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Pro wrestler who helped integrate sports in Alabama dies
Pro wrestler who helped integrate sports in Alabama dies
Updated 11:40 AM; Today 11:31 AM
By Greg Garrison | ggarrison@al.com
Longtime professional wrestler Len Rossi, who integrated wrestling matches in Birmingham by teaming with a black wrestler called Bearcat Brown, has died. ... Rossi died on Friday, the Tennessean reported. He was 91.
In a 2016 interview with The Birmingham News, Rossi recalled wrestling at Boutwell Auditorium on Monday nights from 1958-72. ... “We used to pack Boutwell Auditorium,” said Rossi, who quit wrestling in 1972 after a serious car crash and opened Len Rossi Health Food Store in Brentwood, Tenn. ... “It was so popular, when my wife and I would go out to eat at restaurants, people would mob us for autographs,” Rossi said.
Rossi recalled that he and his black wrestling tag-team partner the late Bearcat Brown integrated professional wrestling at Boutwell in 1962, with ringside TV broadcaster Sterling Brewer doing the announcing. Brewer died in 2016.
“He was really happy that Bearcat became my partner,” Rossi said. “We integrated wrestling in Birmingham. We made wrestling history, about 1962. We were scared. They had bomb threats. But it was packed. We turned away hundreds and hundreds of people.”
{snip}
Updated 11:40 AM; Today 11:31 AM
By Greg Garrison | ggarrison@al.com
Longtime professional wrestler Len Rossi, who integrated wrestling matches in Birmingham by teaming with a black wrestler called Bearcat Brown, has died. ... Rossi died on Friday, the Tennessean reported. He was 91.
In a 2016 interview with The Birmingham News, Rossi recalled wrestling at Boutwell Auditorium on Monday nights from 1958-72. ... “We used to pack Boutwell Auditorium,” said Rossi, who quit wrestling in 1972 after a serious car crash and opened Len Rossi Health Food Store in Brentwood, Tenn. ... “It was so popular, when my wife and I would go out to eat at restaurants, people would mob us for autographs,” Rossi said.
Rossi recalled that he and his black wrestling tag-team partner the late Bearcat Brown integrated professional wrestling at Boutwell in 1962, with ringside TV broadcaster Sterling Brewer doing the announcing. Brewer died in 2016.
“He was really happy that Bearcat became my partner,” Rossi said. “We integrated wrestling in Birmingham. We made wrestling history, about 1962. We were scared. They had bomb threats. But it was packed. We turned away hundreds and hundreds of people.”
{snip}