He was a Big Man and a Big Influence on Professional Wrestling:”Big Joe” Pedicino Gone at age 70(The “Round Mound of Sound”)

Joe Pedicino gone at age 70…Joe Pedicino and Boni Blackstone…Hard to think about one, without thinking about the other….She was a beautiful woman and Joe was a real BIG man…I bet you at one time, Joe was tipping the scales at 350 pounds-plus…
(He was popularly known as the “round mound of sound”.)

The big thing Joe Pedicino had going for him, well there were at least two things…

One was his beautiful wife Boni Blackstone and the other things was, and this part was a huge key to his success, Joe Pedicino was a talker…The man could talk and he was also a born salesman…Joe could put the wrestling talk out there at ninety miles a minute, and he was always able to sell what was he was talking about…

If Joe Pedicino was coming to town, there was something going on…He was the Co-Founder of the Global Wrestling Federation, that was based out of the Dallas, Texas area and the GWF made its way on to the TV schedule at ESPN…

This was the Global Wrestling Federation, not to be confused with Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling…The Global Wrestling Federation actually made a name for themselves back in the early 1990’s, but the GFW/Global Force Wrestling, Jarrett’s group, never really did anything…

Joe Pedicino’s Global Wrestling Fedeartion/GWF discovered a young Sean Waltman, who was known in Global Force Wrestling as “The Lightning Kid”…Sean Waltman said on Monday, on Twitter, that nobody would have ever known who I was, without the help that I got from Joe Pedicino…Joe Pedicino credited with jump-starting “The Lightning Kid’s”/Sean Waltman’s career….Waltman later known in the WWF/WWE as the “1-2-3 Kid” and X-Pac, and in WCW, Waltman was known as Syxx….Joe Pedicino, the driving force behind Sean Waltman and the GWF…..

Joe Pedicino created the Superstars of Wrestling show WATL-TV 36 in Atlanta, Georgia and this was a seven-hour block of TV wrestling that ran on Saturday nights/early Sunday mornings from 8pm-3am….This was a very popular show for TV 36 there in Atlanta, and the wrestling show garnered very high ratings, and it gave the die-hard wrestling fans a taste of all types of territorial wrestling, and was programmed with wrestling from the United States, Puerto Rico and from Japan….

Joe Pedicino was popularly known as the “round mound of sound”, Pedicino has been compared to some of the top commentators of the mid-to late 1980s and is regarded as one of the most recognizable personalities during the final years of the “territory era”. Brian Westcott, wrestling historian and writer, has called Pedicino one of his all-time favorite play-by-play/color commentators….

Joe Pedicion’s death announced on Monday April 20, but he passed away on Easter Sunday, April 12…Pedicino had been very sick and hospitalized for a long while, and he had recently been brought home, and had been under Hospice Care, according to wrestling historian Bill Apter, and Pedicino’s wife, Boni Blackstone….

***********More on the Life and Death of Joe Pedicino from Wikipedia, Twitter and YouTube…..**********
(I’m telling you, Joe Pedicino was a BIG man…BIG in life and BIG in the Wrestling Buisness.)

Joe Pedicino Death & Cause
Joe Pedicino has passed away. Pedicino suffered a stroke last June, but no word has been released his cause of death. He passed away on April 12 at the age of 70.

Pedicino was born in New York City on October 4, 1949 and moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his family three years later. He started working in radio at age 14, attended Georgia State University, and then graduated from the RAB School at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

In August 1985, Pedicino joined the sales staff at Atlanta-based WATL TV 36. In early 1986, Pedicino developed a “new concept” fighting program for the station. The show, Superstars of Wrestling, would feature more than eight hours of professional wrestling in the National Wrestling Alliance territories across the United States, as well as in Puerto Rico and Japan. It was also the first US television show in the USA, to regularly broadcast the Japanese struggle purest and Joshi, as part of the efforts of the Fuji Television Network to develop a market in the American television industry.

Joe Pedicino Career
In 1985, as part of that sales staff for WATL-TV 36 in Atlanta, Georgia, he launched a concept on the station that revolutionized wrestling on television. A seven-hour block of pro wrestling, with selected matches of the week from multiple territories of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), including Georgia Championship Wrestling, Mid-South Wrestling, Continental Wrestling Association and World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW), as well as wrestling in Japan, both puroresu and joshi, as well as Puerto Rico. Even Vince McMahon Jr.’s WWF frequently provided footage.

Nicknamed Superstars of Wrestling, it launched in May 1986 from 8pm to 3am and became an audience hit. Part of the wrestling show, part of the entertainment magazine, would feature news from around the world of wrestling, as well as matches. It eventually went into syndication and ran until 1992 (although WWF’s membership disappeared long before). Gordon Solie was a regular presenter and Pro Wrestling Illustrated would present his awards on the show, with PWI’s Bill Apter becoming the most visible fighting journalist of the time.

Joe Pedicino Wife Boni Blackstone
But the fight business provided him with the greatest love of his life, his wife of a lifetime, Boni Blackstone. A lifelong wrestling fan, she was selected by Pedicino to be his co-host on Superstars of Wrestling in 1985. A year later, they were married. Blackstone would also work as an interviewer and broadcaster at GWF. After her departure from GWF in 1992, Boni Blackstone would find a job with WWF as an interviewer behind the scenes the following year. She would also work for the Ladies Professional Wrestling Association (LPWA) before retiring in 1995.

from the NWA:
@nwa
The National Wrestling Alliance is saddened to learn of the passing of Joe Pedicino. We send our thoughts and prayers to his friends and family. In the 80s, Joe created and produced the syndicated show “Pro Wrestling This Week” which provided national coverage of the NWA.

from Bob Hazlewood:
@BobHazlewood
Very sad to report that Joe Pedicino passed away on April 12th. Joe was instrumental in founding the Global Wrestling Federation in the early 90’s, and was known for his work with Gordon Solie and Boni Blackstone on the syndicated “Superstars of Wrestling”.

Legendary wrestling writer and interviewer Bill Apter talks about the Death of Joe Pedicino, from YouTube….

Check out the Instagram below and just look at the Lightning Kid/Sean Waltman he looks like a kid, and Joe Pedicino looks like Don Moore, from GreensboroSports.com, before Don Moore hit the scales and decided to take back the pounds…Joe Pedicino and Don Moore, almost like separated at birth..

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_OGvGcp0Zd/?igshid=jvz1xnx70ug5

Don Moore, from GreensboroSports.com, there on the far right in the Greensboro Grasshoppers’ Grand Stand…Don Moore and Joe Pedicino, separated at birth??? I say YES!!!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3722845822921&set=a.3722845702918&type=3&theater