Rodger Kent

Rodger Kent (1924-Nov. 28, 2014) was a radio and television personality, based primarily in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, area, who enjoyed a three-decade career as the primary play-by-play announcer for the American Wrestling Association, from 1960-1990.

Prior to becoming an announcer for the AWA, Kent, a native of Waukegan, Illinois, had previous experience in broadcasting, working at a radio station in Bristol, Tennessee, before moving to the Twin Cities in 1950, where he began a family and worked for radio stations WDGY, KSTP, WCCO, WTCN, WAYL, KTWN and KLBB; and television stations KSTP (where he hosted a late-night disc jockey show) and WTCN (now KARE-TV). Several years after joining Verne Gagne's AWA, he concurrently hosted "The Minnesota Sportsman," an outdoors program that was syndicated to television shows throughout Minnesota and the upper Midwest; he continued with the show until 1969.

Kent "was a fixture in the AWA for 25 years as one of its lead television announcers," according to f4wonline.com, a website dedicated to pro wrestling and its history. "A huge man, it was always awkward when he did interviews because he was larger than almost all the wrestlers," the site said

Although most of his career was spent in the AWA, he had a short-lived stint as play-by-play announcer with the World Wrestling Federation in the spring of 1988, calling shows from New York City's Madison Square Garden, the Boston Garden and the The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

According to his obituary, Kent counted a Peabody and a Clio among his professional awards. He was also named the third runner-up for Announcer of the Year in the Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine's 1977 year-end awards.