I got into pro wrestling around 86’ (right after Wrestlemania 2)
The WWF blew my 11yr old mind (as that was all we got in the Toronto area). Me and every kid on the street started buying every one of those LJN WWF wrestler toys…went to Maple Leaf Gardens to see Hulk Hogan defend his title against Kamala…
Then I started buying the magazines (PWI, etc) and realized there were other promotions than just the WWF.
But through it all I believed wrestling was real. Even when my parents, older relatives etc tried to tell me it was fake. I remember getting real angry with them. No way when King Kong Bundy splashed some poor jobber on WWF Calvacade on a Sunday afternoon that it was fake. That dude was going to be in traction for 6 months with the way he writhed around on the mat after the match.
I can remember having arguments akin to ‘creation vs evolution’ when debating the authenticity of pro wrestling. What finally made me a non-believer? I had a great uncle who used to work at Maple Leaf Gardens. He said that back in the 60’s when he was there he was privy to inside info, and used to tell people the outcome of matches. From then on, I knew it was fake.
The purpose of this post? Finally realizing wrestling was fake was as hurtful and disappointing as when I learned there was no Santa Claus at 8yrs old
Rich prolly did take a pretty good beating that night, regardless of the planned outcome of the match. Always known as a stiff worker, Hansen is very nearsighted, and as such, was known to sometimes mistime things and land blows with more force than even he intended.
Both of those guys would go on to become World Champions. Tommy Rich had about a week as NWA Champ, wining the belt from Harley Race and then dropping it back to him a few days later. Stan Hansen was AWA World Champ, but became caught in the middle of a tug of war between Verne Gagne and a Japanese promotion. Hansen was committed to defend the title in Japan, but Verne wanted to change that for some reason I don’t remember. Hansen, being a man of his word, did defend the belt over there, Gagne stripped him of the belt, there was probably a dispute abut money, Hansen still had possession of the belt, so he ran over it with his truck before sending it back to Verne.
Can we accept that wrestling promoters exist, professionally, somewhere between win and lose; their fates depend on the organizers; and profits depend on what their wrestlers can command independently?
And Oakminster? After a couple linguistics classes before my Anthro degree i found I could usually cut through the BS by myself.
You speak in what is defined as “cant,” a secret language used by members of an underworld. In your case, carnies. I am familiar with it, but continuing in it as you expect others to pick it up is, well, pretentious. Okay, I’m as pretentious as anybody here, but it broke even my meter.
As for me, I gave up on my reputation years ago. You might still have a good one, so losing the cant, or putting it in parentheses as you acknowledge its pretentiousness, might be in order.
Hmmm. Not trying to offend, that’s just the way I talk. Usually, when I talk about wrestling, it’s with other people familiar with carny terms, so I just do it out of habit. If I was talking about World of Warcraft, I’d use the lingo common to that subset of the gaming population. If anyone needs an Oak to English or Carny to English translation, I’ll be glad to oblige.
What a load of rubbish. This Irish chap with no history of wrestling beyond Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy on Saturday afternoon tv can understand what he is saying perfectly well.
In fact its more interesting than the usual trite discussions in here, he offers an interesting and obviously genuine viewpoint.
I remember going to the matches when Jerry ‘The King" Lawler was fighting Jimmy “Superstar” Dundee and Lance Russel was the announcer - back when Randy Poffo and his Brother Leapin’ Lanny were only fixtures on a local show in Central Ky - even then you knew it was staged, but it was much more believably staged than it is today. I pretty much quit watching a couple of years back - after the Rock and Stone Cold left.
FTR - I prefer ‘staged’ to the term ‘fake’ - as the foirmer gives more prop’s to the participants (both in and out of the ring) while the latter seems to serve only as a “hey you must be stupid for liking that stuff” kind of comment.
back when TV was a little box ,before color TV and before 24 hour programming, Tv looked to wrestling as a cheap way to fill time. Wrestling was big. Baseball was not on TV and football barely existed. This was the era of Gorgeous George, Dick the Bruiser, Verne Gagne and the Sheik. George even was on the Bob Hope Show a few times. Wrestling was everything to early TV.
I was lucky to see most of the classic wrestlers like Fritz Von Eric, Iron Sheik, Danny Hodge, The Spoiler, and Sputnik Monroe. Sputnik must of been near the end of his career. He’d get badly winded and they’d go into an arm bar or leg/head lock. Back then they used those holds to rest. Sputnik’s belly would be going in/out a mile a minute. He had a long feud with Dick Murdoch.
Guys like Bill Watts were in their prime. He was North American Champion in mid-south.
I saw most of the future champions get their start in mid-south. The Freebirds, Ted Dibiase, Jake the Snake, and Junkyard Dog were all real young when I saw them.
I watched mid south events on tv & live starting in 1968. Dallas/Fort Worth wrestling was on cable. I quit watching in the early 1980’s. Wrestling in the 70’s still had a lot of clean moves. The heel would pull hair or tights. He’d sucker punch the Good Guy. Usually the last few minutes of the match was a brawl. Feud matches were brawls from beginning to end. 80’s wrestling got too silly. Guys falling on tables, getting hit with chairs. The believability went out the window. I got fed up and turned it off.
Anyone remember acrobatic wrestling in the 70’s? I remember a young tag team came into mid south that specialized in it. They did flying head locks and grab guys head with their ankles. Flying foot drops, hitting guys in the face with their foot. They’d leap onto the turnbuckle, turn and leap onto the other wrestler. Great stuff.
They didn’t stand a chance in brawls. They were too small. They were acrobats, not thugs.
And, sadly, most of the matches from the 70s and before and before are lost forever. Videotapes were expensive, and were typically carried from one station to another, after which it would be taped over, and–after some number of retapings–discarded. No one ever dreamed that 20-30 years down the road that the concept of “home video” would exist, and that they cound make some serious money off them.
In the 70s, that may have been Terry Latham and Ricky Fields. It was pretty unusual to see smaller guys like that get a push in Mid South at the time, because it was mostly a big man territory. Think they had a short run with the Louisiana Tag Team belts.
Simster, that would probably have been Bill “Superstar” Dundee. His on again off again feud/team with Lawler is legendary in that area. Think Dundee owned a strip club near Jackson, TN at one point, not sure if he still has it or not.
Lance Russell was the perfect announcer for Memphis. Loved the business, was willing to get involved in an angle now and then, usually getting roughed up by a heel before being saved by a babyface to set up a big showdown at the Coliseum on Monday night.
Earl is right about the video tapes. Lot of that stuff is lost forever now, but some of it is still available. Bill Watts gave the rights to his footage to his ex wife as part of a divorce settlement, and it’s being sold through a website, or at least it was. From what I saw, it was pretty expensive, about $20 for a dvd with two episodes or so. There’s also tons of clips on youtube from all over the country with classic angles and matches.
Youtube is how I watch matches from the 80’s and 90’s. I haven’t watched any type of wrestling on tv since ECW died around 2000 or 2001. My brother did order Wrestlemania last year though, so I watched it. That’s how I knew Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker put the younger talent to shame.
He had a long feud with Dick Murdoch.