NWA Member: Harry Light Admitted to Organization: September 25, 1948 Detroit Office: 2643 Park Avenue (1955) Detroit Office: Eddystone Hotel, 110 Sproat Street (1961) Bert Rubi's Detroit Office: 4340 Glendale Avenue (1951) Phone Number: Woodward 2-3798 (1955) Light booked wrestlers in Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, Jackson, and Grand Rapids. Bert Rubi trained The Sheik, Larry Chene, Abdullah the Butcher. Please note that people spelled his last name both "Rubi" and "Ruby." On official correspondence out of Detroit, in letters found at the Jack Pfefer Collection at Notre Dame, the last name was spelled, "Ruby." The Detroit Office in 1951 had a strong working relationship with the Toledo NWA office. Wrestling throughout Michigan State in 1960 drew 556,237 people and total gross gate receipts of $931,990.09. In the fall of 1961, Light was named to the membership committee of the NWA by new president Fred Kohler. There was considerable debate about accepting the applications of Jim Barnett and Johnny Doyle into the Alliance even though the latter were in a promotional war in Detroit against Light. In Sam Muchnick's October 11, 1961 letter to Lee Loevinger, the Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice, he explained that Light "has not been in attendance at National Wrestling Alliance meetings in several years, and who did not attend the last meeting in Toronto, but who sent in his back dues and assessments after the meeting, is now reportedly a partner with Kohler, McMahon and Mondt in a Detroit promotion, which is run in opposition to a Barnett-Doyle promotion." Research by Tim Hornbaker December 11, 2010 |
Detroit Booking Office |