Vintage New Bedford Poster Is a Piece of Pro Wrestling History

New Bedford has long been a hotbed for professional wrestling talent, as this vintage wrestling poster proves.

A listener called my radio program on Wednesday and stated he had found an old wrestling poster on a shelf in his business, and asked if I would like to have it. Once he started reading some of the names on it, I told him I absolutely wanted it, and he was kind enough to drop it off at the radio station.

The poster was for a New England Wrestling card on January 23, although the particular year is unknown; based on online reaction from those in the local independent wrestling community, it was likely sometime between 1990-1993.

The event was held at 85 Coggeshall Street, held in one of the mill buildings that were eventually demolished to clear space for Market Basket. Tickets for the event were just $7, and it appears someone wrote over that with a marker, knocking them down to $5.

The card featured a main event of New England Wrestling Heavyweight Champion Scott Taylor taking on Maverick Wild, with Pat Garrett as the special guest referee. Taylor would go on to global fame in the then-WWF just a few years later, teaming up with Brian Christopher, son of WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler.

First, Taylor was known as Scott “Too Hot” Taylor as part of the heel (bad guy) tag team Too Much, with Christopher taking on the name of “Too Sexy.”

A face (good guy) turn, a pairing with Samoan wrestler Rikishi, a rebranding as the team “Too Cool” and adopting the personas of “Scotty 2 Hotty” and “Grandmaster Sexay” skyrocketed Taylor to the top of the tag team division and eventually the WWF Tag Team Championship.

Also on the card was “Lumberjack” Rick Fuller, a Middleboro native who went on to spend a few years in World Championship Wrestling, the main competitor to the WWF, in the late 1990s.

Needless to say, this is a real piece of New England pro wrestling history.

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I took a photo of the poster, shared it on my Facebook account, and watched as my many friends in the local independent wrestling world got to take a quick trip down memory lane.

“I was the announcer,” wrote Joe Rebelo. “I knew them all. Worked for Joe Eugenio’s New England Wrestling promotion!”

“There’s a lotta talent on that poster,” wrote Garrett Perry, who is featured on the poster in his wrestling gimmick of “Pat Garrett.”

The New England Pro Wrestling Classics Facebook page also shared the photo, and the discussion continued among both the fans and the wrestlers who were there.

“I was there. The Slayer Brothers were disqualified for using an ice skate on Manta Ray's head. I don't think they ever came back,” Joe Eastman wrote.

“They were legit from Canada. Never came back,” Perry responded.

“It was so strange,” Eastman replied. “They did this huge angle and nothing.”

Thanks to Referee Richard Lannon, there still exists a video promo of the Slayer Brothers, and it’s pure early-90s wrestling gold. Check it out for yourself: