Mike LeBell and the ‘unbelievable action’ in the ring

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Back in the 1960s and 1970s, “when wrestling was still pretending to be real,” promoter Mike LeBell — who has died at 79 — had an underling call in the results after matches at the Olympic Auditorium, Larry Stewart wrote in The Times in 2005.

But then Bud Furillo, sports editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, suggested it would be easier to get the results in the paper if they were called in before the matches.

After that, John Beyrooty, who handled the wrestling beat, got the “results” of matches that started at 8 p.m. by 6 p.m. Beyrooty always included the line: “In other unbelievable action....”

-- Valerie J. Nelson