WCCW announcer Bill Mercer passes away at 99 years old

Bill Mercer — the voice of the former World Class Championship Wrestling — passed away Sunday at the age of 99.

Dave Meltzer will have more on the life and times of Mercer on the next Wrestling Observer Radio and this Friday’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

The Oklahoma native was a member of both the Texas Radio Hall of Fame and Texas Sports Hall of Fame, working as an announcer in wrestling, baseball, football and basketball. He also was the on-air talent for a Dallas radio station during the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. and was the first to break the news that Kennedy’s killer — Lee Harvey Oswald — would be charged with his murder.

The United States Navy veteran handled play-by-play duties for MLB’s Chicago White Sox and Texas Rangers in addition to the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and college football at different points in his career.

Mercer’s wrestling career began in the 1950s in Oklahoma and continued when he relocated to Texas, calling matches from the famed Dallas Sportatorium. In 1976, Mercer took over from the retiring Dan Coates for Saturday Night Wrestling and worked for WCCW from 1982-1987 before leaving for Wild West Wrestling.

He eventually returned for some sporadic appearances near the end of WCCW’s run. He was also part owner of an attempted WCCW revival called World Class II in 1997 that lasted just a year.

In another fun fact, while he was a broadcaster for the University of North Texas, he called games that featured players that would go on to become Steve Austin and Kevin Von Erich.