Al

Flair/Von Erich from Christmas Star Wars '82. Take a largely one-off appearance by Flair and spark the hottest feud in wrestling.

Between Mildred Burke and the Fabulous Moolah American womens wrestling went nearly fifty years without the champion doing a high profile job.

Remember the story of Ray Traylor getting his hand slammed in a limo door and not selling it?

My daughter completely destroyed my YouTube algorithms. It’s painful.

Legends inductees: 2020 Ray Stevens Brickhouse Brown Steve Williams Baron Michele Leone Gary Hart 2021 Pez Whatley Dick the Bruiser Ethel Johnson Buzz Sawyer Paul Boesch Their minority selections are getting bizarre (Johnson excepted, her story is worth highlighting).

Rounds lasted until a fighter was knocked or thrown down. It could be a few seconds or several minutes. Fights ended up being a mixture of boxing and collar-and-elbow wrestling. When John L. Sullivan fought Jake Kilrain in the last famous bare knuckle fight, Kilrain would slip to the ground as strategy to avoid punishment. Sullivan’s insistence on fighting future fights under Queensbury rules established them as the norm. A lot of those reforms such as doctors, maximum rounds, etc. came about in the 1920s as states such as New York created rules where boxing was previously banned. What’s interesting about wrestling is that in the 19th century a lot of it is that aforementioned collar-and-elbow style. Wrestlers would lock up and the object was to throw the other to the ground. Remember that prize fighting was outright banned in many states in that era. So a publicly exhibited wrestling match might actually have somewhat strict rules.

Gotch and Hackenschmidt in 1908 had an undercard. I found references to preliminary matches as early as 1902, typically just one match before the main attraction.

I remember reading accounts of Ernest Roeber around 1900 where they're clearly working angles. Here's a note from an 1880 newspaper. Wrestling is mentioned along with other sports. It would be awfully naive to think that every sport was crooked/fixed EXCEPT wrestling. The difference in that era was that wrestlers could compete if they HAD to. Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, May 22, 1880, Image 2 « Chronicling America « Library of Congress (loc.gov)

Deliberately tanking shows when you have a cartel imposed monopoly on a territory is one thing. Doing it post-expansion is insane.

That's a hell of a bribe honor

At this point it would be Triple H

Pro wrestling could use more step-family storylines...

And the Hall of Fame

Could be as simple as it's harder to get turned down or held up when you tell them on camera.

I never tried the Peacock app, but I had no issues using my Fire for the WWE Network.