The hunt goes on for a successor to Whipper
Toronto Star Dec 21 1978
-Jim Proudfoot

There’s a poignant and meaningful photograph hanging in the Carlton St. office of Frank Tunney, the solemn gentleman who’s been putting on wrestling shows at Maple Leaf Gardens for 37 years. Taken in the early Fifties, it shows a capacity crowd at the Gardens and there in the ring, you can just barely make out the tiny figure of Whipper Billy Watson.

As athletes, pro wrestlers are better than ever. Some of them are almost incredible. But they don’t do sell-out business at the Gardens anymore. Far from it. And the reason for that sad development is there to be deduced from Tunney’s memento: Whipper Watson has been out of the game for seven years and nobody’s come along to replace him in the hearts and minds of Canadian fans.

It’s difficult now to imagine the immense appeal The Whip had when he was among North America’s leading practitioners of that wonderful, bizarre combination of sport and show biz called wrestling – or rassling, as some folks prefer to say. Perhaps it’s enough to recall that no Leaf or Argo player, no jockey, no boxer, no golfer outranked him as a sporting celebrity around here. He was as big, in his day as Darryl Sittler and Sandy Hawley are now. And wrestling being the way it is. He never had to explain a slump and his followers were never disappointed in him.

Watson had a dashing, virtuous image, exceptional skills and yet a corny hometown tinge because he lived in East York. What his worshippers devoutly believed was this: His strength was as the strength of 10 because his heart was pure. Truly, The Whip could do no wrong. He was sometimes cheated out of victory but he never really lost. The customer always got what he’d paid for when The Whip was in the main event.

For three decades Watson could pull in an automatic 10,000, no matter who his opponent might be. And the Gardens would be jammed, or close to it, any time he tackled one of his hated rivals – Nanjo Singh, Lou Thesz, Wild Bill Longson, Al and Tiny Mills (in team bouts), Gorgeous George, Gene Kiniski – heels like those.

From time to time, Watson and Tunney would think about grooming a successor, some local boy who’d gradually come to occupy a similar spot in the public’s affections. Even the indestructible Whip was going to grow old, after all. So they tried it with a splendid young athlete out of the Waterloo area, Wally Sieber. Eventually, he abandoned a project which was going to take a long time and became a villain now known as Waldo Von Erich. Then Watson settled on Dewey Robertson, a handsome and talented redhead from Kitchener. He was designated heir apparent.

“I was working as a salesman around home when The Whip took me under his wing,” Robertson says. “I lived at his farm in Keswick for three years, just so we could work together constantly. He was teaching me everything. In fact, I even built a house on the farm.

“Whip and I would wrestle as a team and then spend hours discussing what I’d done. We’d be in the gym every day. But it never did work out.”

Watson happened to be on an errand for Robertson when tragedy hit, in 1971. He was picking up a screen for Robertson’s fireplace and was putting it into the trunk of his car when another vehicle struck him, mangling his legs. He was hospitalized for months and there was a long period of therapy after that. Wrestling, of course was out of the question and Watson, once he was well, dedicated the rest of his life to round-the-clock toil on behalf of the Ontario Society for Crippled Children.

“It’s wonderful, what The Whip’s done and is doing,” Robertson says, “but of course, the thing he and I were working on was right out the window. “ Around that same time, The Sheik was attracting good crowds at the Gardens as the headliner for every show. The idea of developing me got lost in the shuffle, understandably. “Billy Red Lyons and I formed a team and did well. I’ve worked in Japan and all over the U.S. I’ve wrestled before more than 20,000 at Madison Square Garden in New York. But my family became more important to me. So I kind of backed off. I’m 39. That’s not old for wrestling, but I’ve put down roots, you see. “I’m very happy with the way things turned out but there are times when I can’t help thinking about what might have been.”

Robertson now operates a gymnasium in Burlington and serves as a trainer for a couple of hockey teams and the town’s junior football club, the Braves. But up the street, he’s installed a wrestling ring in another building and now he’s got an idea. “I’ve trained mostly weightlifters and body builders but I think there could be a market for a wrestling school. Vern Gagne in the Minneapolis-St Paul area and Lou Klein in Detroit taught a lot of the top guys but it might work in Canada now,” says Robertson.

“I know the business and also I’ve got contacts to help a kid get started, if I can uncover a good one. And wouldn’t that be a nice ending for the story, giving Canadian wrestling what would really help it now: A new Whipper Billy Watson?”

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