John Tatum (wrestler)
American professional wrestler
John Frenkel III (born July 18, 1959) is an American retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, "Hollywood" John Tatum. Tatum is best known for his appearances with the Texas-based promotion World Class Championship Wrestling in the 1980s.
Early life
Frenkel was born in Mobile, Alabama, but was raised in Pensacola, Florida. He was a childhood friend of wrestlers Robert Gibson, Percy Pringle and Michael Hayes.
Professional wrestling career
Early career (1983)
Frenkel was trained to wrestle by Michael Hayes, debuting in 1983. He initially performed under the ring name "Franklin Hayes", the storyline cousin of Michael Hayes. Tatum wrestled on the independent circuit before being recruited by the Charlotte, North Carolina–based Jim Crockett Promotions. During the early days of his career, Tatum began a relationship with Missy Hyatt.
World Class Championship Wrestling (1983–1986)
Tatum was recruited to the Texas-based World Class Championship Wrestling promotion by his friend Rick Hazzard. Hyatt came with him to Texas and eventually became his valet.
“John Tatum (wrestler)” enters the record as american professional wrestler. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Tatum and wrestler can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6260286. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1959, 1983 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Tatum (wrestler)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.