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Post by jimsteel on Apr 3, 2012 17:58:36 GMT -5
FROM LORDS OF PAIN
Joseph Scarpa, best known as WWE Hall of Famer Chief Jay Strongbow, has passed away.
Stongbow was a longtime wrestler who competed from 1947-1985, a career spanning almost four decades. He was a two time WWE tag champion who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1994 and worked as an agent for the company in the 90s.
Rest in peace, Chief.
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Post by TTX on Apr 3, 2012 19:32:32 GMT -5
Definitely RIP. Most people probably didn't get to see him, but he was a major force for the WWWF in the 70s.
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Post by LWPD on Apr 3, 2012 19:48:23 GMT -5
FROM LORDS OF PAIN Joseph Scarpa, best known as WWE Hall of Famer Chief Jay Strongbow, has passed away. Stongbow was a longtime wrestler who competed from 1947-1985, a career spanning almost four decades. He was a two time WWE tag champion who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1994 and worked as an agent for the company in the 90s. Rest in peace, Chief. For decades, Chief was a fixture in the WWF. An asset in the ring and behind the scenes. It's a shame that footage from his early days are largely lost to time. Even toward the tail end of his career he was a proficient tag wrestler and great 'set-up' man who built up the rotating heel challengers to Bruno and Backlund. RIP Chief Jay Strongbow VS Prof. Toru Tanaka 1973 Andre the Giant & Chief Jay Strongbow Handicap Match WWWF 1973Jay Strongbow vs. Greg Valentine 'Indian Strap Match' 1/30/79 |
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Post by Big Bri on Apr 3, 2012 21:59:58 GMT -5
R.I.P. Jay Strongbow. Unfortunately, I have not seen a lot of his work. Thanks for posting the vids LWPD.
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Post by jrgoldman on Apr 3, 2012 23:15:03 GMT -5
Strongbow and Bobo Brazil were the only two wrestlers that my dad ever talked about. RIP.
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Post by Shon Maxx on Apr 4, 2012 4:18:04 GMT -5
RIP
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Post by LWPD on Apr 8, 2012 8:35:46 GMT -5
This week's Wrestling Observer had a nice write up by Dave Meltzer on The Chief's career. WWE also produced a tribute video. Both are linked below:
Courtesy of Wrestling Observer
Joe Scarpa, who became a legendary pro wrestling figure in the Northeast in the 70s as babyface fixture Chief Jay Strongbow, passed away on 4/3 at the age of 83.
Scarpa was actually an Italian from Philadelphia, who was brought into the Northeast by Vince McMahon Sr. in 1970 to play a Native American character. Although he never showed it as Chief Jay Strongbow, Scarpa had by that time already had a long career where he was a very good technical wrestler, using his real name. He was best known in the Southeast where he had been a consistent headliner for years.
He came in, with his Native American regalia, his chops, his war dance which would start with him standing in a funny position and talking with Vince McMahon saying how “Strongbow is putting the bad mouth on him,” about his opponent, and the sleeper hold, and quickly moved up to the No. 2 babyface position and remained in that position for years. He was a fixture in the company for most of the next 15 years, with a few breaks, in front of the camera, and for another 15 more years behind the scenes as a road agent.
In the early and mid-70s, Strongbow, billed as both Chief Jay Strongbow and at other times as Indian Jay Strongbow, had a clearly defined role, working main events in smaller cities and usually going over the heels who had already had their championship run. In Madison Square Garden, he would frequently be in tag matches with the top heels who had already had their runs with the champion, and when he was in the territory, would be a regular partner with Andre the Giant. He was rarely on the losing side of matches during his peak years, and went a period of probably five years or more where he never lost a match via pinfall with the exception of one spot show match to Ray Stevens in Hagerstown, MD, for whatever reason.
McMahon protected Strongbow, and the rare times he did lose, it would be via count out (or perhaps a blood stoppage), usually to a heel who would be getting a shot at the championship at the next show.
He held the tag team titles four times, once with Sonny King, once with Billy White Wolf (who went back-and-forth between being a Native American and an Iraqi Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie) and twice with supposed brother Jules Strongbow (who was a legitimate native American, whose real name was Frank Hill).
Scarpa was already 41 when McMahon Sr. brought him in for what ended up being his big career break. It was notable because even though Wahoo McDaniel had a run as a Jeremy Lin-style New York cult celebrity for a short period of time while playing linebacker for the New York Jets (featuring the public address announcer saying, “Tackle by who?” and the entire audience would chant “Wahoo, Wahoo” as McDaniel was the only player in the AFL with his nickname and not his last name on his jersey), McMahon never pushed him to main events. McDaniel ended up being an all-time great, but was doing big business in Texas at the same McMahon brought Scarpa in.
Jay Strongbow actually got his name from the original Jules Strongbow, a wrestler who later became a promoter and matchmaker in Southern California. His billed home town of Pawhuska, OK, was a town filled with Native Americans where the oldest members of the Fuller family originally came from, which is where he got the home town from. While wrestling in Oklahoma, it was Scarpa who saw a young Jack Brisco, and when he then went to Florida, recommended Brisco to Eddie Graham, who built Brisco into being one of the biggest stars of the era. Strongbow as Scarpa, in his last run before going to the WWWF, was a veteran babyface who frequently teamed with a young Jack Brisco when Brisco was getting his first push in Florida.
Strongbow worked with most name heels in the business during his big years in WWWF, with his most well known feud likely being with Greg Valentine in 1979, where they did an angle where Valentine broke the beloved Strongbow’s leg, the first time they had ever done a significant injury angle with him and at the time it was still rare that he would lose so it had great shock value and elevated Valentine to a level where he was a top of the line heel for years.
The angle went so well that it was copied a few years later in the Mid Atlantic area with Valentine and McDaniel. During the Pedro Morales era as champion from 1971-1973, Strongbow was easily the second most popular full-time wrestler in the promotion, and probably maintained that level among full-timers (behind the big touring attractions who would come into the Northeast like Dusty Rhodes, Mil Mascaras and Andre) well into Bruno Sammartino’s second title run. Because of the policy of main event faces never wrestling each other, Strongbow almost never got singles title shots (I believe he may have gotten one or two with Ivan Koloff and Stan Stasiak at smaller arenas during their brief transitional runs in 1971 and 1973) at major arenas. In 1977 and 1978, when Superstar Billy Graham was champion, Strongbow was one of many faces who had been denied title shots for years that became a regular contender. By that point, his role as the never getting pinned No. 2 babyface had been taken by Ivan Putski, and he was working more in the middle of the cards.
The injury in the Valentine match on television allowed Strongbow to leave the WWWF for several months before returning for a series of grudge matches, including his specialty, the Indian Strap match. He was also well known in the Northeast as the guy several babyfaces would turn. The most notable was when Spyros Arion turned on him, leading to the Bruno Sammartino vs. Arion feud, one of the biggest of its time. Another turn perhaps the most remembered, because angles were so far in the early 70s and the first tag team partner to turn on Strongbow was a young Jimmy Valiant.
Strongbow was always pushed as a star in other territories but never protected like in WWWF. He headlined against The Sheik in Detroit and Toronto when those cities revolved around babyfaces being brought in to lose to the heel champion.
Eventually, due to age, he moved down to the middle and lower part of the cards, putting over the heels on the way up, including during the first year of the company’s national expansion. Although he wrestled a few times after that point, Strongbow retired at the age of 56 after being a full-time wrestler for 38 years to become a road agent with WWF in 1985, and remained in the position until the late 90s when he retired.
Even long after he retired, Joe Scarpa largely disappeared and he was always known as “Chief” and very few called him by his real name. You would get various opinions on him. The people who tended to misbehave didn’t like him because he was the guy who reported their stuff to the office. He had the reputation among wrestlers of being tough and cranky, but was strong at helping lay out matches from his decades of experience. For example, when one young wrestler came up to him and asked if doing too many jobs on television would hurt his career, Scarpa replied, “What career?”
Others understood his position, particularly the ones who grew up in wrestling or started out as fans in the Northeast, and had more respect for him.
The promotion honored him in its first actual Hall of Fame class in 1994 (Andre the Giant was inducted on his own in 1993 and Strongbow was part of the initial class the next year).
His last appearance as a television character was in 1994 in a storyline where he helped introduce Chris Chavis as Tatanka, who was brought in to be the modern version of Chief Jay Strongbow. While given a huge push at first, Tatanka was never nearly as a popular as Strongbow and even with a huge undefeated streak, didn’t catch on and was turned heel, and later faded from the scene.
Strongbow had been at some shows from time-to-time when the promotion would come to Georgia, where he retired to, with his last television appearance being on November 17, 2008, when he was introduced in the crowd at a show in Atlanta.
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