Dick Slater

I remember when Dick Slater first started wrestling. He was just a young kid and was a great heel in Florida. He teamed with Dirty Rhodes and won the tag team belts and then later with Professor Toru Tanaka and Bob Orton Jr. Dick Slaters star was on the rise.

Next I caught up with Slater and he just kind of fell flat with me. He could work. He could talk fairly well but he just seemed just ok. I have recently been watching his run in Mid Atlantic wrestling from The Carolinas and I assume that he must have been the booker cause he had every belt and was all over the TV.



Slater wasn't bad but he just wasn't the mega star or mega heel that I would have hung the territory on. But Jim Crockett decided to. He had some big time matches with Roddy Piper in The Carolinas and it was kind of a carry over from their reverse feud in Georgia where Slater was the face and Piper was the heel.



This little feud in itself kind of said it all for me. Piper was the hottest heel in the country at the time. He was the heel color commentator on Georgia Championship Wrestling and he got a ton of exposure and heat. And Slater challenged him. I know they took this around the horn but I don't think it ever got over at least not as much as Pipers feud with Bob Armstrong, Tommy Rich or Buzz Sawyer.



To me Slater never was as good as he was early in his career in Florida for Eddie Graham or in Georgia. A lot of people say that he copied Terry Funks style move for move and if you watch him you will see it big time. He and Terry even teamed up in both Japan and in Puerto Rico. Slater could wrestle heel or face and some say he was actually thought of as one of the wrestlers to be NWA World Heavyweight Champion at one time. But Slater was involved in a bad car wreck and a lot of people said he just wasn't right after that.



Slater later turned up in Mid South/UWF and again I am pretty sure he was the booker cause suddenly he came in and was the top heel in the territory. He was again all over TV and was the main man. Seems like Slater liked to book himself on top. He did have a great feud with Jake Roberts in Mid South and he reunited with his buddy Buzz Sawyer.



Slater ran Greg Valentine out of Mid Atlantic (Valentine went to the WWF for a big time run). He ran Jake Roberts out of Mid South (Roberts went to WWF for a Hall of Fame run). And then Slater went to WWF and had a lame ass shitty nothing happening run as 'The Rebel'.



Dick Slater? Well, he was a good worker and he was REALLY good when he was the booker.