On the afternoon of July 14, 1984, wrestling fans across the Southeast tuned in to WTBS expecting another Saturday of Georgia Championship Wrestling and instead found the promotion transformed overnight, a shift fans still call wrestling's Black Saturday. Jerry Wayne Oates, a minority shareholder who joined Jack Brisco, Jerry Brisco, and Paul Jones in selling their Georgia Championship Wrestling stock to Vince McMahon, died in Columbus, Georgia, on September 4, 2026, according to his family. He was 78, one day short of his 79th birthday, and had spent four decades as a professional wrestler.

Born in Columbus on September 5, 1947, Oates began wrestling in 1970 after training under his brother-in-law, Dick Steinborn. Over the next forty years he worked the NWA's Georgia, Central States, and Pacific Northwest territories and crossed the Pacific eight times for tours with All Japan Pro Wrestling, according to POST Wrestling.

He built his ring career as a tag-team specialist. In October 1976 he and his brother Ted Oates beat Great Kojika and Motoshi Okuma in Tokyo for All Japan's All Asia Tag Team Championship, and the Oates brothers also held the NWA Georgia Tag Team title. Teamed with Jesse Ventura, he won the Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship, and he added singles titles in the Central States and Portland territories. On July 4, 1984, in Columbus, he and Ronnie Garvin took the NWA National Tag Team Championship from The Road Warriors, according to PWInsider.

Ten days after that title win, Oates became part of wrestling's business history. As a minority shareholder in Georgia Championship Wrestling, he joined Jack Brisco, Jerry Brisco, and Paul Jones in selling their stock to Vince McMahon, a sale that gave McMahon the promotion's WTBS timeslot in a broadcast still known in wrestling history as Black Saturday, according to POST Wrestling.

Away from the ring, Oates and his wife, Kathy, opened Oates Gym in Columbus in 1979, running it for more than two decades as a hub of the city's fitness scene. He promoted the Southeastern Bodybuilding Championships through the 1980s and into the 1990s and continued to promote wrestling shows around Columbus. He also trained younger wrestlers, among them Marty Jannetty.

Oates later traded the wrestling business for law enforcement, serving as a deputy with the Tybee Island Police Department and the Muscogee County Sheriff's Office.

"It is with heavy hearts that the family of Jerry Oates announces his passing," the family wrote in a statement shared through the Oates Gym Facebook page. He is survived by his son, Bo Oates, his fiancee, Helen Guarnieri, four grandchildren, a great-grandson, his brother, Ted Oates, his sister, Janelle Studdard, two nieces, and his former wife, Patti Trotter. A memorial service was set for September 12 at Evangel Church in Columbus, hosted by Von Hardin and Les Thatcher.

What Oates left in Columbus was concrete: a gym that trained a generation of the city's lifters and bodybuilders, tag-team title reigns that carried his name through three American territories and Japan, and wrestlers he taught firsthand, including a future WWF competitor in Marty Jannetty. He also left a footnote in wrestling's business history, one of the men whose signature helped close the book on Georgia's own promotion and open the next chapter of the sport.