Pro Wrestling History Thread

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flowwiththego

Miss Samantha Fox
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When you want to talk history and not which spinner belt was the best or CM Punk is the greatest thing since Lou Thesz, come in here.
Speaking of Thesz, Did you know:
- His lifelong beef with Buddy Rogers started when Rogers bad mouthed Thesz' hero, Ed Strangler Lewis, on the road travelling together to Louisville. Rogers was angry that the promoters hired Lewis to be the referee and paid him big money that Rogers thought he and Thesz should have gotten.
- His match against Rikidozan in Japan drew an 87.5 rating on Japanese tv.
- His favorite match was against Dick Hutton in Pittsburgh. The rep from the state athletic commisssion knew pro wrestling was fake and he was also an amateur wrestling official and warned Thesz and Hutton before their match that he would not tolerate pro wrestling shenanigans and would come down on them hard if the match was fake. Thesz and Hutton worked a 50 minute, two out of three fall match that led the commission believing they saw a legitimate wrestling match.
- His carpet importing business failed so miserably that he came out of retirement at age 56 and worked for promoter Nick Gualas for $100 a night.
 
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roadwarriors001.jpg


Did you have the opportunity to see L.O.D. dominate in their prime?





Rock and stone cold were the best tag team. also bill gold berg was the best and most charismatic wrestler in all of wwe.
 
roadwarriors001.jpg


Did you have the opportunity to see L.O.D. dominate in their prime?

Greatest drawing tag team of all time. Ole Andeson created them and booked as SUPER monsters that couldn't be hurt. They were booked so strong that that they actually derailed many wrestlers careers because they couldn't do anything against them. More later......
 
I still say they were second to the Steiners.
 
My favorite tag team of all time.

 
It still frustrates me that LOD never seemed booked to their potential in the WWE. Kind of crazy to think Heath Slater and Gabriel whoever have the same amount or more tag title runs.

Personally I think the Tag Team picture started to degrade as soon as Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold won the belt. It used to be that two random faces/heels couldn't beat the tag champs because they were better tag team wrestlers, then all of a sudden two people who hate each other are able to win the belt?
 
Awesome thread. Thanks for directing me here BRF.

Speaking of The Road Warriors...


hUyvsYAkDprQUs5.jpg



.I was lucky enough to see them wrestle live in my home town (Kitchener Ontario, Canada) back in the early 80s...probably 84 I think. I was just a kid. It was my first live wrestling show, and they were the main event. Turned out Animal was sick and didn't show...so it was Hawk and their manager (can't remember his name) instead. They pulled a gimmick where Hawk got on the mic and invited anyone in the crowd to come in and partner with them against their opponents (just some local jobbers), and to everyone's amazement some guy gets up dressed in full road warrior outfit ready to go, and fought alongside Hawk and the manager. lol

Obviously planned ahead...but to a kid like me it was pretty cool.

There was also a midget match on the card between Little T and Cubby Baxter and Bart the Bear (a real live fucking grizzly bear) showed up to do a cage match against his trainer.


Good ole fashioned Canadian wrasslin.

*edit he was Cubby Baxter not Baker.
 
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Awesome thread. Thanks for directing me here BRF.

Speaking of The Road Warriors...


hUyvsYAkDprQUs5.jpg



.I was lucky enough to see them wrestle live in my home town (Kitchener Ontario, Canada) back in the early 80s...probably 84 I think. I was just a kid. It was my first live wrestling show, and they were the main event. Turned out Animal was sick and didn't show...so it was Hawk and their manager (can't remember his name) instead. They pulled a gimmick where Hawk got on the mic and invited anyone in the crowd to come in and partner with them against their opponents (just some local jobbers), and to everyone's amazement some guy gets up dressed in full road warrior outfit ready to go, and fought alongside Hawk and the manager. lol

Obviously planned ahead...but to a kid like me it was pretty cool.

There was also a midget match on the card between Little T and Cubby Baxter and Bart the Bear (a real live fucking grizzly bear) showed up to do a cage match against his trainer.


Good ole fashioned Canadian wrasslin.

*edit he was Cubby Baxter not Baker.

Was that a Stampede show? Seemed like I remember something in Hart's book about a bear living at the house that was used in the shows.
 
Flow, you got some of the Rogers/Thesz info right. They driving together in a car to a match in another town. Rogers was pissed about Strangler Lewis getting a cit of the gate. Lou was extremely pissed a Rogers for this comment and set him straight. Lewis was one of the biggest names in wrestling up to that time. He had a major hand in building wrestling into what it was. Thesz wanted Lewis to get a share of the gate out of thanks for Lewis helping to build wrestling into a big attraction.

Thesz held that grudge against Rogers for the rest of their careers. Thesz never let Rogers have a clean win. Rogers was a HUGE draw, but Thesz was a true hooker (he could end matches by "hooking" his opponent, what we now call submissions).

Jim Londos was the biggest draw in wrestling from the 20s to the 40s. He was the Hulk Hogan of his time. He filled audiences to capacity everywhere he went. He was an excellent worker and had good ring psychology. Because he was short, nearly every one of his matches had a David vs Goliath feel. Londos was a bigger draw than Strangler Lewis or Joe Stecher or Earl Caddock. Londos was in excellent condition, and he stayed that way. He looked like he was carved from granite.

While Thesz hand-picked Dick Hutton as his replacement as NWA champ, Hutton was very technical and "dry" in the ring. He was a terrible draw. His reign as champ hurt wrestling attendance because he was just not charismatic. He lost the belt to Pat O'Connor. O'Connor held it for about a year, then Buddy Rogers got the belt. Rogers got the belt because he was the biggest draw of the day, and the audiences needed to be rebuilt after Hutton chased them away.

Rogers was lured into the NE wrestling syndicate led by Vince McMahon, Sr, Kola Kwariani, and Toots Mondt. They monopolized Rogers' bookings and would not allow him to have many bookings away from the NE territories. The NWA went back to Thesz to win the title from Rogers. Why Thesz? Thesz had been a star since the late 30s and it was now the early 1960s, so he was old. He was still in fantastic shape and was still an excellent pro wrestler (and hooker). Also, Thesz hated Rogers and Toots Mondt.

Thesz took the belt, but the NE syndicate claimed Rogers was still champ on a lame technicality (maybe that Thesz won only one fall and not 2 out of 3, but I don't remember for sure). Rogers then lost the belt to Bruno Sammartino in less than a minute. Rogers supposedly was laid up in a hospital with a heart ailment, but I think that was kayfabed. Rogers was definitely at the end of his career, and Sammartino was a big NE territory star because of his ethnic background.

Thesz eventually lost the belt to another of his choosing in Gene Kiniski.
 
Was that a Stampede show? Seemed like I remember something in Hart's book about a bear living at the house that was used in the shows.

I was like 9...I really do not remember. All I remember is my friends and their dads were bigger fans than I was, and they collected wrestling magazines that featured stories about all different territories etc...I was primarily into the WWF. I didn't even really know who the Road Warriors were until I saw them live and then I was an instant fan.

The bear was either part of the local circuit (a circus maybe) or maybe they toured him in....who knows. It was a feature attraction though on the card along with the midget that looked like Mr T. lol
 
Big Burly great input on Thesz. Another big factor was Thesz was not a big draw in the Northeast and in particular New York. Rogers drew great and Bruno drew like God on Sunday.
 
It still frustrates me that LOD never seemed booked to their potential in the WWE. Kind of crazy to think Heath Slater and Gabriel whoever have the same amount or more tag title runs.

Personally I think the Tag Team picture started to degrade as soon as Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold won the belt. It used to be that two random faces/heels couldn't beat the tag champs because they were better tag team wrestlers, then all of a sudden two people who hate each other are able to win the belt?

Hawk failed a couple of steroid tests was the main factor in them not getting a sustained push. They actually dropped the titles to Money Inc at a house show in Denver. No film of it exists because the warriors refused to lose unless Mcmahon agreed to no footage being shot.
 
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Eddie Sharkey trained Hawk and Animal along with Rick Rood (Rude) and Barry Darsow. both trid as singles and at first. Hawk in Canada and Animal in Georgia (as the original Road Warrior--an idea from Ole Anderson.) Both hated their respective places and went back to Minnesota. Enter Ole Anderson again.
Anderson had just taken over in Georgia from Jim Barnett, who had lost a ton of money (mostly due to overspending.) Ole was under a ton of financial constraints and cut way back on spending. Anderson and Sharkey got together and Anderson decided he wanted a monster tag team to fill a tag team void left when the Samoans left Georgia months earlier and the titles were vacated. Sharkey actually suggested Hawk and Rude but Ole wanted the two biggest guys there and picked Hawk and Animal. Rude and Darsow started later on ,btw.
The Warriors were announced as the new tag champions in their debut. The story was they wona tournament to win the vacant titles.
Bill Watts gets credit for putting the face paint on the Warriors. The problem, though was the Warriors were so inexperienced they didn't know enough to work a good match. Anderson ordered all his top stars and top workers to lose to them in near squashes which actually spelled the beginning of the end for a lot of wrestlers, including Tommy Rich who two years earlier won the NWA title and was still a major star in GA. The fans in GA never got behind Rich fully after getting beat so badly by the monster heels. The same formula was later used in the AWA with the same results.
 
Yes, Burley you are correct, I checked my reference and the incident was on the road not in the locker room and it was not their first match together. Thesz actually lost to Rogers previosly but refused to lose to him ever again after that.
 
Love the NWO storyline??? Then you will love what Randy Savage did in Memphis over a decade earlier. Gotta go, more later................
 
Nice work Burley. Used to be Flow always laying out the education for us in the old threads. Nice to have some more input from another old time fan. Looking forward to the Savage story Flow. Not sure if I've heard that.
 
Eddie Sharkey trained Hawk and Animal along with Rick Rood (Rude) and Barry Darsow. both tried as singles at first. Hawk in Canada and Animal in Georgia (as the original Road Warrior--an idea from Ole Anderson.) Both hated their respective places and went back to Minnesota. Enter Ole Anderson again.
Anderson had just taken over in Georgia from Jim Barnett, who had lost a ton of money (mostly due to overspending.) Ole was under a ton of financial constraints and cut way back on spending. Anderson and Sharkey got together and Anderson decided he wanted a monster tag team to fill a tag team void left when the Samoans left Georgia months earlier and the titles were vacated. Sharkey actually suggested Hawk and Rude but Ole wanted the two biggest guys there and picked Hawk and Animal. Rude and Darsow started later on ,btw.
The Warriors were announced as the new tag champions in their debut. The story was they won a tournament to win the vacant titles.
Bill Watts gets credit for putting the face paint on the Warriors. The problem, though was the Warriors were so inexperienced they didn't know enough to work a good match. Anderson ordered all his top stars and top workers to lose to them in near squashes which actually spelled the beginning of the end for a lot of wrestlers, including Tommy Rich who two years earlier won the NWA title and was still a major star in GA. The fans in GA never got behind Rich fully after getting beat so badly by the monster heels. The same formula was later used in the AWA with the same results.

just to ad to my own post-- Verne Gagne wanted to pit the Road Warriors against Bruiser Brody and Nord the Barbarian but nobody could figure out who would sell to who (meaning nobody wanted to sell) and it would have ben a disaster and the idea was scrapped.
 
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Awesome thread. Thanks for directing me here BRF.

Speaking of The Road Warriors...


hUyvsYAkDprQUs5.jpg



.I was lucky enough to see them wrestle live in my home town (Kitchener Ontario, Canada) back in the early 80s...probably 84 I think. I was just a kid. It was my first live wrestling show, and they were the main event. Turned out Animal was sick and didn't show...so it was Hawk and their manager (can't remember his name) instead. They pulled a gimmick where Hawk got on the mic and invited anyone in the crowd to come in and partner with them against their opponents (just some local jobbers), and to every one's amazement some guy gets up dressed in full road warrior outfit ready to go, and fought alongside Hawk and the manager. lol

Obviously planned ahead...but to a kid like me it was pretty cool.

There was also a midget match on the card between Little T and Cubby Baxter and Bart the Bear (a real live fucking grizzly bear) showed up to do a cage match against his trainer.


Good ole fashioned Canadian wrasslin.

*edit he was Cubby Baxter not Baker.

The only Tag Team to win the AWA,NWA and WWF Tag Team titles.They were monsters when they first hit the AWA.I remember thinking even then they would some day be in the WWF.Just sorry it was such a short time when they got there.
 
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