WCCW's Television Programming
Weekly wrestling shows were staged there on Tuesday nights until August 1978, then were moved to Sunday nights until the early '80s, and finally were held on Friday nights until the promotion's demise.
WCCW's syndicated show was usually taped at the Sportatorium beginning in 1981, with two hour-long shows being recorded every other Friday. These telecasts were, in the beginning, seen in only a few markets and were hosted at various times by Gene Goodson, Steve Harms, and Marc Lowrance; when the show was taken over in 1982 by Continental Productions (a subsidiary of local station KXTX) and went to international syndication, well-known north Texas journalist/sportscaster Bill Mercer (a former play-by-play announcer for the Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox along with other Texas-based teams) became the ringside announcer at the Sportatorium. For a few months he co-hosted with Jay Saldi, and by 1983, hosted the hour-long program alone, with Lowrance filling in for Mercer from time to time.
After Mercer left in 1987 to join Ken Mantell's Wild West Wrestling promotion, Lowrance returned to the broadcast position, where he would remain until resigning to become a minister in July 1990. Lowrance would later be paired by former wrestler-turned-matchmaker Frank Dusek for one year, then later by "The Beauty" Terrance Garvin, a pro wrestler who resembles Jimmy Garvin.
Lowrance left World Class/USWA in May 1990 to become a full-time Methodist minister, after nearly 10 years with the organization.
Craig Johnson (real name: Jon Horton) replaced Lowrance for the final two months of telecasts, due to the unavailability of Bill Mercer, who was a ringside announcer for Gary Hart's wrestling promotion at the Metroplex Arena. Percy Pringle III would replace Garvin, who returned to the wrestling ring. Horton eventually went on to host the USWA and GWF telecasts in later years, and Pringle went on to greater fame in the WWF/WWE as Paul Bearer, the manager of The Undertaker. Lowrance did return to the Sportatorium as ring announcer in September 1990 (as did Mercer, who filled in for Lowrance on a few cards), when World Class seceded from the USWA, and appeared occasionally during the 1990s in other Dallas-based promotions such as the Global Wrestling Federation. Lowrance is no longer in the business, but does appear at vintage pro wrestling conventions on occasion.
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