Bix

Since I've been hunting Lewin stuff and don't want to lose track of anything, here are some interesting WC threads: 1965 results (early in the territory's run) with Lewin in some huge main events: http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...3660;p=2#000046 Ed Lock on the Lewin-Big Bad John feud (which I didn't realize until now was post-Barnett): http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...c;f=10;t=003685

I liked Dead Wrestler of the Week, too, but after the Sammartino article I see it less as him being Simmons-ized and more that he had a niche that protected him. When he was at Deadspin, based on his writing style back then and the type of stuff he included in his articles, it was not uncommon for people to guess he was some old DVDVR poster like Matt Randazzo or Kevin Cook. It's crazy to think about it now that he clearly has such a terrible grasp of every facet of wrestling history: Can you picture even the youngest, least knowledgable DVDVR regulars writing that Bruno Sammartino shot on Buddy Rogers to win the WWWF Championship after saying "You can do it the easy way or the hard way," much less long time hardcore fans? It's one thing to not know stuff. Lots of people don't know stuff. The problem is that he pretends he does. Throw in stuff like how he and Simmons addressed the Keller stuff he has no business being the "prestige" pro wrestling writer of record.

Jason Jarrett is Jeff's half brother.

Ashley Hudson was Ozzie the Crowbar lookalike. He just happened to look like that back then, and as far as I know the angle was because he happened to be a guy who looked like that and worked WCW shows, not someone convincing him to change his look.

Yes.

Dave Meltzer a month ago:

I thought it turned into a really great match in the sense I thought it was perfect for those two guys doing a major mask match. Wish that they weren't booked into a corner in terms of the crowd reactions, but by the time the fans decided they were going to side with Volador Jr., it had tremendous actual heat. Don't really get why the Canadian Destroyer isn't a martinete, though. One of the better major shows of the year but it was such a bizarre spectacle as soon as the mask match was determined and the crowd turned on the show. To paraphrase one person on the F4W board: Congratulations, after 80 years you killed the territory.

They produced it, though. It just wasn't released officially.

I think we eventually figured out it was always Kawada and the guy at Kayfabed Memories was just some guy grandstanding in a typical "I was X masked guy" carny form.

If the Vince as Stephanie's baby daddy idea made it to TV, I'm not sure I want to know what JR would have done to them.

Any idea what happened there? I know a tape of it eventually surfaced somewhere but it was never officially released.

Purple Haze for mayor!

Thread from when I first posted the PDF of Kendall's posts here with download link within is http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=6549

Court Baurer shared the same anecdote about Dave on his Baurer & Pollock podcast this morning. Dave sent him his ballot in response to a years old email when Court was still in WWE. Court offered the pro-tip of bombarding Dave with (news tip) emails during this season if you want a decent chance in receiving a ballot. My ballot came as a reply to an email I had sent him years earlier about UFC fighter Tim Kennedy. I'm dying over here. My ballot was a reply to an email I sent him titled "NWA Houston Parade of Champions". That was months ago and not the last email i've sent him. Odd. Mine was a reply to an email asking him and Bryan about the "demon voice" at UFC 159.

It was actually INBRED puppies. The male dog mated with his sister...or his mother. I forget which.

Yeah, I guess so. Okay, I'm interested then, where does Graham fall? Overrated in the sense I think people underrate just how much the dynamic switching to all of the star WWWF babyfaces plus Dusty and Mascaras chasing helped. The fans were all trained to expect a title change every time he defended the title. Really strong draw in the previous 4 years and he was definitely the right heel for that spot, but he quickly lost his mind and spiraled into drug addiction. I don't necessarily see him as a HOF caliber draw, either, but for different reasons from Morales and Backlund.

As far as Pedro > Backlund, I mean more in the sense that he was a star wrestler who did well before and after his WWWF Championship run. Obviously Backlund has the better case as a (W)WWF draw because of longevity and his success outside of MSG. Backlund was never going to be a great fit in the expansion/national promotion era for a number of reasons, but he tried working in the best possible new promotion(s) for him in the form of the PWUSA tapings and AWA and didn't really make a dent.

Yeah, I guess so.

Within less than two years, Backlund went from being the WWF Champion and MSG headliner to Tony Garea Mark II to bombing as a part timer in PWUSA to carrying around a cardboard belt in ICW. Then he disappeared and nobody really cared. Pedro at least had a stong career after dropping the title, but nothing that boosts his resume as a HOFer, and he has the albatross of drawing much less in markets without huge Puerto Rican populations. At least he continued to be a star pro wrestler.

Much of your Backlund criticism could be applied to John Cena. Is Cena a Hall of Famer? If so why? Cena was able to get over on his own and there are tangible ways we have now (like merch sales) to show that John Cena specifically is over that we didn't have then. Plus he was not at all a company golden boy until he rapped for Stephanie, his boosters when he was first called up were the developmental staff (who had little to no say back then) and Paul Heyman (who everyone else was skeptical of when he'd push a new prospect). He also go over initially while he was still a heel and was turned by the fans. If you're arguing that Cena's current persona is the result of taking the guy they happened to have as champion and molding him to fit into their current marketing plans for kids, that's different.

I'm hesitant on Morales because I feel like he's a case of the WWWF machine working, in some ways more so than Backlund. Instead of being an unknown who got picked because he fit the archetype Vince Sr. wanted, he was an established star completely re-molded in the vision of what WWWF Champion was supposed to be. And lately, I've felt kind of negative on Backlund for how much he was just a guy along for the ride. He wasn't undeserving, but if everyone loved Bob Backlund, he was such a non-entity before and (more importantly) after his run (W)WWF Champion? For some reason the best comparison I can come up with among other HOFers is Paco Alonso, in that yeah, on paper he's deserving because it's his company, but it's not like he actually did anything. Yeah, Backlund was the big MSG headliner, but is there anything Backlund did to strongly suggest he had much to do with it? So yeah, Morales. The Pedro Morales who was a star in California, Hawaii, etc was a completely different wrestler, an Edouard Carpentier style high flyer who dumbed himself down when he was offered the best paying spot in wrestling because he was a charismatic Puerto Rican. He was doing everything different from what got him over in every other territory. He's not a HOF candidate without that ~3 year run. It's not like he was a blank slate, but I want to hear a solid argument that he wasn't coasting on being Puerto Rican. I'm not saying they could have thrown some uncharismatic Puerto Rican job guy in the role, but when you add in that he wasn't nearly as successful in the other cities in the territory as he was in NYC and that the live crowd demographics changed radically with his title win and loss...I can't really buy that Pedro Morales, specifically, was a draw at the level that makes him a HOFer. The more I think about it the more I take the stance that Bruno is the only one of the three face WWWF Champions who's a legitimate HOFer and not the product of a slick hype machine that was selling some of the worst pro wrestling in the country to major population bases that didn't know better (hell, Bruno has complained that he couldn't have quality matches as champ and that he wanted the babyface match with Pedro to do a major back and forth match full of highspots). And that's not me being some kind of WERKRATEZ~! snob as much as pointing out the disconnect between the WWWF and almost every other territory. Bruno was made champion because he was already a big draw. Bruno drew as a touring attraction in other territories to the point the NWA wanted him as their touring champion. The other two were thrown into a role Vince Sr. had in mind and succeeded because of the machine behind them.

Kris, what do you have in the way of Australia results, both for Ivan and in general?

Psicosis did a fair bit of headlining in Tijuana, like the feud with Ultraman 2000.

Interview w/ Dave Millican. We talk about how he became a belt maker, the current WWE Championship, and more. Love the story he told that I ended up closing with.