Jimmy Valiant To Wrestle Retirement Match On April 25

Jimmy Valiant will make history later this year when he becomes one of the oldest men to ever compete in a professional wrestling match when he retires from the squared circle.

It has been announced that Valiant will wrestle his retirement match at Boogie's Last Dance for NAWA Championship Wrestling on April 25 in Lancaster, South Carolina. Valiant's opponents have yet to be announced.

"Yes, this will be my final dance. I've retired before but this is truly my last dance. I'm honoured to hang up my boots after 62 years of wrestling pro. I had over 15,000 matches and drove 6 million miles on U.S. highways, plus flying getting to those matches," Valiant said.

Should Valiant work the match, he will be the third-oldest pro wrestler ever to compete inside the squared circle behind Mae Young and Kendo Nagasaki.

Jimmy Valiant began his pro wrestling career in 1964 and he has wrestled in seven decades. Valiant formed the Valiant Brothers with his brother Johnny and they would reign as WWWF Tag Team Champions for 370 days from May 1974 to May 1975. Jimmy would also be the manager of the Valiant Brothers when they had a second now-WWF Tag Team Title reign in 1979 with Johnny and kayfabe brother Jerry.

As a singles competitor, Jimmy was popular in the Memphis territory of the National Wrestling Alliance in the 1970s and 1980s, having seven reigns as the AWA Southern Heavyweight Champion. It was in the early 1980s that Valiant transformed into "Boogie Woogie Man" Jimmy Valiant, where he would make his entrance to 'Boy from New York City' by The Manhattan Transfer. Valiant's popularity in Memphis would continue into the 1990s as he feuded with Jerry Lawler over the USWA Heavyweight Championship, twice holding the belt in 1990.

Jimmy was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of The Valiant Brothers in 1996. He would continue wrestling until his first retirement in 2020. Valiant then came out of retirement in 2022 and his most recent match took place in August 2023.