We’ve seen some exceptional talent over the years, and This Day in Wrestling History is remembering one of the greatest ring announcers, Gordon Solie, who passed away on July 27, 2000 at 71 years old.
Professional wrestling is all about presenting characters, and one of those that really stuck out wasn’t so much a character as a friendly voice calling matches.
There are character we always remember, but when a ring announcer gets our attention it’s usually either good or bad, but in this case it’s all good.
Born Francis Jonard Labiak in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 26. 1929, he served in the Air Force and later became a disc jockey on the radio before he gave wrestling a shot.
Championship Wrestling
Solie joined Championship Wrestling in Florida in the 1950s and eventually worked his way into the announcing position and then the company’s head announcer.
He had a calm and cool demeanor and steady announce style that contrasted announcers then and now helped him stand out and earned him comparisons to sportscaster Jim McKay.
He had a type of seriousness about him that felt like a real play-by-play announcer in sports, and his nicknames for moves (su-plays for suplexes, crimson mask for being bloodied, etc) really added a comfortable, relatable feel to his broadcasts.
He stayed true to Championship Wrestling until it shut down in 1987, and he then headed to Georgia and joined the NWA, which then became WCW where he announced for WCW Pro on Sundays near the end of his career.
Tumultuous ending
In 1995, Solie had several problems with the company like disagreements with Eric Bischoff, and he was against a couple of WCW Hall of Fame inductions.
He reportedly opposed Big John Studd being inducted because of reports of steroid use the previous year, and he stood against Angelo Poffo’s induction.
His issue with Poffo was reported to be because he didn’t think wrestlers should push for their family members to be inducted. Poffo was Randy Savage’s father, so we know who was probably doing the pushing.
Solie was inducted with Poffo in 1995, but he’d left the company by then and retired from wrestling.
Unfortunately, his retirement was cut short as he was diagnosed with throat cancer and they had to remove his vocal chords.
He passed away from throat cancer on July 27, 2000, creating a This Day in Wrestling History we all hate to see, but love to remember him and what he brought to the sport.
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