The original plan for Hamilton was that he was going to wrestle under a mask as "The Iron Russian", but once Hamilton got to Atlanta the plans had changed and instead he became “The Assassin”. After working as a singles competitor Hamilton was given a partner in late 1961, another masked Assassin, Tom Renesto. Renesto had teamed with Hamilton's older brother Larry but the two did not know each other before stepping into the ring in December 1961. The team worked well together from the onset and soon moved up the card towards the main events. For over a dozen years Hamilton and Renesto teamed together as the "vile" Assassins, a team hated for their "rulebreaking ways" wherever they wrestled. The Assassins, or the Masked Assassins as they were sometimes billed, worked all over the world for promotions in Georgia, California, Australia, the Far East, Japan and Canada. The only place the duo did not work as the Assassins was in the Carolinas where they were billed as "The Great Bolo" (Renesto) and "The Mighty Bolo" (Hamilton) because Renesto had worked for Jim Crockett Promotions as The Great Bolo before teaming up with Hamilton, and was more known in that region under the Bolo name.