He was hated as a booker, and pretty much the same as a wrestler too. But he was good. He was an unabashed racist while at the same time booking Black wrestlers without hesitation if they put asses in seats. When WCW formed they voted him off the island. He insisted he’d been cheated out of his due and he’d have kept the company from going down the drain. He’s probably right about that last part, it took a series of incredibly bad decisions to ruin that company and a paper fortune teller could have done the job better.
You could say the same thing about Bill Watts. Despite rumors of racism, he made Junkyard Dog, Ron Simmons, and Tony Atlas into stars. He also made Ernie Ladd his right-hand man to book road events. Show business has a way of breaking barriers.
Money over racism. I don’t think barriers were broken, simply that they (Anderson, Watts, and even McMahon) valued dollars over hatred.
This won’t be Suzuki’s first, or probably even 10th, comedy match. I recently watched one versus Mei Suruga (I hoped I spelled that right as I’m not looking it up now). He knows his role at his age, and is willing to take nearly any payday. Far cry from ~15 years ago when joshi were begging to be brutalized by him to prove their toughness.
Some promoters wouldn’t. I don’t say that to give credit to Ole, Watts, or Vince for not being as racist as possible, just to point out it was worse that that in some territories.
someone in jims Facebook group posted Ole’s obituary from oles local paper the one you know your family sends in … it was the most perfunctory thing ever … and acknowledged his career with one line…
Virgil has passed away at the age of 61.
damn… i met the guy at Halloween Havoc 95 when i went…it was a paid thing organized by a wrestling call-in show on the old “cable radio network” (which was a thing that played the music and various shows on things like public events channels some local systems used to have )
We were going to breakfast at the Imperial Palace buffet and ran into him and the host invited him along and he talked to us for about an hour in a half…there wasn’t much he could tell us but they talked about one of their infamous tours in Germany that no one wanted to be on …a the accommodations were horrible the bood awful…they were going by bus everywhere … and some of the local skinhead hooligans were causing problems to the point they were avoiding whole areas …
I actually met a bunch of people from WCW that weekend so it was fun…
Who?
Oh, Vincent…
Seriously, “Virgil” is named for Virgil Runnels, the longtime producer of WCW’s Saturday evening wrestling shows on TBS during the Jim Crockett years…oh, and I think he wrestled a little as well, under the name Dusty something-or-other.
When he moved from WWE to WCW, his name changed to “Vincent”, named for Vince McMahon.
I’m wondering how long before Rock acknowledges Roman by laying the smackdown on his candy ass.
We’ve got stipulations galore for our Wrestlemania main events. If Cody and Seth beat Rock and Roman on night 1, then the Bloodline is banned from ringside (not that that ever stopped them from showing up anyway), and if Cody loses on Night 2, he can never challenge for the world title again because I guess we’re rehashing AEW angles from 2019 now.
I’m sticking with my prediction from upthread - Rock pins Seth for the win on night 1, then turns on the Bloodline on night 2 allowing Cody to get the win.
TMZ reports that Miro and CJ Perry have called it quits, which I guess means Vince finally got his wish.
As I kind of figured upthread, I think it’d be a more entertaining payoff to the whole ‘bloodline’ thing if Cody gets the win in Night 2 via the ‘bloodlne’ tactic of having his own wrecking crew show up to run interference by, y’know, beating the shit out of people.
I mean, on the one hand, it’d be funny for that to happen in Night 2 after Night 1 sparks an agreed-upon all-hands-on-deck brawl, and both sides say, uh, okay — but, on the other hand, it could also be pretty funny for Night 1 to spark a no-outside-help match on Night 2, and for Cody to bring in outside help anyway, because, seriously, what’s the only reason he didn’t already become the champ?
I don’t think they’re gonna end the Bloodline angle just yet - they’re probably gonna drag it out to next year so they can finally do Rock vs. Roman. Plus, there’s reports that Tama Tonga is coming to WWE now that he’s finished with New Japan and that they might be adding him to the Bloodline in some capacity. (He’s not a blood relation of the Anoa’is, but he’s Haku’s stepson and Dwayne refers to Haku as his uncle which is probably close enough.)
Mercedes Mone is all elite! The former Sasha Banks made her debut on Dynamite - and interestingly enough, her new theme music is a hip-hop-ified version of Dvorak’s 9th, 4th movement, which was WALTER’s music before he got called up.
Darby Allin legit broke his foot on Wednesday night, so his Mt. Everest trip is off until next year.
Just as well. He’d probably film himself surfing an avalanche while Nepal is evacuated.
Just to revisit this: doesn’t the showdown this past Friday make this — even for pro wrestling — even sillier?
This week, Cody got solemnly promised that the Bloodline wouldn’t show up ringside for Roman; it could be just Cody and Roman, one on one. And, as you say, that of course didn’t stop Roman from having the Bloodline show up ringside. And, of course, Cody had guys show up ringside as well, since he (a) of course figured that the stipulation didn’t actually mean anything and he (b) was, of course, right.
So — now — what the heck is the point of that Night 1 match at Wrestlemania? If it ends with a solemn promise that the Bloodline won’t show up ringside for Roman, it’s not just that fans will roll their eyes and set their expectations while snidely replying with a “not that that ever stopped them from showing up anyway”; it’s that, in kayfabe, Cody is already disregarding that. Cody canonically knows that, no matter what happens on Night 1, it’d be foolish to expect anything other than More Of The Same from the usual suspects, and foolish not to have other Guys In Tights there to do likewise; that’s, y’know, what he already did.
They didn’t save this to be some kind of big reveal at Wrestlemania; they just, like, showcased, in prime time, on national television, that, hey, the match on Night 1 changes nothing; the audience could’ve been wondering right up until halfway through the main event whether Cody is gullible enough to think Night 1 mattered, or babyface enough to keep from responding in kind on Night 2, but: haven’t we now seen that the answer is nope?
Tonight on the 4/1/24 RAW, there was an excellent segment in which Chad Gable helps Sami Zayn prepare for Gunther. Real Rocky vibes. It was brilliant and if you missed this show, you need to look it up.
I am so cynical watching it I expect either Gable or Zayn to turn on the other…