Early career Stamp, who grew up in
Brainerd, Minnesota, won the 1965 Minnesota State High School Wrestling Championship for the 175 pound weight class. After entering professional wrestling and having his first match on August 9, 1971, in
Thunder Bay Ontario, He also appeared occasionally in the
WWF in the mid-1980s, including a December 1986 match shown on the TV program
WWF Wrestling Challenge where he teamed with fellow jobber Mike Luca against the
Fabulous Rougeau Brothers. He later returned to the AWA, which was in decline at the time due to heavy competition from the WWF and
World Championship Wrestling. He was used primarily by the AWA to put over major stars and veterans, like
Superfly Jimmy Snuka,
Colonel DeBeers,
Jerry Lawler, and
The Midnight Rockers. In 2016, Stamp announced that his cancer had returned. He died of lymphoma on March 13, 2017, after which wrestlers including
Ted DiBiase and
Tommy Dreamer paid tribute to him on social media. In November 2017, Stamp was posthumously inducted into the Amarillo Pioneer Hall of Fame by the local Amarillo Pioneer newspaper.
Beyond the Mat Stamp attained a measure of cult popularity after appearing in the 1999 documentary
Beyond the Mat. The film's footage of him was from 1997, when he was the referee for one of
Terry Funk's many "retirement" matches (this one against
Bret Hart at
Terry Funk's WrestleFest). In the film, Stamp said that he did not wrestle as much anymore because he had not been
booked for matches, but had kept in shape in case he received a call. His training ritual involved holding arm weights and jumping up and down on a trampoline in his backyard in his underwear. His repeated use of the phrases "I'm not booked!" while discussing his referee job with Funk, and "I don’t do tricks. I just jump." while working out, resulted in popular
memes. == Championships and accomplishments ==