Much like my previous inductee into the Hall of Memories, Dino Bravo, “Rugged” Ronnie Garvin was familiar to all of us who used to watch WWF Superstars of Wrestling telecasts during the late 80's and early 90's. Also, much like Dino Bravo, Garvin actually had a long and varied career that at times was completely different to the buzz-cutted brawler he portrayed on WWF TV and pay-per-views. In fact, when he joined the WWF in 1988, Garvin had already been in the professional wrestling business for 26 years.

So where had he been and what had he accomplished during that time? Join me and we'll find out…

Ron Garvin was born Roger Barnes in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1945. Yes, another export from that area to the pro wrestling world. In 1962, aged 17, Ron made his debut in a pro wrestling ring in Boston, having moved there to get into the industry. Around this time Ron became friends with two guys who would help him out through various times in his career - Pat Patterson and Terry Joyal, who wrestled as Terry Garvin. At the time, brother tag teams were an incredibly popular attraction in wrestling, whether the pairings were legitimate siblings or not (Back in that era, wrestling fans would not look to find out such “truths” anyway). So by the mid 60's, Terry and Ron were wrestling as the Garvin brothers.

An early shot of the Garvin Brothers (Ron standing in front of Terry) tag team in the 1960's

The Garvin brothers were a successful tag team, especially in the more southern states such as Florida, Tennessee and Georgia, where the duo held the regional tag team titles in both states, as well as the World Tag Team Titles in Florida and the Southern Tag Titles in Tennessee. By the mid 70's, they had added a third Garvin “brother”. Ron (who had previously dated Pat Patterson's sister) had married a lady named Annette, and as such became stepfather to her son James. James became Jimmy Garvin, at first a manager, but when old enough, the third wrestling member of the Garvin Family. Jimmy later went on to national fame as “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin and later still Jimmy “Jam” Garvin in WCW's version of the Fabulous Freebirds tag team.

Gordon Solie interviews the Garvin Family in the mid 1970's. From left to right: Terry Garvin, Jimmy Garvin and Ron Garvin.

Ron Garvin next hit prominence in the NWA Georgia territory in the early 1980's. The Georgia territory was one of the most popular and successful in the world of wrestling, and it's high-rating television show was one of the reasons Ted Turner became so powerful in television and why he's always liked wrestling on his channels. Here Garvin earnt the nickname “the One Man Gang” (not to be confused with the wrestler of the same name) from Les Thatcher. It was here started to turn into the two-fisted brawler he became synonymous with. Garvin held the area's top title, the NWA National Heavyweight Title, for nearly eight months. He defeated Ted DiBiase for the belt in October of 1984 and held onto it until June 1985, when Black Bart defeated him. He also held the NWA National Tag Team Title as well as the NWA National/World Television Title (at one point the NWA Georgia and NWA Mid-Atlantic territories were competing over who had the right to call their TV title the “World TV Title” …would you believe it?) on five occasions from 1983 through to 1985.

By now Garvin had made a name for himself as a popular mid-card attraction, so as the Georgia promotion started to fall apart, he made his way onto NWA Mid-Atlantic, which many of you may know ended up becoming “the NWA” promotion and later, World Championship Wrestling (interestingly WCW was the name of the NWA Georgia TV show in the mid 80's, but that's another story entirely). It was here that commentator Gordon Solie dubbed Garvin with the “Hands Of Stone” gimmick, slightly similar to that of Marvellous Marc Mero in the WWE a decade on - a tape-fisted brawler who generally finished the match with a knock out punch. The real irony was though that as a teenager Ron Garvin had trained as a boxer but didn't like it, and gave it up in favour of training as a wrestler. Many of Garvin's other key character aspects rose to notoriety, such as the towel around the neck on the way to the ring, and the infamous “Garvin Stomp”. The Garvin Stomp - which is basically kicking the proverbial out of your opponent, in a clockwise tour of their prone body - is probably one of the most performed pro wrestling moves in schoolyards around the world. It might have looked a tad hokey, but the real thing was anything but, as Ric Flair attested to in his autobiography To Be The Man “those shots were pretty solid”.

Ron Garvin, moments after winning the NWA World Title from Ric Flair.

Flair would know pretty well as Garvin, who had already held the NWA Mid-Atlantic title as well as the NWA U.S. Tag Title (the same one that ended up in WCW) with Barry Windham, challenged the Nature Boy for the big one, the NWA World Heavyweight Title. Now there is an interesting story behind this: promoter Jim Crockett was looking toward putting on the NWA's first ever pay-per-view event, Starrcade '87. There he wanted Ric Flair to win the NWA World Title as the main event of the show. So that meant he had to find someone for Ric to lose the belt to in the interim. Most wrestlers balked at the suggestion of becoming the champ, as they knew it was only going to be a very short reign. Garvin didn't mind, as he was getting on in years and it would realistically be his last shot at being on top. So on September 25, 1987 in Detroit, Ron Garvin defeated Ric Flair to become the NWA Heavyweight champion. As some had predicted, this did not go down well with NWA fans, as Ric Flair states in his book, they were happy to see Garvin chase for the gold and give Ric a beating, but they didn't see him as someone who would actually be able to beat him. I guess a similar comparison at this point is if Charlie Haas had beaten JBL for the WWE World Title.

Another problem around this time was that Crockett was desperately trying to compete with the WWF who were starting to run away and become the top wrestling promotion on the whole of the United States. So he had tried to move the NWA into areas it was not particularly popular, such as holding Starrcade '87 in Chicago, when previously Starrcade had always been held in the Carolinas, and NWA stronghold. A further problem on the night of November 11, 1987, was that Vince McMahon, who was broadcasting the first annual Survivor Series to compete against the NWA, told most of the nation's cable companies that they could only show one show - either the Survivor Series or Starrcade. Most companies went with the established pay-per-view name of the WWF. After all these dramas, Flair and Garvin still managed to put on a pretty good cage match, which ended up Flair pinning Garvin to regain the belt (much to the Chicago crowd's delight).

”Rugged” Ronnie Garvin, the veteran tough guy

Garvin travelled around briefly, managing to score both the AWA TV title and the WWC Universal Heavyweight title, before reuniting with his friends Terry Garvin and Pat Patterson by signing with the World Wrestling Federation in mid 1988. Garvin was by now 43 and in the twilight of his career, but his run as “Rugged” Ronnie Garvin still had some highlights, the best of which being his long-running feud with Greg “the Hammer” Valentine. Valentine and Garvin went at it in a number of battles, culminating in Valentine “retiring” Garvin. However, Garvin wasn't done yet, he was prepared to make Valentine's life hell still. First he became a referee, and when Valentine and manager Jimmy Hart managed to get him banned from that task, he became a ring announcer! Garvin didn't let his average at best grasp of the English language get him down, as he announced the Valentine - Hercules encounter at Summerslam '89, making sure to taunt “the Hammer” before and after the match.

Valentine snapped, and demanded Garvin be reinstated as a wrestler so he could get back at him. This led to one of my favourite blow-offs to a mid card feud in WWE history, the “I Quit” match at Royal Rumble 1990. This is recommended viewing for everyone as these two veterans beat the absolute tar out of each other, as well as finally putting an end to the Heartbreaker/Hammer Jammer (Garvin's answer to Valentine's dubious “shin guard” he used to help win his matches with) debate. Garvin finally made Valentine submit with the Scorpion Death Lock/Sharpshooter after nearly 17 minutes of solid brutality.

After another reign as WWC Universal Champ in 1992, Ron Garvin retired from wrestling at the age of 47. He then took up a completely different vocation, touring around the United States as the pilot of a cargo plane (interestingly stepson Jimmy Garvin also became a pilot when he retired from wrestling). But that was not quite the last time the world had seen Ronnie Garvin in a wrestling ring. On August 1999 in Montreal Garvin teamed with Jimmy Garvin and Michel Dubois in a 6 man tag team match against the Rougeau Brothers and their father, Jacques Rougeau Sr. And in 2005, Ron Garvin has appeared twice as a special referee in both the Carolinas and in Tennessee. So you never know, Garvin might just happen to turn up in some kind of one-off role on WWE television in the future. I for one, would love see him administer the likes of Randy Orton with the dreaded “Garvin Stomp”.

(Special thanks to Obsessed With Wrestling for the use of their images.)