khawk20

Wow! Huge find. Only 35 minutes has been available previously. Awesome.

At this point a competitor with any real "oomph" is so far out of sight that it makes no sense for them to book everything to be "meh", if that was a line of reasoning that they would actually be using. I think WWE is doing everything they can to maximize their ceiling, they just aren't very good at it.

...and blading. Before you knew what you were looking for. For me there was a time when I did not know about the blade (that changed in the early-mid 80's..The Stossel piece might have actually been what clued me in...memory is fleeting on knowing about it before that bit). Once you look for it, it is mostly obvious when it is put in use...but before that, when a guy would come up bloody, it grabbed your attention immediately. And AFTER you knew about it, and you missed it happening, it was still an "oh wow, I missed that!" moment.

Billy Robinson's neckbreaker. The timing of it so it didn't break his opponents neck always amazed me, and in my eye it had to be almost all Billy making that move safe as his opponent really had to give himself up for it. Even when you figured out that it was mostly about the release point of the chin by Billy on the way down, that move always looked devastating. That made it a great pro wrestling "trick" to me.

Did anyone mention Sgt. Al Tomko from Vancouver All-Star in the early 80's? I can't think of another lead babyface/heel from the territories that seemed so woefully inept in either role, and it was his show so he was mostly the top guy. Just awful.

Someone put my Bockwinkel-Zbyszko feud disc on line sometime back. It was done some time ago and there have been a few new pieces of it come up since then, but it's pretty representative of what you are looking for I think.

Wow, shitty break man. You know I have discs of a ton of it from our trades so if you ever want to re-aquire some of it when you get everything back to normal, let me know.

Well Curt wasn't quite "there" yet and Robinson was a few years past "there", but I agree it was probably fun to watch. Most depressing thing I see on that sheet? "Ivan Putski pinned David Schultz in 8:44".

Haven't seen that one yet but I did finally get a chance to watch the Gagne RF shoot. Aside from it being standard RF fare question-wise, it was ok. Strange that Greg didn't remember the Team Challenge Series but I think that was more RF not knowing exactly what to call it when asking him about it, and it being near the end of the interview. Greg never actually was on a Team in that thing from my recollection--he had retired at that point--so with the writing on the wall him paying no attention to what was going on isn't out of the realm of possibility. I did find it sad hearing Greg talking about Verne being too stubborn to sell out or quit when it was obvious that they could still get out with a little bit of savings, and hearing Greg talk about what it cost his family in terms of their savings trying to keep it going too. Greg was in a pretty damn tough spot there.

I'd recommend checking out the promos a few weeks previous to, and then the 1/15/84 St. Paul match with Bockwinkel and Mulligan against Vachon and Crusher. The promos are excellent all around--Mulligan put over as a monster very well by all, then a really good take-no-prisoners style promo by Mulligan--and then, during the match, Lanza coming out and getting Mulligan to abandon Bock and reform the Blackjacks...excellent story told there with Mulligan as the centerpiece. Also in April 1984 he had a St. Paul match against Crusher Blackwell where he thoroughly dominated him like nobody else. Worht checking out just to see Blackwell really put Mulligan over. I'm sure the Blackjacks were getting the AWA tag titles from Patera and Blackwell before Mulligan bolted for whatever reason. His build was really, really strong in the four months or so he was there. Mulligan on the Luce films with Lanza and Heenan is also fun to check out. RIP.

3/28/75 Houston Jack Brisco drew Jose Lothario El Santo & Al Madril beat The Baron & El Gran Marcus Lord Little Brook beat Bobo Johnson Joe Leduc beat El Gordo Blackjack Lanza beat Roddy Piper Red Bastien drew Kim Duk

One set of PWI Year end Awards one year said that Izzy Slapowitz and another wrestler with a jewish name (escapes me right now) should team up and call themselves "The Yiddish Bullfrogs". I laughed for about three days and it's always stuck with me.

Always loved that name. Another of my favourites: The Black 'n' Blue Express--Ken Patera & Bobby Duncum.

I watched Kal interview Bam Bam Bigelow on a June 1988 Spectrum broadcast last night. It was hillarious watching Bigelow try to hold character while answering some of the oddest questions from Kal. He was trying so hard to be menacing for his upcoming match with One Man Gang but Kal was asking questions that were totally taking him out of the moment.

I found Crockett right away in that word find. There is always one that you can catch immediately.