida, where he teamed with Becker to win the Florida version of theNWA Southern Tag Team Championship in February 1967. He also competed as a singles wrestler, winning his firstNWA Florida Southern Heavyweight Championship that year by defeating theMissouri Mauler. Hedropped it back to the Mauler but regained the belt onOctober 25, 1967. The following summer, he won the belt for a third time. He lost the belt toHiro Matsuda but then regained it in a rematch in late 1968.

1970s[]

Returning to the Carolinas, Weaver was a successful tag team wrestler inMid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling. He teamed with Becker to win theNWA Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championship on May 1, 1969. They held the belts for over nine months before dropping them toRip Hawk and Swede Hanson on February 17, 1970. Weaver and Becker regained the title exactly one month later, however. They lost the belts toGene andOle Anderson but regained them on June 3, 1971 from Hawk and Hanson. Once again, Weaver and Becker dropped the titles to Hawk and Hanson but regained them in a rematch. The following year, Weaver teamed with Art Neilson to win the title twice more.

Weaver returned to Florida to compete in 1975 and won theNWA Florida Tag Team Championship by teaming withDick Slater. He also competed in Texas, where he won the Amarillo version of the NWA International Heavyweight Championship in November 1976.

After a brief absence from the Mid-Atlantic territory in 1975, he returned for one more main event run in 1978 with Baron Von Raschke for the area's Television championship.

1980s[]

His final championship reigns came in 1981 while wrestling in the Mid-Atlantic area. He teamed withDewey Robertson to win theNWA Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championship in 1981 by defeatingGenichiro Tenryu andMr. Fuji. They lost the belts to Chris Markoff andNikolai Volkoff later that year, but Weaver regained the title on November 27, 1981 while teaming withJay Youngblood.

Weaver's last years in the ring were in an "elder statesman" role, helping establish new stars just entering the territory, most notably Roddy Piper. He also helpedbook the Mid-Atlantic territory for nearly 8 years as well, roughly between 1966 and 1973. In the early 1980s, Weaver also booked the house shows in the southern part of the territory.

He began his broadcasting career in 1979 as color commentator with World Wide Wrestling host Rich Landrum. He became Landrum's permanent sidekick for the early 1980s, where he became famous for singing "Turn Out The Lights, The Party's Over" at the end of matches (a tip of the hat to Don Meredith, who did the same thing on Monday Night Football). When Landrum left the company in 1983, Weaver then worked briefly with David Crockett, before becoming paired with the longtime voice of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Bob Caudle, whom he worked with until leaving the company in 1988.

He made a brief in-ring return in the Fall of 1987 in the corner of the "American Dream"Dusty Rhodes who was using sleeper hold, calling it the "Weaver Lock," and chasing downLex Luger and the N.W.A. United States Title. During this angle, Weaver was placed in a Japanese version of the sleeper byHiro Matsuda, causing him to bleed from the mouth. Weaver was in Rhodes' corner atStarrcade '87: Chi-Town Heat, when Rhodes defeated Luger in a steel cage afterDDTing Luger onto a steel chair.

Legacy[]

CWF Mid-Atlantic out of Burlington, North Carolina promotes the Johnny Weaver Cup tournament every August with Weaver in attendance to present the winner with the Weaver Cup trophy. Past tournament winners have been "Dangerous E" Corey Edsel (2004), Jesse Ortega (2005), Gemini Kid (2006) and "Handsome" Mitch Connor (2007).

Personal life[]

Weaver was a deputy sheriff with Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. In his 50s, Weaver became one of the oldest people to take the basic law enforcement test and ultimately joined the sheriff's office. He spent most of his nineteen-year career transporting prisoners on the same back roads he'd traveled as a wrestler and promoter.

Weaver was married to female wrestlerPenny Banner for decades. They had a daughter together named Wendi. In her self-published autobiography, Banner Days, Banner describes decades of physical abuse at the hands of her controlling, womanizing husband - who she referred to as "Johnny Ace" instead of naming him for the "non-smart" fans. She finally divorced him after what she describes as a drunken murder attempt when he nearly killed her with his wrestling finisher, the sleeper hold.

Weaver died of natural causes on February 15, 2008, aged 72.

In wrestling[]

• Finishing moves
  • Weaver Lock (Sleeper hold)
  • Weaver Roll (Schoolboy)

• Signature moves
  • Bulldog

Championships and accomplishments[]

• Championship Wrestling from Florida
  • NWA Florida Tag Team Championship (1 time) - withDick Slater (1)
  • NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship(Florida version) (4 times)
  • NWA Southern Tag Team Championship(Florida version) (1 time) - with George Becker

• Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling
  • NWA Atlantic Coast Tag Team Championship (6 times) - with George Becker (4) and Art Nielson (2)
  • NWA Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championship (2 times) - withDewey Robertson (1) andJay Youngblood (1)
  • NWA Southern Tag Team Championship (Mid-Atlantic version) (6 times) - with Cowboy Bob Ellis (1) and George Becker (5)
  • NWA Television Championship (1 time)

• NWA Western States Sports
  • NWA International Heavyweight Championship(Amarillo version) (1 time)

External links[]

• Profile