Maury High, wrestled professionally as Rocket Monroe and the younger brother of (the unrelated) Sputnik Monroe
Hoodoo
Jun 7, 2010 - 10:27:41 PM
By Brian Hoops, Torch Nostalgia Columnist
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Rocket Monroe, who wrestled as the younger brother of Sputnik Monroe,
although they were not related, died this morning. He had been
hospitalized with a blood infection but was believed to make a recovery.
Monroe wrestled mostly in the Southeast as Sputnik's tag team partner,
but also wrestled in the AWA for Verne Gagne as a mid-card jobber.
Monroe's real name was Maury High.
We will discuss Monroe and his career during this week's Torch Nostalgia
Podcast.
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Maury High, who died Monday, capitalized on his resemblance to the
legendary Sputnik Monroe to form a championship "brother" tag team,
winning belts in in Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi in 1967 and 1968.
The more established Sputnik (Roscoe Monroe Brumbaugh) was 13 years
older than High, who worked as the second Rocket Monroe, following Bill
Fletcher in 1960.
Sputnik said he used a little bit of his aura to help boost the team to
prominence. "Maury High is about as colorful as a cigarette butt,"
Sputnik joked in The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams. "He was
not very colorful. But we did OK together."
In an interview with Rich Tate of Georgia Wrestling History, High talked
about Sputnik as a partner. "He was a great worker, and a good guy when
he was sober," he said. "When he was drinking it was a different story.
I got tired of being around him because he got to where he was always
drinking, so I left and went out on my own. It also made me mad that
(manager) Saul (Weingeroff) would sit around and do nothing and draw the
same money I was getting for working my butt off. I had made enough of a
name for myself by then that I knew I could do it without them. It
wasn’t too long before I started working with Gene Dundee -- he was
Flash Monroe."
As Sputnik went his own way, and battled the bottle, High formed another
Monroe tag team.
Gulf Coast promoter Rocky McGuire brought in Gene Dundee (Gene
Sanizzaro), who been in the Memphis territory, to work as Flash Monroe.
Rocket and Flash were together the longest of any Monroe pairing,
working as a team on and off through the mid-1970s, for about 11 years
together. Their biggest run came in the Gulf Coast in 1968 and 1969
against Ken Lucas and Don Carson.
"I loved Flash. I used to pick at him and rib him and make him mad, but
he’d always come back laughing," High said in an old interview.
In 1971, Sputnik and Rocket reunited and introduced Norvell Austin, a
young black wrestler, as someone they’d raised, complete with the
trademark white streak in his Afro.
He was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1941. As a youth, High was into
football, playing fullback on the Somerville (Tennessee) High School
team. A knee injury in his final season derailed a scholarship offer
from Memphis State.
"When I got out of high school, I was rabbit hunting with Johnny
Alexander. He was wrestling for promoter Jim Holly, who was running
shows in opposition to Nick (Gulas of Nashville)," High recalled for the
Whatever Happened To ... newsletter in 1993. "He invited me to join him
and some others for a workout that night. They had a ring set up in a
suburb of Memphis. Johnny, Billy Wicks and Jimbo Stewart beat me like a
yard dog. I crawled out of bed that next morning and decided that
wrestling wasn't for me.
"Then I decided they weren't going to make me quit that easy. The next
night, they whipped me that much more. On Tuesday morning, I quit again.
But I ended up going back for more. After a week of that kind of
punishment, they lightened up. On Friday, I got hot and asked why they
had beat me so bad and then lightened up. They said they wanted to be
sure that I would take it."
His first wrestling name was Rocky Montez, and his debut match was
November 12, 1960, in Marktree, Arkansas, against Big Jim Holly (who was
indeed big at 420 pounds). The following week, he was Arkansas State
champion, having beaten Joe Deaton.
For the next few years, High just wrestled part-time. But then his big
break came when referee Speedy Hatfield suggested that his likeness to
Sputnik Monroe could be a career-changer.
Rev. Danny Goddard was the president of the Sputnik Monroe Fan Club, and
later a photographer for Georgia Championship Wrestling and a referee.
Now a pastor in Indiana, he shared a some of his memories of High, which
will be read at the memorial service:
Although I knew his real name, he was always "Rocket Monroe" to me.
We met in the late ‘60s, when I was president of the Sputnik Monroe Fan
Club. One summer, my Dad took me from Atlanta to Tampa, Florida to visit
Sputnik. I climbed into a station wagon with Sputnik and Rocket Monroe,
Saul Weingeroff, and Bill Dromo, and we went on two roadtrips: Eau
Gallie on Wednesday night and Jacksonville on Thursday. Never will I
forget how we were pelted with Coke bottles by irate fans as we tore out
of the Jacksonville Coliseum parking lot. Rocket Monroe was driving the
getaway car!
After making a stop down the highway, Rocket asked me to hold
something for him. He laid two heavy gold World Tag team Championship
belts in my lap and I slept under those belts all the way back to Tampa,
quite a stir for a 13-year old boy!
During my high school years, Rocket and Flash Monroe were working
on the Gulf Coast. Several times, I drove to Dothan, Alabama to see
Rocket wrestle on Friday nights. He always took me out to a restaurant
after the matches, and then I would drive all night back to Atlanta.
After high school I became the photographer for Georgia
Championship Wrestling and Rocket soon came to Georgia. I visited his
family many times at their apartment, I believe near Cleveland Avenue,
and I either rode with him or drove him to a few shows here and there.
In 1976, I went to Nashville to attend college to study for the
ministry, and Rocket called one day, needing a place to stay while
working Nashville TV. My roommate happened to be gone for the weekend,
so Rocket moved in for the night. He left the next morning, and within
minutes, three college students knocked at my door. They thought they
had seen the wrestler, Rocket Monroe, come out of my dorm room. Not
wanting to lie, I just answered, "Now think about it, guys. What would
Rocket Monroe be doing in my room?" That seemed to satisfy.
High retired from wrestling full time around 1979, though he had a final
match in 1990 in Riverdale, GA.
After wrestling, High was the assistant Public Works director for the
city of Riverdale, and then a building inspector for Clayton County, GA.
He retired in 2004.
With wife Denise McGee, High had two sons and two daughters.
Last week, Rocket Monroe was hospitalized with a kidney infection, and
doctors found a blood infection. He came home on Saturday night,
seemingly okay, but he passed away Monday morning in an Atlanta
hospital. Goddard managed to call his old friend about six weeks ago. "I
called him because I had heard that he had just gone through, I believe
a hip replacement. He had also had a knee or two replaced over the
years," recalled Goddard. "We had a great time talking and catching up."
There will be a memorial service on Wednesday, June 9th at 11:00 a.m. at
Friendship Baptish Church, 687 Gaskill St. E., Atlanta, presided over by
longtime friend and wrestling referee Bobby Simmons.
-- with files from Steven Johnson
Hoodoo
http://www.georgiawrestlinghistory.com/host/monroes/home.html