At least I checked your vinyl pages yesterday, this I understandOriginally Posted by LASERCD
. This is strange and odd stuff. Guess it is like a soap opera.
At least I checked your vinyl pages yesterday, this I understand
The older I get, the better I was.
Tee-hee.
Yup, that pretty much sums it up although Vince did get quite the challenge to his national monopoly from Ted Turner’s WCW for a while. Vince eventually crushed them into submission too and WWF / WWE became the big dog around the country (and the world). There are still some small independent promotions out there, but not nearly as many as back in the day.
In and out of the ring
One of my favorite movies is, the wrestler starring Mickey Rourke. While the movie isn't a universally accurate depiction of all wrestlers experiences, it does portray to good effect an artist/entertainer holding on way past their 15 minutes has expired. One of my favorite moments in the movie occurs when Mickey's character (who works in a grocery store part time) ask his boss for extra weekend work and his boss replies, "Weekend? Isn't that when you're usually busy sitting on some guy's face?
Agree, a fantastic movie for both wrestling and non-wrestling fans. I thought it depicted the wresting world fairly well.
Instead of creating a new topic, "Outlaw" Ron Bass (who competed in the 1970's-80's), died today at the age of 68.
wrestling - outlaw ron bass.jpg
Can you really call it "competing" when it's all scripted entertainment? Wouldn't the term "performed" be more accurate?
What!? You mean rasslin's not real? Oh, the humanity!
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
"who pretended to wrestle in the 70s-80s..."
"The Brain" is dead.
http://abc7ny.com/entertainment/lege...-dies/2428936/
"Henry Cow always wanted to push itself, so sometimes we would write music that we couldn't actually play – I found that very encouraging." - Lindsay Cooper, 1998
"I have nothing to do with Endless River. Phew! This is not rocket science people, get a grip." - Roger Waters, 2014
"I'm a collector. And I've always just seemed to collect personalities." - David Bowie, 1973
Aw Bobby, I remember him well from his AWA days. I saw him in flesh at a "title match" between Blackjack Lanza and Verne Gagne in an arena in Bismarck ND. Pretty fun. 8-9000 screaming fans. Bobby was Blackjack's manager and of course was interfering all the way through. Near the end of the match Verne gave him a forearm smash and tossed him out of the ring. I was twelve and it was the greatest thing I saw that year.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Wrestling, Reality TV and the White House. The story lines are scripted and the points don't matter.
This thread needs an official song -
Yeah. I think he managed Andre The Giant when Hogan body slammed him for the title.
The older I get, the better I was.
I look at professional wresting as an art form (seriously I do…). People either get it or don’t. There is not much middle ground. It is not a sport, but it is athletic. It is not theater, but certainly has elements of drama. I was pretty into it for a while back in the day, and even knew a few people in the lower levels of the biz. I totally get why most people write it off though.
I followed pro wrestling when I was a kid. I always thought it was better on TV than in person because it was so obviously scripted and choreographed. It was very different from territory to territory. I grew up in the Memphis territory (NWA and AWA affilition) but did on occasion see AWA wrestling in Michigan when on vacation. Baby faces in one territory were heels in another. I never could stand northeast coast wrestling, then called WWWF; it seemed way more cartoonish than the other territories.
Bobby "the Brain" Heenan gave the best advice I've ever heard to his stable: "Win if you can. Lose if you must. But, always always cheat."
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
Went through a huge wrestling phase as a teen in the 70's. Watched WWWF on TV from the northeast and the way The Valiant Brothers and Lou Albano would eviscerate a young, timid Vince McMahon in interviews was comedy gold - taped all of them off the TV and years later still burst out laughing to hear them. Scripted? Of course. I saw Bruno Sammartino vs. Killer Kowalski at Madison Square Garden and a month later they were at Nassau Coliseum and it was practically the identical match, nearly move for move. The newly-opened Coliseum was a great venue for wrestling because they rarely had more than 3,000 in attendance and we would buy the cheap upper deck tickets and move down to sit in the chairs at floor level.
The only time I got to see Steele was on a grainy UHF station from New Jersey that showed west coast matches. Think I might have seen Koloff a few times there too.
Had a cousin in Brooklyn who was training to join the biz but he couldn't get his weight up to the 235-lb minimum despite being well over 6 ft. When I visited we would go to a nearby park with his younger brother and do some of the moves and there was definitely athleticism and precision involved or you could get hurt. As such, there was cooperation between the two combatants; if it was time for you to be picked up and body-slammed by your opponent, you helped him get you up in the air with a little jump to make the lift easier. When a guy gets down on one knee and does a head-snap of the opponent over his raised knee, the opponent is cooperating by essentially doing a somersault over the knee. So both parties have to know what move is about to be done.
By the 80's I could see it was changing and lost all interest, have no desire at all to watch it today, pretty raunchy from what I've seen and read...
You say Mega Ultra Deluxe Special Limited Edition Extended Autographed 5-LP, 3-CD, 4-DVD, 2-BlueRay, 4-Cassette, five 8-Track, MP4 Download plus Demos, Outtakes, Booklet, T-Shirt and Guitar Pick Gold-Leafed Box Set Version like it's a bad thing...
Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon were the all time best wrestling announcing team.
I grew up with Big Time Wrestling who I think were based out of Detroit (could be wrong on that). Bobo Brazil was kind of the star of the territory at the time. When wrestling got huge in the 80's and 90's I got into it again. I always thought it was a blast to go see live. You drank a few beers and just had a good time with it. We got 2nd row one time in Battle Creek MI for WCW and saw Rick Flair right up close. It was amazing how he was able to work the crowd at ringside. A true master.
Boy, my mom knows all these names. Soaps and wrestling for her. She can tell you about some great matches she has seen in her younger days. Just a hoot.
The older I get, the better I was.
Then what do we need you for? Get your mom over here and tell her to start typin'!!
Bobby Heenan was the mouthpiece for many legendary wrestlers over his four decades in the business. The team of Chris Markoff and Angelo Poffo (Randy Savage's father) in the 60's, the duo of Ray "Crippler" Stevens and Nick Bockwinkel in Verne Gagne's AWA (not to mention Bockwinkel's tenure as AWA champion and Heenan being his top "advisor" at the time), his brief stint in the Georgia territory with The Masked Superstar and the WWF/WWE, with his "Heenan Family".
But as previously mentionned, his commentary with Gorilla Monsoon on "Prime Time Wrestling" and other vignettes were the other highlights of his stellar career (which continued on WCW Nitro in the 90's with Tony Schivaone and Dusty Rhodes as broadcast partners).
wrestling - bobby heenan angelo poffo chris markoff.jpgwrestling - bobby heenan baron von raschke.jpgwrestling - bobby heenan georgia masked superstar gordon solie.jpgwrestling - heenan bockwinkel.jpgwrestling - bobby heenan curt hennig.jpg
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