K.C. ON THE MAT:
The History of Professional Wrestling in Kansas City

About the project

From the late 1800s to 1988, Kansas City was considered a hotbed of professional wrestling. The lineage of champions in multiple wrestling organizations can be traced to the City of Fountains, and the fan base was considered to be one of the most rampant. The wave of professional wrestling success in the city continued throughout the Twentieth Century until 1988, when Vince McMahon's global World Wrestling Federation ultimately put an end to the independent wrestling territories that once filled up America.

K.C. ON THE MAT focuses specifically on Kansas City pro-wrestling from 1930 to the demise in 1988. It begins with the back story of the first National Wrestling Alliance Champion, Orville Brown, and his rise as a top promoter in Kansas City. Brown eventually sold his assets out, and the trio of "Texas" Bob Geigel, Harley Race and Pat O'Connor controlled the area until its fall in the late 1980s.

The feature-length documentary is 92 minutes.

About the producer

Chris Gough is an Emmy Award-winning producer and anchor at Metro Sports in Kansas City, Missouri. Gough graduated from the University of Missouri with a Bachelors of Journalism degree in 1999, and he began his career as a creative writer in professional wrestling at World Wrestling Entertainment.

Since leaving WWE in 2003, Gough began working as an anchor and producer at Metro Sports, and in late 2007, he began putting together this passion project -- gathering together the men who put Kansas City professional wrestling on the map.

For more information, contact Chris Gough at (816) 616-6368 or chris.gough@twcable.com

About Metro Sports

Metro Sports, part of the Kansas City division of Time Warner Cable, is Kansas City’s 24-hour all-sports television network. Metro Sports is available on Time Warner Cable Channel 30 and Comcast Channel 258 in Kansas City. It can also be seen on Sunflower Cable Channel 37 in Lawrence, Kansas. Metro Sports features live and taped telecasts of sporting events, studio shows, original documentary-style programs, blocks of ESPNews, and other sports programming.

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K.C. ON THE MAT

K.C. ON THE MAT: The History of Professional Wrestling in Kansas City
From the late 1800s to 1988, Kansas City was considered a hotbed of professional wrestling. The lineage of champions in multiple wrestling organizations can be traced to the City of Fountains, and the fan base was considered to be one of the most rampant. Learn more.