Gene Viniski

"I don't think that really IS Gene Kiniski under that mask."

This pearl of wisdom came from a fan at the old Phoenix Madison Square Garden in 1971 as she watched a masked wrestler named Gene Viniski umber across the ring. Guess she didn't bother to check the spelling of  he name.  Likewise, why woudl the promotion have wrought in former NWA Champion Gene Kiniski and put a mask on him?

"I don't think that's Gene Kiniski," she kept rambling.

No shit!

What promoter Ernie Mohammad had done was borrow a page from the textbook of East Coast promoter Tony  Santos, who made a killing using sound alike names  Santos did it will regularity, offering a Hobo Brazil, Rob Ellis and others. Ernie at least had the sense to pull this stunt once or twice and that was it. Kiniski? Viniski? What difference did one letter make? A lot, if you got down to it.

I have no idea who hid behind the mask? It could have been an engineer for the Santa Fe.  It could have been some winos from the flophouse down the street that Ernie recruited to save money.  It could have been some green wrestler who was told to just shut up, wear the mask and use the name. It cloud have been some school  teacher moonlighting for added cash. It could have been anyone. I have no idea otherwise.

Viniski spent about a year in the Arizona rings (circa 1970-1971) and proved to be no Kiniski by any means. Though we are going back to my boyhood years here, i tend to have a memory like an elephant and I do not  recall him winning one single match.  When he was on television he went down. At the house shows, he held his own a little better, but still always ended up pinned.

Some of the people he lost to included Tito Montez, Cowboy Bob Ellis, Pancho Pico, Ben Justice, Ron Pritchard, Bob Lueck and Armon Hussein. He even lost to Ernie's second sound-alike, Jack Frisco (meant of course to sound like Jack Brisco). Now that's really getting sad.

In any case, Gene Viniski eventually faded into the record books without pain or glory.

Either that or he took off the hood and returned to action under a different name, without anyone being any smarter.

Your guess is as good as mine.