Eddie Marlin, who was a fixture within Memphis and the Southeast died on Thursday morning at approximately 5 am at the age of 89.
Marlin, who was born in Nashville and broke into the industry in 1949, had just turned 89 this past Tuesday and had recently been admitted to hospice care.
Marlin was paired with Tommy Gilbert late in his career with the duo working in the territory as a top babyface tag team where they won the NWA Mid-America tag titles in on March 14, 1973, from Bobby Hart and Lorenzo Parente.
They also won the NWA Southern tag titles on five occasions in 1973. Their first reign came on August 6, 1973, defeating Jackie & Roughhouse Fargo and held the titles for one-day until losing to Jerry Lawler and Jim White. The regained the titles on August 13th and held them for two-days losing to Lawler & White again. They won them three more times that year, losing them the final time on October 29th to Lawler and Al Greene. Marlin would win the belts again with Tojo Yamamoto on January 7, 1975, and kept them for two months.
In 1977, Jerry Jarrett broke away from promoters Nick Gulas & Roy Welch to form the Continental Wrestling Association. By this time, Marlin was the father-in-law to Jarrett after Marlin’s daughter, Deborah, married Jerry. Marlin’s brother, Thomas, also got into the wrestling industry.
After retiring in the late ‘70s, Marlin became the authority figure in Memphis, who called things down the middle as the fair-and-balanced authority with credibility from his time as a wrestler. On occasion, he would come out of retirement for a big match but used sparingly.
Marlin remained with the USWA until the early ‘90s with his final match listed on January 4, 1993, where he teamed with Miss Texas in a mixed match against Bert Prentice and Leslie Belanger.
