Al

Johnny V is Valiant, not Valentine. Valiant was well established as a former WWWF tag team champion. Valentine didn't work the WWF in the '80s to my knowledge and he would have been too physically incapacitated to manage.

Sibling vs Sibling is one thing. How many memorable twin vs twin or character vs impostor matches have there been?

It sounds more or less like most Money In the Bank title changes. It would've been different if the WWF pulled that kind of angle in 1987 though.

It seems to make many general lists of shocking tv moments for whatever it's worth.

I get the impression that Orton is mechanically solid and smooth in the ring. Workers look at him and see the bits and pieces, rather than the finished product. Orton bores me personally, and I think he doesn't really connect with the fanbase on a meaningful level. But he's obviously talented.

Regarding the indian gimmick, the WWWF had Chief Big Heart and Chief White Owl in 1965-66. Those guys were more blatant indian stereotypes than Wahoo McDaniel. Big Heart last wrestled at MSG in March of '66, while Strongbow debuted in July of 1970. So there was really just four years in between babyface indian gimmicks.

That was Mike Lano, wasnt it? Kyle Klingman

The earlier interview with the PW Hof director was worthwhile at least. But yeah, that was a bit of a chore.

Involving a collection agency seems like it would ensure the users never, ever used the service again. There are enough horror stories about services like XM Radio that make it virtually impossible to cancel your service.

A long shot, but I'd love to see them dump that Texas Wrestling footage they have from Ed McLemore. Something utterly uncovered by the rest of their archive.

Ernie Roth (the Wizard) worked multiple territories along with the WWWF at the same time. "I Like To Hurt People," which was filmed around 1977, featured an angle where Creatchman replaced the Wizard temporarily and cost the Sheik a match, leading to Sheik (with Wizard) against Ox Baker (with Creatchman).

Not so much on this board, but I can't imagine a more underrated wrestler by the general public than El Dandy.

I think Ole at that time was a worse choice than Roma. At least Roma looked the part. Ole hadn't wrestled in seven years and wasn't going to wrestle again.

Were they marketing to children for Cena's entire run or did that direction only start after the Benoit incident? Honest question.

Lesnar leaves, eventually Bautista gets injured. The next guy in line at the time is Bobby Lashley who was as heavily pushed in 2006-07 as you could be without being John Cena.

I never saw much in Strongbow either. But in his defense, he was born in 1928. That means he was 44 years old before any of his WWWF run surfaced on tape, and in his mid 50s when he held the tag titles for the last time. Given that he had a 20 year career before he even adopted the gimmick, he must have been a decent worker at some point.

Given that I'm almost finished with it within a week, I'd definitely recommend it.

I saw that a new edition has been released on the Kindle so I immediately downloaded a copy. I remember seeing it offered at a Scholastic book sale in my teens and not picking it up, thinking the old timers beyond my interest. I've regretted it for years. The new edition has forwards from Thesz's wife and the author explaining the process. They've admitted some errors and inaccuracies. (But the effort is frankly more than welcome given some autobiographies I've read). So how well does the book hold up for those familiar with the material? And what is the modern perspective of Thesz as a wrestler?

On this vein, Ian Rotten as well since his IWA style death matches were in driving range of PWI's offices (South NJ).

Shoot, I can't believe none of us have mentioned Dean Malenko yet. PWI heavily pimped a pure, mat wrestling style as the ideal of wrestling and Malenko was the poster child for it.

Reckless Youth

I quibble a bit because I don't think Andre was the first. There was a wrestler named Kurt "Gargantuan" Zehe in the 1950s. Another wrestler billed as "Paul Bunyan" in the '50s, though I've never seen footage. Sky Hi Lee. Wrestling was always bringing in freak shows to try and pop crowds. Most of them were barely competent. There was clearly something about Andre that set him apart right from the beginning.

I know there's a different thread, but I would favor Andre over Vader. Personal preference, I admit I haven't seen much of Vader outside of the US. Yokozuna is problematic because his peak was so short. I think staying in well enough shape to stay in the ring counts for something.

One more. Label Quebec as "France."

I guess there's a meta joke about Uganda being entirely misidentified. The Detroit/Windsor area should be identified as the Middle East as well.