Brother Jerome and Brother Joseph

Brother Jerome and Brother Joseph

They once were “jobbers.” Today the proper pro wrestling terminology is “enhancement talent.”

When I first started watching wrestling in 1972, we kids out-of-the-loop called those wrestlers on TV “the guys that always lose.” It wasn’t until I started becoming involved in pro wrestling that I learned the proper term for the perennial TV loser was “jobber.” Here in Los Angeles during that classic Fred Blassie/John Tolos era, our regular cast of jobbers consisted of folks like Wildman Jack Armstrong, Ric Drasin, “Just Call Me” Texas, Bengali, Lou Anthony (who also did double-jobber-duty under a mask as The Outlaw), El Negro, Salvador Lothario, John Burich, and Art “Boom Boom” Michalick.

Over the years, “jobber” has somehow become a derogatory term. Personally, I never found the term offensive. Whether you’re paid to thrive or get thrashed, I find anybody who can stay consistently employed in the pro wrestling industry a success. Years ago I was friends with a second generation wrestler in Los Angeles named Bobby Lane (Robert Pico). Bobby was an excellent worker, but was especially proud of his skill as a jobber. He took pride in his ability to make his opponent shine. To his surprise, booker Tom Renesto pushed him as a star, and gave him the Americas Championship. He laughed at the push, saying something like “I was prepared to job here for a living!” Perhaps that is one main reason I fail to see “jobber” as a dirty word. Bobby was a true pro who wanted to put the effectiveness of the wrestling match over his own personal ego. (I must add that humble as he was over his push in Los Angeles, Bobby was excellent in his role on top.)

But Back to 1972. The jobber material that caught my ten year old imagination was the tag team hailing from Big Sur, California. They were The Peace Brothers: Brother Joseph and Brother Jerome. Aside from watching wrestling, I was spinning LPs of Jesus Christ Superstar and The Beatles, and I thought this team of wrestling hippies was the coolest concept in pro wrestling.

Week after week, I would see these woolly rasslers get trounced by their opposition on KCOP Channel 13. In those wonderfully innocent days, where I understood nothing about the politics of booking wrestling or a wrestler’s work rate, all I could think was “Why don’t they ever let these guys win?” My imagination outwitted my rationale; it took another month or so for me to realize that there are wrestlers whose roles are solely to get their butts kicked on TV to make the supertars glow. Unlike many wrestling territories, the jobbers in Los Angeles were usually not brutally squashed like a grape for the entire match; they got their moments in the sun, were allowed to get some flashy moves (their “spots”) in before meeting defeat. And on occasion, a jobber would even get a shock-of-a-win over somebody noteworthy on TV.

I was there in front of the television, set to KCOP-13, every Saturday night at 8:00, in hopes that these revolutionary bad boys would get their win. One Saturday night, the family went out to dinner, and to my frustration, we arrived home at about 8:15. I hauled ass to the TV set, flicked it on, and I wanted to scream when I saw announcer Judo Gene LaBell standing in the middle of the ring, congratulating the sweaty duo of Brother Joseph and Brother Jerome on their victory in that night’s opening bout! A win for The Peace Brothers, and I missed it by a matter of minutes! I didn’t even know who they had beaten!

Never again did I see The Peace Brothers emerge victorious on TV.

It was years later that I learned that Brother Joseph and Brother Jerome were actually journeymen Bobby and Jerry Christy, the nephews of wrestling pioneers Vic and Ted Christy. Like Lou “The Outlaw” Anthony, they did double-jobber-duty in Los Angeles as The Masked Vigilantes. Vigilantes, Christys, whatever… they were -and still are- The Peace Brothers to me.

One of the shames in pro wrestling in The United States is that many of the greatest superstars become forgotten in history to all but the hardcore fans. This is even truer for jobbers throughout history. By the 1990s, who would ever remember The Peace Brothers?

Who? Well, a few oldschool L.A. wrestling fans who were now dabbling in promoting. Dan Farren, our late friend Larry Doyle, and I ran a little promotion called “Cal-International Wrestling.” We were promoting a show in 1997, and used a pal named Sean Moran in the opener. Sean’s only other work was on Johnny Legend’s Incredibly Strange Wrestling shows under the name “The Original Jesus Christ.” Now— this Cal-International show was at a Boys’ and Girls’ Club, so sacrilegious gimmicks were a definite no-no.

So what to call Sean?

Dan, Larry and I looked at Sean’s long hair and beard. We all knew what each other was thinking. Ring announcer Danny Wolf introduced him that night “hailing from Big Sur, California, he is Brother Jeremiah!”

His opponent? Me.

And need you ask? Brother Jeremiah won his match that evening.

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The totally awesome wrestling journalist Greg Oliver wrote a great piece on the career of Bobby and Jerry Christy on The Slam! Canoe site. Click here for this way-cool read!