That may have been Medusa Micelli.
I am curious what Jim Cornette said because I can’t hear so can someone explain what he said? Thanks
Very true. The Sheik was an excellent technical wrestler. He’s also…well…special.
Nitpick: Madusa.
Back in the 80s, Cornette made his name managing a tag team called the Midnight Express. In one of their matches, this jobber (i.e., designated loser) started getting cute with one of Cornette’s wrestlers, kicking him hard in the posterior from a prone position. Cornette’s team responded by stomping the crap out of the jobber. Backstage, Dusty Rhodes (who was effectively scripting the promotion at this point) let the jobbers have it.
Let’s just say that Jim Cornette does a rather remarkable impression of Dusty Rhodes.
Yikes.
And he wore elf shoes too.
Aww, that’s sweet. 
Mick Foley related a story wherein he met Backlund in 1985 and had his picture taken with him. Foley then asked for his autograph. Backlund thought Mick asked if he would sign the picture, at which point he wrote down his address and told Mick to send the photo there. Mick did, and Backlund signed it and sent it back.
Backlund is known as one of the many really nice guys in wrestling. Until his late comeback he had a difficult time playing a heel because he looked so friendly, even too friendly for his babyface character at times. However according to people who know him, if you crossed him, he’d snap you in half.
Steve Austin was another really nice guy. He was pretty much Smiling Steve Austin until he found his choices limited by injuries. He had to develop his Stone Cold look to have a chance in modern wrestling, and after demonstrating it in the original ECW Vince grabbed him up. I’m not sure about these days though, a few divorces may have left him in a genuine bad mood.
Chris Jericho’s book seems to describe Backlund as full of himself, bringing up obscure subjects and using big words and looking down on others who don’t know what he’s talking about. He even mentions Bob having a rule about not signing an autograph unless a kid could name all US presidents in order.
Steve Austin developed that character after being fired by Eric Bischoff and Hogan not wanting to have anything to do with him. You can find his ECW stuff on you tube, but the seeds for that were planted when he became jaded and pissed off.
I hung out at rec.sport.pro-wrestling in the 90s and I read several live event reviews from fans that mentioned this. Backlund was a heel then and part of his schtick was making autograph requestors name all the presidents. Sounds a bit like his character bled over into real life or vice versa.
This scene was based on a real life match between Andre the Giant and Chuck Wepner than was on the undercard of the Muhamed Ali Antonio Inoki fight. Chuck Wepner’s fight against Ali was the basis for the first Rocky Movie. In the real match Andre scuffled around for one round and then in the second picked Wepner up and threw him out of the ring, just like in the movie. However, instead of getting back in like Rocky did, Andre’s cornerman, Gorilla Monsoon, ran over to Wepner and kneed him in the side of the head and wouldn’t allow him back in the ring so he was counted out. You could see the whole time that was the plan because the WWF had to protect Andre.
Since his divorces were preceded with domestic assaults, I don’t think he was a nice guy at all. Maybe earlier in his career, but certainly not later.
By that point in his career he was reported to been using steroids heavily, drinking heavily, and using the variety of other drugs common to wrestlers at that time. I wouldn’t call his actions then a true reflection of his personality. That isn’t any sort of excuse for the one clear incident of domestic violence though. There are many stories of success and drugs changing wrestlers for the worse. This was just one of many.
Foley’s second book says Backlund used big words because he was illiterate until late adulthood and used big words from books as sort of “English practice”.
Judging from the match, Andre didn’t need a lot of protection.
Thanks for mentioning this, RNATB. Bob Backlund got a degree in physical education from North Dakota State before he started wrestling professionally, but has admitted that he was essentially illiterate all the way through. This was in 1972, so most of the responsible folks at that college are probably beyond accountability, but it’s disgusting none the less.
Well, if you want to yell at people who are still around, there’s always (this isn’t wrestling related) Creighton. More info here.
I live in Omaha. Yes, this is a head-shaker.
When I was a TA at Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), one of my fellow instructors was shaking in his boots over having to flunk a starter on the basketball team. I saw the guy’s work; he was ‘F’ material, all right, and it was difficult to imagine him passing anything at a Big Ten university level. He failed the class handily, but never seemed to have any trouble maintaining eligibility.
OTOH (back to wrassling), the ring was a summer job for George “The Animal” Steele back in the day. He taught PE and coached football and wrestling at Madison High School in Michigan during the school year.
It’s easy to see what happened there. Andre was started out going easy on Wepner and stuck to the rules. He had no intention of hurting Wepner until Wepner started rabbit punching him. Wepner’s rabbit punching increased and that was a sign to Andre and the wrestlers at ringside that all bets were off. Even then Andre caught the head butt on his own hand, he could have knocked Wepner out if he hit him skull to skull. Whatever agreement they think they might have had before the match was broken when Wepner started with the rabbit punching. Gorilla Monsoon was doing what all wrestlers do when some decides to ‘shoot’, so he was protecting Andre but only in the sense that he had his back. The countout was a pretty good outcome for Wepner. If he made it back into the ring Andre could have laid some big hurt on him.
As for Stallone, it’s just one of the aspects of Chuck Wepner’s life that he cashed in on. Wepner was the inspiration for Rocky, the match against Hogan in Rocky III, and his film Lock Up (or so Wepner claims for the last one). But there’s no doubt the Wepner-Ali fight was the inspiration for the main theme of Rocky.
I dunno, it worked for me. Crazy Bob Backlund and his cross-face chicken wing was pretty effective on a young, only a few vigintillions of years old Yog Sothoth.