Valerie Boesch | Celebrating Wrestling’s Longtime Heart

In June 2020, I was floored to learn of Valerie Boesch’s death on March 23, 2020. None of us knew until now, and that is heartbreaking.

I would’ve Zoomed to Texas to pay love and respect forward for this great wrestling lady. Many others, upon hearing the sad news, began grieving her passing online. We’re celebrating wrestling’s longtime heart, Valerie Boesch.

Since her husband Paul’s death in 1989 at their longtime home in Sugar Land, Texas, she devoted her life to taking care of their son Joey.

Val and Paul were already semi-regular presences at the Cauliflower Alley Club in the mid-’80s, when our reunions were just luncheons in downtown Los Angeles. They took place at the Old Spaghetti Factory and other venues near wrestling palaces, dating back to the 1932 Olympic Games at the Olympic Auditorium.

We later morphed those informal CAC “no heat, just breaking bread” events into annual one-night Saturday award banquets at the Sportsman’s Lodge and Garden in the L.A. Valley.

Our CAC founder, Mike Mazurki (wrestling great, even greater Hollywood legend), according to Val, “was especially fond of Paul and vice versa, and they talked often back in the day.”

But wrestling’s Valerie Boesch was more than a legendary wrestler and the widow of a promoter. More than a counterpart to the Rock’s mom, Ata Maivia Johnson, attending CAClub and most other wrestling reunions and functions each year.

And more than the loving caretaker of her son Joey with Paul, who had special needs. Joey was born blind and partially deaf and needed his parents’ constant attention since birth. But he was also a music prodigy, or “savant.”

He could listen to a complex song just once (one of his first was “Flight of the Bumblebee,” Val told me) and then play it, and sing it if there were lyrics, perfectly note for note.

He drew attention from many local and national TV news networks, newspapers, magazines, and more, which alerted the public to his genius gift.

After Paul died, Valerie Boesch continued to bring Joey to CAC in Los Angeles each year. Then, when we moved things to Vegas in 2000, to the Strip’s Riviera Hotel, our first home there, Jason Sanderson and others helped us morph once again into a 3+ day annual event with vendor rooms, eventual lectures, and panels. There were two affiliated nights of wrestling by some of the top indie stars and veterans, and two nights of awards.

And something that began as a semi-private club for those involved in wrestling then included fans from all over the globe.

Val was never formally on our board, but when I was on it in the ’90s, she sometimes attended and spoke when she felt passionate about issues.

Starting in 1991, Joey began playing piano on our stage before award nights and often during breaks and intermissions.

This meant he’d forgo eating like everyone else to entertain us with classical, show, and popular music, and more. When he released a documentary and an album in 1999, I believe Val helped him even more on stage by holding the mic while he sang standards, covers, and his compositions.

Valerie Boesch was regarded at times with the same industry respect as female promoters like Ann Gunkel and ‘Miss Christine’ Jarrett, total legends.

Always dressed to the nines—especially her famous “Dynasty and Dallas sequined ball gowns just for our CAC awards banquets,” as she called them—but entirely down to earth. She continued donating her time to Paul’s many charities, like the Boys Clubs of Texas, alongside her new ones, never afraid to “get my hands dirty.”

She’d volunteered to help build Habitat For Humanity homes for the homeless, for example, near where she lived. After years of nagging, I finally got Jim Ross to attend his first Cauliflower Alley Club.

He didn’t let Val or me down, bringing his pal Stone Cold (Steve Williams, aka Austin) with him that year. Jim made a beeline to talk with Val when he first entered our second-floor banquet room, spotting her quickly. Steve Williams did the same when we first got him to CAC.

Paul was, of course, the legend’s legend, but Val herself was a helluva lady and “champeen” in her own right. We’ve called her one of the hearts and souls of CAC, along with fellow CAC regulars Tiger and Inita Conway Senior, “my two best Houston friends,” as she called them.

When Moolah/Lil and Johnnie Mae Young took over the Ladies International Wrestling Association/LIWA in late 1993, they were the first to hold their annual reunions in Vegas, over on Fremont Street at the Union Plaza Hotel.

CAC held two annual Vegas reunions there years later before finally moving things permanently to the Gold Coast. Tiger, Karl Lauer, and others, including myself, were on Lil and Mae’s LIWA board, and we all nagged Valerie to lend her brilliant, bright smile to one of them.

She, in turn, bugged Buddy Rogers’ widow, Debbie, and son to come all the way in as well from their Florida home (just weeks after Buddy died in that freak hospital accident as he was to have been honoured).

Valerie not only was put on the LIWA board but also managed Moolah and Mae as heel “Vicious Valerie” on their annual show, taking on some of the top young indie women on the planet like Hall Of Famers Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto from All Japan Women, LIWA Board Member Britney Brown, and a young short red-haired Joanie Lauer who’d later become WWE’s Chyna and many others.

Val, with the world’s biggest heart, gave playing heel her best shot, but wrestling’s very first Nature Boy, Bud-Ro, as we called him, would say she was just too sweet a lady to ever get booed.”

Valerie Boesch did get a standing ovation and even interfered, handing some “international, foreign” objects to still Women’s Champ Moolah.

Plus a loaded queen’s crown to “Johnnie” Mae Young during their bouts. Joey just grinned at the piano in the back of the ballroom, having been told what his mom was “up to.”

Paul was, of course, the legend’s legend, but Val herself was a helluva lady and “champeen” in her own right. We’ve called her one of the hearts and souls of CAC along with fellow CAC regulars Tiger and Inita Conway Senior, “my two best Houston friends,” as she called them.

Army-enlisted and decorated, Paul began as a pro in the 1930s, and it’s said his draw on 11/25/38 with Pat Meehan in Calgary, where Paul, of course, stayed at Stu’s home, was perhaps his best match while he was still a greenhorn.

He put his in-ring career on hold when his 8th Army Infantry Division deployed him to Europe immediately after the D-Day landings and invasion.

Paul was right in the thick of the U.S. offensive against Hitler and Nazi Germany as a Company G Commanding Officer.

Leading his company into one of the reported “bloodiest and most desperate battles on the Western Front”—the Battle of Hürtgen Forest—Paul was seriously injured by a German shell, and his unit took heavy casualties.

But he kept fighting hard. Paul was later awarded the Purple Heart, upper-tier Silver and Bronze Stars, the French Croix de Guerre with Stars, the Distinguished Unit Citation, the Combat Infantryman Badge, and more after the Allies won WW2.

In short, Val’s husband was a true hero, not just in wrestling. CAC’s own Jim Ross and Bill Watts have stated publicly that they believe Boesch should be enshrined in WWE’s HOFame as well as all others. Iowa’s Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame inducted him in 2005, besides citing him deservedly as the “face of Texas and Professional Wrestling.” In 1996, he was also elected into Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame as a charter member.

But most important to Paul was the love and respect from all the wrestlers who worked for him and considered him family, as stated in his 1966 poetry book “Much Of Me In Each Of These” as well as his own autobio, “Hey Boy, Where’d You Get Them Ears?” published in 2001.

Paul also wrote two other books: Road To Hürtgen: Forest In Hell in 1962 about his time as a WW2 soldier and commander, and The Career of Paul Boesch-One Man, One Sport, One Lifetime in 1981, his first autobio.

I need to get ahold of old pals and fellow Houstonites, “Dr.” Tom and his “WWE Booking Doctor.” He is Bruce Pritchard’s brother, so he can see if they have any copies of these classics.

Valerie Boesch was son Joey’s protector and loving caretaker. “It’s my number one job in life, and I’m privileged to be doing it,” as Val often said.

Many of us who’d been to their home now worry what will happen to Joey. We also don’t worry about how he’s handling this devastating loss to us all.