Mark Nulty, who was a former wrestling announcer and ring announcer who was in charge of the Wrestling Classics web site and message board passed away last night after a long battle with lung cancer.
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If I go back through the formative years of me getting involved in wrestling and the key people who changed the direction of my life, Mark Nulty would be very high on the list. He was a best friend when we were in our early 20s, really responsible in many ways for me ending up living in Texas in 1983-84 during the heyday of World Class Wrestling.
He was just starting out in wrestling at the time, working as a sports reporter side by side with me at the Wichita Falls Times and Record News. He had just broken into wrestling, running local shows with Joe Blanchard’s Southwest Championship Wrestling, including the retirement match of Danny Hodge. He and Robert Hernandez actually pioneered what we do now, doing the forerunner of podcasts, except they were on audio cassettes and marketed by mail. He and I did some early shows together as a guest, and even were co-announcers on a wrestling pilot. We actually first came in contact when he was a subscriber, and then we for years traded tapes from different territories.
He ended up in Ocala, FL and remained close with wrestling. He announced for a number of independent promotions over the years, also ring announced and even at one time hosted the Cauliflower Alley banquet.
His major work in wrestling was with the Wrestling Classics site, which he started in 1999, and featured personal forums for both Lou Thesz and Jack Brisco when the two were still alive.
His close friend Paul Herzog reported that he found out one year ago that he had stage IV lung cancer, which he kept very quiet. He started on chemotherapy and the treatment appeared to work as he was in remission. But it never quite went away and a few months ago scans revealed it had spread into his abdomen. More chemotherapy and drugs this time had little effect, and three weeks ago the cancer had spread to his brain.
My deepest sympathies to Erin and Evan. While time and circumstances take people in different directions, and knowing Mark, he would never even intimate to anyone how he shaped my life when we were both much younger, I hope his wife and son understand his significance.
To me, just the fact that Thesz and Brisco would regularly post on his site, as do a number of ex-wrestlers, spoke volumes for what he created.