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What to share fond memories of the glory days of the WWE? Share them. Have a favorite WWF match you want to share? Post them. Have a question about 1960s WWWF wrestling? Ask them.
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Jan 13, 2024 23:07
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I'll start with the question that I've had for awhile. Was the old WWF only show the 45 minute episodes if WWF Superstars? It was only once a week?
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Jan 13, 2024 23:09
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yeah it was only superstars before raw dropped. i think we got superstars here on tv on saturday mornings
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Jan 13, 2024 23:14
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Superstars was the syndicated show but they also had Wrestling challenge in Syndication and had shows like Prime time on USA in cable too.
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Jan 13, 2024 23:17
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Also didn't the MSG shows get televised at least New York?
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Jan 13, 2024 23:19
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If I wanted to watch old WWF, what year would be the best place to start? When Hogan first joins? Would this be a good playlist to start with? 1979 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLppvcOyXyg7hO881cZEbCMv5Gflw_oKUt&si=xZj3H_TAgSUmAgak Or just jump to 1980-1983? https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTP0s7JwUsGxRDXyIjEYWCuZ9xEEh_hOC&si=QlC2pExbEZUyLQoq I know I want to watch the PPVs too.
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Jan 13, 2024 23:24
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Yeah they did and I think Spectrum also showed the Philly shows on TV as well
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Jan 13, 2024 23:24
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I know nearly nothing about the WWF before Summerslam 1998 other than what I've seen from WWE documentaries from the WWE Network. I'd love to know more about the brief period of time that the WWE had Alundra Blaze and a bunch of Joshi wrestlers on the show like Aja Kong. I know that it was a failed attempt and eventually some of those women made it to WCW but it never became a big deal there either I also can't say I'm a big Bret Hart fan because I never really saw any of his greatest matches or feuds and only saw him in WCW where he went on to get a concussion almost immediately Lastly, I recall that WWF briefly considered bringing Toryumon/Michinoku Pro wrestlers in as their version of the cruiserweights with Great Sasuke & Kaientai, but it never went anywhere and the light heavyweight belt was completely irrelevant by the time the Attitude era kicked off Tell me about those things
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Jan 13, 2024 23:29
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Tampa Bae posted:I know nearly nothing about the WWF before Summerslam 1998 other than what I've seen from WWE documentaries from the WWE Network. Aja Kong and Chaparita Asari had a match on Raw, November 21 1995. Jerry Lawler made a bunch of fat jokes, then Asari's nose got broken and was gushing blood, and then women's wrestling was basically gone from WWF programming for the next several years.
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Jan 13, 2024 23:40
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bruno sammertino
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Jan 13, 2024 23:41
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If you got 8 hours to kill this is (part 1 of) a pretty good timeline of the company from 1982 - 1992 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg1iC7_drhM
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Jan 13, 2024 23:48
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Xerzes posted:Aja Kong and Chaparita Asari had a match on Raw, November 21 1995. Jerry Lawler made a bunch of fat jokes, then Asari's nose got broken and was gushing blood, and then women's wrestling was basically gone from WWF programming for the next several years. Going further back weren't the jumping bomb angels in WWF before the 90's which helped build the Joshi scene in Japan?
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Jan 13, 2024 23:52
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Tampa Bae posted:I'm aware of that, and I know that it lead to Blaze dumping the title in the trash on Nitro, but all I remember coming of that is Blaze and Akira Hakuto having a battle over motorcycles, the title getting ignored again in WCW until a parody of Jim Ross won it. joshi was already big before then.
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Jan 14, 2024 00:36
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STONE COLD 64 posted:joshi was already big before then.
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Jan 14, 2024 00:51
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Joshi was MASSIVE in Japan, there's a reason every anime of the time had a joshi reference or episode. AJW (All Japan Women's Wrestling) ruled so much. You can even find full five hour shows on YouTube complete with subs and I highly recommend seeking them out.
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Jan 14, 2024 00:53
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Mr Hootington posted:What to share fond memories of the glory days of the WWE? Share them. The other night I watched the angle where Big Bossman turns face after realizing Slick and DiBiase lied to him, it's a reminder that WWE was capable of doing simple, good angles when they felt like it
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Jan 14, 2024 00:59
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I was convinced I saw an actual on screen murder when this happened https://youtu.be/n9LrlblZeCY?si=8U72uT-80EQI4ww3
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Jan 14, 2024 01:04
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Erin M. Fiasco posted:Joshi was MASSIVE in Japan, there's a reason every anime of the time had a joshi reference or episode. AJW (All Japan Women's Wrestling) ruled so much. You can even find full five hour shows on YouTube complete with subs and I highly recommend seeking them out.
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Jan 14, 2024 01:12
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In fact the reason the Jumping Bomb Angel's did so much WWF in the 90s is they could never match the Crush Girls in Japan for popularity. Anyway WWF hosed it up in usual ways but I'm not sure even if they didn't the Joshi/Women's experiment would of worked in the 90's. Unlike with the cruiserweight where you had a decent amount of Canadian/US talent available to stock the division there wasn't anywhere near the level of US woman working at a high level. And I'm not sure flying talen in from Japan would of worked long term
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Jan 14, 2024 01:46
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Tampa Bae posted:I'm aware of that, and I know that it lead to Blaze dumping the title in the trash on Nitro, but all I remember coming of that is Blaze and Akira Hakuto having a battle over motorcycles, the title getting ignored again in WCW until a parody of Jim Ross won it. Jumping Bomb Angels were a team in ZenJo from about '85 until '89 when Yamazaki aged out and was forced to retire. They were in WWF through '87 and the first ¼ '88, feuding with the Glamour Girls. And yes, others have said but the ZenJo popularity in that time was much less about about working with WWF & more about how big Crush Gals. And yes, you are right about plans for Michinoku Pro guys to come in. In '97 WCW was getting good reception for the Cruiserweight division so WWF decided to reactivate their Light Heavyweight belt, which at that point was part of the J-Crown which means Ultimo Dragon technically defenses the WWF LHW title at Starrcade. They held an 8 man tournament, I vaguely remember Sasuke was meant to win initially but Taka ended up being Japan's rep in the tournament instead, maybe because Sasuke was overheard talking about taking the belt back to MPW and never returning? Rest of KaientaiDX (except Shiryu/Kaz Hayashi who ended up in WCW) ended up in WWF in 1998. Vince was never going to promote small guys well, he was always obsessed with big larger than life guys. projecthalaxy posted:Also didn't the MSG shows get televised at least New York? Yeah, on the MSG Network, I believe Boston Garden shows and Philly Spectrum shows also got broadcast in their local markets, and while it's been a while since I looked quite a few of those shows were on YouTube.
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Jan 14, 2024 01:59
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Mr Hootington posted:If I wanted to watch old WWF, what year would be the best place to start? When Hogan first joins? This is entirely dependent on if you're interested in pre-Hogan WWF history. Vince Jr takes over from his father in June 1982, Hogan arrives in December 1983. I personally find pre-Hogan (even pre-1985) WWF hard to watch because it's both a very old school format of squash matches, but a lot of the personalities of the time come off less exciting to me. I'd say start with Hogan's return to the WWF in December 83 + the December 1983 MSG show where Backlund loses the title to Iron Sheik, as that's the dawn of...it's not even "modern" WWF by this point, but it's when Vince's vision is truly taking off with his Champion.
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Jan 14, 2024 02:09
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https://youtu.be/i9WjLrR-hss?si=9dUm2wR-sQ4E4Yko https://youtu.be/rQSxFRhcTrs?si=5k1B70tNBbosuMjx https://youtu.be/_FW0btrx6gs?si=vThkHQdbhr3zF_6A A beautiful vision of heaven
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Jan 14, 2024 03:07
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NienNunb posted:I was convinced I saw an actual on screen murder when this happened Seeing this completely hosed me up the first time I saw it as a kid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwpZC1hgaKc The follow-up where Brutus came back, beat Bass, cut up his hat and was then dancing around wearing it was VERY cathartic. Also, being a kid and THIS being my first ever exposure to The Ultimate Warrior was a hell of a thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzmWjqzOtfk We rewound it and rewatched it over and over and over and over again 
Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jan 14, 2024 |
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Jan 14, 2024 03:11
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thatguyclint posted:This is entirely dependent on if you're interested in pre-Hogan WWF history. Vince Jr takes over from his father in June 1982, Hogan arrives in December 1983. Thanks I will keep this in mind when starting my WWF watch. I've been debating if I want to go back and watch this after completing 1990 WCW right before Flair jumps to WWF for a year. Then watch both alternating.
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Jan 14, 2024 03:13
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There was an old tape I had growing up, showing a tournament of some kind from the early 80s. Key things I remember: Jessie Ventura and I think McMahon on commentary, maybe Gorilla Monsoon Ivan Putski the Polish Hammer and Mr Wonderful were in it. Mr Wonderful was a face with Hulk Hogan. I think Adrian Adonis pre Flower Shop was in it - I think Jessie Ventura mentioned they were in a team called the East West Connection. Macho was in it and used his macho mitt / roll of quarters stashed in his trunks to win. But I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the tournament. Anyone have any clue?
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Jan 14, 2024 05:43
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projecthalaxy posted:Also didn't the MSG shows get televised at least New York? Yup. The schedule was infrequent but they were often on Saturdays I think
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Jan 14, 2024 06:12
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thatguyclint posted:I personally find pre-Hogan (even pre-1985) WWF hard to watch because it's both a very old school format of squash matches, but a lot of the personalities of the time come off less exciting to me. Same, plus most of the matches even on their bigger shows are so slow and plodding compared to basically everywhere else. The pre-Hogan crew didn't do poo poo in the ring for the most part.
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Jan 14, 2024 06:17
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CombineThresher posted:Same, plus most of the matches even on their bigger shows are so slow and plodding compared to basically everywhere else. The pre-Hogan crew didn't do poo poo in the ring for the most part. To me a lot of wrestling simply doesn’t age well. There’s a few matches that still hold up but ultimately so much of the really old stuff I used to watch suddenly bores me after a few minutes. I can’t watch an episode of Mid South for more than a few minutes before I start skipping stuff. I think that’s also something Terry Funk always told Dave Meltzer: a classic match from back in the day was hot because that’s just where wrestling was at the time.
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Jan 14, 2024 06:24
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Good thread, thanks for posting.  I've seen some good matches between Bull Nakano and Alundra Blayze and Heidi Lee Morgan in WWF. They're probably garbage when compared to All Japan Women's and the like, but I was surprised that the fed had some decent women's matches in 1994.
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Jan 14, 2024 09:02
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Nystral posted:There was an old tape I had growing up, showing a tournament of some kind from the early 80s. Ivan Putski & Macho being in it helped narrow that down, they only really crossed over in '85, almost certain the show you are referring to is The Wrestling Classic, a 16 man 1 night tournament that was the 2nd ever Pay Per View event WWF ran (the first national PPV? IIRC Mania 1 was mostly on closed circuit & was only on PPV in a handful of markets). There was the guys you named plus Corporal Kirschner, Dynamite Kid, Nikolai Volkoff, Ricky Steamboat, Davey Boy Smith, Iron Sheik, Junkyard Dog, Moondog Spot, Terry Funk, Tito Santana, Don Muraco & Bob Orton, & there was also a WWF World Heavyweight Title match with Hogan vs Piper. Show had Gorilla & Jesse on commentary, but was "presented" by Vince & Alfred Hayes. If you have the nostalgia for it then I'm sure it's a fun watch, but if you don't then it's not good. Nothing goes over 10 minutes, more than half the maches are sub-5 minutes, & it's the 1980s so there's a bunch of unsatisfying finishes. They give us Savage vs Steamboat years before Mania III & it gets 4 minutes 
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Jan 14, 2024 09:50
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I was honestly surprised to find alot of my favorite wrestlers from when I was first exposed to wrestling through Hulk Hogan era wrestling tapes around the age of 5 where actually heels. I thought the Natural Disasters where awesome because they where so large and thought the Yokozuna was cool because a sumo wrestler crushing you was a devastating move and he deserved to be champion because of it.
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Jan 15, 2024 04:06
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Regardless of your thoughts of Hulk Hogan and the way he was booked, the build to WrestleMania V starting at WrestleMania IV is still my gold standard of long-term storytelling.
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Jan 15, 2024 04:15
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https://www.reddit.com/r/deadlockpw...nt=share_button a loving tribute to 2009 Raw
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Jan 15, 2024 15:17
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Tampa Bae posted:I also can't say I'm a big Bret Hart fan because I never really saw any of his greatest matches or feuds and only saw him in WCW where he went on to get a concussion almost immediately Bret's WWF career is an interesting one. While he was tremendously talented as a singles guy, he spent the better part of a decade tagged with Jim Neidhart. And that was fine, as tag team wrestling kind of mattered back then. Bret still wrestled singles here and there, like getting a sweet match with Ricky Steamboat and the infamous Tom Magee match. If you don't know that one, Bret had a filmed house show match against a green wrestler who looked like a time-displaced Kenny Omega but more jacked and with none of the talent. Bret carried him to such a good match that Vince thought, "Holy poo poo! This Magee guy is going to replace Hogan!" Then that didn't pan out and for decades that match was a holy grail for wrestling fans. The Hart Foundation became champs a couple times and dropped the titles to the Nasty Boys at WrestleMania 7. It was good timing as the Nasty Boys were planned to eventually drop the belts to the Legion of Doom and that was pretty much the climax of Vince's interest in the tag team division. Neidhart started doing commentary and Bret went off to finally do his own singles run. This led to SummerSlam 1991, where he had a fantastic match with Mr. Perfect to win the Intercontinental Championship. Bret was one of the more fondly remembered IC champs and was involved with that belt for a full year, notable for a classic Roddy Piper match at WrestleMania 8 (one of the few things that show had going for it). He ended up dropping it in the main event of SummerSlam 1992 at Wembley Stadium to the British Bulldog, which was a face vs. face situation. Another great match, though apparently a full-on carry job. WWF was in a transitional phase as the Hogan Era (or Cartoon Era) was dying down. Hogan himself was gone for nearly a year. Ric Flair was champ and needed to drop the title due to injury, but Vince was nervous about all the steroid allegation stuff going on and wanted to give focus on somebody smaller. Even though Bret was absolutely on steroids. Bret just suddenly became World Champion out of nowhere. There was no storyline or build or anything. He just won at a house show and an episode of Superstars would begin with "Bret Hart's champ now! Go figure." Now, the landscape of the company was changing. It used to be that Hogan would wrestle on a lot of house shows, but he would rarely wrestle on TV. Just PPVs and episodes of Saturday Night's Main Event. The latter of which stopped being a thing and Monday Night Raw started up. Bret found his niche as being the fighting champion, who would defend his title on TV all the time. Sure, it was against midcarders and named jobbers, but it meant something. Hell, his match with the 1-2-3 Kid is considered a classic of that time. With WrestleMania 9 on the way, they built up Bret vs. the new rising heel Yokozuna. It was an interesting match-up because they needed to solidify Bret's title run, but they seemed REALLY behind Yokozuna. Unfortunately, this would be the same show where Hogan returned to take part in a tag match with Brutus Beefcake against Money Inc. What happened next is considered one of the most hated WrestleMania endings of all time. Yokozuna defeated Bret via cheating. Hogan came out to Bret's aid. Yokozuna challenged Hogan on the spot, Bret told him to go for it, and Hogan won immediately. Hogan was the new champion. The idea was to have Bret beat Hogan at SummerSlam 1993, but Hogan slipped out of the company and dropped the title back to Yokozuna instead. To appease Bret, they reintroduced King of the Ring as a one-night PPV tournament and had him win it. Then they stuck him into a never-ending feud with Jerry Lawler that loving sucked. Casual fans had no idea who Lawler was outside of a commentator, so it really felt like Bret was just having a lot of trouble with someone who was just slightly more of a threat than a manager. With Hogan gone, Vince tried to fill the void. Rather than push Bret back to the top, he had "Narcissist" Lex Luger suddenly turn face as a patriotic muscle man and chase the title. Vince didn't pull the trigger when he should have at SummerSlam 1993, completely killing Lex's WWF run. Going into Royal Rumble 1994, the narrative was that it was Lex's final shot at a chance to become champion. Bret, meanwhile, had a story where his jealous brother Owen snapped and turned on him after they failed to capture the tag titles on the undercard. Bret showed up in the Rumble match with a limp and the finale had he and Lex fall out of the ring at the same time. They were deemed co-winners. The concept of a triple threat match was alien to WWF at the time, so WrestleMania X ended up being a mini-tournament. Bret would face Owen in an exhibition where Bret would advance no matter what. Yokozuna would defend against Lex and the winner of that would face Bret in the main event. Bret lost to Owen in one of the best WM openers ever, Yokozuna retained against Lex in a stupid match, and Bret won the title off Yokozuna with a lame ending. Regardless, Bret vs. Owen for the title was perfectly set up. Their feud went on for a while with a cage match at SummerSlam 1994 that everyone but me seems to really enjoy. Bret ended up dropping the belt to Bob Backlund at Survivor Series, which is just... too much to get into. It was really a vehicle to get the belt off Bret and onto Diesel. Diesel turned face during Survivor Series and won the belt days later at an MSG house show. He was Vince's next attempt to recreate Hogan. All the while, Bret was stuck continuing his feuds with Owen, Backlund, and... sadly, Jerry Lawler. Diesel's year-long title run was a gigantic disaster and Vince finally pulled the plug on it by having Bret win the title back via a surprise roll-up at Survivor Series 1995. Diesel turned heel immediately. Bret spent this run overshadowed by Diesel, the Undertaker, and the obvious coronation of Shawn Michaels. Bret and Shawn had a face vs. face iron man match at WrestleMania 12, which isn't nearly as good as WWE would like you to believe. Shawn won in a somewhat controversial way and Bret took a lengthy vacation. During that time, Bret played up his bitterness both of how he lost and how this new guy Steve Austin was getting popular for being a piece of poo poo. The initial plan was for Bret to beat Shawn at WrestleMania 13, making their extensive rivalry feel more epic. The idea was that Steve Austin would unfairly win the 1997 Royal Rumble, leading to a mulligan between him, Bret, Undertaker, and Vader (the latter three unfairly eliminated by Austin). Bret would win that and challenge Shawn for the title. Instead, Shawn decided to milk a knee injury in real life and vacate the title. The Final Four match ended up being for the title. Bret won the match, only to immediately lose to Sycho Sid on Raw afterwards. Bret's frustrations with everything led to a brilliant match with Austin at that WrestleMania where they expertly pulled off a double-turn. Bret came out of it looking like a total rear end in a top hat and everyone saw Austin as a lovable badass. Bret recreated the Hart Foundation as a stable with Owen, Neidhart, British Bulldog, and Brian Pillman. It was fascinating as the group was anti-America, which made them heels in the US, but top faces anywhere else. This was when WWF started to get really exciting. Bret regained the title once again at SummerSlam 1997 against the Undertaker due to a controversial finish. Unfortunately, it was also the same show where Owen accidentally hosed up Austin's neck. Bret spent the next several months building up to his match with Shawn Michaels while getting nudged out the door by Vince and, well, we all know how that ended up.
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Jan 15, 2024 17:29
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Gavok posted:The concept of a triple threat match was alien to WWF at the time, so WrestleMania X ended up being a mini-tournament. Bret would face Owen in an exhibition where Bret would advance no matter what. Yokozuna would defend against Lex and the winner of that would face Bret in the main event. Bret lost to Owen in one of the best WM openers ever, Yokozuna retained against Lex in a stupid match, and Bret won the title off Yokozuna with a lame ending. To be perfectly clear, this only came about because Lex won a coin toss to face Yokozuna first. If Bret had won the toss, then Lex would've had to face Crush. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEdUyASg01I Obviously it was a worked toss, but either way, I'm glad Lex won the toss, because Bret/Owen was such a good match.
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Jan 15, 2024 19:10
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_le2RRk634 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9LdKw2GzJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FqQTcnyH2E Big Boss Man being the most evil man in existence for no particular reason is something that will make me laugh until the grave. It's so insane and glorious. neoaxd fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 15, 2024 |
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Jan 15, 2024 19:21
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I have a friend who has memorized and can drop the Bossman poem on a whim. I'm absolutely going to get him to do a variant on it for my wedding. It's always funny.
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Jan 15, 2024 19:34
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Hang on let me see if i can still do this blind With deepest regrets/ and tears that are soaked/ im sorry to hear/ that your dad finally croaked He lived a full life/ on his own terms/ but soon he'll be buried/ and eaten by worms If i had a son/ as stupid as you/ I'd wish for cancer/ so that i could die too So be brave, be kind/ live your life on track/ cause the old bastard's dead/ and he ain't never coming back And thats exactly how i feel about the big show's fake daddy being dead wahahaha
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Jan 15, 2024 20:05
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neoaxd posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_le2RRk634 i dunno if they were going for tragic or "gosh what a jerk that bossman is" but the coffin getting dragged still makes me cackle like a madman
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Jan 15, 2024 20:26
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https://youtu.be/ZSmfydKwW2o?si=3VAXv1uoW-UJJuB2
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Jan 15, 2024 20:28
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