Hamilton decided to strike out on his own working as a singles wrestler. As a singles wrestler, he first got a promotional push by NWA Western States booker, Doc Sarpolis, who billed him as "Silent" Joe Hamilton. Hamilton has revealed in recent years that the "Silent" moniker was because he was not very good at interviews and promos. After working in Texas, he worked in Oklahoma and Florida. When he left Florida in 1961 he intended to return to Oklahoma but an offer from Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) would change the direction of Hamilton's career. Masked Assassins The original plan for Hamilton was that he was going to wrestle under a mask as "The Iron Russian", but once he 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. The Assassins longest stay with one promotion was from 1968 to 1972 where they worked for Georgia Championship Wrestling and held the NWA Georgia Tag Team Championship a record-breaking 12 times. While in Georgia the team worked storylines with teams such as ”the Torres Brothers” (Ramon and Alberto), Terry and Dory Funk and the team of Ray Gunkel and Buddy Fuller. Their most successful and profitable feud came against the team of ”Tiny” Smith and Luke Brown known as "The Kentuckians". The matches between the Assassins and the Kentuckians drew sell out crowds up the east coast of