Whipper Billy Watson Whipper Billy Watson William John Potts, (June 25, 1915 – February 4, 1990) was a Canadian professional wrestler best known by his ring name "Whipper" Billy Watson, and was a two-time world heavyweight wrestling champion. Watson was born in 1915 in East York, Ontario (now part of Toronto) to an English born father, John Potts and a Canadian born mother, Alice Mary Wilken. Watson began wrestling in Toronto under his real name. He was a member of the Scarborough Athletic Club in the mid-1930s and was wrestling on what were billed as amateur wrestling shows in Toronto. For four years
Doc Watson he got the nickname "Doc" during a live radio broadcast when the announcer remarked that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an easy nickname. A fan in the crowd shouted "Call him Doc!" presumably in reference to the literary character Sherlock Holmes's sidekick Doctor Watson. The name stuck. An eye infection caused Doc Watson to lose his vision before his first birthday. He attended North Carolina's school for the visually impaired, the Governor Morehead School, in Raleigh, North Carolina. In a 1989 radio interview with Terry Gross on the Fresh Air show on National Public Radio, Watson