Posted on 09/17/2012 6:51:11 PM PDT by EveningStar
My favorite was Andy Kaufman wrestling girls.
Back in the late 1950s we used to watch WRESTLING FROM CHICAGO with RUSS DAVIS Ringside!
One old man we talked to also watched the show and said he used to listen to the same matches on radio.
Those were the days! Women wrestlers! Midgets! Gorgeous George! The Great BOLO! Killer Brooks! Killer Carl Cox! Kitt Fox!
Flying Mares! Airplane spins! Atomic Drops! Full Nelsons!
Klobuchar inevitably asked Verne if wrestling was fake.
Verne grabbed Klobuchar and put him in his signature move, the sleeper hold.
Klobuchar went unconscious and Verne laid him on the floor and then took over the show explaining to the TV audience that wrestling was indeed real.
Sidenote: Verne recently killed a fellow nursing home resident via bodyslam but no charges were filed due to Vernes dementia.
I remember Verne Gagne. He was an old timer who undoubtedly participated in real wrestling matches (like Lou Thez)before wrestling trended toward show biz in the late 40s. But by the 70s and 80s wrestling had been scripted for a long time.
And how could a hold like that ever be faked?
Man those guys were furry!
He also wrestled some men, one of whom pile drove his head into the canvas. Andy was a very eccentric guy who liked to antagonize. Like the wrestlers he emulated, it was hard to tell where his act ended and he began.
Danny Hodge was quite a BA amateur wrestler and professional boxer back in the day. Even as an old man he can apparently still crush an apple with one of his hands.
As a young girl I knew Gorgeous George. He was friends with our next door neighbors. I was told what he did, but had no idea what they were talking about.
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I believe this rule may have been what led to Ken Patera and Mr Saito getting into a fight with a dozen police officers in the eighties which led to their incarceration for said brawl.
After a match the tag team went to McDonalds to eat but they saw their opponents, possibly The Crusher and The Baron, inside, so they decided to go through the drive thru instead.
When Patera and Saito arrived at the drive thru window they were told the restaurant was closed. As the tag team was told this they could see inside the window and witnessed an employee throwing a tray filled with burgers into a garbage can. This enraged Patera who then threw a boulder through a large window.
Police were sent to the tag teams hotel room where a fight ensued with the police losing.
Back up arrived and another fight took place where the tag team was maced but continued to fight a dozen police officers while blinded from the chemical spray and yet still were winning the battle royal. A female police officer suffered a broken arm in the fray and finally police had enough and were ready to shoot the wrestlers who finally gave up rather than be killed.
Bother wrestlers were sentenced to 2 years in prison and served 1.5 years, all because they couldn't be seen with faces.
The heel/face rule was relaxed after this fiasco.
Someone a long time ago—I don’t remember who—described professional wrestling as Shakespeare for the masses because of its drama of evil villains and flawed heroes, and dramatic scenarios.
“I think Hulk is one of those guys where he’s like that in real life.”
He is. I live in Clearwater, Fl and would see him often around town on his bike. Bandana and all..
He had an on-going rivavlry in the AWA with a "not-so-good-guy", and soft-spoken gentleman by the name of "Mad Dog" Vachone, whom Nick Bockwinkel once referred to as "not even human."
Whos got the gif of the midget wrestler doing the forehead slide across the ring?
Maybe in Ammurica, but in Oz it was recognozed that they were buds when not performing.
And the staging became fairly obvious in the early 70s WCW War
Opposing forces
Well the WCW's most popular wrestler Marion Milano (persona: Italian Nice Guy. and dare I say it, Unobservant Dumb Muscle) was wrestlen some nobody when one of BBJ's wrestlers interferes and clocks him from behind and knocks Milano even more unobservent. While Milano is staggering around the ring (he did good stagger) and the heel is strutting, in comes KKK and attacks the heel. SHOCK!
Now MIlano clears his head, sees Kox, and, assuming a second BBJ interferer, atacks Kox. Crowd: "No Mario, you are under a misapprehension, the erstwhile Killer has come to assist you in the fight for niceness"
This played out in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and on the studio televised show. Milano never seemed to get Kox's heel-face turn.
** OK there isn't a very big Hawaiian community in Oz, but I suppose he could have been generic Pacific Islander. But he was one of the most popular faces in the WCW and the Peoples Army was outnumbered anyway so..
And, Yes, in Australia, King Curtis was a face.
My earliest memories are from the 70's down here in Florida (CWF I believe it was) with the legendary Gordon Solie doing the commentary on wrestlers like Dusty Rhodes. Quoth Dusty:
"He was the man -- the absolute best to ever call a match. Back in the '70s, the announcer wasn't in on everything that was going on in the ring and behind the curtain, so Gordon had to call it like he saw it."I also remember Ted Turner and Superstation TBS on cable going into the '80s. That's when wrestling started to acquire a national structure and the regional promotions became less prominent.
And the rest, as they say is history. With the WWE, Vince McMahon has created a behemoth entertainment empire which is more popular than ever, and still growing.
I must admit that I've gotten sucked into pro wrestling again over the last 3 years. What else am I gonna do, watch the news or some propaganda-pushing sitcom?
Pro wrestling is just pure, mindless entertainment which probably serves some psychological function in modern society. It's like the ancient gladiatorial contests, without all the death. Heros, villians, love, hate, scantily clad females, damsels in distress, virtue, treachery, betrayal, redemption: wrestling has it all.
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