Ronald D Mayne

Professional Wrestler. The son of professional wrestler Ken Mayne, he grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and graduated from the College of Southern Utah. At the age of 12 he met another wrestler, "Tough" Tony Bourne, who eventually became Mayne's frequent wrestling partner and life-long mentor. He turned professional at 22 in 1966 and traveled the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) circuit of British Columbia, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego with many smaller towns in between. In California he wrestled as "Moondog Mayne", but in Portland he was billed as "Lonnie Mayne". The most successful professional wrestlers of this era mastered the craft of showmanship by taking full advantage of the power of television to manipulate the ringside and home audience. The target audience would either hail a wrestler as a "good guy" or vilify a wrestler as a "bad guy". Gimmicks, stereotypes and passion plays could be found among a travelling troup of faux Germans, Japanese, midgets, cowboys, pirates, giants and scalliwags of all stripes. This is where Mayne excelled: he had an innate mastery of the small screen by displaying an assortment of bizarre behaviors seldom seen before or since. During interviews, he would eat live goldfish, razor blades and even light bulbs. He could regress into childish behavior, then erupt into Jeckyll-and-Hyde-like viciousness, and just as suddenly revert to apparent catatonia complete with thumb-sucking, all to the delight and constant bewilderment of the home and ringside audience. Future generations of WWF professional wrestlers would heavily capitalized on the personality aspect of their wrestling persona that Mayne and others of this era invented and perfected. From 1968 to 1978, he claimed many wins of tag team championships and heavyweight titles. In 1971, he captured the Hawaii State Heavyweight Championship. At the height of his career, Mayne was killed at age 33 in an automobile accident in Southern California that abruptly ended the career of a great wrestler and pioneer in the art of television wrestling entertainment.