Bill Apter loves to make people smile.
He’s done it throughout his life as one of the most popular professional wrestling journalists, entertaining fans and the wrestlers themselves during his illustrious career.
But his day job gives him just as much pleasure.
Apter is part of the employment services team at Access Services.
“We assist people with various kinds of disabilities to find community-based integrated employment,” Apter said. “It’s a wonderful thing that our team does to both positively change the life of not only the client but also the family and friends around them. Currently our employment team services Montgomery, Bucks and Lehigh counties.”
Apter has helped countless people find jobs over the years, and while they’re clients, to him they’re much more than that. They become family.
Just like the men and women he covers through professional wrestling.
Apter is the biggest name in pro wrestling journalism, having had a huge hand in the magazines distributed by London Publications. Those magazines include Pro Wrestling Illustrated, Inside Wrestling and The Wrestler. These magazines, dubbed “Apter mags” because of his influence with them, were the ones you’d see in every supermarket and drug store in the 1970s and 1980s, and Apter was the face of these magazines. He makes sure to say he didn’t do it alone.
“I was just one of the people who worked there, so many others did a great job with it,” Apter said. “We were the internet before there was the internet. We were printbait before there was clickbait. And it wasn’t just me, I would appreciate (getting that out there) it was a lot of good people. I was just the face of it for many.”
Apter isn’t shy. He’s a great singer, a fantastic talker, he has a podcast live from Apter’s Alley and is a friend and trusted media member according to just about every famous pro wrestler there is.
Some of the highlights of his career? He introduced Andy Kaufman to Jerry Lawler before their famous feud in Memphis. He was a trusted friend of Hulk Hogan, and the two remained close, talking regularly before Hogan passed away last summer. And every year he’d pop up on NWA television to present the PWI Awards to the stars of the promotion.
However, Apter always did his best to put the focus on the wrestlers, the people he would focus on in the magazines or on his podcast.
But Apter will soon be the star of the show.
He’s set to receive the Cauliflower Alley Club’s Lou Thesz/Art Abrams Lifetime Achievement Award.
The award, one of the highest honors the organization gives out, recognizes the winners’ lifelong contributions to the sport. Apter is the perfect choice for the honor, but as he’s known to do, Apter was too busy talking about the organization giving him the award.
“I’ve had so many honors over the years and they’re all very special, but there were two big ones, this one and of course the WWE (Hall of Fame),” Apter said from “Apter’s Alley,” situated in the suburbs just outside Philadelphia, where he houses his incredible displays of memorabilia and also records his popular podcasts and videos for his social media sites. “This means a lot because of the organization. The Cauliflower Alley Club has helped so many wrestlers. I was talking to them and they said, ‘You must have been in already.’ But it’s a very big honor for me, especially because of the organization.”
The Cauliflower Alley Club is a nonprofit fraternal organization for professional wrestlers, boxers and other athletes, founded in 1965 by Mike Mazurki, that provides financial assistance to members and others in the wrestling industry in need, and hosts an annual reunion dinner with awards.
Apter is the perfect choice because he doesn’t work in the wrestling industry, he lives it.
“I’m looking forward to everything, getting the award and seeing everyone,” said Apter, 80, who has been working in wrestling for more than five decades. “I’ve gone through first watching this from the late ’50s all the way to 2026 now and I’m still a fan of it. I watch Monday Night Raw every week, I watch AEW on Wednesday nights and I watch Smackdown on Friday nights. I keep up with it. I’m still a fan.
“I never want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I like to be liked. I became more so than a journalist, what I cared about most was my relationship with the boys, and the girls, and my Rolodex. That I could call any promoter or wrestler anywhere and they’d almost always know who I was. That’s what’s most important to me.
“I love these reunions, we just had the Gathering Reunion, there were 60 wrestlers there. It was such a great convention, not just the wrestlers, but the fans. I’m like, ‘How do you know me, you’re 15 years old.’ They watch me on Facebook and YouTube. Fans are so important to me. They say never meet your hero, I always want to be very nice to my fans because they’re so important to me.”
Apter will receive his award during the Cauliflower Alley Club’s 60th Annual Reunion, held Aug. 24–26 in Las Vegas.
To watch Apter’s videos, visit https://www.youtube.com/user/1WrestlingVideo ••
