Ron Miller


Ron Miller - Wrestling Legend, Promoter & Producer

Ron Miller is a true legend of Australian professional wrestling, who was very much part of the reason of the success of World Championship Wrestling.

Profile

Born Sydney Australia 1941

Always a keen all-round sportsman Ron played rugby league with Eastern suburbs in Sydney, where he was noticed by promoter Hal Morgan while training and wrestling at a Police Boys club.

He then trained at the hard school of Hal Morgan and Jim Deakin in Australia and later in Florida USA.

Turned pro in 1964 and wrestled in clubs throughout Australia and N.Z. and started on the World Championship Wrestling circuit.

1971 teamed with Larry O’Day to tour the USA for 2 years. While based in Florida, becoming Florida Tag Team Champions, then returning home via Germany, Japan and the East.

During the next few years Ron and Larry O’Day held many Tag Team Titles, and he occasionally teamed successfully with his good friend Andre.

Ron's talent was well known and highly respected. He was constantly in demand and toured Australia and the World wrestling the best as Australian Heavyweight Champion, a title which he held for a record length of time.

During these years Ron and Larry O’Day became shareholders in WCW with Jim Barnett, and later owning World Championship Wrestling (Australia). They continued to produce T.V. programmes and promote over 300 shows a year in Australia, Asia and the South Pacific regions.

In a long and successful career which had many highlights, including over 20 trips to the USA to wrestle and attend NWA meetings. His matches for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship with Harley Race and Dory Funk were classics to be remembered.

After retiring he became involved training young people in various youth clubs and for the Dept.of Youth and Community Services.

SPECIAL MEMORIES OF :

HAL MORGAN Gave me the best advice I ever had, he said that if you want to make it to the top be respected and last in this business, perfect your wrestling skills and keep yourself fit. Then you can look after yourself and make a living anywhere in the world,

ROY HEFFERNAN Was an inspiration to us all. He was a pioneer in weight training and wrestling skills. He reached the top in the USA with his partner Al Costello as the Fabulous Kangaroos.

GEORGE BARNES A super talent who had the ability to wrestle main events anywhere in the world, but chose to remain mostly in Australia combining wrestling with a successful business.

JACK LITTLE Started it all in 1964 when he contacted American promoter Jim Barnett about the possibilities out here. The weekly TV series was the basis of the success of World Championship Wrestling.

KEN MEDLIN Australian Light Heavyweight Champion and a great performer, had a career to be proud of in which he wrestled the very best and remained on top for a long time.

ANDRE A friend with whom I shared many great experiences. He was the ultimate professional always making himself available for publicity, special appearances etc.

LARRY O’DAY My wrestling and business partner. Larry was involved in pro wrestling from the early 60’s worldwide at the highest level till he passed away in 1997.

 

Website

World Championship Wrestling

Articles

The gurus of grapple, by Jon Geddes - 7th December 2007
(Credit: The Daily Telegraph)


THEY were the legends who thrilled and chilled Aussies with their antics in, and often out, of the wrestling ring for two decades.

Stars such as Mario Milano, King Curtis, Brute Bernard, Bulldog Brower, Spiros Arion, Killer Kowalski and the sinister Professor Tanaka - who threw salt in opponents' eyes - became household names.

And let's not forget our homegrown heroes Ron Miller, Larry O'Dea and George Barnes, who matched it with best of them.

Forget the glitz and showbiz associated with today's WWE. World Championship Wrestling was the real deal.

People of all ages religiously tuned into World Championship Wrestling, an institution on TCN 9 at midday on Saturdays.

"We did three TV shows a week and 300 live shows a year - which would average 15,000 a week," 66-year-old Miller said, who is retired and living at Tweed Heads.

"You would have 1000 people at the airport to meet you. We stayed in first class hotels and would get upgraded by the airlines."

On one trip to Tokyo, Miller and the other wrestlers were mobbed by 10,000 fans.

Miller said the big years for the WCW program were from 1964 to 1978 and the reasons it was so successful were the weekly TV show, the different nationalities, the characters and those fantastic language-crunching interviews.

There is no bigger character than King Curtis, who made a huge impact whenever he visited.

"For the last 26 years the King has had a hire company with surfboards and everything on Waikiki Beach, in his native Hawaii," Miller said.

"He was a really good professional guy and the master of the interview.

"In those days he was absolutely incredible. None of his rants were scripted. I don't know where he got it from. It just came to him from the top of his head.

"And then there was Mario Milano. He came to Australia in 1966 and never left."

After leaving the ring, Milano had a number of businesses including a pizza shop and travel agency and lives in retirement in Melbourne.

Killer Karl Kox became a prison warden. One day an inmate reminisced how he used to watch Kox all the time.

"Now I watch you all time time," Kox replied.

A former Australian champion himself, Miller has revived those halcyon days with a DVD called Ruff Tuff & Real, which provides an amazing insight into what really was a phenomenon in Australian life.

The DVD includes rare footage of the dark time Milano grew a moustache and turned bad guy, with referee Bob McMaster suggesting he may have been hypnotised or mesmerised by his manager.

And what about those sensational moves - the sleeper hold (Mark Lewin), the Texan brain buster (Killer Karl Kox), the coconut butt (Bobo Brazil) and the Indian death lock (Chief Billy White Wolf).

Commentator Jack Little - wrestling's version of Frank Hyde - would often warn the audience that a competitor had a "foreign object down his trunks".

There were also those mysterious wrestlers, often masked, who hailed from "parts unknown".

Miller and his long-time tag team and business partner O'Dea started their wrestling careers at a small gym in Wentworth Park.

"We did all the hard yards in the small clubs and gyms and learnt some hard lessons and how to respect the business," Miller said.

"By 1973 we owned it."

But WCW wasn't to last forever and it took something with the viewer appeal of World Series Cricket - which took its regular time-slot - to spell the end.

Miller and O'Dea remained close friends until O'Dea died in 1997.

These days Miller keeps fit by diving into the water rather than on to the canvas mat.

"I've got new knees and new hips. I'm like a mechanical man. Most of the guys are like that," he said.

And Miller told a story proving the old wrestlers really were a special breed.

He said Killer Kowalski, 79, got married for the first time last year to his blushing bride of 78.

When Killer was asked: "Why would you get married now?", he replied: "She told me she was pregnant so I had to do the right thing."

WHERE ARE THEY NOW:

Ron Miller: Retired and living in Tweed Heads

King Curtis: Runs a beach hire business on Waikiki Beach

Mark Lewin: Living in the US and is married to a Tahitian princess

George Barnes: Ran successful trucking business

Spiros Ario: Retired and living in Greece

Ox Baker: Farmer, New York state

Killer Karl Kox: Prison warden

Professor Tanaka: Ran a fishing boat before passing away

Brute Bernard: Died playing Russian roulette in a bar

Skull Murphy: Committed suicide after a failed romance

Bruiser Brody: Stabbed to death in a dressing room in Puerto Rico. Nobody saw a thing.

Big Bad John: Fatally shot in Tennessee bar

Abdullah the Butcher: Runs a restaurant in Carolina. "He doesn't have a menu, he tells you want to eat," Ron Miller said

Steve "The Crusher" Rackman: Executive manager of a gym

Jan Jansen: Former Bondi parking ranger. Now in the fitness industry on the South Coast


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Media Man Australia does not represent Ron Miller, however has collaborated on a number of occasions