American Wrestling Association

The American Wrestling Association (AWA) was an American professional wrestling promotion based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that ran from 1960 to 1991. It was owned and founded by Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo. The territory was originally part of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), becoming an independent territory in the late 1950s.

History

Early years

Anton Stecher was a founding member of the NWA in 1948 and had promoted wrestling in Minneapolis since 1933 through his Minneapolis Boxing and Wrestling Club. In 1952, he sold a one third interest in the promotion to his son Dennis and Wally Karbo. Stecher died on October 9, 1954 and control of the promotion passed to Karbo and Dennis. Verne Gagne, a former amateur wrestling champion, had become a well known and popular wrestler nationally in the 1950s as a result of his appearances on the DuMont Network. He aspired to become NWA World Champion, but for various reasons to do with politics inside the NWA, he never became champion. In 1959, Dennis Stecher sold his majority stake in the Minneapolis Boxing and Wrestling Club to Karbo and Gagne. They became co-owners of the promotion from that point onward.

Windy City

Windy City may refer to:

Cities

Entertainment

Sport

Other uses

Windy City (musical)

Windy City is a 1982 musical with a book and lyrics by Dick Vosburgh and music by Tony Macaulay. It is based on the play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.

Plot

Set in 1929, the story focuses on ace reporter Hildy Johnson, who has just quit his job at the Chicago Examiner to marry his fiancée Esther Stone and write screenplays for her movie mogul father, much to the dismay of unscrupulous and cantankerous editor Walter Burns. When streetwalker Mollie Malloy, girlfriend of escaped condemned killer Earl Williams, reveals to Hildy he has secreted himself in a rolltop desk in the courthouse, Hildy cannot resist the lure of writing what could be the biggest scoop of his journalistic career before he boards the train for the West Coast.

Production history

Windy City had its world premiere at the Bristol Hippodrome in June 1982 before opening in the West End on July 20 at the Victoria Palace, where it closed on February 26, 1983 after 250 performances. Directed by Peter Wood, the cast included Dennis Waterman as Hildy Johnson, Anton Rodgers as Walter Burns, Amanda Redman as Esther Stone, Robert Longden as Earl Williams, Diane Langton as Mollie Malloy, and Victor Spinetti as poetic reporter Bensinger.

Windy City (horse)

Windy City (also known as Windy City II, 1949–1964) was a British-bred Irish-trained Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He was the leading European two-year-old of 1951 when he won four races including the Gimcrack Stakes and was awarded a Timeform rating of 142, which remains one of the highest in the organisation's history. In the following season he was sold and exported to the United States where he twice defeated the future Kentucky Derby winner Hill Gail before his racing career was ended by injury. He was retired to stud where he had some success as a breeding stallion.

Background

Windy City was a strongly-built chestnut horse bred by Herbrand Charles Alexander the son of the 4th Earl of Caledon and the older brother of Field Marshal Alexander. He was by far the most successful horse sired by Wyndham, a sprinter whose most important wins came as a two-year-old in 1935, when he won the New Stakes at Royal Ascot and the National Breeders' Produce Stakes at Sandown Park. Windy City's dam, a French-bred mare named Staunton, came from a relatively undistinguished Thoroughbred family which had produced little of note since the 1901 Epsom Derby winner Volodyovski.

Windy City (nickname)

The city of Chicago has been known by many nicknames, but it is most widely recognized as the "Windy City".

The earliest known reference to the "Windy City" was actually to Green Bay in 1856. The first known repeated effort to label Chicago with this nickname is from 1876 and involves Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati. The term "Windy City" was popularized and came into common usage by The Sun editor, Charles Dana, in the bidding for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The popularity of the nickname has endured, long after the Cincinnati rivalry and the Columbian Exposition ended.

Origins

There are four main possibilities to explain the city's nickname: the weather, as Chicago is near Lake Michigan; the World's Fair; politics; and the rivalry with Cincinnati.

Weather

While Chicago is widely known as the "Windy City", it is not the windiest city in the United States. Some of the windier cities recorded by the NOAA/NCDC are: Mount Washington, NH at 35.1 mph (56.5 km/h),Blue Hill, MA at 15.2 mph,Dodge City, KS at 13.9 mph,Amarillo, Texas at 13.5 mph, and Lubbock, Texas at 12.4 mph. Chicago is not significantly windier than any other U.S. city. For example, the average annual wind speed of Chicago is: 10.3 mph (16.6 km/h); Boston: 12.4 mph (20.0 km/h); New York City, Central Park: 9.3 mph (15.0 km/h); and Los Angeles: 7.5 mph (12.1 km/h).