Old-Time Wrestling is a 'Harmless Drug' for Oakdale Author

As a kid growing up in the ‘60s with a difficult home life, the soap opera-style storylines of professional wrestling became an escape for Oakdale resident George Schire.

“Wrestling was like a drug to me. It’s something I could watch, look forward to,” he said. “What started out as just a fun hobby became a life.”

Decades later, Schire literally wrote the book on, “Minnesota’s Golden Age of Wrestling,” covering the period from the 1930s to the early 1990s.

It was a time before pay-per-view, when each region of the United States had its own wrestling circuit, and fans could go see a live show at the local civic center or armory at least once per month; when the wrestlers “would have went to their grave” before admitting that the outcomes of the matches were pre-determined; when instead of spending long hours bulking up, the wrestlers spent much of their free time driving from city-to-city for the next night’s show; and when some of the department stores would play wrestling matches on the televisions in their windows because not everyone had a TV at home.

The book, published last year, has elicited  “fond nostalgia,” from fans, said Alison Aten, publicity and promotions manager for the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

“Everyone has a story about watching wrestling, and their favorite wrestler,” she said. “Given (Schire’s) extensive knowledge of the wrestling world and his immense collection of memorabilia, he’s been a hit with fans.”

While Schire got hooked on wrestling as a boy, watching the matches on television, at age 17 he got the opportunity to travel the circuit with announcer Marty O'Neill.

He was off school for the summer and had nothing better to do, he said.

“In the early years I was enamored with, ‘Wow, I’m really standing next to Marty O’Neill,’” he said. “The fun part is as you move on you realize that (the wrestlers) really are just normal people.”

In addition to traveling with O’Neill, he’d drive to other cities on his own such as Kansas City, Dallas, Indianapolis, Boston and Tampa—“just everywhere, anywhere I could drive and fly,” he said.

He started collecting photos, programs and other memorabilia, which served as the basis for his book.

Schire became more than a fan in 1986, when he started a two-year stint as an announcer in Winnipeg. Unfortunately his “real job,” in the banking industry got in the way.

“I’ve had a chance to be involved in different aspects of it, but the history part of it, the writing part of it, that’s where my heart is,” he said.

He also co-hosts a weekly podcast available by subscription.

He stopped watching wrestling in the 1980s, he said, after promoter Vince McMahon put all the other regional promoters out of business and replaced the regional circuits with the national World Wrestling Federation (now WWE)—a change that cut the number of professional wrestlers from 3,000 in the early ‘50s to about 150 today.

Instead, the “golden” era of wrestling lives on for Schire in a room in his basement where he has photos of some of the old, local wrestlers on the wall.

“This may sound corny, but whenever life got tough for me—things were tough at work or family situations—I could walk into that little room downstairs for an hour, shut the world out and everything is back into perspective and it’s OK,” he said. “Now that’s what I call a drug that’s harmless.”

Schire's book, "Minnesota's Golden Age of Wrestling: from Verne Gagne to the Road Warriors," is available on Amazon.com and through the Minnesota Historical Society Press.