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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2020 7:20:40 GMT -5
I confess, I hate the term “sports entertainment”. The last time I attended a WWF event was 2007. Prior to that, I’d been to One Night Only. And the 1993 WCW tour. At no point did I say to my friends/stepdad, “I’m going to a sports entertainment event.” I never ordered a PPV and said, “I’m ordering a sports entertainment PPV.”
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2020 17:34:45 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2020 14:23:12 GMT -5
Latest issue of Wrestletalk Magazine is out. There’s a good article about innovators and originators.
Mention was made of how Myspace predated Facebook, but despite being the originator, FB has pioneered and eclipsed Myspace. The same logic was applied to wrestling - and the article, which acknowledged it can’t truly trace the origins of some aspects of wrestling, made a compelling case or two.
Examples to follow...
Could battle royals have originated in 18th-century UK?
The first recorded cage match was 1937, between Jack Bloomfield and Count Pietro Rossi (a circular cage within the ring ropes). The writer made the case that without such innovation, we wouldn’t have the likes of Hell in a Cell or TLC.
The likes of Stampede and the AWA had ladder matches long before the WWF. I certainly would like to see some AWA ladder matches!
Hogan and Harley Race did a table spot in 1988. And before them, in 1984, Randy Savage did it on Ricky Morton in Memphis.
A wrestler called ‘Wild Bill’ Curry was using chairs in the 1950s.
The writer wasn’t sure when iron man matches originated, but obviously there were people wrestling 60-minute matches long before the Iron Man concept was created.
The DDT was first used by a Mexican wrestler called Black Gordman. I found this interesting because in a shoot interview, Jake Roberts talked about how he accidentally created the move. One can never presume in wrestling.
Lou Thesz invented the powerbomb (accidentally while attempting a piledriver).
Abraham Lincoln MAY have invented the chokeslam.
As I said, the writer did acknowledge that he can’t be 100% certain about the origins of some things - and invited people to let him know if he’s got anything wrong.
The facts were so numerous. Another great one was about entrance music. While the likes of Hulk Hogan popularised the concept of entrance music, others were using it first, e.g. the Freebirds, Sgt. Slaughter - and going back to the 50s, Mildred Burke and Gorgeous George.
On a final note, it was interesting to learn that prior to LJN’s line of WWF action figures, Remco produced AWA action figures. I really must Google those, I’d not heard of Remco until I read the article. Also mentioned was the fact that the first pro wrestling video game may have been The Big Pro Wrestling by Technos Japan in 1983.
Can anyone confirm or debunk any of the above? I believe some of them to be true. Others surprised me. As I said, I’ve read so much about Jake Roberts’ DDT - including from the man himself - so to know that someone else invented the move was fascinating.
There was just one patronising aspect of an otherwise-great article - the writer seemed to think fans had a perception that Bret Hart invented the sharpshooter. I was watching Sting do it before Bret entered singles competition. And one mag - possibly an Apter mag - mentioned Riki Choshu as being the one who invented the move. In the magazine writer’s defence, perhaps he was thinking of the fact that the ‘sharpshooter’ was mentioned as being used in Stu Hart’s Dungeon, so perhaps some WWF/E fans do think it originated with Bret.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 23, 2020 0:18:04 GMT -5
Latest issue of Wrestletalk Magazine is out. There’s a good article about innovators and originators. Mention was made of how Myspace predated Facebook, but despite being the originator, FB has pioneered and eclipsed Myspace. The same logic was applied to wrestling - and the article, which acknowledged it can’t truly trace the origins of some aspects of wrestling, made a compelling case or two. Examples to follow... Could battle royals have originated in 18th-century UK? The first recorded cage match was 1937, between Jack Bloomfield and Count Pietro Rossi (a circular cage within the ring ropes). The writer made the case that without such innovation, we wouldn’t have the likes of Hell in a Cell or TLC. The likes of Stampede and the AWA had ladder matches long before the WWF. I certainly would like to see some AWA ladder matches! Hogan and Harley Race did a table spot in 1988. And before them, in 1984, Randy Savage did it on Ricky Morton in Memphis. A wrestler called ‘Wild Bill’ Curry was using chairs in the 1950s. The writer wasn’t sure when iron man matches originated, but obviously there were people wrestling 60-minute matches long before the Iron Man concept was created. The DDT was first used by a Mexican wrestler called Black Gordman. I found this interesting because in a shoot interview, Jake Roberts talked about how he accidentally created the move. One can never presume in wrestling. Lou Thesz invented the powerbomb (accidentally while attempting a piledriver). Abraham Lincoln MAY have invented the chokeslam. As I said, the writer did acknowledge that he can’t be 100% certain about the origins of some things - and invited people to let him know if he’s got anything wrong. The facts were so numerous. Another great one was about entrance music. While the likes of Hulk Hogan popularised the concept of entrance music, others were using it first, e.g. the Freebirds, Sgt. Slaughter - and going back to the 50s, Mildred Burke and Gorgeous George. On a final note, it was interesting to learn that prior to LJN’s line of WWF action figures, Remco produced AWA action figures. I really must Google those, I’d not heard of Remco until I read the article. Also mentioned was the fact that the first pro wrestling video game may have been The Big Pro Wrestling by Technos Japan in 1983. Can anyone confirm or debunk any of the above? I believe some of them to be true. Others surprised me. As I said, I’ve read so much about Jake Roberts’ DDT - including from the man himself - so to know that someone else invented the move was fascinating. There was just one patronising aspect of an otherwise-great article - the writer seemed to think fans had a perception that Bret Hart invented the sharpshooter. I was watching Sting do it before Bret entered singles competition. And one mag - possibly an Apter mag - mentioned Riki Choshu as being the one who invented the move. In the magazine writer’s defence, perhaps he was thinking of the fact that the ‘sharpshooter’ was mentioned as being used in Stu Hart’s Dungeon, so perhaps some WWF/E fans do think it originated with Bret. A battle royal is little more than a melee, which was part of medieval tournaments. They also had team and mass battles in the gladiatorial arenas. Heck, they even recreated naval battles in the Colosseum! Cage match is pretty hard to say, as there are variants of close quarter fights. As for Hell in a Cell, it was essentially the WCW War Games cage, used for a singles match. That also had a roof on it. At least one Starrcade had the Road Warriors pressing Tully or Arn into the top of the cage. Ladder matches had been done in several territories; Bret and Dynamite did it in Stampede and Dynamite also had some in Portland. Memphis had ladder and scaffold matches for years (Bill Dundee had one against Koko B Ware, that I recall from a photo in Pro Wrestling Illustrated). Tables had been used repeatedly in Memphis and other territories through the South. They generally didn't try to break them, though. Japan had also been doing them and their tables were solid! It's Wild Bull Curry.... The Sheik also used chairs (and pencils and forks and fireballs). Again, big in Southern territories. Gordman worked in Los Angeles and Mexico, and a bit in Texas and New Mexico; so, it is possible (Jake might have seen it in Texas). However, the story of it happening by accident is still possible. It could have easily have been done before Gordman, as it is, essentially, a botched throw. It is common in amateur wrestling and judo to let an opponent charge into you and roll with them, grabbing their torso or waist and pulling back and up and letting their momentum roll you back and over, so you come out in an advantageous position. I used to do it when we wrestled in gym class. If you screw up and fall straight down, you could drag your opponent down, face first, into the mat. Thesz claimed the power bomb, in his memoir, Hooker; though that is probably bending the truth quite a bit. Pankration had something similar, going way back. Pretty much, anything a modern pro wrestler did, that could legit work in a fight, was probably done thousands of years ago. The Lincoln thing is pure hokum and if the writer actually believed that, he needs to seek therapy about differentiating reality from fantasy. Lincoln used to wrestle at things like local gatherings, with other men; but did not wrestle in any fashion as a sport. It is conceivable to lift someone by the neck and drop them, if strong enough and able to get the leverage, which means the likely inventor was a neanderthal, named Ug. Entrance music had been used in the 50s, with Gorgeous George the most noted. The Freebirds popularized it in the modern era, leading others to adopt it. Memphis was a big user of it, thanks to the influence of Jimmy Hart (among others), who had been part of the 60s pop group The Gentrys ("I Keep on Dancing"). Cable made it a big thing, which also led to them having to stop using real music, because of licensing issues and led to the crappy stuff created by the promotion. I hated it when the Rock N Roll Express had to stop using ELO and started using that stupid Boogie Woogie Dance Hall crap, or when the Midnights had to stop using "The Chase," from the Midnight Express movie soundtrack. Same with the Road Warriors and Black Sabbath. Remco was a low end toy company, who often did knockoffs of more popular toy lines, from Hasbro and Mattel. We used to have Kay-Bee Hobby toy stores, here in the midwest (maybe elsewhere, too) that carried the Remco AWA figures. Ric Flair was featured in the line, with a replica of the NWA belt and they also had tag-team two-packs. Remco also did a line of action figures based on the Warlord, from DC Comics. They pretty much had the same bodies, with a couple of variations on the head. I was past the toy stage when those came out. There were a couple of wrestling arcade games, before either the WWF or WCW had a video game. Technos also had one I recall, Mat Mania, that had a whole fictional promotion, complete with title belts. Played it a couple of times; but, always sucked at it. Bret isn't even close to being the originator of the Scorpion Leglock. Sting was doing it on WCW tv well before Bret ever did it. In the WWF, Masa Saito used to use it as a finisher, in the early 80s and in Japan, for New Japan. I'm not entirely certain; but, I believe he was doing it before Chosu adopted it. The Wrestling Observer obituary for Saito credited him with originating it. It's really just a variation on a Boston Crab; so, someone else might have done it before. Pretty much anything you saw in the modern era, in WWF or WCW was done before that, in the territories or an international promotion. As for Iron Man Matches. before the 1980s, it was customary to have 60-minute main event matches, especially for the NWA World title. A 60-minute "Broadway" was a very common main event, especially if you had guys like Flair & Steamboat. The difference is that a 60-minute match was a novelty, in the late 80s, as most main events ran about 30-40 minutes, while WWF main events rarely went to 20 minutes or longer, as Hogan didn't have the stamina. Guys like Greg Valentine took 20 minutes to get warmed up. Flair did tons of them, as did most of the NWA champions before him and most territorial champions. Up until the switch from Buddy Rogers to Lou Thesz, the NWA title was always defended as 2 out of 3 falls. That one was a single fall to keep Rogers from getting cute (also why he was facing Thesz, to drop it)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2020 7:23:22 GMT -5
I managed to see the Hollywood Hogan/Jacques Rougeau bout recently (1997). Hogan did a clean pinfall job to Rougeau.
Is this the only time they fought? I always thought Hogan and the Mountie might have had a bout between 1990 and 1992.
I was surprised at the time when WCW Magazine covered the Hogan/Rougeau bout, specifically the fact that Hogan did a clean pinfall job. I wonder what the story was behind it. Hogan did very few clean pinfall jobs at the time.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 24, 2020 2:04:06 GMT -5
I managed to see the Hollywood Hogan/Jacques Rougeau bout recently (1997). Hogan did a clean pinfall job to Rougeau. Is this the only time they fought? I always thought Hogan and the Mountie might have had a bout between 1990 and 1992. I was surprised at the time when WCW Magazine covered the Hogan/Rougeau bout, specifically the fact that Hogan did a clean pinfall job. I wonder what the story was behind it. Hogan did very few clean pinfall jobs at the time. It was on a show that Rougeau promoted, in Montreal, where his family had long promoted wrestling. Rougeau booked it and it wasn't being broadcast in many markets; so, I think Hogan had agreed. Rougeau actually drew some pretty good gates at those shows; but, was smart enough not to try to run as a regular thing, as the WWF was too well entrenched in Canada. WCW probably hoped to use it to break into the Canadian market, in opposition to Vince. Vince pretty much bought out or ran down the major Canadian promotions (bought out Tunney and Stu Hart and killed Montreal by stealing talent).
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2020 9:53:41 GMT -5
What’s this? When I saw this advertised in a wrestling magazine (1996, pre-internet), I was intrigued. How disappointed I was, years later, to learn that it was simply a video which provided highlights of In Your House IV and In Your House V. I wonder why they did this? Did those IYH events get a release in the United States? One would presume they did. So why repackage it as “Winter Combat ‘96”?
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 24, 2020 12:23:33 GMT -5
What’s this? When I saw this advertised in a wrestling magazine (1996, pre-internet), I was intrigued. How disappointed I was, years later, to learn that it was simply a video which provided highlights of In Your House IV and In Your House V. I wonder why they did this? Did those IYH events get a release in the United States? One would presume they did. So why repackage it as “Winter Combat ‘96”? Coliseum did all kinds of themed releases for the WWF, rather than whole shows (though they did do video releases for the major PPVs, which were quarterly, before they started upping the number in the late 90s). The In Your House PPVs tended to get lower numbers; so, they probably thought a highlights package would sell better.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2020 13:46:28 GMT -5
It’s interesting because the UK licensee (Silver Vision) pretty much released every PPV, including the IYH events.
For a long time, though, Royal Rumble 1988 was a noticeable absence as was The Wrestling Classic. I don’t know why. I presume that over here, the licensee didn’t think The Wrestling Classic could sell. A friend did tell me that Royal Rumble 1988 didn’t get a VHS release here as an agreement between the WWF and the USA Network wouldn’t allow home video releases, certainly not in Europe.
Now, we have everything thanks to the WWF Network!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2020 7:05:26 GMT -5
The current issue of Inside the Ropes has much in. Just finished an article about the Cow Palace Battle Royal, which I hadn’t heard of until now. I’m glad there is still so much wrestling to learn.
I’m sure Cody knows about it. Suffice to say, Roy Shire (who ran a territory in San Francisco) made the battle royal a star attraction for his territory. The first one was in 1967, won by Bearcat Wright. Excluding 1970 and 1971, it ran for every year until 1981, the last one being won by Pat Patterson.
Elsewhere in the issue, and I have heard this before, it was stated that Vince McMahon did not think the Royal Rumble would work, he was not a believer. I’m glad that they went with it, it’s been a pretty good event for the most part, a couple of duds aside (I didn’t like the 2006 RR). If the McMahon anecdote is true, it shows that even he doesn’t have his finger on the pulse all of the time. It was stated that only Pat Patterson’s persistence, and the intervention of Dick Emerson (head of programming for NBC), saw the RR air.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 25, 2020 13:26:16 GMT -5
Yeah, Patterson was one of Roy Shire's stars and he brought the idea to Vince. Battle Royals were also big in Texas and in the Midwest, as Kohler had some in Chicago and Verne did them in the AWA. Shire did make them an annuakl feature in San Francisco, which led to them being used by Baba, in All Japan.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2020 13:29:28 GMT -5
At least two wrestling writers have dismissed battle royals as boring in the past. I hate that.
Any match can be boring in theory. But what I like about battle royals (and the RR) is that the face/heel dynamic can go out of the window. One of my favourite moments is the RR 1990 where Andre the Giant (then managed by Bobby Heenan) enters - and immediately throws the Warlord (managed by Mr Fuji) out. And then Heenan and Fuji almost get into a scrap.
Plus, we get to see faces battle, e.g. Piper saved Jake Roberts in the 1990 RR, but then they were scrapping later on.
A good battle royal (1991 on SNME) saw lots happening: Hulk Hogan and Tugboat were forced to go at it. Jake threw his python into the ring at one point. It truly was every man for himself.
Done right, battle royals can be a lot of fun.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 25, 2020 17:10:04 GMT -5
At least two wrestling writers have dismissed battle royals as boring in the past. I hate that. Any match can be boring in theory. But what I like about battle royals (and the RR) is that the face/heel dynamic can go out of the window. One of my favourite moments is the RR 1990 where Andre the Giant (then managed by Bobby Heenan) enters - and immediately throws the Warlord (managed by Mr Fuji) out. And then Heenan and Fuji almost get into a scrap. Plus, we get to see faces battle, e.g. Piper saved Jake Roberts in the 1990 RR, but then they were scrapping later on. A good battle royal (1991 on SNME) saw lots happening: Hulk Hogan and Tugboat were forced to go at it. Jake threw his python into the ring at one point. It truly was every man for himself. Done right, battle royals can be a lot of fun. The problem is that they rarely involve much in the way of booking and it is hard to focus on the action. In the old days, they used to do more spots within, before eliminating people. I have seen photos of one where they ha a headlock chain going. The first guy is Tiger Conway Sr, who has Joe Blanchard, Tully's father (and Tessa's grandfather). The very last guy is Danny Hodge. One of the variations is the two-ring battle royal, where those eliminated from one ring, go to the second ring and battle it out, until there is a single man left in each ring, then they have a singles match. The Royal Rumble staggered entrance allowed for some booking, such as two on one situations, until a rescuer comes in; plus, the Ric Flair one, where he was in from start to finish and won. They did one with Austin where he eliminated the guys in before him and waited for the next guy to try to enter.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2020 17:24:26 GMT -5
I have to confess, I wasn’t a fan of the cumbersome 60-Man 3-Ring Battle Royal that WCW did with their World War 3 PPVs.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2020 5:39:16 GMT -5
Inside the Ropes published its 4th issue recently. They did a Top 50 wrestlers, no doubt inspired by the PWI 500 (which I always found to be cumbersome).
These are the top ten:
1. Drew McIntyre 2. Bayley 3. Cody Rhodes 4. Chris Jericho 5. Randy Orion 6. Kota Ibushi 7. Jon Moxley 8. Hangman Page 9. Sasha Banks 10. Will Ospreay
(Pac was #50, by the way)
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