There was also Quick Draw Rick McGraw, and few people remember that, prior to his run in AWA, Curt Hennig was a fighting jobber for the WWF. Other former jobbers include the Hardy Boys and Mick Foley.
Ric Flair and Greg Valentine teamed together in their early years. I think that is why there is so much similarity between the two (though Ric was always in better shape and few could match Flair’s charisma).
I’ve been there a few times, but never when Matt was working. I’m down in Warwick, so that is a bit of a haul for a brew. My parents are still in Lincoln, basically right across the river from the Friendly Tap.
I ran into Matt’s parents a few years ago. They said, “oh, did you know that he is a wrestler now?” Trust me, Mrs. Hyson, I knew.
Cool. We have to do a RI wrestling fan dopefest some day.
I’m friends with Matt on Facebook, I’ll see if he can be our celebrity guest.
Snuka all the way.
I was a wrestling fan for a brief moment in the early 80’s before it went national. A person in the northeast had no idea about the goings on in other territories unless you read the magazines. In the WWF at that time, nobody was more exciting than Jimmy Snuka.
The Piper feud was really Snuka’s final big run in the WWF, IMHO. Prior to that he had great storylines involving Bob Backlund (when Snuka was a heel) , then as a face with Ray Stevens, and then Don Muraco.
I vividly remember watching the start of the Muraco feud, and was later at one of their matches in Madison Square Garden.
There was a lot of Superfly Snuka in Mickey Roarke’s “Randy the Ram”, I think.
The story was supposed to be based on Jake the Snake. But even Roarke couldn’t pull off looking as messed up as that. He probably did go to Superfly or Macho Man for the wrestling persona he portrayed.
My favorite was Roddy Piper, I followed him from back when he was only a regional pre-WWF wrestler.
Later, Lanny Poffo was my favorite, both in his “Leaping” and “Poet” identities 
Both wrestlers brought a sense of intelligence, wit, and genuine class to ring.
YES - Cowboy Bill. I knew his sons.
All time, either Mick Foley or HBK. Right now, I think CM Punk is just killing it, and I agree with others that Dolph Ziggler has big time potential.
Oh man…The 'Birds were awesome. The first heels I sorta liked, even though I cheered the babyfaces against them.
1978, maybe '79. Mid-South Championship wrestling. A jobber team is waiting in the ring, and all of a sudden there is music? Announcer Boyd Pierce wondered on air where the music was coming from…then Michael and Terry came strutting to the ring.
At first it was just the two of them, but Watts, for some reason I have never understood, did not like Hayes in the ring. He put Roberts with Gordy as a seasoned veteran…and also to protect Gordy. The 'Birds could lose occasionally by someone pinning Buddy, while keeping Gordy as the strong bad ass type. Hayes was mostly relegated to a manager’s role at the time. The 'Birds won the tag belts from Watts & Robley, went on to “blind” JYD in one of the hottest angles anywhere. The blowoff to that feud, with Hayes and JYD in a dog collar/cage match at the Superdome, set an attendance record that I think still stands for a wrestling show in that building.
Here’s a song I ran across the other day that brings back memories…I don’t remember them actually using it as entrance music, but it was on a WCW album…
Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka
The Wild Samoans - Afa, Sika and then later Samula
George “The Animal” Steele
Junkyard Dog
Pedro Morales
Ivan Putsky
“Iron” Mike Sharpe
…and just because this thread is dredging up so many memories…
Our long time ‘heel’ in the Pac NW regional wrestling in the '80s was “Mean” Mike Miller. As kids, we all hated him, booed him, and pretended to be him. He was an amazing wrestling personality.
Ok how about the Jobbers? Who are your favorite ham 'n eggers?
Reno Riggins and Barry Horowitz are mine. Reno Riggins used to be really entertaining beating up Tatanka until his ineveitble comeback. Barry was the guy you couldn’t help cheer for because he was always just this close, but you knew he wouldn’t win.
There was another guy that WWF used once or twice named Fallen Angel who I thought was pretty good. I saw him wrestle on Windy City Wrestling once and thought the big leagues should take a look at him. I don’t know where he is now.
Edit: looks like he’s still around: Christopher Daniels - Wikipedia
Back in the 80s it was Terry Taylor, better known at the time as the Red Rooster. I would pretend to be him a lot because I liked the strut.
In the lae 90s WCW, the most memorable for me is Glacier, who got his clock cleaned by Goldberg in about 20 seconds.
Everyone seems to remember Snuka splashing Muraco off of the top of the cage, but no one ever brings up Snuka missing the cage top splash on Backlund.
Fuzzy memory has me remembering reading that Lex Luger was among the amalgam of characters used to create Randy the Ram, though the story was mostly Jake.
And I think it would be more appropriate to say that even the Snake looks less messed up than Mickey Roarke.
I also liked George “The Animal” Steele. King Kong Bundy was pretty cool, too.
That gimmick was a tragic waste of a damn fine worker. Taylor was a former North American Heavyweight Champion in Mid South, and a great talent. Vince McMahon liked to lure top talent away from the territories, and then ruin them with bad gimmicks. Did the same thing to Hacksaw Duggan, The Sheepherders, One Man Gang, Dusty Rhodes, and to a lesser extent Ted Dibiase…though Dibiase excelled in the Million Dollar Man gimmick and it worked in WWF, it was typically silly and cartoonish.
Dusty and Hacksaw also made their characters work, and the Sheepherders achieved popularity (and payouts) like nothing they had known before. One Man Gang had a decent run in his original persona before being subverted to Akeem the African Dream (or whatever they named him).
I think Vince liked to own the gimmicks used in his company so he couldn’t build a star and then have them go somewhere else for more money. He wanted to repackage Vader as “The Mastadon” but Cornette claims he put his foot down. I can still remember the announcers calling him The Mastadon though.
I still think Owen and Bulldog should have held the big belt at least once each. Heck, Bulldog was in half of the main events at PPVs in 95 and 96.