10 Most Inspirational Wrestling Stars Of All Time
8. ‘Mr. Wrestling’ Tim Woods
One of the most horrifying incidents in wrestling history occurred in October 1975, when a small plane carrying Ric Flair, Johnny Valentine, Bob Bruggers, Tim Woods and announcer/promoter David Crockett run out of fuel just short of landing and crashed into a barrier.
Nicknamed The Plane Crash That Changed Wrestling, the accident resulted in the death of the pilot, while Valentine, Bruggers and Flair broke their backs. Out of the three of them, only Flair recovered sufficiently to return to wrestling.
Woods himself was badly hurt in the accident, but for him this wasn’t the worst of it. ‘Mr. Wrestling’ was a masked babyface, and he’d been caught travelling unmasked with his (kayfabe) hated enemies. In 1975, this was an exposure of the business that he could not allow.
At the hospital, Woods maintained kayfabe by simply lying through painfully gritted teeth. He provided his real name - George Burrell Woodin - on the paperwork and to the investigating authorities, claiming to be a wrestling promoter, like Crockett. In the following weeks, articles in the media would list his involvement under those details.
In the days before the internet, there was very little way for the general public to know for sure that the newspaper stories were inaccurate. Even so, scuttlebutt (like gossip in a full body cast) began to get around that Mr. Wrestling had been a passenger on the plane as well.
Woods would refute those scurrilous (but entirely accurate) whispers when, a fortnight after the crash, he reappeared in the ring as scheduled and advertised. Still badly injured, he was adamant that he would not risk the business being exposed.
From all reports, Woods looked tentative, as though he was in a lot of pain: but he started and finished the match as it was laid out, maintaining his fan favourite gimmick and protecting the business by preventing his fans from discovering that he’d been in that fateful, horrific crash. From then on, Flair referred to Mr. Wrestling as the man who saved wrestling.