Color Blind Sputnik Monroe

When Sputnik Monroe took a chair across his head, from another wrestler, it left a scar, a deeply embedded splinter, and a bad infection. But it was a mean wrestler that got hit, and he took it in stride. He was, after all a mean dude, and proud of it. You see, Sputnik Monroe had been in wrestling many years by then, and had made a name for himself.

Back in Memphis, he would walk down Beale Street when white folks weren't supposed to be on that street. But he was there, handing out discount tickets to his matches in Ellis Auditorium. "Don't tell nobody where you got these", he would tell his black fans. Then they packed Ellis Auditorium in the balconies to watch him fight. The promoters were trying to attract a sizable white audience, so they were trying to limit the number of black fans in the stands. They had the ticket takers count the tickets sold to blacks and not to let more than a certain number in. Sputnik knew what they were up to, went up to the front door and paid the ticket takers to give lower numbers, so he could get all of his fans in to see him. He couldn't care less about color; he just wanted his fans to see him.

Known for his disregard for rules favoring white folks, Sputnik earned his name from an old lady at a match in Mobile Alabama. Spewing hatred for his disregard for the rules, she called him Sputnik, equating him with the Russians, who had just launched the first missile into outer space. He liked the name, the promoter liked the name, and it stuck.

He was proud of his stature as the integrator of the wrestling crowd. Having made his effort to get his clientele on Beale Street, he then told the event promoter at Ellis Auditorium that he would not perform if his black friends got turned away. The crowds grew from the hundreds to the thousands in a matter of days. The audiorium had to constantly expand the seating area to see Sputnik wrestle.

He was born Rocco Monroe DiGrazio in Dodge City, Kansas. Growing up in his early years, he found himself in the YMCA, and saw the fancy clothes, cars and women of the big name wrestlers of his day, he decided then and there that professional wrestling was his life's calling. His father had died in a plane wreck a month before he was born, so his grandparents took him in, and gave him their name, Brumbaugh. But later on, as his career grew he returned to the Monroe name for his professional title.

He even did a stand-in gig for Elvis Presley. He would wear suede shoes and dress like Elvis. Being about the build of Elvis, he could come out of a building where Elvis had played, dressed to look like him and head for a limo. The girls would be pulled toward him, and chase him toward the car. He got in so fast, they were never the wiser. Elvis, being thus freed from his fan base, could take it easy and get in another limo and leave with no fuss. Such was one of the many gigs Sputnik Monroe did in his brawling career as a professional wrestler.

In his career as a pro wrestler he took many a stab and stitch, being successful at making his crowd mad, the goal of every pro wrestler.
But he took his stand for his people, and that's as much of what he will be remembered for, at least in Memphis. Sputnik made it impossible to ignore black people at the wrestling rinks all across the South.

Said Sputnik of himself "I rough, tough and hard to bluff. 235 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal. The heavenly body that women love and men fear". That was Sputnik Monroe.