Wendell Briggs
Wendell Briggs wrestled the Rocky Mountain and Rio Grande Valley circuits for nineteen years and set up the ring for the cards he opened. In 1976 Bo Bradley picked him for the Frontier Justice League.
Wendell Briggs wrestled in the Great Western Wrestling Alliance, the American territory promotion chronicled across this site. He worked the Rocky Mountain and Rio Grande Valley territories from 1963 to 1981, and he spent his last six years in the Frontier Justice League.
AT A GLANCE
- Name: Wendell Briggs
- Born: 1940, Cheyenne, Wyoming
- Billed from: Cheyenne, Wyoming
- Height: 6'1"
- Weight: 215 lbs
- Active: 1963 to 1981
- Territories: Rocky Mountain, Rio Grande Valley
- Era: Frontier, Expansion, Golden
- Group: Frontier Justice League, 1976 to 1981
- Championships: None
EARLY LIFE
Wendell Briggs was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1940. He started wrestling in 1963, when he was twenty-three.
CAREER
Briggs wrestled in two territories, Rocky Mountain and the Rio Grande Valley, and worked both without a gap from 1963 to the end of 1981. His dates took him as far north as Casper, Wyoming, and as far south as the Texas border.
He also set up the ring on the circuit. He was in the building early to do it, and he often wrestled the first match of the night.
One of his early wins came in December 1963, when he beat "The Outlaw" Jesse Hawkins in Juárez. Hawkins won the World Heavyweight Championship in 1973.
THE FRONTIER JUSTICE LEAGUE
The Frontier Justice League was a group of wrestlers who came together when there was trouble in the territories it covered. The rest of the time, its members wrestled their own matches.
Boxcar Bo Bradley, one of the original members, stopped wrestling at the end of 1974 and stayed with the group on the interview segment Off the Rails. In 1976 Bradley recommended Briggs for his place in the ring. Briggs was thirty-six by then, with thirteen years in Rocky Mountain, and he knew the territory.
He was a member when "The Patriot" Paul Johnson handed the leadership to the Maharaja Dev Singh in early 1979, and he stayed until the end of 1981. Jesse Hawkins took his place for 1982, the League's last year.
IN THE RING
Briggs was a power wrestler who relied on strength more than holds. He finished most of his matches with a lariat: he ran off the ropes and drove his forearm across his opponent's chest.
Because he opened so many cards, he faced a lot of men who were new to the territory. He had no nickname and no entrance music, and he wore plain trunks and boots.
IN HIS OWN WORDS
Briggs did few interviews, and when he did one he answered the question and kept it short.
"You want to go on after me, you better be good."
"Bo asked. I said yes."
LEGACY
Briggs wrestled nineteen years in Rocky Mountain and the Rio Grande Valley, the last six of them in the Frontier Justice League, and he never held a championship.
More GWA wrestler profiles.
