Seth Turner – An Xperience Interview

Seth Turner – An Xperience Interview – by Joshua Scarselli.

A hidden treasure sits here in Albany, N.Y. The International Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame sits in the MVP arena. Seth Turner tells us about how this gem came to be in Albany and what we can find inside.

RRX: How did the museum end up at the MVP Arena?

ST: There was a professional wrestling hall of fame located in Amsterdam, N.Y., and then it moved to Wichita Falls, Texas. When it went to Texas, there was a significant void in New York and in the Northeast for gatherings and for people to appreciate pro wrestling history. Along with a group of individuals, starting with Mike Lanuto, then involving gentlemen Greg Wachtel, Mike Viscosi, Joe DeFino, and Andrew Groff, we decided to take steps to get chartered as a museum in New York State. Once we got the ball rolling with that, we were lucky enough to cross paths with the Albany County Executive, Daniel McCoy, who helped champion the effort for us to get a spot located at the MVP Arena. Eventually, we had a collection of great artifacts. We’ve been supported by the pro wrestling community. Every time (whether it’s WWE or AEW) it comes through the arena, we get visited by the pro wrestling community, by the wrestlers themselves. It’s been wonderful, but it’s been a long road and a lot of work, and we (of course) are all volunteers. This is a not-for-profit.

RRX: Can you tell us a little bit about the artifacts you have here?

ST: Each person who comes in finds something that’s special to them. This is on loan to us from the Santel family, and that’s from Ad Santel. It’s well over a hundred years old. Ad Santel was involved in professional wrestling from the very early 1900s until the 1930s. This belt probably started in Great Britain, but he obtained it in Australia, then defended it in Japan and in what is now Hawaii, and in Europe. Not only do we have the belt, but they also maintained a scrapbook, chronicling all of the matches along the way. We’ve gone and digitized that book so that people can go and read and see the history of themselves. Another one I would go to is Gorgeous George’s hair curling machine. This is a very large apparatus with a number of electric tentacles that would hook into his hair. His wife was a hairdresser. This particular apparatus, in (I believe) 1947, was in Life Magazine with Gorgeous George. He defined what being a heel was and using entrance music, and is widely recognized as one of the greatest of all time.

RRX: How do you acquire the artifacts?

ST: We’ve acquired a number of significant artifacts through donations. Otherwise, they’re generally put on loan from the families or from the pro wrestlers themselves. We like to have items on loan even for a short duration. Then we’ll give it back to the families or the owners and borrow it again down the road. We’ve got a really cool artifact currently on loan from the Malenko family. That’s the steel chain from Russian steel chain matches used in the Florida territory primarily in the ‘60s and ‘70s. This steel chain has been used with the greatest pro wrestlers of that era and has their blood and sweat all over it. We get a number of artifacts from the WWE, which is very willing to work with us whenever we’ve requested particular artifacts. They’ve been supportive. It’s nice that we have a relationship with all of the big names in professional wrestling. But it’s important that we have those collaborative relationships..

RRX: Who are some of the wrestlers who have come to visit the museum?

ST: Well, let me start with the first pro wrestler that came into the museum as we were unpacking items and artifacts: Mick Foley. He’s been an ardent supporter of us and has come into the museum on multiple occasions. Mick Foley, a fellow New Yorker and someone whom we genuinely appreciate. Lita and Trish Stratus, who came to the museum shortly thereafter to shoot an episode of “WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures.” Being part of that program and with those two lovely ladies certainly springboarded us into the stratosphere. The AEW crew came in, and it was wonderful to see all of their pro wrestling talent, as well as their crew members, come in.

WWE, likewise, whenever they’ve come in, we’ve had so many pro wrestlers come in and be part of the museum. But I would go right to the top and say it was jaw-dropping when Paul “Triple H” Levesque walked over, enjoyed a tour of the museum for about 25 minutes on his own. He really appreciated the history of pro wrestling and was supportive.

RRX: The annual induction dinner was in October. Let’s talk about that a bit.

ST: We had our Class of 2025 induction and award ceremony on October 12. The Rocky Johnson Medal of Mettle Award Winner is going to Darren Vale, a very deserving young man.

We have the Excelsior Award, which is being given to William Patrick Corgan, the president of the NWA. Then we have our Trailblazer Award, which is being given to Clarence Bouldin. He is believed to be the first African-American champion in wrestling in North America. His family was here to accept that. This is the first public recognition of Clarence Bouldin, again, a wrestler from the very early 1900s. Then we’ve got the class of 2025, being headlined by Trish Stratus. The dinner was hosted by Bill Apter, famed pro wrestling journalist. Tito Santana gets inducted this year along with Johnny Rodsz, Rocky “Soul Man” Johnson, and Tony Atlas.

RRX: Let’s talk about Thumb War and the apparatus you designed.

ST: Thumb war was derived from my work as a school administrator in an elementary school. When there was indoor recess because of bad weather, I wanted something for the kids to be able to play. I also wanted it to annoy the cafeteria ladies. I wanted to hear every few minutes something that would annoy people. I knew thumb wrestling was big with kids. The bigger and stronger ones could manipulate and turn it into something physical. But what I did was invent the patented pop method, in which you can get disqualified for being too aggressive in your thumb wrestling. It really makes it so that people with different capabilities can be more competitive in thumb wrestling.

RRX: How does it work?

ST: Everybody knows regular thumb wrestling. But what you do in this case is, you’re going to wear the lanyard around your wrist, and you set the mechanism. Then the thumb wrestling takes place on the post. This is a bell, a hard wooden base. Each participant holds it down.

They do the thumb war, but if you are too aggressive and ring the bell by pulling the pin, then you are disqualified. It brings the action back to the ring. This has been something that we’ve taken on the road, and it’s taken off, and I’ve got a patent pending on this.

More from Joshua Scarselli…