Austin began his professional wrestling career in 1971 the Florida/Alabama area. At the time, African American wrestlers in the south were utilized in very specific ways. They were mainly restricted to wrestling other African Americans and if they were to wrestle white opponents, they were always fan favorites who could not cheat or use underhanded means to beat their white opponents. These restrictions meant that Austin worked as a face initially and mainly in singles competition since no all African American tag teams were used at that time.

In late 1971 Austin along with a man who had been fighting for equality in wrestling for a long time, Sputnik Monroe formed a tag team, what was unique for the team at the time was that they were heels (bad guys) a first for the Southern United States wrestling promotions. Norvell would dye a blond streak in his hair to match Monroe's and even hinted that Austin could be Sputnik Monroe's son. Together the team won the NWA Mid-America version of the NWA Southern Tag Team Championship from the team of Bearcat Brown and Len Rossi in May 1972. They’d lose the titles to Karl and Kurt Von Brauner about a month later. Winning the tag team gold was far from the only achievement Austin and Monroe had while in Mid-America, in what was a reversal of an infamous angle that saw "The Interns" paint Bearcat Brown with white paint the heel duo dropped black paint on white wrestler Robert Fuller. This lead Sputnik Monroe to state that "Black is Beautiful" to which Norvell Austin replied "White is wonderful", something that would become a catch phrase for the team.

On October 1, 1973, Austin won his first singles title when he became the NWA Mississippi Heavyweight Champion, something which helped cement Austin Novell as one of the pioneers in breaking down the racial barriers in the south.

In 1980 a new team was formed in Southeast Championship Wrestling when Dennis Condrey teamed up with Randy Rose and won the NWA Southeast Tag Team Championship. The team started a storyline feud with Austin who wrestled as "The Junkyard Dog" before the more famous version of the Junkyard Dog used the name in wrestling. Austin would adopt the masked persona of "The Shadow" and together with Brad Armstrong defeat the team for the Southeast tag team gold on May 4, 1981, and held onto the gold until July 27, 1981, where Condrey and Rose regained the titles. After the title loss Austin turned on Armstrong and joined up with Condrey and Rose to form a stable known as The Midnight Express. The name came from the fact that they all dressed in black, drove black cars, and were out partying past midnight. Together the three men won the AWA Southern Tag Team title in the CWA and invoked the "Freebird Rule" to allow any two of the three men to defend the titles on a given night.

Later on in his career he would team with Koko B. Ware as one half of the "Pretty Young Things".

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