The Cream of the Crop #9 — The Southern Rockers: The Boys Who Brought the Girls

The Cream of the Crop #9 — The Southern Rockers: The Boys Who Brought the GirlsFor decades, there was a pretty reliable formula for becoming a fan favorite in Portland Wrestling.Be tough.Really tough.Dutch Savage tough. Lonnie Mayne tough. The kind of guy you'd want standing beside you when a bar fight broke out.Then the 1980s happened.The music changed. The clothes changed. The hair definitely changed.And Portland Wrestling discovered another way to create heroes.Steve Doll. Scott Peterson. Rex King.The Southern Rockers.In Episode 9 of The Cream of the Crop, host Frank Culbertson looks back at the young, athletic, rock-and-roll babyfaces who brought bandanas, tassels, music—and a whole lot of screaming girls—to the Portland Sports Arena.At the center was Steve Doll, a wrestler Mike Rodgers compares to a Northwest version of Ricky Morton. Doll could sell a beating, create sympathy and make an audience desperately want him to reach the corner for the tag. He could also do much more, eventually becoming Northwest Heavyweight Champion and even briefly serving as Portland's booker.His first Southern Rockers partner was Scott Peterson.Doll and Peterson captured the Northwest Tag Team Championship six times, battling teams that included Joey Jackson & Super Ninja, The Grappler & Rip Oliver and different versions of The Clan and Grappler's crew.Then Portland tried to break them up.The fans wanted no part of it.They didn't turn against Doll.They didn't turn against Peterson.They hated the idea of the Southern Rockers fighting each other.The promotion got the message—and reunited the team.When Peterson eventually left wrestling, Rex King stepped in.The look remained. The energy remained. And most importantly, the team kept winning. Doll and King became three-time Northwest Tag Team Champions, and both versions of the Southern Rockers now had championship credibility.Doll and King eventually took their partnership beyond Portland. Steve Doll became Steven Dunn, Rex King became Timothy Well, and together they reached the WWF as Well Dunn.But the real Southern Rockers story isn't simply about championships.It's about an audience.Portland Wrestling had spent decades creating heroes for wrestling fans.The Southern Rockers helped create new wrestling fans.Young women and teenage girls who might not have bought a ticket to see the toughest man in the building suddenly had their guys. They came. They screamed. They bought tickets. And they came back.The episode also remembers the sad reality that all three Southern Rockers are now gone—Scott Peterson, Steve Doll and Rex King—but recalls a time when the music hit inside that little building on North Chautauqua Boulevard and an entire section of the Portland Sports Arena lost its mind.Bandanas. Tassels. Rock and roll. And a whole lot of screaming girls.Steve Doll. Scott Peterson. Rex King.The Southern Rockers — Portland Wrestling's rock-and-roll babyfaces.And next Friday, the screaming girls give way to something much more sinister:Kurt and Karl Von Steiger — the dreaded German tag team.The Cream of the Crop is based on Mike Rodgers' Encyclopedia of Portland Wrestlers, available now on Amazon.New episodes drop every Friday on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your wrestling fix.The legends. The money draws. The main eventers.The Cream of the Crop.