David's Jump

In the late  1990s, wrestling took a turn toward the extreme and the trend still continues in spite of broken necks, shattered bodies and an occasional death in the ring due to someone attempting a foolish move. Triple somersaults, leaps off the roof, barbwire-covered baseball bats. You name it. In the 1970s, however, such insane things were not so commonplace. For decades in Arizona, the incident sometimes called "David's jump" was the evening most talked about by fans and wrestlers alike. Even in this day and age, it would be difficult to match.

The Phoenix Madison Square Garden was a two tier arena, where the fan favorites dressed in a locker room on the upper level and the bad guys were in a dressing room on the lower floor. The cheaper seats were of course in the balconies, though they also provided a nice overview of action in the ring.

 Chuck Hondo was stomping the hell out of Billy Anderson, with the referee having no control over anything  in the ring any longer. Fans were screaming for someone to intervene, when all of a sudden, there was David Rose, coming in and cleaning house. He seemed to have arrived out of nowhere.

The incident happened so fast those in attendance scarcely believed their eyes. Rather than running down the stairs as most people would have done or leaving from a  seat in the back of the arena after watching the action, Rose did the unthinkable.

Bolting out of the locker room, he did a charge toward the balcony, jumped off it like something from Phantom Of The Opera, landed on the arena floor and hit the ring.

The late Maniac Mike Gordon would often speak of this as one of the greatest moments he had ever seen anywhere in pro wrestling.

"The people were just going crazy over what was going on in the ring and screaming for other wretslers to interfere and stop things. Then all of a sudden, BAM, here's David Rose. He did this wild leap. He came running out of the locker room like he was being chased by the devil, went over the railing and down tot he arena floor, which would have to have been a drop of who knows how many feet, but it was plenty. It was the damnedest thing I had ever seen anywhere. It was spectacular."

And these remarks came not from a fan, but a fellow wrestler.

Lots of things happened over the decades at "The Garden" over  the decades, but David's Jump ranks as one of the most remembered.