paul sosnowski Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 Bill Apter and Adam Pearce have reported that "Rubberman" Johnny Walker has died at the age of 85 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Memphis Mark Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 Great talent. Johnny was a Memphis regular for years. I saw him live in 1970 . He replaced Jerry Jarrett as Tojo's partner against Dr. Ken Ramey 's Interns. Walker also had a great series of matches against Don Greene for the US Jr. title. Then he went to GA and put on the hood and the rest is history . Rest in Peace Mr. Walker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachchaos Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 One of the very best talkers of his era. Not a holds or moves guy but could work the crowd into a frenzy. Lived the gimmick. We absolutely do not have his best stuff on tape, and even the cranky old man era is fantastic. The Magnum team and feud is a high water mark in a hot period for Mid South/Houston. Anytime II shows up at the WTBS studios you can expect gold. Imagine the expansion happens in the 70's, he's a national star. By the time he did get a sprint in New York, he was at the end of the line but could still get things going in front of a new audience. I don't know much in terms of his biography really, but my impression is he got out of wrestling and must have done something right to live this long. Always interesting how many 80's wrestlers didn't make it out of the gate while the prior generation mainly enjoyed long lives post wrestling. Also, Gordon's call of II's finisher ("a high HIGH vertical knee lift") is transcendiary on every level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 Growing up with PWI he was always talked about as a national star as it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 Huge 70s star. Won wrestler of the year in the Weston mags in 1975 despite not being one of the major champions, which is quite rare in the history of the award even to this day. That shows you just how over he was. Major stardom as II didnt come until he was near 40 and had all but retired, before being coaxed to come back by Jerry Jarrett, who was booking Georgia at the time. Would love for some of his prime 70s years to surface some day. We do have this amazing segment, which everyone should watch https://youtu.be/IM9HKd7gHXw RIP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert S Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 On the darker side, he was a registered sex offender who was charged with the rape of a 15-year-old-girl when he was 18 himself (though looking at his offenders registration, he probably was "just" convicted of having intercourse with a minor, not rape). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul sosnowski Posted June 10, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 Never heard that before, but apparently it is true https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19212533/mr-wrestling-ii-johnny-walker-rape/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 So, he gang raped a 15 years old. But he had a great kneelift, or something... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachchaos Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 Obviously I had no idea when I wrote that post above. I mean that changes my entire perception of his work tbh. I won't be passing Mr. Wrestling II onto my son, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 It really is amazing how it was hidden in plain sight so long. All the info was there on the Hawaii registered offenders list for as long as those types of sites have existed. I wonder how much promoters knew, and if it was like one of those "you jobbed in Japan but no one here will ever know" things times a million. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 Has there ever been any proper research done on the case? The Honolulu Advertiser says he was indicted on rape charges in February 1954. His disposition was apparently in July 1955 where he was convicted of having sex with a minor. There is no record of the disposition in the Advertiser. Walker's first recorded match is in Honolulu in May 1956 and his first stint in a territory was in Toronto in 1958. The Advertiser says he was connected to a hoodlum gang, some of whom were connected to another beach rape. Two of them also had burglary charges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeg Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 Being honest, Walker worked most of his career in states where the age of consent was as low as 14. I could see his conviction not being considered all that big of a deal in the deep south of the 1960s and 1970s. To be honest it seems like every famous person I know of from Memphis in that era seemed to run around with underage girls. Different time, different place I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 Even though sex with a minor is what the charges seemingly amounted to, Walker was one of 9 participants involved in a gang rape. It wasn't just an 18-year old running around with a 15-year old. And considering this was the early 1950's I have to imagine this girl had to have been fucked up bad for charges of any kind to stick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 I tried to see if there were any further government records and came up empty. Maybe could have gone farther though. I get the impression that people in wrestling just didn't know. Predates the national registry, only minimal coverage even in the local newspapers, etc. Sometimes I find myself wondering if the Secret Service or FBI flagged it and that's really why he couldn't attend Carter's inauguration, though. Maybe FOIA requests could get us some insight into that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeg Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 ^Agreed 100%. But his conviction was for a much, much lesser charge. I dunno if anybody here has known somebody or had a neighbor or coworker on the sex offender registry, they only have to disclose what they were convicted of (this happened with a former neighbor). They don't have to disclose what they actually did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 8 hours ago, PeteF3 said: Even though sex with a minor is what the charges seemingly amounted to, Walker was one of 9 participants involved in a gang rape. It wasn't just an 18-year old running around with a 15-year old. And considering this was the early 1950's I have to imagine this girl had to have been fucked up bad for charges of any kind to stick. Agree. Considering how bad things still are today, to be any kind of charges in the 50's, gotta be pretty fucking bad. The whole "rape re-classified as sex with an underage" is classic bullshit. BTW, one day it would be nice for people to remember that Eddie Guerrero did the frogsplash to honor the memory of the "great" Art Barr, who raped a 19 year old girl. I dunno, this always hits me funny anytime some guy does the frogsplash to honor Eddie... Like, do the Three Amigos instead or something... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 I don't think it's a surprise that these charges happened given the fear of juvenile delinquency in the 1950s. As far as I can make out, 17 juveniles were charged with the rape of two girls on July 9th, 1953, and three of them were also charged with a second rape on July 5th. Walker was indicted for the rape of one of the girls on July 9th. The focus of much of the newspaper coverage is on the boys who were charged on two counts. Those youths pleaded not guilty. Walker entered a plea, but I can't make out what it was without paying. The three other boys ended up pleading guilty to reduced charges. I'm assuming Walker either pleaded guilty to reduced charges or was cleared of rape but convicted of sex with a minor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 Isn't it just as likely that promoters knew and simply didn't care? The business back then was incredibly tolerant of all sorts of deviancy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeg Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 ^ yeah exactly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 Let's be realistic about it. Even if promoters knew, the idea that you ran with a bad crowd when you were a kid, may have raped a girl, but were only convicted of having sex with a girl who was "younger than you thought", those things were not enough to blacklist a wrestler in the territories era. They would kill a guy in this day and age, but not back then. There's a lot we don't know about the case, but I imagine that Walker served some type of probation period and it wouldn't surprise me if the people who broke him in thought that wrestling put him back on the straight and narrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thread Killer Posted June 12, 2020 Report Share Posted June 12, 2020 The timing of this is so weird. I had literally just finished watching the May 26, 1984 episode of Mid South where Magnum TA beat Mr. Wrestling II for the North American Championship when I heard the news he had died. I hadn't even thought of him in years until I watched that show. First time I ever saw him he was a JTTS in the WWF in the 80's, and he must have been well in to his 50's by then, at the time (I was a kid) I had no idea he'd been a bigger name during the territory era. (Of course, I had no idea he was all rapey, either.) I always thought with his goofy, baggy white tights he always looked like he was wrestling while wearing a diaper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale Wolfe Posted June 12, 2020 Report Share Posted June 12, 2020 Well, this thread took a revelatory turn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 12, 2020 Report Share Posted June 12, 2020 Dave's mention of his legal issues in the WON obit was kind of odd, lots of using the word "alleged" and handwavy attempts to make it sound like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, which doesn't seem to jive with what is documented. Pretty sure you can safely leave out the "alleged" part for someone on the registry. The fact that he agreed to a plea deal (again in the 50s when it would have been much easier for someone to skate on a rape charge) tells me it wasn't just some kind of misunderstanding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted June 12, 2020 Report Share Posted June 12, 2020 What did Meltzer say specifically? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted June 12, 2020 Report Share Posted June 12, 2020 22 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said: What did Meltzer say specifically? "He had a gang rape accusation on July 9, 1953. The alleged incident, involving a 15-year-old girl, took place at Sandy Beach on the South Shore of Oahu. Newspaper reports from the time list John Frances Walker, a gas station attendant at a Waikiki service station, being one of nine men involved a gang rape. It was a bad crowd he was hanging with, and something long forgotten about. Walker was arrested only for this rape, but four of the nine men were charged with another rape four days earlier of a 14-year-old and two others in rapes of two other teenage girls earlier the same day on Sandy Beach." Only one use of "alleged", for the record Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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