Wahoo McDaniel

McDaniel was born in the small town of Bernice, Oklahoma in 1938. His father worked in oil and he moved to several towns before settling down in Midland, Texas while McDaniel was in middle school. One of his baseball coaches was George H. W. Bush. The name "Wahoo" actually came from his father, who was known as "Big Wahoo". He was a problematic teenager but he was accepted to the University of Oklahoma. There he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and he was also a part of Bud Wilkinson's Sooners football program.[2]

McDaniel began his career as a professional football player in 1960, playing for the Houston Oilers during their inaugural AFL Championship-winning season.[3][4] He then played for Denver Broncos between 1961 and 1963.[4] After he started playing as a linebacker for the New York Jets in 1964, McDaniel started wearing a custom jersey which had the name "Wahoo" sewn on the back above jersey 54.[5] Whenever he made a tackle as a Jet, the public address announcer would ask the crowd WHO made that tackle, and the crowd would shout, "Wahoo! Wahoo! Wahoo!"[5] After two seasons with the Jets, McDaniel went to the Miami Dolphins in 1966, and played with this team until his retirement after the 1968 season.[4]

In 1974, McDaniel came to Mid-Atlantic to wrestle for Jim Crockett Promotions and help build up the territory as a singles territory in a feud with a rival from Texas, Johnny Valentine. The feud evolved into a tag feud with McDaniel and Paul Jones taking on Valentine and Ric Flair, who McDaniel met in the AWA. His performance was heavily disliked and criticized.[6]

McDaniel and Valentine went on to have a feud remembered to this day for the sheer force of their punch/chop exchanges, both men widely known for their hard-hitting style. McDaniel won the Mid-Atlantic title from Valentine on June 29, 1975, in Asheville, North Carolina.[7]

In 1977, Johnny Valentine's son Greg Valentine attacked McDaniel and broke his leg in an angle to establish Greg as Johnny's successor. Valentine originally won the title on June 11, 1977, with McDaniel regaining it in Raleigh, North Carolina two months later. On September 7, 1977, Valentine regained the title at the WRAL-TV studio tapings, breaking McDaniel's leg in the process. This angle is particularly remembered for a follow-up interview weeks later with Flair and Valentine throwing change at McDaniel, and Valentine asking him if he needed a custom-made wheelchair for his fat body. Valentine then infuriated fans (thus building up the demand for a rematch) by parading around in T-shirts which read "I Broke Wahoo's Leg" and "No More Wahoo."[8]

McDaniel is often compared to Chief Jay Strongbow, an Italian-American who played a Native American wrestler at the time. Wahoo was respected by other wrestlers and football players for his toughness, physical style and his crazy antics outside of the ring. The respect as a legitimate athlete made it easy for him to go to different territories and be successful when many babyfaces had trouble doing so. Joe Namath and Larry Csonka, who played with him early in their careers, wrote stories about him in their autobiographies. Along that same line, Len Dawson has been quoted as saying: "The hardest hit I ever received on a football field was by Wahoo McDaniel."[9]

In 2019, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.[10]

McDaniel was married five times to four different women. With his first wife, Monta Rae, he had two daughters, Nikki, born in June 1963 and living in Houston and Cindi, born in October 1965 and living in Rowlett, Texas. He has four grandchildren, Dustin and Brittany through Nikki and twins, Morgan and Taylor, through Cindi. He also had a son, Zac, from a later marriage to Karen Reeves.[11][12]

McDaniel's health started to deteriorate in the mid-1990s, which led to his retirement in 1996, and he eventually lost both kidneys. He was awaiting a kidney transplant when he died of complications from diabetes and kidney failure on April 18, 2002.[13]

• American Championship Wrestling
  • ACW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
  • ACW United States Championship (1 time)[14]
• American Wrestling Association
• AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Crusher Lisowski (1 time) (Title change is not recognized outside of Denver, Co)
• Cauliflower Alley Club
  • Other honoree (1996)
• Championship Wrestling from Florida
  • NWA Florida Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[15]
  • NWA Florida Television Championship (1 time)[16]
  • NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (Florida version) (2 times)[17]
  • NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) – with Billy Jack Haynes[18]
  • NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (2 times) – with Jose Lothario[19]
• Georgia Championship Wrestling
  • NWA Georgia Heavyweight Championship (2 times)[20]
  • NWA Georgia Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Tommy Rich[21]
  • NWA Macon Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[22]
• International Pro Wrestling
  • IWA World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[23]
• Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling / Jim Crockett Promotions / World Championship Wrestling
  • NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship (7 times)[24]
  • NWA National Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[25]
  • NWA United States Heavyweight Championship (5 times)[26][27]
  • NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-Atlantic version) (4 times) – with Mark Youngblood (2), Rufus R. Jones (1), and Paul Jones (1)[28]
  • WCW Hall of Fame (Class of 1995)[29]
  • Cadillac Cup (1976)[30]
  • NWA United States Championship Tournament (1984)[30]
• Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Alliance
  • MAWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[14]
• National Wrestling Alliance
  • NWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2011)[31]
• NWA Big Time Wrestling
  • NWA American Heavyweight Championship (2 times)[32][33]
  • NWA American Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with Johnny Valentine (2), and Thunderbolt Paterson(1)[34][35]
  • NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship (2 times)[36][37]
  • NWA Texas Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Tony Parisi[38][39]
• North American Wrestling Alliance
  • NAWA Heavyweight Championship (2 times)[14]
• Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
  • Class of 2010
• Pro Wrestling Illustrated
  • PWI Most Popular Wrestler of the Year (1976)
  • PWI ranked him # 97 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003.
• Southern Championship Wrestling
  • SCW Hall of Fame (Class of 1998)[40]
• Southern States Wrestling
  • Kingsport Wrestling Hall of Fame (Class of 2000)
• Southwest Championship Wrestling
  • SCW Southwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)[41]
  • SCW Southwest Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Terry Funk[42]
  • SCW World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Ivan Putski[43]
• Ultimate Championship Wrestling
  • UCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[14]
• National Wrestling Federation
  • NWF World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Chief White Owl
• WWE
  • WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2019)
• Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards
  • Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 2002)

• Other American Football League players

• Wahoo McDaniel on WWE.com
• Ed McDaniel at IMDb
• Wahoo McDaniel on Online World of Wrestling