{"id":59096,"date":"2019-12-07T17:43:56","date_gmt":"2019-12-07T22:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=59096"},"modified":"2019-12-07T17:43:56","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T22:43:56","slug":"former-nwa-world-champion-tommy-rich-making-gcw-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2019\/12\/07\/former-nwa-world-champion-tommy-rich-making-gcw-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NWA World Champion Tommy Rich Making GCW Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday night, the night before <strong>Game Changer Wrestling (GCW)<\/strong> returns to Nashville for <em><strong>Long. Live. GCW<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/em>GCW presents it&#8217;s second WOMBAT special event. WOMBAT, or Warriors of Mat Battle and Trouble, is the old indie promotion from GCW regular <strong>The Invisible Man<\/strong> and features backyard wrestlers and longtime underground indie veterans in a fun-filled, yet chaotic event.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_59098\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59098\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-59098\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/12\/ELNShFLW4AAl7p6-e1575757330866.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-59098\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: GCW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One of the matches slated for Saturday nights event, which airs <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fite.tv\/watch\/gcw-wombat-2\/2p4xi\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">live on FITE.tv<\/a>, features a blast from the past and one of Southern wrestling&#8217;s greatest stars in &#8220;Wildfire&#8221; <strong>Tommy Rich.\u00a0<\/strong>Tommy Rich is pairing alongside another longtime Southern wrestling veteran in &#8220;Action<strong>&#8221; Mike Jackson,<\/strong> to face the tandem of Mancer Warner and <strong>1 Called Manders.<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_59097\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59097\" style=\"width: 450px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-59097\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/12\/ELJ5ruvWkAA6Zvd-e1575757424353.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"450\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-59097\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: GCW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Tommy Rich began his pro wrestling career in 1974, working various NWA territories such as <strong>Championship Wrestling From Florida, Georgia Championship Wrestling, Mid South Wrestling<\/strong>, and <strong>Mid-Atlantic<\/strong>, as well as <strong>Continental Wrestling Association (CWA)<\/strong> in Memphis. In 1981, Rich reached the pinnacle of the sport, defeating <strong>Harley Race<\/strong> for the NWA World&#8217;s Heavyweight Championship.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tommy Rich wins NWA World Title\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lnlA3t1ReiE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>He would also work with the American Wrestling Association (AWA) and All-Japan throughout the 1980s, before signing with WCW in 1989. By 1993, he reunited with the CWA brass in their new venture, <strong>United States Wrestling Association (USWA)<\/strong>, where he became a 4x USWA Heavyweight Champion and 5x USWA Tag Team Champion with <strong>Doug Gilbert<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Last Battle Of Atlanta Buzz Sawyer vs. Tommy Rich Cage Match\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9WfG_0BpXmQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 1991, he was a 2x WCW World Tag Team Champion and member of <strong>Terri Runnel<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>York Foundation<\/strong> stable, which also featured <strong>Terry Taylor<\/strong> and the <strong>Rock N&#8217; Roll Express<\/strong>&#8216; <strong>Ricky Morton<\/strong>, and <strong>Michael Wallstreet<\/strong> (aka IRS in the WWF, or Mike Rotunda). By the end of the 1990s, he began working with ECW, and by 1999 was working with <strong>IWA Mid South.\u00a0<\/strong>While he hasn&#8217;t officially retired from a 45-year career, his appearances are limited to less than 10 a year &#8211; and his GCW match on Saturday night will mark his first of 2019.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Yov1BBbHboU<\/p>\n<p>His partner for the evening, &#8220;Action&#8221; Mike Jackson, is another longtime veteran of the original NWA, with Mid South, Championship Wrestling From Florida, Georgia Championship Wrestling, as well as the AWA. A career journeyman who debuted in the early 1970s, he was a hand utilized around the nation. After briefly working for WCW in 1991, he took an extended hiatus from wrestling, before returning to the US indies in the early 2000s, where he&#8217;s worked the Southern indies like <strong>Peachstate Wrestling Alliance<\/strong> in Georgia and <strong>NWA Wrestle Birmingham<\/strong> in Alabama.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"BOBBY EATON vs  MIKE JACKSON\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mgouVWut07c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the<a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u00a0Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can watch\u00a0<em>W.O.M.B.A.T. 2\u00a0<\/em>from GCW <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fite.tv\/watch\/gcw-wombat-2\/2p4xi\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">live on FITE.tv<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday night, the night before Game Changer Wrestling (GCW) returns to Nashville for Long. Live. GCW,\u00a0GCW presents it&#8217;s second WOMBAT special event. WOMBAT, or Warriors of Mat Battle and Trouble, is the old indie promotion from GCW regular The Invisible Man and features backyard wrestlers and longtime underground indie veterans in a fun-filled, yet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":59099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5274,6],"tags":[1833,2702,3695,5504],"class_list":["post-59096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gcw","category-north-america","tag-gcw","tag-mance-warner","tag-tommy-rich","tag-wombat"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}