Free Show! Portland Wrestlecast: Tonya Harding’s controversial wrestling appearance

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the only time the late Perro Aguayo wrestled in the pacific northwest. Not only that, he was also on the same show where the very controversial Tonya Harding made her first public appearance since the 1994 Nagano Olympic Games and the very publicized attack on rival skater Nancy Kerrigan.

The Kerrigan attack was one of the biggest tabloid stories of the decade. Being a local northwest woman, Harding’s friendship with Art Barr would seemingly be a natural collaboration to give Sandy Barr’s Championship Wrestling USA promotion the publicity it needed to draw fans. While the wrestling card featuring Konnan, Blue Panther, Aguayo, Billy Jack Haynes, and others garnered a lot of national and local media coverage, it didn’t draw many paying customers.

I talk with historian Matt Farmer who was at the show and also wrestled for promoter Sandy Barr at the time. 

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