Nashville Demystified

Today weâ€re going to spend some time getting to better know the late Christine “Teeny” Jarret — professional wrestlingâ€s grand dame — by way of talking with her grandson and biographer Brennon Martin.

Christine “Teeny” Jarrett—by all accounts—lived a true Nashville rags to riches story.

Over the course of her 50-year career in wrestling, Teeny worked her way from selling tickets in the back of a Nashville, Tennessee shoe store to running a network of towns for Nick Gulas and Roy Welch to owning one of the most successful territories in the business. Regional wrestling, which once reigned supreme—particularly in these parts—fell from grace as Vince McMan Jr. built his empire through the 80s and into the 90s, but while it was huge, Teeny was Professional Wrestlingâ€s grand dame.

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This is a rebroadcast of an episode that originally aired on August 29th, 2019. While Alex recovers a lost audio file, please enjoy this wild, wild episode (again or for the first time).

In 1982, the Nashville Flame volunteered to have himself lowered into a dangerous, long-decommissioned mine to recover the bodies of two murder victims.

Eight years earlier, he experienced something even stranger than a couple of frozen corpses at the bottom of a 250 foot deep hole in the ground.

Also, we take you down a fever dreamy rabbit hole of 1980s Nashville.

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As a teenager in 1920s Birmingham, Alabama, Nick Gulas left his job at a bakery to learn the ropes (pun intended) of working in the wrestling business. Once he knew a thing or two, he came to Nashville and made both the city and the sport his life for over 40 years. For a good long time he was King. We explore Gulas†life and the pre-WWE days of wrestling, and how Nashville fit into it all, in this weekâ€s episode.

Research culled from:

The Greatest Wrestling in the History of the World, Nashville Scene, J.R. Lind, May 30, 2019

The King of Wrestling, Tennessean, Max York, May 18, 1975

Promoter honored for backing Lady Raiders, The Daily News-Journal, November 23, 1986

Dear Readers, The Tennessean, January 2, 1944

Mat Man, Tennessean, July 10, 1985

Revisiting My NA Roots, Jim Cornette

Goddamned Sputnik, The Outline, Oliver Lee Bateman, June 1, 2017

The History of Hatch Show Print

Welch Brothers History

New Wrestling to Spawn War Here?, Tennessean, February 29, 1976

Chokehold: Pro Wrestling’s Real Mayhem Outside the Ring, Welton T. Johnson and Jim Wilson, 2003

Ron Fuller’s Studcast (a podcast hosted by Roy Welch’s grandson), multiple episodes

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