Jose Lothario, Wahoo McDaniel, Harley Race, Fritz Von Erich and Andre the Giant.

These were some of the big names in wrestling that would appear Friday nights at the Sam Houston Coliseum in the 1970s.

A few weeks ago Evan Mintz tweeted out an excellent question that got a longtime Houstonians talking: "If you could resurrect one part of Houston's past now lost, what would you bring back?"

If you could resurrect one part of Houston's past now lost, what would you bring back? For me: Kahn's Deli in the Rice Village. — Evan 20XX (@evan7257) May 2, 2018

The list of things I'd like to see back is too long to rattle off here, but what's No. 1? Friday nights at the Coliseum.

I was already digging up some wrestling advertisements that ran in the Chronicle when Mintz posed his question. Admittedly, my experience watching Paul Boesch and "Houston Wrestling" came about in the 1980s with the next generation of Von Erichs, and others like Gino Hernandez, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Ric Flair, Jake "The Snake" Roberts and the Rock 'n' Roll Express.

But for many of you, the ads posted here should provide a great throwback to an era that has long passed into memory.

For example, there's the January 1969 contest between Gene Kiniski and Fritz Von Erich -- a Texas death match inside a fenced ring. Former champ Joe Louis was enlisted to help referee the match. The Chronicle said it was the first time in Houston history "that a world title match has taken place behind a fence and the first time that two referees have been called to handle it."

THROWBACK: See Houston as it was in our weekly archive dive

In the end, the match -- true to wrestling's appeal -- had more drama than a night at the Alley Theatre.

Apparently both men were out cold when the bell rang for the fifth fall to start, the Chronicle wrote in its Jan. 4, 1969, editions. The two were given till the count of 10 to get up, but none could rise. That led Boesch to announce that the first man to get to his feet would be the winner, per "death match" rules, of course.

"Pandemonium broke loose as fans screamed for Fritz to get up and for more than two minutes, each man tried to get up. It was Kiniski who crawled to the corner and used the ropes and the fence to pull himself up and, propped up in the corner, maintained his standing position."

The match drew 15,000 to the coliseum, the biggest wrestling crowd in more than 15 years.

J.R. Gonzales, a third-generation Houstonian, covers local history with an eye toward the people and events that have mostly been forgotten to time. Follow him through Bayou City History on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 713-362-6163 or john.gonzales@chron.com.

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