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I've been watchign those Memphis tapes on Amazon Prime and I gotta find out who did the overdub music because its kind of wonderful. Totally not meant to play over the unlicensed music but still really wild.
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Jan 22, 2019 17:39
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DJExile posted:"Is Terry Funk" Terry Funk once built a giant effigy of Dusty Rhodes in his backyard and burned it
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Jan 22, 2019 17:41
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Excited to report I found some mid 80s ajpw TV rips on a old hard drive, and some have original commercials.
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Jan 22, 2019 19:29
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So I've never watched Bruiser Brody but I'm instantly in love from those Puerto Rico videos.
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Jan 22, 2019 19:33
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Gumball Gumption posted:So I've never watched Bruiser Brody but I'm instantly in love from those Puerto Rico videos. Bruiser had one match and it was a wild brawl. What made it work was Bruiser is a crazy brawler that forced his opponents to brawl along with him. Except for the hour plus match against Inoki on NJPW World. One of the few times Bruiser wasn't leading the match.
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Jan 22, 2019 19:43
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Gumball Gumption posted:So I've never watched Bruiser Brody but I'm instantly in love from those Puerto Rico videos. Imagine that and Hansen Magic
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Jan 22, 2019 19:47
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Suplex Liberace posted:Excited to report I found some mid 80s ajpw TV rips on a old hard drive, and some have original commercials. oh maaaaaannnnnn 
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Jan 22, 2019 20:52
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2KJ-g-QgMk Brody is known for his brawling but he could do more than just brawling.
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Jan 22, 2019 22:45
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So glad to see this thread, I remember the possibility of it was brought up in one of the old WWE discussion threads, and I'm happy to see someone got around to doing it.  I started watching wrestling as a kid in the mid-1980s. My first-ever exposure to pro wrestling wasn't the WWF, the AWA, or even the Crockett-era NWA. Nope, it was when my brother and his friend put on World Class Championship Wrestling shortly after Saturday morning cartoons one weekend. I don't even remember who it was that I first saw wrestling that day, but I was pretty much instantly hooked. I watched a ton of wrestling as a kid. We mainly got TV out of the Chicago area, so it was mostly WWF, Crockett-era NWA, WCCW, and the occasional AWA show (if the planets aligned long enough to give us decent reception). At one point during the height of 80s wrestling popularity, there was a half-hour clip show shown on one of the Chicago UHF stations that played stuff both old and new from various territories, which is where I got my first taste of stuff like Mid-South/UWF, Puerto Rico, and various others. During a given week back in those days, I could catch something like 6 or 7 hours of wrestling (more if I went over to my grandparents' house; they had cable, so I could watch the Crockett-era version of World Championship Wrestling as well as whatever cable show the WWF had as well) between the clip show and the various syndicated stuff that the WWF, NWA, and WCCW had. And friends, let me tell you, it was a great time to be a young wrestling fan. 
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Jan 22, 2019 23:45
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https://flannelgraphrecords.bandcamp.com/album/tougher-than-shoe-leather Terry Funk released an album last year. It's basically a shoot interview and talks a ton about his career. It's available on Spotify too.
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Jan 23, 2019 19:58
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Sydney Bottocks posted:So glad to see this thread, I remember the possibility of it was brought up in one of the old WWE discussion threads, and I'm happy to see someone got around to doing it. Any specific wrestlers or angles you remember?
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Jan 24, 2019 03:48
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Aesop Poprock posted:Any specific wrestlers or angles you remember? Off the top of my head: I remember seeing a bunch of the classic WCCW feuds and angles as they played out (and little did I know of the carny mind of Fritz Von Erich at the time, and how he twisted actual real-life tragedies into wrestling angles). Obviously the Von Erichs vs. the Freebirds, and of course stuff like the Von Erichs vs. Chris Adams and Gino Hernandez (and their subsequent breakup which led to the "blinding" of Adams and was followed by Hernandez' actual death). I also remember watching live as WCCW split from the NWA to become their own (ill-fated) promotion, with the reason being offered that Ric Flair was always getting himself DQ'ed and retaining his title, so the new WCWA would have the title change hands on DQs and countouts. As far as wrestlers and other personalities, along with the previously mentioned people, I remember seeing a lot of others that would later become famous elsewhere: The Dingo (later Ultimate) Warrior, a young Rick Rude (who I think was originally billed under his actual name of "Rick Rood"), Percy Pringle III (later Paul Bearer), Missy Hyatt (who, to young me, was one of the hottest women around at the time), and a bunch of the usual WCCW mainstays: Bruiser Brody, "Iceman" King Parsons, Skandor Akbar and his stable, Gary Hart, Brian Adias, etc. I remember thinking Al Perez had what it took to become a big star, and sometimes wondered why he never made it any further than he did. Same with Terry Taylor. One night I watched a WCCW show where they aired "classic" WCCW matches, with the main event being Harley Race defending the NWA belt against Kevin Von Erich...and then a couple hours later, in a moment of serendipity, I watched the WWF's syndicated show that featured their newest signing: Harley Race.  I didn't get to see too much of the Mid-South/UWF area, but what I did see I liked, particularly after Watts (taking a page out of Fritz's book, I'm guessing) took Mid-South out of the NWA and renamed it the UWF, which had poached a lot of the WCCW talent mentioned above (so there was a little bit of familiarity there for me), and often had super bloody brawls. And a certain young man named called Sting, who I remember mainly from tagging with Eddie Gilbert at the time. I also remember when Crockett purchased the UWF from Bill Watts, and how that ended up shaking out. The Crockett-era NWA was my jam, though. I watched the WWF, of course, but even then it was starting to get a little too cartoony for my tastes. I much preferred the NWA as it seemed more "real" to me at the time. As a kid, I wanted to be a wrestler, of course; and in my naive youth I thought "well I'll go work in the WWF, as they're much much safer than the NWA."  I saw a lot of the stuff that's considered historic nowadays in Crockett's promotion: from the origin of the Four Horsemen to the Magnum T.A./Tully Blanchard "I Quit" match, to the moment it was reported that Magnum had suffered a horrible car accident and Nikita Koloff turning on his fellow "Russians" to team with Dusty; to the classic feud between the Rock and Roll Express and the Midnight Express (and then the Midnight vs. Midnight feud when Paul E. came in)...I could go on, but it was definitely a case of "my cup runneth over" when it came to classic 1980s wrestling moments.
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Jan 24, 2019 04:16
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whats everyone's favorite territorial midcard championship
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Jan 24, 2019 04:52
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Any brass knuckle or karate title
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Jan 24, 2019 04:58
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Smoking Crow posted:Terry Funk once built a giant effigy of Dusty Rhodes in his backyard and burned it That was just a hog roast
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Jan 24, 2019 10:36
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Sydney Bottocks posted:Off the top of my head: God we never know how great we had it as kids. I'm sure there was a ton of bad stuff in there amongst the great, but maaaan what was good was great.
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Jan 24, 2019 11:45
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mariooncrack posted:https://flannelgraphrecords.bandcamp.com/album/tougher-than-shoe-leather His 2nd album is better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkH49U9ZCj8
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Jan 24, 2019 12:54
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Jerusalem posted:God we never know how great we had it as kids. I'm sure there was a ton of bad stuff in there amongst the great, but maaaan what was good was great. Most definitely! I don't exaggerate when I say it was a great time to be a fan, and that's even before you get into things like tape trading or whatnot. I couldn't afford to tape trade due to the whole "being a kid" thing (my allowance had to mostly cover the costs of comic books and D&D game stuff, after all), so I used to keep up with the other territories (at least, the ones that were still around by the mid-late 1980s) by reading the Apter mags and renting whatever tapes were available at the local video stores alongside the usual WWF and NWA tapes at the time. I should add that even though I'm a Midwestern boy, I never gave much of a poo poo for the AWA. Partly because we could only get the Chicago UHF station that ran the AWA's syndicated show when the planets aligned long enough for us to pick up a fuzzy signal; and partly because the whole thing just seemed low-rent to me at the time, especially when compared to the WWF or the NWA. The WWF was cartoony, but at least they had good production values and often licensed popular songs for their shows. The NWA was less glamorous, but made up for it by being a far better product in terms of in-ring action (and JCP-era NWA is probably my favorite wrestling fed of all time, with WCCW and ECW tied for second place) and it had two of the greatest talkers of all time in Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair. The AWA, by comparison, was just boring to me, and this was long before I learned that it was essentially Verne's vanity promotion.
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Jan 24, 2019 18:41
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DJExile posted:oh maaaaaannnnnn i watched the 1st episode of these today and what a coincidence it starts with Atsushi Onitas 1st retirement ceremony in 1985! Baba calls him to the ring and he is carried by I assume young boys like hes a roman emperor leading a progression of the roster, which i suppose he is doing.  also his tie is dope. Baba and someone else each give him an envelope and there is much cheering. Everyone wrestler but him is in AJPW track Suits 1st match is Giant Baba & Akio Sato vs. Killer Khan & Haruka Eigen and it is joined in progress and that is very good. This match was largely forgettable except Sato hitting a brutal wrist lock throat kick on Killer Kahn and Baba doing the big dude walk over spot on kahn to chop eigen off the apron. the crowd being hot for everything and also Kahns loud karate screeches before his strikes saved this match and it was pretty short. 3 Bruce Lee yeeee-ahhhs out of 5 2nd match was Riki Choshu & Animal Hamaguchi vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Motoshi Okuma and it is not joined in progress and that is very good because this match owns. I am not 100% sure on my 1985 ajpw story lines but it seems that Tenryu and Choshu do not like each other. Tenryu throws his very cool wrestling jacket at Choshu just to piss him off. Okuma looks just like Bill Dundee imho please dont call me out on this. Tenryu and Choshu start the match off and just go at it with the crowd loving it. Animal and Okuma get in and trade some gnarly headbutts and strikes. The match slows down as the teams try to wear each other down. Until Riki has Tenryus legs grapevined for the SCORPION DEATHLOCK and Okuma has to scramble to free him. He does but soon he is on the bottom of the deathlock and its Tenryu coming in to save him via brutal Enzuigiris  season 5 dr venture seen here trying to stop the murderous Genichiro Tenryu Okuma is then killed with a double team piledriver. But his fighting spirit is maxed and he kicks out and comes back with some headbutts including a super lovely looking leaping one before Tenryu gets back in and beats up animal. He sends animal outside and the match breaks down. Animal gets back in the ring blooded up everyone starts hitting big moves. Shout out to Animal with the most violent Samoan drop ive ever seen. Tenryu gets animal in a texas cloverleaf and Riki hits a warp speed double rebound lariat to break it up. More double team moves on Okuma and riki pins him off a lariat for the W. Very Good match, always love seeing Tenryu and Choshu a solid 4 Bill Dundees out of 5 Last match is Jumbo Tsuruta & Great Kabuki vs. Tiger Jeet Singh & Gypsy Joe and after only showing Tigers entrance because it rules the match is then joined in progress. I love jumbo but this match was boring and with annoying reffing. Gypsy Joe has sweet boots but looks like a old man and twice during the match jumbo just muscled him up with out help. Once to throw him at tiger to force him to fight him very badass go jumbo. the other was when he had had enough of selling for him and just got up, picked him up and airplane spinned him. After that Kabuki was in with funny strikes, Joe responds by falling out of the ring and stumbling over the barricade to the crowd. Kabuki then hits him in the head with a chair for good measure so Joe hurls a chair to Jeet in the ring while kabuki is getting back in. Jeet uses that on Kabuki till Jumbo takes it and wallops him on the back twice before just tossing the chair. Ref allows this to happen, match continues it breaks down crowd dies. Jumbo and Jeet brawl to the back and then back to the ring while kabuki hits the crab walk fist drop from no mercy. Love jumbo but this match was lame. On a scale of Child Size Tsuruta to Jumbo Tsuruta i give this match a small Tsututa.  take notes brock Pretty ok opening to 1985 AJPW next episode should have Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith vs. Tiger Mask & Mighty Inoue on it so that should be fun.
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Mar 7, 2019 19:21
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oh hell yes I'm so glad this is back. Onita being carried in like that rules
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Mar 7, 2019 19:26
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He did not look stable or very happy.
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Mar 7, 2019 23:28
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Baby Arn Anderson, working for some reason as Jim Verderoso in 1982 GCW. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjdteAH9UOE&t=1763s Gordon Solie has legit background info on him, which is wild as Arn had maybe a couple of TV matches under his belt. He had started working in late 1981. (If the counter isn't working, Arn's match with Ron Bass is at 29:23.)
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Mar 27, 2019 03:47
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man that shot of Ron Bass from behind, Hat, Vest, Chaps, Boots, no pants startled me.
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Mar 27, 2019 14:36
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shoutout to the other 3 people that subscribed to NWA On Demand when that was a thing. Has anyone ordered from this site: http://wrestlingepicenter.com/cart/product_info.php?products_id=4737 I thought of rounding out my collection.
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Apr 19, 2019 19:39
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I'm one of those weirdos who likes researching old match results. Currently, I'm looking at 1950s Utah as they have a nice collection of digitized stuff available for free. Utah was not the world's most exciting territory in the 1950s. Salt Lake City was its base and the territory stretched into Idaho, bits of eastern Washington and occasionally into western Colorado and briefly, into Montana. Big stars did not go to this territory. I think Thesz maybe made one or two runs with the NWA belt during the whole decade. Gorgeous George was on the downside of his fame when he stopped. There was excitement in late 1953, however, because the bear was coming through the territory. Jerry Graham and Chuck Molnar were the handlers for this particular bear, named Gorgeous Gus. Gorgeous Gus had wrestled in Phoenix and in Canada from August-early November. Gus was supposed to wrestle Graham and Wee Willie Davis in Phoenix on November 16, but was not interested in participating. The Arizona Republic figured the bear was looking for food. Days before the matches, Graham took Gus to the newspaper office to assure them the bear was a real bear. There was trouble from the start during the Utah-Idaho tour. Gorgeous Gus refused to cooperate in Provo on November 24. Graham and Molnar couldn't muzzle him for his match. One of them said he figured the bear was ready to hibernate. Gus did not wrestle on November 27 in Pocatello, where he supposed to face Graham. The bear again refused to wear the muzzle. The next day, November 28, Graham was supposed to face Gorgeous Gus in Vernal, Utah, a town located southeast of Salt Lake City. The Vernal Express picked up the tribulations of Gorgeous Gus in its December 3 edition: quote:Promoter [Orvel] Hullinger wishes to extend his regrets to the many customers that did not get to see Gorgeous Gus wrestle last week. The bear was a vicious beast with a very ugly temper. In the struggle to muzzle him, he was suffocated. There were twelve men in the dressing room helping hold the ropes on the bear's head and paws. One of the knots around the animal's head was pulled too tight and before the rope could be cut, Gorgeous Gus was dead, Mr. Hullinger also wishes to thank the Vernal Fire Department for their efforts in trying to revive the bear. It seems that Graham wasn't keen on how the bear died. On December 4, the Arizona Republic mentioned Gus' death, but what Graham told local promoter John Contos was very different than the Vernal story. Contos' story was the bear died in Denver, shot to death in the ring by Graham after the muzzle fell off and Gus bit Graham badly. (Graham had previously told the Republic he carried a gun with him just in case.) Problem is, results show Graham wasn't in Denver during that time. Shooting a wild bear to death in self-defense definitely sounds more heroic than strangling your bear to death because he didn't want to do something bears aren't born to do. I can't tell how long Graham had Gorgeous Gus. There were multiple Gorgeous Guses. Graham was touring with another one in the fall of 1954 in Georgia. Gus was in Louisiana in January 1955. Graham told the Arizona Republic Gus had wrestled 1,000 times. He also told the paper Gus was five years old. Only the latter statement reads as possibly accurate.
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Jun 12, 2019 00:19
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RC and Moon Pie posted:I'm one of those weirdos who likes researching old match results. Currently, I'm looking at 1950s Utah as they have a nice collection of digitized stuff available for free. Utah was not the world's most exciting territory in the 1950s. Salt Lake City was its base and the territory stretched into Idaho, bits of eastern Washington and occasionally into western Colorado and briefly, into Montana. The whole wrestling bear thing has always been sorta fascinating and really hosed up to me. Like, it seems like an extremely risky thing to do, for a situation that MIGHT draw. I don't know what the gates were like, I assume they must have been good at some point though, otherwise why try it? Seems like not just a risk to the wrestler but the fans, too. Even with the muzzle. I think at one point the story was Stu Hart was using a bear and letting it sleep under his porch? El Gallinero Gros fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 04:33
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El Gallinero Gros posted:The whole wrestling bear thing has always been sorta fascinating and really hosed up to me. Like, it seems like an extremely risky thing to do, for a situation that MIGHT draw. I don't know what the gates were like, I assume they must have been good at some point though, otherwise why try it? Seems like not just a risk to the wrestler but the fans, too. Even with the muzzle. Dave McKigney's bear up and decided one day to kill McKigney's girlfriend. McKigney owned the bear for more than 20 years, but at the crux, it's still a wild animal. If Stu Hart had a wrestling bear, it probably wasn't for very long. Bear matches weren't something you could run every week. They tended to be booked like Gorgeous George, little people or Andre the Giant; special attractions in the territory for a week or two at all the towns, then onto the next territory. Jim Cornette and Dave Meltzer discuss bear wrestling here with a Gene DuBois match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EH-fV9szTs DuBois, of course, was another wrestling bear wrangler. That makes at least five of them touring during the 1950s. In addition to McKigney, Graham (and Molnar) and DuBois, there were Tuffy Truesdale and Al Szasz. Szasz took it a step further and occasionally brought an alligator the ring. This is a Truesdale bear, Victor, taking on The Destroyer. Watch to the end and see Victor get his soft drink. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjnuVFmiDfM
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Jun 12, 2019 07:35
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Bonus: Gary Hart vs. bear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZEnk4jiHDM The short cage around the ring was for extra protection.
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Jun 12, 2019 07:42
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Here's young Tracy Smothers wrestling an unmuzzled bear and actually taking it down to the mat because Tracy is, like many wrestlers of his era, completely insane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25BIVy7g0X8
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Jun 12, 2019 18:45
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Tracy Smothers is drat near at the top of the list of "wrestlers I am loving stunned are still alive"
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Jun 13, 2019 14:16
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