Professional Wrestling Career
A second-generation wrestler, the son of 1950s Texas wrestler Frankie Hill Murdoch, Dick Murdoch grew up with fellow second-generation wrestlers Dory Funk, Jr. and Terry Funk, watching their fathers fight all around Texas. Frank Murdoch held the NWA Southwest Junior Heavyweight Championship three times in his career.
Dick Murdoch started wrestling in 1965 as Ron Carson in a tag team with Don Carson. He soon started wrestling under his real name. In 1968, he formed a tag team that would continue throughout the early 1970s with Dusty Rhodes called "The Texas Outlaws". After splitting with Rhodes, he wrestled for Florida Championship Wrestling, the National Wrestling Alliance, and Mid-South Wrestling.
His most noted work as a wrestler came in Mid-South Wrestling in the early 1980s, where he teamed with Junkyard Dog. The pair was the most popular champions in the region, attracting the hardcore, working class white fans with his "Captain Redneck" persona and JYD drawing the support of the black fan base. Their feud with the Fabulous Freebirds was perhaps Mid-South's most compelling storyline.
In 1984, he went to the World Wrestling Federation and formed a tag team with Adrian Adonis that captured the World Tag Team Titles. He left the WWF in 1985 after dropping the tag-team title to the US Express and wrestled in Mid-South Wrestling briefly before turning up in the NWA's Jim Crockett Promotions in 1986. He feuded with Ric Flair and attempted to win Flair's NWA World Title.
In early 1987, Murdoch joined Ivan Koloff and Vladimir Petrov in their attempt to get Nikita Koloff and Dusty Rhodes. Murdoch, who at the time held the NWA United States Tag Team Championship with Ivan, injured Nikita's neck after a brain-buster suplex on the floor that summer, resulting in Murdoch being (kayfabe) suspended for 30 days and the team being stripped of the tag team title. Murdoch left the NWA and wrestled in the World Wrestling Council before appearing in World Championship Wrestling as one half of the "Hardliners," or "Hardline Collection Agency," with Dick Slater in 1991. They feuded with Rick and Scott Steiner but could not win their title.
Murdoch was the twenty-seventh entrant in the 1995 WWF Royal Rumble. He was eliminated by Henry O. Godwinn. Murdoch was wrestling in the independents when he died of a heart attack on June 15, 1996.
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