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Thauros posted:Are these Dragon King issues available with a subscription or do you have to buy the Stern Sticks? His newsletter iss listed as an option in the archives under the Observer and F4W, but I don't see any issues available. There are some in the archives for F4W subscribers but not a ton. Maybe a dozen? Stern Stick 4 has 85 issues or so plus several PDFs of just clippings. Here's some more good ones.   This isn't a clipping but a small section of "The Best of the Worst" feature from issue 78.  Ice cold.
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Jan 1, 2014 08:00
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"Giant Negro Star" may be the worst thing I've ever laughed at (out of genuine horror and absurdity) and I am not proud of myself.
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Jan 1, 2014 08:39
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Glamorama26 posted:"Giant Negro Star" may be the worst thing I've ever laughed at (out of genuine horror and absurdity) and I am not proud of myself. I really liked how they noted the traits he shared with other wrestlers and made sure to note that he shared the color of Sweet Daddy Siki.      
MassRafTer fucked around with this message at 09:07 on Jan 1, 2014 |
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Jan 1, 2014 09:02
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MassRafTer posted:I really liked how they noted the traits he shared with other wrestlers and made sure to note that he shared the color of Sweet Daddy Siki. Oh sure, gotta remind people he's an actual human being. Very good thread btw, needs more Terry Funk piledriving people during the Civil War though. Though you have met the "Little Person in Sombreros" quota. I'm starting to think wrestling may have always been a tad scummy, you guys.
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Jan 1, 2014 09:19
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here's a neat little write up on Dick The Bruiser: http://www.scottromerphoto.com/tribute_bruiser.html
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Jan 1, 2014 19:43
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quote:Meanwhile, Romer became more and more a part of the Bruiser’s wrestling business, performing as an on-screen manager named Saul Kreechman. Romer portrayed a bad guy who cheated to help his team win; Kreechman was an enemy of the Bruiser’s. So, when Romer went to his in-law’s house, Dick wanted him to wear a disguise so people wouldn’t see the two being friendly. Dick the Bruiser is a lunatic
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Jan 1, 2014 20:33
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jeffersonlives posted:They moved from the Mid-South Coliseum to the FedEx Forum because the former building wasn't in decent enough shape to host an event, it wasn't because of building size. By the time WWE pulled Lawler, tickets weren't moving well and it was already clear the show was going to be a disaster, although with Lawler they probably draw 5000 paid instead of 2500 or whatever the real number was (they papered a lot too). The real surprise was that Hogan worked a match in front of a mostly empty building at all, but I am pretty sure it ended up being a reality show related thing. Yep. As the story goes, that's actually what forced Lawler to pull out -- it was for Hogan's reality show, and Lawler's explanation had to do with TV networks, specifically Lawler wrestling on a non-NBC/Universal network. (I don't know how true it is, but Lawler was the only one scheduled on the card employed by WWE at that moment.) Someone asked how the booking would have gone... well, Lawler holds a DQ victory over Hogan from back in 1981.  Gotta get his win back, brother.
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Jan 1, 2014 23:28
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There would have been no Mad Man Pondo or 2 Tuff Tony today without early Japanese hardcore wrestling. Okay, that might only be a tragedy to some juggalos out there, but the truth is that a handful of Japanese promotions in the early 1990s started a boom in deathmatches that had a lasting impact on professional wrestling, up until today. "Hardcore" wrestling has been around forever, arguably since whenever a guy decided to amp things up a notch by getting wrestlers to bleed, to use weapons like chairs and other foreign objects, and so on. From the 1950s to the 1980s, it was not uncommon -- especially in the southern U.S. promotions -- to have "no holds barred" matches with brass knuckles, fights within the crowds, etc. Detroit also produced such legendary hardcore legendary figures as Abdullah the Butcher and the original Sheikh, who used pencils and fire in his matches. The man who innovated the deathmatch and made it a pro wrestling institution, however, was Atsushi Onita. Onita started out as one of All Japan's chief junior heavyweights in the early 1980s, leading the division in its competition with their counterparts in the much more dominant New Japan. Onita suffered a number of serious injuries, however, and it appeared as though his career was over, at least as a conventional junior wrestler. Here is a video of the match in which he suffered the injury that effectively ended his junior career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX9eglZw3Kc Earlier in his career, Onita had toured the Memphis scene with his friend and classmate Masanobu Fuchi, and this was where Onita had observed hardcore wrestling as described above. In 1989, Onita founded Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling, which got off the ground with worked shoot-style matches between Onita and Masashi Aoyagi, a legit karate expert. While not incorporating the mainstays of deathmatches as we would come to them, their basically involved Onita getting seriously hurt as he attempted to utilize professional wrestling moves against a seriously skilled legit fighter in what was stepped up from the "street brawling" style developed by earlier wrestlers. You can see highlights of some of the Onita/Aoyagi matches here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxbY65LO-ZY You can trace the evolution of FMW from this point through a series of matches from this time period and the escalation of tropes that now seem commonplace. In December of 1989, two more members of the World Karate Association -- Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Jerry Blayman (later Jerry Flynn) -- taking on Onita and Goto in a barbed wire death match. You can watch this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1_M8Z7cutc The "martial arts" matches were then combined with more "anything goes" style street fights, with wrestlers fighting all over the building and even outside the building, using whatever weapons were available. This match, from early 19990, shows Onita and Goto going up against later Big Japan Wrestling founder Kendo Nagasaki and Masanobu Kurisu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uyqznBFYPw What really put Onita and FMW on the map, however, was a match in 1990 involving not just barbed wire but explosions. Every time a wrestler was set into the ropes, there would be an explosion. This was the MOTY for 1990 according to Tokyo Sports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtM8IkDqVSg Greater detail about FMW's history and contributions to wrestling can be found here: http://fmwwrestling.us/FMWHistory.html In 1991, some of the wrestlers from FMW broke away from Onita's group and founded Wrestling International New Generations (W*ING). They took with them Mr. Pogo, one of the biggest death match wrestlers FMW had, as well as Victor Quiñones, a booker/promoter with history doing hardcore in Puerto Rico. W*ING soon encountered financial trouble and folded, so Quiñones created the International Wrestling Association of Japan from its ashes. By 1995, Onita was planning retirement and disagreements between FMW and some of its top gaijin talent -- including Terry Funk and Cactus Jack -- jump over to IWA. This led to the memorable Cactus Jack death match tournaments from that year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPhAqQ7NJz0 IWA could not keep up the pressure, however, and it too died out soon afterward. FMW did not last much longer; in May 1995 he passed the flame of "ace of FMW" to the very popular Hayabusa in an exploding cage match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycb4R_dQkWQ Later, Onita stepped away from wrestling entirely to work on getting a high school diploma; in the meantime, FMW changed from a hardcore wrestling promotion to a "sports entertainment" promotion more line with the WWF/WWE product. The original FMW closed its doors in 2002. In 1995, Shinya Kojika and Kendo Nagasaki from All Japan founded Big Japan Pro Wrestling; Kojika remains at the head of the organization today. For much of its early history, Big Japan kept up the spirit of FMW and its erstwhile rivals, with matches involving piranhas ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8JGvHOXegY ) and wrestling alligators ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuFG9ZROcGI ). It still puts on strong death matches, and a death match between Jun Kasai and Ryoji Ito won MOTY back in 2009 I believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLVhQ7Sb3vk I would also suggest checking out the matches of Takashi Sasaki and Yuko Miyamoto, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dybohfWWmyc BJW is not just bleeding and bumps, however, and they have several very talented "regular" wrestlers on their roster. Ryuji Ito used to be pretty gifted technically, but he's considered pretty mediocre now. Daisuke Sekimoto is the stand-out star for them right now and has an awesome dead-lift German suplex you just have to see. Other good "regular" wrestlers they have are Yuji Okabayashi and Yoshihito Sasaki. You can check out all of the above here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsP_XLLqhw
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Jan 2, 2014 05:39
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I was reading an old Dragon King Newsletter and he had a story on the ECW bankruptcy filing and a list of the wrestlers ECW owed money to: Bill Alphonso: 5,000 CW Anderson: 500 Angel: 500 Scotty Anton: Unknown Amount Steve Corino: None Justin Credible: 7,990 Lou E. Dangerously: 7,000 Julio Dinero: 300 Devito: 500 Simon Diamond: 9,000 Danny Doring: 2,100 Shane Douglas: 48,000 Spike Dudley: Unknown Francine: 42,275 Chris Hamrock: 300 Don Callis: 12,000 Little Guido: 25,000 Jazz: 1,000 Jerry Lynn: Unknown Balls Mahoney: 4,000 Tony Mamaluke: 600 Dawn Marie: 9,000 Thomas Marquez: 500 James Mitchell: Unknown EZ Money: 300 New Jack: Unknown Nova: 4,000 Roadkill: 21,250 Rhino: 50,000 Sabu: None Sandman: Unknown Joey Styles: 50,480 Super Crazy: 5,000 Tajiri: 5,000 RVD: 150,000 Jack Victory: 3,000 Mikey Whipwreck: 12,000 Chilly Willy: 500 Total Debt: 8,881,435 WWF was listed as a creditor and owed 587,500 (which was part of Vince's plan to buy the company.)
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Jan 29, 2014 09:59
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Missing from your list (according to 04/16/01 F4W) is $100,000 to Tommy Dreamer and "They also owe $14,455 for a 1998 Ford F800 truck which is co-owned by Dreamer." The standard Tommy Dreamer promo when talking about ECW where he broke his back, broke his neck, met his wife, etc. always excludes the truck.
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Jan 29, 2014 10:28
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Cameal posted:Missing from your list (according to 04/16/01 F4W) is $100,000 to Tommy Dreamer and "They also owe $14,455 for a 1998 Ford F800 truck which is co-owned by Dreamer." It wasn't on the list and it is funny I didn't notice that because I knew that and some of what he got out of the company. Dreamer got the practice ring, then sold it to Corino claiming it was the real ring which pissed Corino off because it was broken.
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Jan 29, 2014 10:32
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Billy Robinson died today at age 74. I'll try to do a post on him later today.
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Mar 3, 2014 22:17
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MassRafTer posted:Billy Robinson died today at age 74. I'll try to do a post on him later today. It was interesting hearing Dave talk about him today. I admit that I knew very little about him and had no clue how well regarded and influential he was and that not only did he train pro wrestlers but MMA competitors as well. Obitiuary Thursday's going to be an interesting rad.
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Mar 4, 2014 16:25
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MassRafTer posted:Billy Robinson died today at age 74. I'll try to do a post on him later today. Lemme save you some time: Billy Robinson was one of the baddest motherfuckers to ever lace 'em up.
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Mar 5, 2014 00:40
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MassRafTer posted:It wasn't on the list and it is funny I didn't notice that because I knew that and some of what he got out of the company. Dreamer got the practice ring, then sold it to Corino claiming it was the real ring which pissed Corino off because it was broken. Is the ring that was used at One Night Stand 2005 the original ECW ring?
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Mar 5, 2014 00:54
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EugeneJ posted:Is the ring that was used at One Night Stand 2005 the original ECW ring? That ring was far too clean to have ever been used by ECW.
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Mar 5, 2014 00:57
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EugeneJ posted:Is the ring that was used at One Night Stand 2005 the original ECW ring? I doubt it, but I have no idea what happened to that ring. The Observer is out tomorrow so instead of a Cliff's Notes version of Robinson, I had a better idea last night: After Nitro on psp-tv it is Billy Robinson Night! Lot's of Bockwinkel in there. I'll post the playlist in here later for those who are busy tonight.
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Mar 5, 2014 01:08
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MassRafTer posted:I doubt it, but I have no idea what happened to that ring. Oh hell yes!
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Mar 5, 2014 01:13
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El Gallinero Gros posted:He started in 1965 and went through their most successful years as a co-promoter with Lawler (and Fargo, I think). I believe Lawler bought him out in the late 80's or very early 90's. The writing was on the wall at that point. You want this book. http://www.amazon.com/Sputnik-Masked-Men-Midgets-Wrestling/dp/0966857534 It's a nice sized exploration of Memphis from the 50's through the late 70's. As far as the late 80's and early 90's go, Memphis is more interesting as being a waypoint for wrestlers that went on to bigger things (Sting, Warrior, Undertaker, Cactus Jack, Austin) than anything groundbreaking in booking and storylines, outside of the 1993-1994 WWF Invasion where Vince portrayed a heel a few years before Mr. McMahon.
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Mar 5, 2014 03:18
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Billy Robinson night is starting. We've got Vs Bockwinkel in UWFI Vs Abdullah the Butcher in AJPW Vs Gagne in AWA Vs Jumbo in AJPW w/ Red Bastien vs Stevens and Bockwinkel in AWA and clips of Gotch vs Robinson. Will probably add more as time goes on. http://psp-tv.com/r/badmoviesworsewrestling
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Mar 5, 2014 03:33
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You need to go read the Billy Robinson bio in the new Observer. Here is a quote from it and keep in mind it is meant literally.quote:"I don't think it's fair for those Montreal wrestlers to praise Sailor White on this one, and how he pissed all over Robinson and all," said Saito. Here's the playlist from last night: Bockwinkel vs Robinson (UWFi exhibition) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r6qOty0U7M Gagne vs Robinson (AWA) P1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmovwWxMX0Y P2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93D1pVPXUZo Clips of Karl Gotch vs Billy Robinson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hokYoUuZ38 Tsurta vs Robinson (AJPW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFCzOKvbh3k Abdullah the Butcher vs Robinson (AJPW) P1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APurgUotlxY P2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC392EnLWcA P3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFEheNz1uK8 Bockwinkel and Stevens vs Bastien and Robinson (AWA) P1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSImbg_AJIM P2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXH3r8_YYWI Bockwinkel vs Robinson (AJPW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3EyQut4WqE The tag match features the lamest title change reversal in the history of wrestling.
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Mar 6, 2014 08:25
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Might have to reup to the Observer solely for the Robinson bio.
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Mar 6, 2014 14:20
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I found this weeks ago and I should share it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/86633621/1908-Wrestling-and-How-to-Train-Frank-Gotch https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Frank_Gotch_Wrestling_and_how_to_Train?id=ZY8_AQAAMAAJ A book by Frank Gotch. Lots of old timey photos and egotistical zaniness.
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May 29, 2014 22:30
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someone tell me about wcw australia there doesnt seem to be a lot of easy to access info bout it also this thread should be stickied so it doesnt fall into the archives ever
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Jun 21, 2014 22:01
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John Cena posted:someone tell me about wcw australia there doesnt seem to be a lot of easy to access info bout it World Wrestling All-Stars or actual WCW?
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Jun 21, 2014 23:43
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SAVE_US.CHR
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ChampRamp posted:World Wrestling All-Stars or actual WCW? the promotion that was hot during the 60s and early 70s
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Jun 22, 2014 01:13
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John Cena posted:someone tell me about wcw australia there doesnt seem to be a lot of easy to access info bout it Australia's local territory that ran from the mid-1960's through to 1978 with NWA affiliation for most of the 1970's. Owned & booked by Jim Barnett, before he sold up & took over the Georgia territory. Did most of their shows out of Melbourne & Sydney, where the drew great houses and ran occasional shows in Brisbane & Adelaide too. The biggest star of the company was Mario Milano, who was booked as a Bruno Sammartino style "ethnic" babyface, along with Andre whenever he was touring. The VAST majority of wrestlers were American with only Ron Miller & Larry O'Dea being the exceptions high on the card. Pretty much by-the-numbers territorial-storylines with flashes of innovative booking, notably the first Stable War in wrestling between the heel Big Bad John's Soldiers, who included Tiger Jeet Singh, Bulldog Brower & Abdullah The Butcher among others, and The People's Army led by Mark Lewin & King Curtis Iaukea (yes, as a babyface) around 1973. It folded for 2 major reasons. Firstly, a lot like what happened with World of Sport in Britain, their TV deal got cancelled. They had national exposure on the 9 Network, but when they took up cricket coverage in 1978, they had to cut all pre-existing weekend daytime programming during the Summer & wrestling was a part of that. Secondly, an over-reliance on American talent meant that when the money dried up, there was nobody left who could draw as a heel against the local babyfaces. dsriggs fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 17:03
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Wasn't Barnett run out of Australia and that's what lead to him in Georgia? I remember hearing something about that.
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Jun 22, 2014 17:30
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I don't think he was, but I could be wrong.
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Jun 22, 2014 17:54
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NotQuiteQuentin posted:Wasn't Barnett run out of Australia and that's what lead to him in Georgia? I remember hearing something about that. I think he got out of Australia because he saw the writing on the wall, went to Georgia and then in the early 80s got run out of Georgia. dsriggs posted:Australia's local territory that ran from the mid-1960's through to 1978 with NWA affiliation for most of the 1970's. Owned & booked by Jim Barnett, before he sold up & took over the Georgia territory. Did most of their shows out of Melbourne & Sydney, where the drew great houses and ran occasional shows in Brisbane & Adelaide too. I thought Dominic Denucci was considered the biggest star in the promotion. I don't know a ton about the group though, all I can add is that at their peak it was the hottest promotion in the world. That's amazing considering there were territories with bigger population bases in a much smaller area.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:02
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MassRafTer posted:I thought Dominic Denucci was considered the biggest star in the promotion. He was the biggest star in the early days of the company, but Milano stayed around for much longer & is better remembered by fans today.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:07
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MassRafTer posted:I think he got out of Australia because he saw the writing on the wall, went to Georgia and then in the early 80s got run out of Georgia. That's right. I got the two flipped-flopped. For how important of a territory it was, Georgia sure went through some owners in comparison to other territories of that era. I think Memphis is the only one that could compare in regards to sheer amount of ownership changes.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:22
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dsriggs posted:He was the biggest star in the early days of the company, but Milano stayed around for much longer & is better remembered by fans today. Ah ok, it's probably a case that DeNucci is the "bigger draw" who was there for the hottest business period where Milano was around past the peak and thus has the better remembered legacy.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:28
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MassRafTer posted:I don't know too much about the deaths in catch wrestling, I imagine it comes from the style opening up new ways for slams and holds that would be outlawed in Greco Roman which was the more popular style of professional wrestling at the time. Basically Catch means "catch a hold wherever you can" so you can grab holds or throws anywhere on the body, except the rear naked choke, which is why some wrestlers objected to Evan Lewis. The idea as I understand it is submissions were supposed to be tricky and applied quickly, rather than something you would slowly work for. I guess this is where the term "hooking" comes from. While Brazilian jujutsu emphasizes "position before submission," I've heard it said that catch wrestling emphasizes "submission from any position." Practically speaking, though, that means knowing a library of weird holds that you can hopefully use to take your opponent by surprise. My brother-in-law is a BJJ guy, and even today his general impression of catch stuff is that it's "grab something and twist," to quote him verbatim, and hope you get a tapout. It's not hard to see how such desperation tactics could lead to injuries. I remember an excerpt from Hooker where Thesz was saying that his teacher double-crossed a young hotshot and mangled his arm so badly that it was amputated.
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Jun 23, 2014 04:17
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Halloween Jack posted:When I was putting together my "dead wrestlers" list, I found several instances of guys who died in a wrestling match in the late 19th or early 20th century, but almost all of them were omitted because I could find any record of their DOB. I wish I had kept track of them, if you're interested in that sort of thing. Based on my cursory research and the brief articles I read, most of them were said to have died in "a fall" in a wrestling match, so it seems that throws were much more likely to cause accidents than holds, which is what seems most believable to me. It would make a ton of sense that someone could take a bump on a non-padded ring mat and end up with a brain hemorrhage or something similar. Then consider that if you don't know how to bump, taking a back-drop could end you up with a broken neck, and care for that sort of thing was non-existent back then.
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Jun 23, 2014 04:29
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Halloween Jack posted:While Brazilian jujutsu emphasizes "position before submission," I've heard it said that catch wrestling emphasizes "submission from any position." Stop reading poo poo from Tony Ceccine and associates.
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Jun 23, 2014 05:21
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A major part of catch wrestling is not letting yourself go flat on your back for a pin so position is incredibly important.
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Jun 23, 2014 05:31
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This thread needs more posts. Put more posts in this thread.
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Jun 27, 2014 17:34
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I emphasize submission from any position too.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:54
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Mob posted:This thread needs more posts. Put more posts in this thread. Here's Bobby Heenan and Nick Bockwinkel telling Ray Stevens stories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-pM3XcHpdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygdM5pdz9IE
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Jun 27, 2014 21:34
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