Bill Mercer, the voice of World Class Championship Wrestling, has passed away at the age of 99.
His passing was confirmed by family members to The Dallas Morning News.
Mercer’s daughter Laura Tiedemann told the newspaper that her father died on Saturday from an aortic aneurysm. She said he passed peacefully.
Born February 13th, 1926, Mercer had a celebrated 60+ year career as a play-by-play announcer for multiple sports, including baseball, football, basketball, and, of course, professional wrestling.
One part of his storied career included taking the reins as lead TV announcer for Dallas-based WCCW from 1982 to 1987.
Much earlier, he cut his teeth as a wrestling announcer in the 1950s for radio. He covered all regional major sports in Muskogee, Oklahoma for the local radio station KMUS.
In the late 1950s, he moved to television, covering matches at the Dallas Sportatorium for local television.
Ahead of his move to WCCW, in 1976, Mercer took over announcing duties for the long-running ‘Saturday Night Wrestling’ show program on local TV in Fort Worth when original announcer Dan Coates retired.
Notably, Mercer was a news anchor in Dallas for radio station KRLD. He held this post in 1963 and reported extensively on the ground on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the hunt for his killer. Subsequently, he was the first person to inform Lee Harvey Oswald that he was going to be charged with the murder.
After his main tenure with WCCW, he returned for a few appearances toward the end of the promotion’s run.
His accolades include being a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
In more recent years, Mercer was seen in public at the world premiere of The Iron Claw at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff, TX, in November 2023.
Legendary Texas sports broadcaster Bill Mercer dies at 99https://t.co/EQW2Vr31hv
— Dallas Morning News (@dallasnews) March 24, 2025
