Before WWE, “Monday Night Raw” and Wrestlemania, there was Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling.

In the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s, Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling (produced by Jim Crockett Promotions) ruled the airwaves, the Greensboro Coliseum, Charlotte’s Memorial Stadium and other venues in the Carolinas and Virginia. Wrestling legends Ric Flair, Wahoo McDaniels, Ole and Gene Anderson, Johnny Weaver, Tony Atlas and others are the predecessors of later wrestlers such as The Rock, John Cena, the Undertaker and Brock Lesnar.

The story of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling will be told when the documentary “Mid-Atlantic Memories” makes its world premiere in Charlotte next week during the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Legends Fanfest set for July 30 through Aug. 2. The film will be shown July 30. Fanfest takes place at the Hilton University Place hotel. WWE Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross will serve as host and narrator at the premiere.

Among those promoting the documentary is Greg Price, a wrestling promoter who has worked with and supported Pamlico Pals by hosting wrestling fundraisers at P.S. Jones Middle School and Washington High School. Over the years, MAWC wrestlers who wrestled in Washington included Ivan “the Russian Bear” Koloff (who is retired and lives in Winterville), the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson) and Outlaw Ron Bass. Price said he and the film’s director-producer-videographer, John Andosca, are just a “couple of good ol’ boys trying to do what we can to preserve our childhood and share it with others.”

“It’s a real feel-good film about a different era in the Carolinas, when the closest pro sports teams were in D.C. or Atlanta. In the good ol’ days, there was nothing quite like Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling,” according to Price. “If you’re a native North Carolinian, you probably grew up with relatives that absolutely loved it! It isn’t the same anymore, and that’s part of the reason behind doing this film. We want to preserve a little bit of Carolinas history.”

Jim Ross, a longtime wrestling broadcaster, makes it clear the success of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling was because of several reasons, mostly the hard work and leadership of Jim Crockett and Jim Crockett Productions. Crockett and the company bearing his name treated wrestlers so well they preferred working and living in the Carolinas. Crockett offered them and their families a home in several senses of that word, Ross said. Crockett made it possible for wrestlers and their families to move out of mobile homes and small apartments into houses, Ross noted.

“He was a great marketer, a great promoter. He knew who his audience was, and he knew how to find them. That philosophy, for any marketer, for anyone selling a product, for any promoter, is still valid today,” Ross said, who never met Crockett, who died in the early 1970s.

“I didn’t get into the wresting business until 1974,” Ross said.

Ross, who traveled by car with the wrestlers as they went from venue to venue, used that time to soak up information provided by the veteran wrestlers.

“You would hear the veterans talking about the various territories they had worked, and I never one time recall hearing anyone say anything negative about the Mid-Atlantic territory, and largely because of Mr. Crockett’s honesty and integrity,” Ross said in a telephone interview Friday.

“He exuded … continuity, stability and that was two things those men and women — mostly the men — couldn’t find in that era in their vocation,” Ross said.

Ross said the technical quality of the movie “is not Hollywood,” but he believes it will appeal to wrestling fans, especially those who grew up watching Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling on television and at places like the Greensboro Coliseum.

Fans featured in the film help make it appealing, Ross said.

“I found the fans, especially, refreshing because it was such a big part of their lives that they could remember the most intimate of details and how they felt at certain moments of years earlier,” Ross said about his first time seeing the film.

Ross acknowledges pro wrestling is entertainment, with wrestlers being athletes as well as entertainers.

The film also shows that wrestlers did face some difficult situations at times.

In the director’s cut of the film, wrestler Ole Anderson talks about the fan who stabbed him at a wrestling match, almost killing him. Anderson also talks about being stabbed six other times by fans.

“That one could have killed me. It touched my heart,” Anderson said. “I knew I was hurt bad. I held my chest together.”

For others, MACW is the foundation upon which today’s pro wrestling business was built.

“I know for a fact that Vince McMahon, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock couldn’t have blasted Jim Crockett Promotions out of the Carolinas with dynamite — if they were still healthy,” said Jim Cornette, a former MACW announcer, wrestling manager, promoter and booker. Some folks would disagree with that statement. Others — good ol’ boys (and girls) who grew up watching MACW and remained fans during the years — could agree wholeheartedly with Cornette’s words.

For more information about “Mid-Atlantic Memories” — including how to order copies of the DVD — and Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Legends Fanfest, visit http://www.midatlanticmemories.com/index.htm