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The G.O.A.T. 100 #61 | Johnny Valentine
Welcome to the G.O.A.T. 100 where we will count down with PWM wrestling historian Peter Edge the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time, based on many different stats and criteria. A new wrestler will be added on Mondays and Thursdays every week. Here is a link to an introduction essay with Peter explaining his GOAT100 concept. At the bottom of the article you can find the GOAT 100 Portal with links to all profiles so far published, as well as a visual key... Enjoy learning more about the history of our great hobby!
Johnny Valentine is one of the toughest men to ever wrestle.
That statement doesn’t feel like a hot take to me, because stories from Valentine's day tell you that Johnny could handle anyone in the ring.
Lou Thesz thought Johnny Valentine was only behind the likes of the Gotches and Strangler Lewis along with Gene Kiniski in his list of the toughest guys in wrestling history. But Johnny’s toughness wasn't like those “shooters” so much as a “bar brawler”. Johnny was the kind of guy if you went to a pub on Thursday afternoon and spent a second too long looking at him, the next place you’d see is the inside of an ambulance.
At 6’ 4” and 250 lbs, Johnny was lean and mean – and he was hard, to boot. Johnny’s toughness was an element of wrestling from 1950 to 1975, one that made him unmissable – and such a great draw!
Born in 1928, John Wisnicki was the son of dysfunctional parents – his older sister more or less raised him.
Johnny enjoyed playing football, and spent time boxing in his home state of Washington before being spotted by a local promoter who hooked him up with Stanislaus and Wladek Zbyszko. He trained and worked at the farm the brothers owned in Missouri, before heading to Argentina, where he made his debut against Karl Nowena in Buenos Aires.
Valentine would be put in positions on the top of the card in the early 50s, with Central States and Texas his strongest territories – winning Central States’ Heavyweight Title, as well as the Brass Knuckles Title (with its USP of seeing brawlers compete for it) in Dallas. Stampede Wrestling in Canada became Johnny's unofficial home, going on to hold the main championship there on three occasions in the latter half of the decade.
Tag Team wrestling would also see Valentine as an attraction, with Johnny holding tag gold in several regions in that era.
As a member of the snotty “Atomic Blondes” with Chet Wallick, Valentine was half of the top tag team who were main event heels in the Midwest. Meanwhile in Toronto, he and Billy Watson held tag gold for 457 days.
But it was in Capital Sports for the elder Vince J. McMahon in New York that Valentine had his biggest successes as a tag wrestler, holding the territory’s tag belts three times, all with different partners (Buddy Rogers, Bob Ellis and Dr. Jerry Graham.) But he would also set his stall out as a singles attraction all over the U.S and Canada.
He showed up in Madison Square Garden for the first time during the Vince J. McMahon / Toots Mondt era on June 14, 1958 with a win over Luis Martinez. This would be followed by a win over Lewin a month later on the upper card. He then remained in the undercards until going to a draw with Haystacks Calhoun just underneath a sellout win by the team of Argentina Rocca & Miguel Perez over the Grahams on December 1, 1958.
His first main event in MSG was March 9, 1959 before 19,990 fans, teaming with Gene Stanlee and losing via DQ to the massive attraction of Rocca & Perez in a match where Johnny and Gene would fall out in the third fall. Two weeks later, the two men, now enemies, worked off that grudge match that went to a draw.
Valentine, who was the heel in the Stanlee match, would search for a better-fitting partner to continue his feud with Rocca and Perez, teaming with Hall of Famers like The Sheik and Eddie Graham in these main-event matches.
Valentine would be out of New York for several months, with a one-night return to main-event teamed with Eddie Graham in a no contest with Rocca & Perez on March 7th 1960. But when he next returned it would be alignments reversed, teaming this time with Rocca on December 23, 1960 in the main event, going to a no contest with The Fabulous Kangaroos (yes, they are actually from Australia) before 11,612 fans. The rematch, the following month – which Rocca & Valentine won via DQ in 36:08 – drew 14,783.
When the elder McMahon had a falling out with Rocca, he brought in Argentina Apollo as his replacement. They did such a good job of getting Apollo’s MSG debut over, that they sold out to the tune of 20,400 on February 27, 1961 in a draw after 42:32 (I’m guessing it was supposed to be 45:00) teamed with Valentine against the Kangaroos again. Valentine & Apollo drew another sellout on May 26th, going to a curfew draw with Buddy Rogers & Bob Orton Sr.
But soon after, Rocca was back and on top of the MSG cards, meaning Valentine was back down to being No.2 attraction on the babyface pecking order in the Northeast. But after one more noteworthy match, beating Giant Baba in the undercard on August 3, 1962, Valentine was gone from the territory.
It would be three years before Valentin would return to MSG going to a draw with Waldo Von Erich on August 2, 1965, and followed with two draws with Big Bill Miller. All this led to November 15, 1965 when Bill & Dan Miller beat Valentine & Bruno Sammartino in 32:58 before 13,913 fans. Sammartino & Valentine won the rematch on December 13, 1965 before 10,090 fans. Valentine then worked semifinals against the Miller Brothers underneath Sammartino’s title defenses, with partners like Bobo Brazil and Tony Parisi in early 1966 before again leaving the territory.
Valentine never had a Madison Square Garden program against Sammartino for the WWWF title, with the timing more of an issue than anything else.
Valentine did turn on Tony Parisi, who was billed as Sammartino’s cousin and often acted as the stepping stone where heels would attack Tony to build to a match where Sammartino would defend his family and Italian honor. But Johnny then left for Texas where was having a strong run as the top heel in the hot Dallas territory feuding with Fritz Von Erich. He was flown back to work a program for the title against Sammartino in the summer of 1966, but Madison Square Garden was closed that summer, so these face offs went down in major Northeastern cities outside the Empire City, like Pittsburgh and Baltimore, and by the time MSG was re-opened, Valentine had moved on to Japan. Johnny was working shots for Tokyo Pro Wrestling, an attempt to establish a second promotion in Japan after Michiharu Toyonobori lost his role as President of the JWA when it was discovered he liked gambling and sleeping around. He had been off television in the Northeast too long by the time he returned from Japan so the heat had run its course.
While in Japan, Valentine wrestled a program with Antonio Inoki, the main star of TPW, and in their time in the ring, Valentine helped Inoki establish his name as a future star, dropping the Toronto version of the NWA US Title that he took with him when he left the Tunney-led territory – the belt was renamed as the TPW United States Title.
Valentine then moved on to Florida and his time working for Eddie Graham saw him win the region’s Heavyweight belt three times. He also won the Georgia territory main belt twice. In Missouri, he was a main event player in a time where Harley Race and Terry Funk were regulars there.
In Dallas, Valentine feuded with Wahoo McDaniel which revitalized the territory after years of being stagnant. The argument that the pair made Dallas viable so the 80’s generation of Fritz’s sons and the Fab Freebirds could rock the Sportatarium is a credible one. The Valentine / Wahoo feud continued for four years in Dallas and also Houston, with legendary physical matches like Indian Strap matches and Texas Death matches doing great numbers. The feud continued until Valentine suffered a minor heart attack on March 15, 1973.
Once he was cleared to return, Johnny went to The Sheik’s group in Detroit where he got involved in the top feud of the territory, which (as always in Detroit) meant against promoter / wrestler Sheik. The Mid-Atlantic territory brought Valentine in shortly afterwards.
Mid-Atlantic was a tag-team-focused group that featured young talent working a fast pace, and grizzled-vet Valentine stuck out like a sore thumb. So at first the audience just didn’t connect with Valentine, but George Scott (the booker of the Carolinas territory) remained patient. As the fans eventually warmed up to Johnny Valentine, the territory improved business, with Scott also bringing in Wahoo, continuing their now-legendary feud into cities that hadn't got to see it the first time round.
It’s said that Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat incorporated elements of the Johnny/Wahoo feud into their work mixing the fast-paced action of their new generation with the physicality that only Johnny and Wahoo could have brought back in that era to make their legendary series of matches.
Flair and Valentine became friends, teaming and travelling together. In 1975, Flair (back then a brawler more than anything) was rising through the ranks, and Valentine at 47 was still at the top of the territory. The US Heavyweight Title, whose lineage continues to this day in WWE was created for Valentine in the Mid-Atlantic territory as his feud with Wahoo continued.
Johnny Valentine at 47, an age seen as way past the prime of a wrestler in those days, was nonetheless seen by many as one of the best in the world.
But then it all changed in an instant.
The plane crash that is synonymous with Ric Flair’s career also affected six others. The pilot, Michael Farkus died after spending a year in a coma. Tim Woods, (known best as Mr Wrestling II) Bob Bruggers, David Crockett (the brother of Jim Crockett Jr.) and Johnny Valentine were all also on that plane. The six survivors were all hospitalised, having suffered a variety of injuries. But out of the six, Valentine was the worst affected. He broke his back and was paralyzed for the rest of his life.
Jim Crockett kept him on the payroll for 18 months after the crash but then those pay checks stopped. Even though Johnny had been good about saving his money throughout his career, the cost of care decimated those savings, and Valentine ended up destitute.
Houston promoter Paul Boesch brought him in as an on-screen manager for Dale Hey –wrestling as his kayfabe brother Dale Valentine – but it just didn’t click, and neither the storyline nor Dale lasted long in Houston. Which meant neither did Johnny.
For the rest of his life, Valentine lived off social security disability income. The industry he gave everything to ignored him, even though his son Greg (“the Hammer”) had become part of WWF in the national expansion.
His condition grew worse throughout the 90s, and in 2000, Johnny fell off his porch, fracturing his back worse and also twisting his colon. While in hospital, he would catch pneumonia and get a staph infection, and then his kidneys failed and he fell into a coma. His hospital bills rose to a million dollars and with his HMO refusing to cooperate, the Cauliflower Alley Club (a fraternal club of ex-boxers and wrestlers) stepped up to help with the bills.
But after eight months in hospital, even the toughest of them couldn’t hold on. Johnny Valentine passed away on April 24, 2001 at the age of 72.
His wife Sharon, had started out as an on-off relationship with Johnny. They met in the mid 1970s when she had worked across the street from his apartment. Later, she visited John as he was recovering in hospital from the 1975 plane crash. But Johnny ended the relationship because he didn't want her to see him in his condition. However, years later, while on braces and crutches, Johnny managed to drive around her neighbourhood for hours until he found her house. He slowly walked to the front door. Sharon's daughter announced to her mom that Johnny Valentine was in front of their home. Sharon, having been ill, refused to go to the door and hid. Valentine insisted he wouldn't leave until he saw her. She finally came to the door, he asked her to marry him and she accepted.
When Johnny died, she kept his ashes in their room until she also passed away 12 years later.
The legacy of Johnny Valentine is simple. He was that guy you really didn’t want to bump into in a dark alley. He was a brawler in a world of grapplers and shooters.
The way he was ignored by the industry has affected his legacy. Doing my research on this G.O.A.T. series, when I saw Johnny Valentine’s name on many lists, I did that inner “...really?” But when you delve into the numbers, Johnny Valentine legitimately belongs among the 100 we are chronicling. Johnny was an inaugural member of the Observer Hall of Fame and also a member of the NWA Hall of Fame, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and the St Louis Wrestling Hall of Fame, one of only 18 to be inducted in all four HOF’s (with 13 of that 18 on this list).
Johnny Valentine might have been forgotten by the sport, but in an industry where sheer toughness and grit is an important part of its domain, the epitome of that deserves to be honored.
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