The “rib,” or practical joke, is as integral to professional wrestling as a headlock. With long road trips common in the business and weeks sharing the same locker room with the same guys, ribs were a way to relieve tension and provide much needed laughter among the boys.

Ribs take many forms. They can be as simple as rubbing Tiger Balm all over someone’s clothing or as elaborate as removing the engine from a wrestler’s car.

And then there were guys like Jackie and Don Fargo, who took it to another level.

Platinum blondes, the Fargos were disciples of “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers. Their in ring struts, flashy ring attire, and brawling would be imitated for years to come. They brought the World Tag Team titles to the Nashville office and would often start riots with their behavior.

Don had a pierced penis before such things were fashionable. He would often greet rookie wrestlers to the sight of him nailing it to a locker room bench. Jackie would often ride through towns with a naked midget hanging out of his car.

Anyway, let’s set the scene for this prank. It’s 1957 and the Fargos are driving the highway between Birmingham and Nashville after midnight. They spot a lone farmhand walking home from work and decide to give him a ride home he’ll never forget.

The car stops. Don tells the farmhand to get in. The guy is elated. After all, it’s not every day you get a ride home from big TV stars like the Fargos!

As they pull out, Jackie and Don begin speaking to reach other in a rather frosty tone. Jack accuses Don of stealing a girl who he’d planned to meet up with that night. Don tells Jack he’s stupid if he thought that girl would be faithful. “She’s seen more bedsheets than a motel maid,” Don tells Jackie.

Now the farmhand looks in the back seat floor boards and notices several discarded beer cans and liquor bottles. He suddenly comes to the realization the Fargos are drinking hard and arguing even harder. And over a woman no less.

The situation gets even worse when Jackie produces a pistol. Our poor farmhand tries to reason with Jackie, telling him a girl isn’t worth a murder rap.

Jackie, not to be reasoned with, fires point blank at Don.

The car stops. Don’s lifeless body fell out of the car with a thud. Our farmhand is next treated to Jackie pulling him out of the car. “You gotta help me!” Jackie exclaims.”I–I mean we–gotta dispose of the body.”

Acting out of what must have been pure survival instinct, the farmhand helps Jackie drag Don’s body into a field by the side of the road. After they dump the body, Jackie gives the farmhand good and bad news.

“You’re the only witness to this, so I can’t just let you walk away. However, you’ve been very charitable to me tonight, so I’m giving you a ten count before I start shooting.”

Our farmhand takes off running. Jackie fires his gun four more times at the count of four.

Once he’s gone, Don gets up and both men laugh their asses off. In case you didn’t figure it out sooner, dear readers, the gun was full of blanks.

Both men, highly amused with their stunt, decided to pull over a few miles down the road for a drink at a bar. Not too long after the men receive their libations, a man bursts into the bar screaming about witnessing a murder.

“Who got killed?” asks the bartender.

Dumbfounded, our farmhand points to the very alive Don Fargo and says “That guy!”

The Fargos are still highly regarded in Tennessee wrestling history and the “Fargo strut” is still imitated by wrestlers today.

And believe it or not, they started a tradition among the boys of shooting someone with a blank gun and having a rube help dispose of the body.

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you have a great weekend, and remember: no matter how bad your week’s been at least you didn’t have to help hide a body!

We’ll see you next week!