Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
If you sit and read a bunch of pro wrestler bios, you may find a few of them have something in common. Some of them, attended the same high school. The school in question is Robbinsdale High School located in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. It was the home of the Robins and also home to many future professional wrestlers.
The school itself was located in the Minneapolis suburb of Robbinsdale. It was established in 1936 with a remodel in 1956. Aside from pro wrestlers, the school has educated future renowned lawyers, doctors, filmmakers and businessmen. In its 6 decades of existence, surprisingly only about 22,000 students attended Robbinsdale High. It was a small community with small class sizes where almost everybody knew everybody.
For the purpose of this piece though, passing through these halls were students who would one day be ravishing, perfect and even smashing! How did one small high school develop so many future pro wrestling legends? Perhaps it had to do with one of the first to graduate from RHS…Verne Gagne.
Verne Gagne
Verne was a part of the class of 1943….He lettered in baseball, football and oh yeah….wrestling. He was both an all state in both football and wrestling. A local legend, Verne of course became a pro wrestler and established the AWA…the American Wrestling Association. No doubt, his legendary shadow perhaps inspired many a youngsters from that area and in particular that school to mimic his career.
His son and former pro wrestler/booker Greg Gagne also attended Robbinsdale High.
Eric Bischoff’s wife Loree also attended Robbinsdale High.
Mean Gene Okerlund
Gene Okerlund attended Robbinsdale in the mid 1950’s. After a brief career in radio, Okerlund landed a job with his fellow RHS alum Verne Gagne’s AWA promotion. The rest as they say is wrestling history…
The Class of 1976
To say 1976 was a very good year for future professional wrestlers coming from Robbinsdale is a bit of an understatement. A total of 4 future pro wrestlers came from the RHS class of ’76. Two are sure fire Hall of Fame candidates with the other two having very decent careers.
1. Curt Hennig
2. Rick Rood (Rick Rude)
3. Dean Peters (Brady Boone/Battle Kat)
4. Tom Zenk (The Z Man)
A New Year…New Wrestlers
The following year…1977…gave the business two more future pro wrestlers in John Nord and Scott Simpson.
1. John Nord (Nord the Barbarian/The Berzerker)
2. Scott Simpson (Nikita Koloff)
1978…Still Great!
The very next year…the class of ’78 gave us yet another future pro wrestler in the form of Barry Darsow.
1. Barry Darsow (Krusher Kruschev/Smash/Repo Man/ Stewart Payne/Blacktop Bully)
Sadly, in 1982, Robbinsdale High School made local headlines when due to low enrollment…the board of education decided to close the high school down and merge the remaining students with other area high schools. A court battle to try and save the school ensued…but in the end…Robbinsdale High School closed its doors for good. Today, the building still stands and has been converted to a middle school.
Dave
In its 60 decades of existence
That is indeed a very old school.
Superunknown
Great piece of work, brother!!!