“Tell them it’s what their grandfathers got”: Racial violence in southern professional wrestling

In Louisiana in the early 1980s, the creative leadership of Mid-South Wrestling came up with a plan to boost ticket sales for an upcoming match between two black heroes and their villainous white opponents. While taping Mid-South’s television show, white booker Bill Dundee told the Midnight Express to whip the black wrestlers in the middle of the ring. The team’s manager Jim Cornette remembered one more instruction. “Tell them it’s what their grandfathers got and it’s what [they’re going to get].”1