Dec 17 1978 - Sunday Night - Maple Leaf Wrestling

An historic card featuring Dino Bravo beating Gene Kiniski to be crowned
Cdn Champion and Ricky Steamboat pinning Ric Flair to win the U.S. Title

An important card in the history of Maple Leaf Wrestling cementing the popularity of the Mid-Atlantic stars
as well as the kick-off for a long overdue true local title. It was billed as Whipper Watson Appreciation Night

Card Review & clips from Main Event Wrestling Dec 27 1978 Terry Justice

At the Westbury Hotel I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Paul Jones and former N.W.A. world's heavyweight champion Gene Kiniski. I got both their autographs.

Later at Maple Leaf Gardens, for the first time, an autograph table was set up for fans. The wrestlers at this table were Ricky Steamboat, Dino Bravo, Jones and Jimmy Snuka. Not only did they sign autographs but they also gave out some free photos of themselves.

The wrestling itself was very good, for the most part. In the opener, Johnny Weaver looked very agile and showed a lot of different moves en route to his surprisingly easy victory over Rudy Kay.

Jones won the most boring match of the night over Gene Anderson. Apparently it was just an "off night" for both wrestlers, who are highly regarded in other areas.

Fashion award went to Snuka and his opponent, ring veteran Swede Hanson. Snuka, who wrestled barefoot, sported a flowered blue-green ring outfit. Hanson had a flowered Olympic-type uniform underneath his bright yellow warm-up robe. I was surprised to see Hanson had red hair always thought it was blond. Snuka was quite impressive.

Tiger Jeet Singh's win over Zimba Zhan rated as the second most boring encounter of the night, but at least the local Hindu fans were relieved to see that Singh finally showed up for a change. He had missed a couple of earlier scheduled MLG appearances this year.

Tony Atlas and Jay Youngblood were impressive victors in what was for some unknown reason changed from a title to non-title match against Greg Valentine & Baron Von Raschke . Von Raschke was much more impressive than I had expected he would be.

Always impressive Dino Bravo registered the big upset of the night pinning Kiniski. The two took turns throwing each other out of the ring. Kiniski got in some good licks but Bravo's excellent flying head scissors took its toll on the veteran star.

Ric Flair had an impressive robe but was outclassed in the ring by Ricky Steamboat. Anyone who imagines Flair is better than Buddy Rogers was has obviously never seen Rogers!

Card Review & clips from Main Event Wrestling Dec 27 1978 Terry Justice

As was the norm during this era, most of the stars would appear
the next day in one of the neighboring cities.

This clip from Kitchener about 70 miles outside Toronto