The Phantom of the Ring
The Man Who Saw the Future, Part Three
It was 1970 and things were going extremely well with Karadagian. His promotion was safely in the black and there was talk of expansion perhaps to other South American countries. Channel 9 not only awarded him a new contract, but also financed three films giving him a starring or costarring role. Included among them was a feature that influenced Karadagian greatly: El Hombre Invisible Ataca (The Invisible Man Attacks).
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But then something happened that not only stopped Karadagian in his tracks, but also threatened to kill off the promotion: Karadagian found himself in police custody, accused of extortion, with assault and battery added for good measure.
The incident centered on a building Karadagian had recently purchased. It collapsed quite suddenly and Karadagian sued the consulting engineer for damages. However, the engineer retaliated with several sworn affidavits stating the building was sound. Karadagian then took matters into his own hands, pistol-whipping the engineer in an effort to force him to settle. The engineer responded by having Karadagian arrested. A judge sentenced him to two years in the slammer.
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To this day, the case remains a classic ”he said/he said.” Despite being behind bars, Karadagian revved up the propaganda machine; while in prison he had a friend write a pamphlet entitled Merecio una celda? (Does This Man Deserve a Cell?). It came complete with a pitiful pose of Karadagian behind bars on the cover. However, the best argument the book could produce for its subject was that he wanted the building as an infirmary/asylum in honor of his long-suffering mother.
However, Karadagian didn’t spend his time behind bars just hanging around. Although he left the promotion in the capable hands of his wife, he directed the week-to-week action while sketching out new characters and angles, which he dictated to his secretary. Keeping a low profile in jail, Karadagian was released early for good behavior. On the day of his release, he was the lead story on all the Argentine newscasts.
Awaiting him was a new television contract, this time with Channel 13, a station with national reach. He was also given the plum time spot of Friday evening and a small studio that accommodated a little over 2,500 fans, which gave it the illusion of a bigger arena with a sellout each week. All he had to do was to live up to the faith Channel 13 had in him to bring in the audience. And this he did with panache.
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Mercenary Joe
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He came up with storylines, angles, characters and marketing concepts never before seen in wrestling, despite what Vince McMahon claims. The first thing was to brand a character in the mind of the fans. One of the best ways to do this is with music. Hum Pomp and Circumstance and Gorgeous George immediately comes to mind (Randy Savage for younger fans). So why not give every important character his own unique theme song? And that’s just what Karadagian did. Each song played like a jingle, extolling the virtues of the babyface or warning us of the villainy of the heel. Like jingles in commercials, they were written to be remembered, and they were. (Bill Kunkel is the only person I know who still remembers Mercenary Joe’s theme song. Unusual? Not if you know Bill.) If that wasn’t enough, Karadagian had the songs released on an LP that proved to be a long-running best seller. One can sometimes obtain an LP on MercadoLibre.com.ar (a Spanish language site like E-Bay) and similar sites; we found one listed today for $25.00, listed as new. We also found songs available for download on Taringa!, Musica4all.com, and other Spanish language sites.
Videos set to some of the theme songs can also be found on YouTube, such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNeC5zkwVqU
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If you’d like to learn the words to the theme songs of Mercenary Joe (Mercenario Joe), they are on YouTube as well:
First theme song -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gs17vRtK9k
Second theme song-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gs17vRtK9k
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Encouraged by the sale of the LP, Karadagian decided to go whole hog: t-shirts for each character were printed and sold not only at shows, but also at selected stores and by telephone. He followed that with posters, 8×10 autographed glossies, jigsaw puzzles, postcards, and even coloring books for the preschoolers. His most popular collectible, I’ve been told from my Argentinean contacts, was a series of miniature characters contained in a box of Jack Chocolates, the country’s most popular candy. They were wrapped in paper, much like the prizes in Cracker Jack, and though the wrestling figures were but among a plethora of other prizes, they were easily the most sought after by children of all ages. Again, like every other Karadagian collectible, they are worth good money today for those lucky enough to own one.
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He also expanded the roster, creating a group of new characters that were, to say the least, quite something out of the ordinary. There was Yolanka The Space Creature, who entered the ring via a space capsule. He would wrestle by the rules unless the heel got out of control. In that case Yolanka would “shoot” the rudo with his pacifying gun, forcing the heel to wrestle by the rules.
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Yolanka
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Then there was Don Quixote and his second, Sancho Panza. Their matches usually followed the same pattern – Quixote would get bounced around the ring until Panza interfered and set him straight, usually (but not always) resulting in a Quixote victory. Other characters included El Vikingo (The Viking), The Hippies – Hippie Hair and Hippie Jimmie, Ulises The Greek, the wily Arabian sheik Tufit Memet, Gitano Ivanoff – Ivanoff The Gypsy (Juan Enrique Dos Santos), and El Cavernario (The Caveman).
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Rounding out the roster were traditional Argentine wrestlers, most of whom also received theme songs. These included Ararat, El Cabalero Rojo, Bernito Duarte, Pedro Goitia, Jose Luiis, Ruben “El Ancho” Peucelle, and Sylvio.
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In addition, Pepino The Clown was given a second, a school boy named “Super Pibe,” who, much like Sancho Panza, ran interference when evil began to win out. El Mercenario Joe was also given a slight make over and his character built up. Joe was now said to have fought with Che Guevara in Bolivia. His main opponent was the masked Red Knight (Humberto Reynoso), who fought for truth and justice. Not every change was necessarily for the better. Frankenstein, for instance, had his makeup modified to simply a cheap mask. It didn’t matter at any rate because he was over with the children, who comprised the majority of the audience.
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The most radical roster move was in bringing back a character thought to have seen his day: La Momía. Karadagian heeded the requests of fans for the return of the popular ‘tweener’. The wrestler picked to play the returning character was Juan Enrique Dos Santos, who worked as Ivanoff the Gypsy. To throw off suspicion, Dos Santos also appeared as Ivanoff on the same card. The character of La Momía was tweaked: he was even slower than before, something more out of the old Mummy films with Lon Chaney, Jr., dragging one foot as he lumbered to the ring. He never spoke and had no manager. The only clue as to his character was an eerie theme song, the lyrics of which told that he cared about the children with tenderness. Week after week, no matter what La Momía’s opponent tried, it was to no avail – punches, drop kicks, and body blocks were simply brushed aside by the monster. The finish always came when La Momía clamped his fingers on his opponent’s trapezoids, sending the unfortunate victim into unconsciousness. The character’s popularity exceeded all expectations; as Topps would do with Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays trading cards, the figurine of La Momía was limited, causing those who wanted to collect the entire series to purchase many, many boxes of Jack Chocolates. La Momía easily became the most popular wrestler among the fans, followed by Yolanka, Pepino, and surprisingly, Karadagian himself.
Martin was the promotion’s world champion, a title he held in true Jim Londos/Mil Máscaras style for decades. Never once was he vanquished. While La Momía worked the true style of a tweener, Karadagian’s style would change depending on his opponent. If he was wrestling a babyface, he wrestled in heel style and vice versa. His one ongoing feud was with the Hippies, against whom he was a heel. One television match against Hippie Hair even saw the battle go into the crowd, where the children threw things and punched Karadagian in an effort to help their hero.
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As both La Momía and Karadagian remained undefeated, a feud grew between the two. La Momía set his eyes on the prize, and the ratings went even higher as the angle unfolded. (Actually, La Momía was defeated once in a photo spread against popular sex symbol Katia Ioros for the magazine Siete Días (Seven Days). She defeated him with a kiss.)
On one show La Momía stalked both Karadagian and Joe Galera throughout the corridors of the TV studio. Each time the duo reached for a door, they found it locked. Finally they found an unlocked door, bolted through and barred it from the inside. They turned around only to discover they had entered the pad of Hippie Hair and Hippie Jimmy. The other hippies partying with them descended upon the duo, pummeling them to the beat of rock music as the credits rolled.
The pair finally met on October 22, 1972, drawing a sold out crowd of 22,000 to Luna Park. It was a wild match, with La Momía on offense for the most part. Finally, Karadagian positioned La Momía for a backdrop, the first time the monster had been taken off his feet. This “exposed” La Momía’s weak spot, the lower lumbar region, and Karadagian took advantage with several of his trademark “El Cortito” forearm smashes to the region, each blow bringing a huge pop from the crowd. The finish came when both wrestlers became entangled in the ropes. The other wrestlers on the card stormed the ring to pull the two apart, causing a ‘no decision’. Karadagian and La Momía then embraced and Martin lifted La Momía to his shoulders to the applause of the other wrestlers and the cheers of the crowd.
Unfortunately, it also marked the end of La Momía’s anonymity. For months magazines, led by the popular weekly Gente (People), had sought to discover the wrestler’s identity. Karadagian, usually forthcoming about what really went on in the ring, was strangely tightlipped about this secret. It only served to intensify the curiosity of the reporters.
Finally, Gente, after considering several theories, thought they had the identity of La Momía nailed down. They felt secure in naming Gitano Ivanoff as the man behind the bandages. There were three reasons cited for this: One, the two never met in the ring; Two, during their showdown in Luna Park, every wrestler came out to separate the two. Every wrestler except one, that is: Gitano Ivanoff. And Three, they wondered why a talented wrestler such as Ivanoff was usually working the first or second match on the bill, but never appearing in the main event. Even his championship match against Karadagian was the second match on the card. This, the magazine reasoned was deliberately done in order to give Ivanoff a breather and allow him to get dressed as La Momía. A photo comparison of both Ivanoff and La Momía added fuel to the speculation. Karadagian got wind of the exposé, and before the magazine hit the stands, had a television main event of La Momía versus Gitano Ivanoff.
But it was too late. In the dressing room before their showdown at Luna Park, a reporter for Gente interviewed Gitano Ivanoff. Before taking photos he secretly used a permanent marker to color the tip of one of Gitano’s fingers. A photo taken of Ivanoff to accompany the interview showed the mark clearly. The fingers were the only part of La Momía not covered with bandages, and when La Momía later appeared in the main event, he spread his fingers menacingly at Karadagian. A photo was snapped, clearly revealing the marked finger and both formed the photo comparison of the two in the issue. The cat was finally out of the bag, or bandage.
But all this mattered not to the fans, especially the children, who bought into the character of La Momía and not the wrestler. In fact, all the controversy only helped to spike the ratings even further. However, the boom suddenly came to a halt as economics, and later, death, took their toll on the promotion.
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In late 1973, Karadagian was rocked when several of his key workers, including the old time wrestlers and even Dos Santos himself, believing the grass was greener on the other side, jumped to a new promotion called “Los Fabulosos Titanes.” In interviews for the media the wrestlers complained that Karadagian was frequently short on the payoff, even when faced with a sellout crowd. For his part Karadagian replied with proof that, when on the road, the wrestlers were put up in good hotels and given good meals, all on the promotion’s dime. Whatever the real reasons for leaving, it took only four months for the wayward workers to return home. Speculation was rife that the payoffs from the new promotion were far less than what was promised. It was also surmised that the wrestlers sat down at the bargaining table with Karadagian to obtain a better deal. Whatever the reason, clearly Karadagian had survived the crisis.
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But death was one outcome he couldn’t negotiate his way through. In 1974, an intoxicated driver ran a red light and plowed into a car driven by Dos Santos, killing him instantly. Unlike the past, when the character of La Momía was retired for a spell, Karadagian replaced him immediately, with modifications. Gone were the tattered bandages, replaced in favor of a bleached white body cast. This was done so that no one wrestler would ever play La Momía again. While most of the time it was Juan Figueroa (doing double duty as the masked El Olímpico), several other wrestlers were recruited to don the body cast. Other changes were subtler. Whereas before La Momía moved deliberately, almost in tune with his eerie theme song (which continued to play during his match), the new mummy’s movements were quicker and quirkier, looking more cute than intimidating. The rest of the gimmick remained unchanged. The mummy still refused to sell in his matches save for his occasional encounter with Karadagian. His finisher also remained the same. But as good a box office draw as he was, he never again reached the heights of popularity as Dos Santos.
NEXT: Karadagian expands his roster of characters into the audience and creates wrestling’s first heel referee.
– The Phantom of the Ring
You can write to the Phantom care of Karen Belcher
kabelchr@verizon.net
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