Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
The September 1979 issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated featuring Mil Máscaras and Dusty Rhodes documents one of the most distinctive and consequential pairings in the history of the territorial wrestling era — two figures who, in very different ways, embodied the most significant narrative tensions in professional wrestling at the end of the 1970s. Mil Máscaras — the Mexican masked superstar who had been working American territories since the early 1970s — was one of the most visually distinctive and internationally recognized figures in the sport, his elaborate masks and acrobatic high-flying style representing a completely different wrestling aesthetic from the hard-nosed American territorial brawling tradition. Dusty Rhodes, meanwhile, was in 1979 at the beginning of his most significant career phase: the self-styled "American Dream," whose working-class hero persona — polka dots, bleached hair, and a proletarian rhetoric that connected him to working-class Southern audiences with unusual emotional directness — was becoming one of the most effective character constructions in the business. By September 1979, Rhodes had been NWA World Heavyweight Champion earlier in the year (his first of three reigns with that title) and was one of the primary drawing cards in Jim Crockett Promotions and the broader NWA territorial landscape. For collectors building a focused archive through the Pro Wrestling Illustrated late-1970s territorial era run, a cover pairing these two specific figures in September 1979 documents the diversity of the wrestling world's most distinctive personalities at a historically specific moment.
The September 1979 date places this issue in the final full year before the NWA's territorial system would begin to be disrupted by the Vince McMahon Jr.-led WWF national expansion that started in earnest in 1982-83. In September 1979, professional wrestling in the United States was still operating as a genuine network of regional territories — the Mid-Atlantic territory, Georgia Championship Wrestling, Mid-South, the AWA, and others all functioning with their own stars, their own championship structures, and their own regional audiences. Mil Máscaras and Dusty Rhodes both occupied unusual positions within this system: Máscaras as an international crossover figure who could work virtually any territory and draw on the strength of his Mexican fanbase wherever Mexican-American audiences were present; Rhodes as a territory-specific megastar whose drawing power in the South was among the most consistent and most commercially significant in the entire territorial era. A PWI cover bringing them together in September 1979 was the publication exercising its unique national editorial position — the only print venue with coverage comprehensive enough to place two such geographically and stylistically distinct figures in the same frame. For anyone researching the territorial wrestling landscape in 1979, this issue is a primary document of the era's creative and commercial diversity in the year before everything began to change.
The "No Poster" notation in the listing is a meaningful collecting detail for this era of PWI: the magazine regularly included poster inserts, and their presence or absence is among the primary condition evaluation criteria for issues of this period. Collectors evaluating this issue should assess it accordingly, understanding that the magazine's other contents and its cover condition remain the primary display and research criteria independent of the poster's absence.
About the Publication
Pro Wrestling Illustrated, founded in 1979 by the publishers of The Ring boxing magazine and based in Philadelphia, was in September 1979 in its very first year of publication — this September 1979 issue is therefore from the founding months of what would become the most significant and longest-running professional wrestling magazine in American history. Its format combined match results, personality profiles, photography, and rankings from across the major territorial promotions, providing the most comprehensive national coverage of professional wrestling available in print. The early 1979 issues represent the publication at its most historically significant moment: the founding year of a magazine that would document the sport through the territorial era's end, the national expansion, and the rise of sports entertainment as a distinct genre.
Key Highlights Inside
- Mil Máscaras and Dusty Rhodes cover — a pairing of two of the territorial era's most distinctive and culturally specific personalities, the Mexican masked superstar and the American Dream working-class hero, documented in September 1979 by a publication that was itself in its founding year.
- Publication in Pro Wrestling Illustrated's inaugural year — September 1979 issues are among the earliest surviving examples of what would become the most significant wrestling magazine in American publishing history, making this a founding-era document of particular historical interest.
- Territorial era coverage in the final full year before McMahon's national expansion — documentation of the NWA's regional system at its most diverse and most geographically specific, just before the disruptions of 1982-83 would begin reshaping the entire landscape.
- No poster insert as noted — a condition detail that is primary evaluation criteria for PWI issues of this period, confirming the magazine's structural completeness independent of the poster's absence for collectors whose primary interest is the cover and editorial content.
- Note: Specific additional article titles, match coverage, and other editorial features beyond the confirmed Máscaras and Rhodes cover have not been independently verified from the listing. Interior details should be confirmed against a physical copy for comprehensive research purposes.
Condition & Rarity
Surviving copies of this issue in very good to excellent condition — newsstand, no label, no poster — represent an exceptional example of preservation for a forty-six-year-old monthly wrestling magazine from the publication's founding year. Very good to excellent condition indicates that the cover retains full color and visual integrity, the spine shows no significant cracking, and the interior pages remain structurally sound and legible — well above the good condition that most surviving copies of this vintage display after decades of active readership. A newsstand copy without subscriber label is the preferred state for display. A plastic protective sleeve confirms deliberate preservation effort. Founding-year Pro Wrestling Illustrated issues from 1979 are among the most historically specific and least commonly encountered in the publication's long collecting market, and issues featuring major territorial-era stars like Dusty Rhodes and Mil Máscaras in very good to excellent condition are among the most actively sought by serious collectors of this era.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Founding-year Pro Wrestling Illustrated issues from 1979 in very good to excellent condition are among the most historically significant items in the publication's long collecting market — the earliest surviving examples of the magazine that would document professional wrestling across its most consequential transformations. If this September 1979 issue has already found a collector, the full Pro Wrestling Illustrated collection at OriginalMagazines.com spans the publication's coverage from its founding through the territorial era, the national expansion, and beyond. The complete 1979 magazines collection offers broader context for professional wrestling and American popular culture from the final year of the territorial era's undisrupted dominance.