Dick “Tugboat” Taylor, a wrestling star in the early-90s Global Wrestling Federation promotion has passed away at age 71. His son Chaz shared the news on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/ChazTaylor713/status/928272690007420929
Taylor also wrestled for WCW, NWA, Central State Wrestling, Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, AAA in Mexico, and even in WWF on a house show in Houston against “Cowboy” Bob Orton.
Tugboat didn’t ever get really big in wrestling, and never got out of regional wrestling and training. He’s one of the dozens of workers who made brief appearances here and there when wrestling was booming at its height in the 1980s and 1990s. It reminds me of all the names you hear randomly mentioned on old-school wrestling shows on the WWE Network. Inevitably you’re taking a trip down an Internet rabbit hole trying to learn everything you can. Here’s what we found in our deep Internet search on Taylor.
He wrestled against Percy Pringle, a man you may better know as Paul Bearer.
Taylor was written about in a 1998 issue of Sports Illustrated, about his training school in Houston. He even had a hand in Booker T’s early career.
“This cool cat named Tugboat Taylor, who was promoting a little shoestring organization called Texas All Pro Wrestling.” Booker was performing as G.I. Bro, and often worked on Taylor’s shows, until, as he writes, one time where he sold a bunch of tickets for a show where he wrestled Killer Tim Brooks and Taylor paid him only in dollar bills. Booker threw the money at Taylor and walked out.
His son, Chaz is also a wrestler and rather infamous in Houston for his very strong mullet haircut.
The Taylor boys even teamed up together!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9ROdWI88iY
Taylor was a peripheral figure in history who was always there in the background of big moments. From helping Booker T get his start, to wrestling on shows with some greats, Taylor was a witness to wrestling history.
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