Tribute to a Friend RIC CARTER
By Mike Lano  (with help from Potshot Bill Kunkel)

Longtime indie referee, wrestling radio show host and historian since time began, Ric Carter died recently while trying to help someone who's car broke down on a Las Vegas motorway, the motorist speeding off in a hit-and-run. Ric was one of the more ardent guys who simply loved the wrestling business. He was also one of the first to get a large satellite dish in the early 80's to pick up any wrestling shows he could and always offered to share and trade dubs.  He was a student of everything going on in mainstream sports, radio and tv media; and one of the first to track tv Nielsen ratings in the early 90's on his 50,000 watt radio show.

"I  grew up on Roy Shires wrestling I think about 1971 and was hooked,"  Ric said in 2004.  He'd catch Roy's few forays into Reno and Vegas and Ray Stevens, Pat Patterson and Rocky Johnson were his favorite stars from that era.  A fellow photographer pal who I shot alongside at MSG in the 70's who lived near Ric was "Potshot" Bill Kunkel.  Ric always spoke of what a genius Bill was at doing wrestling humorist cartoons that ran in Torch, Wrestling Then and Now, and my own newsletter(Wrestling Wreality).  Bill told me that Ric actually spelled his name Rick until he became a fan of Flair's and dropped off the "K" in honor of his favorite grappler.  When Ric started his late 80's radio show "Wrestletalk," Bill and Mike Tenay were his cohosts and I believe it was Mike's first ever broadcast medium experience.  I came aboard as a cohost in year two and we always had a blast.  When I returned to radio in 1995, I named it "WrestleTalk" in honor of Ric, and had him on the very first show. Ric always made a point of picking up Potshot Billy to do the weekly show(I was on by Comrex hotbox) and Ric usually took him out to dine afterwards. When Potshot had to leave the show due to heightened workload, he did a great wrestling angle "taking over the show and firing Ric" that none of us will forget. Ric Carter was a generous guy, and able to get many of the Titan and NWA/WCW wrestlers to do his show in studio which is never easy.

Ric was also a regular fixture at the Ladiest International Wrestling Association annual weekends in his native Las Vegas at the Union-Plaza hotel.  The location was at the top of Fremont Street, off the more expensive Strip at Ric's recommendation so more people could afford to make the trip there. Later, CAC would also utilize this same hotel as CAC Executive VP Karl Lauer was also on the LIWA board. Ray Stevens widow, Terese Thies(a fantastic lady wrestling legend in her own right) helped to form the LIWA with Penny Banner and others; the goal being to raise money to fund a retirement center for both female and male wrestling legends needing financial help.  Each year at LIWA, Ric would referee the Saturday night all ladies matches with another wrestling historian great, Jim Melby.

*Potshot Bill Kunkel wrote this: "Last Friday when Mike Tenay was telling me that Ric had been driving on the dangerous Route I-15 with his beloved wife Lourdes and their children on the way from Las Vegas to Mesquite when they came upon an accident scene. Ric, being Ric, stopped to see if he could help. While his family waited in the dark for Ric to do what he could, the Good Samaritan was struck and fatally injured by a hit and run driver. An attempt was made to airlift Ric to a hospital but it was too late.

Mike himself was desolate as he and his wife Karen were out of the country on a rare vacation from his duties at TNA and never heard the news until they returned home shortly after the funeral service.

They say this about everyone, but if you knew Ric, you knew one of the most big-hearted people to ever wander through the wrestling world. Always the first to show up and lend a hand when you had a problem, he never even played the star on his own radio show, always deferring to his co-hosts and correspondents. Year after year he supported Moolah's LIWA Wrestling shows in Las Vegas, inviting her and Mae Young onto WrestleTalk before every show and even donning the referee's shirt and taking the obligatory bumps in her main event. He was also a regular at the Cauliflower Alley Club, attending faithfully to bask in the reflected light of his childhood heroes.

Originally from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Ric was an ardent Cowboys fan. And much as it will go against every drop of Giants' blood in my veins, this season I may have to root for them, too, because "Hotline" won't be here to do that."

"Hotline" Ric Carter was far more than a wrestling person.  He was a great human being, and super father to his daughter Sierra who he always asked to pose for photos with the wrestlers backstage.  He will be greatly missed by the boys, and anyone lucky enough to have met him.