• ON THIS DAY IN WRESTLING HISTORY (May 19, 1979) – CWA Memphis Wrestling
On this day in 1979, Jerry Jarrett’s & Jerry Lawler’s Continental Wrestling Association aired an episode of their weekly TV show ‘Memphis Wrestling’.
This promotion was the official Memphis territory from 1977 until it merged with the Texas based World Class Championship Wrestling in 1989 and became the United States Wrestling Association (USWA).
The card can be found below:
– BILL DUNDEE & ROBERT GIBSON vs. PROF. TORU TANAKA & MR. FUJI *JIP*
– TERRY “THE HULK” BOULDER (HULK HOGAN) vs. THE MONGOLIAN STOMPER *JIP*
– Promo: Gorgeous George Jr.
– JERRY LAWLER vs. PROF. TORU TANAKA
• Details On What The Lifeguard Saw While Trying To Rescue Shad Gaspard & His Son
ESPN’s Mark Kriegel reached out to Kenichi Haskett, Section Chief of the LA County Fire Department – Lifeguard Division, to get some details on what happened while the lifeguard tried fo rescue Shad Gaspard.
Haskett had personally questioned the lifeguard about the whole incident.
Below is what he said:
“The best way I can describe it is like being inside a front-loading washing machine. The waves keep crashing on you, pushing you down. I’ve been through that, those kind of rescues. You think you might die.
It was Sunday afternoon, shortly before 4 p.m., the first weekend Los Angeles County opened its beaches since the lockdown was imposed. The swells were 6 feet, and the current was fast, as Shad and his 10-year-old son were 200 yards north from where the lifeguard first spotted them.”
Haskett revealed that the lifeguard tried to deliver a “rescue can” – a small, buoy-like device to help tow distressed swimmers back to shore.
“But because of the size of the waves, the boy couldn’t secure it.
The lifeguard, who himself is a father of a middle-aged school boy, was in a dilemma then. The father [Shad] was 6-foot-6, about 270 pounds, with shoulders the size of a small desk.
Based on the gentlemen’s size and the conditions in the water. These are choices we do not want to make.
Then again, based on the gentlemen’s character, there was never a choice.
‘Take my son’ was what Shad said.
3 minutes had not passed before the boy was safe on shore. He was physically unharmed, but deeply distraught. ‘Dad told me to push off to the guy’, he told Steve Smith, a firefighter-paramedic from Rescue 63 in Venice. The boy kept saying that: ‘Dad told me to push off to the guy’. The guy. The lifeguard.
Just as he turned back, making a hasty return to the ocean, the lifeguard saw the father again.
A wave pushed him under in the impact zone. He didn’t resurface after that.
The rescue divers went in immediately. Then, the Coast Guard. Still, there’s been no sighting of ‘the gentleman’ Shad Gaspard.”
Also Read: Vince McMahon & WWE Issue Statement On Shad Gaspard
