Jimmy Valiant
Jimmy Valiant | |
---|---|
Birth name | James Harold Fanning |
Born | Tullahoma, Tennessee, U.S. | August 6, 1942
Professional wrestling career | |
Ring name(s) | Charlie Brown Jimmy Valiant |
Billed height | 6 ft 3 in (191 cm)[1] |
Billed weight | 251 lb (114 kg)[1] |
Billed from | New York City (as Jimmy Valiant) "Outta Town" (as Charlie Brown) |
Trained by | Verne Gagne |
Debut | May 5, 1964 |
James Harold Fanning (born August 6, 1942) is an American
Early life
Fanning was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee as the youngest of five children of James and Effie Fanning.
Professional wrestling career
Fanning started wrestling in 1964 as "Big Jim Vallen". He went to the
Valiant had entered the WWWF in 1971 as a babyface, originally known as "Gentleman Jim Valiant," but quickly switched to heel.[4] He had title matches against champion Pedro Morales in secondary arenas, such as Philadelphia, and feuded with short-term tag partner Chief Jay Strongbow. Jimmy and his kayfabe brother Johnny Valiant held the tag belts from 1974 to 1975 and main evented Madison Square Garden against Chief Jay Strongbow and Bruno Sammartino (Strongbow and Sammartino won 2 out of 3 falls, but one fall via disqualification; hence the belts didn't change hands).
During the late 1970s to early 1980s, Valiant was a central player in the Memphis, Tennessee wrestling scene. He feuded regularly with Jerry Lawler and teamed with Bill Dundee to dominate the tag team matches of that time. He even recorded a song, "The Ballad of Handsome Jimmy", which was used in wrestling arenas as his entry music and became a mainstay on some Memphis radio stations for a few years. Despite the Memphis promotion desperately wanting to keep him in Memphis full-time, even offering to buy him a house in Memphis according to Jerry Lawler's biography, Valiant decided to move on after holding the AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship for roughly a year. Valiant also spent a brief amount of time in Jim Crockett Promotions in the late 1970s as the heel "King James Valiant" managed by Lord Alfred Hayes.[5]
In 1979, Jimmy returned to the WWWF with Johnny occasionally wrestling and went into the manager role. He managed Johnny and
In the early 1980s, Valiant returned as a babyface to National Wrestling Alliance's Jim Crockett Promotions as "Boogie Woogie Man" Jimmy Valiant and called his fans "the Street People". His theme music around this time was "Boy From New York City", by The Manhattan Transfer. While in Jim Crockett Promotions, he would sometimes appear in a black bandit-style mask and call himself "Charlie Brown from Outta Town". This usually occurred when Valiant was (in kayfabe) banned from wrestling. Charlie Brown was billed as someone other than Valiant, despite "Brown" having Valiant's legendarily prodigious beard.
January 1984, Valiant was attacked by Paul Jones and The Assassins. They tied him to the wrestling ring ropes so that Jones could cut his beard off. This led to a grudge match with hyped supershow called 'Boogie Man Jam '84' in
During
In the late 1980s, he teamed with Hector Guerrero (then masked as Laser Tron) and
His last match was for WrestlePro in Rahway, New Jersey, where he teamed with Buster Jackson to defeat the team of Colt Cabana and CPA on February 8, 2020.
He now enjoys his time with his wife Angel and training wrestlers at Boogie's Wrestling Camp located in Shawsville, Virginia. Jimmy currently wrestles under the ACW Banner (American Championship Wrestling) around the Roanoke Virginia Area. He has also recently wrestled with George South, Stan Lee and Ricky Morton in ASW Wrestling and New OCW in Ashland, KY with Matty B and Violet Rayne against Beau and Misty James and Scotty Ace.
Valiant remains in the wrestling world today with continuing to appear at independent shows signing autographs while his students appear in a few matches on the card.[citation needed] He keeps in touch with fans through his official Weekly website.[citation needed]
Most recently, Valiant lent his name to a foreword for a fiction novel called "Only The Beginning". It is a book set in the 1980s about a girl's life during high school. While the book is not wrestling related, the author Jason Strecker is a personal friend of Valiant's and in the forward Valiant responds to his friendship with the author along with the book's message of being of strong character and doing positive actions for others. The book also has a foreword by Nikolai Volkoff.[citation needed]
On May 14, 2022, Valiant came out of retirement at 79 years old winning a 6-man tag team match at Patriotic Wrestling Federation in York, South Carolina.[6]
Personal life
Fanning married Clara, with whom he fathered three children: Robin, Rhonda, and Dana. Rhonda died in 2016. With Monika, he has his first son Todd. With Felicia, he has his youngest son Handsome. He is now married to Angel. He has six grandchildren: Lonna, Jenae, Beau, Chassie, Clarissa and Delilah.
Bibliography
- "Woo...Mercy Daddy!" Welcome to My World: The Jimmy Valiant Story (2005)
Championships and accomplishments
- AAW Heavyweight Championship (5 times)[7]
- All Pro Wrestling
- APW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[7]
- Allied Independent Wrestling Federations
- AIWF Hall Of Fame (Class Of 2016)
- AIWF Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Rob Mcbride http://www.wrestling-titles.com/us/nc/aiwf/aiwf-ma-t.html
- American Championship Wrestling
- ACW Universal Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Bob Ross[7]
- Big Time Wrestling (San Francisco)
- NWA World Tag Team Championship (San Francisco version) (1 time) – with Johnny Valiant
- Capital City Wrestling Alliance CCWA Tag Team Championship (1 time) with Keith Ashley
- Cauliflower Alley Club
- Other honoree (1997)
- Championship Pro Wrestling
- CPW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[7]
- Championship Wrestling from Florida
- NWA Florida Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Johnny Valiant
- NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) – with Johnny Valiant
- Georgia Championship Wrestling
- NWA Georgia Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Johnny Valiant
- Maple Leaf Wrestling
- NWA Television Championship (Toronto version) (2 times)
- Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling
- National Wrestling Alliance
- NWA Legends Hall of Heroes (2016)[8]
- North American Wrestling Alliance
- NAWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[7]
- NAWA Tag Team Championship |1 time) – with Hangman Bruce Pobanz
- New England Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame
- Class of 2018
- Northern Wrestling Federation
- NWF Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[9]
- NWA Mid-America / Continental Wrestling Association
- 5 times)
- AWA Southern Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Rocky Johnson[10][11]
- CWA Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with Bill Dundee (2) and Don Carson (1)
- NWA Mid-America Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- 1 time)
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- PWI Tag Team of the Year award in 1974 – with Johnny Valiant
- PWI ranked him # 274 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003.
- Southern Championship Wrestling
- SCW Hall of Fame (Class of 1997)[12]
- United States Wrestling Association
- World Wide Wrestling Federation / World Wrestling Federation
- WWWF World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Johnny Valiant
- Cadillac Tournament winner (1)
- Class of 1996)
- World Wrestling Association
- WWA World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- 4 times) – with Johnny Valiant[13]
- Wrestling Observer Newsletter
- Worst Tag Team (1987) with Bugsy McGraw
References
- ^ a b "Jimmy Valiant profile". OWW. May 26, 2023.
- )
- ^ Heenan, B: "Bobby The Brain: Wrestling's Bad Boy Tells All.", page 18. Triumph Books, 2002.
- ^ DVD Jimmy Valiant 50th Pro Wrestling Anniversary Celebration, Disc 2, Copyright 2014 Howard Rogofsky
- ^ "Mid-Atlantic Gateway Interviews | Jimmy Valiant". www.midatlanticgateway.com. Archived from the original on November 13, 2005.
- ^ "5-14-22 PWF Results: FTR with Mick Foley, Lawler, South & Valiant, more". May 16, 2022.
- ^ ISBN 0-9698161-5-4.
- ^ "Looking At The Nwa Legends Fanfest And Why It'S Still Important All These Years Later". PWInsider.com. July 14, 2016. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
- ^ "Independent Wrestling Results – July 2004". onlineworldofwrestling.com. Retrieved July 5, 2008.
- ISBN 0-9698161-5-4.
- ^ "Southern Tag Team Title". Wrestling-Titles. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^ "SCW Hall of Fame". SCW Superstars. SCWprowrestling.com. 2002. Archived from the original on October 5, 2002. Retrieved April 15, 2012.
- ^ "W.W.A. World Tag Team Title (Indianapolis)". Puroresu Dojo. 2003.
External links
- Official website
- Jimmy Valiant on WWE.com
- Jimmy Valiant's profile at Cagematch.net , Internet Wrestling Database