khawk20

I watched some old WWC last night from 88-89. Ron Garvin vs. Bob Orton Jr and Garvin and Colon for the Universal title in a good long match were both pretty fun. Also Jason the Terrible vs. TNT...Jason won both matches via pin basically with headbutts from his hard-plastic hockey mask. How the hell did they explain why wearing that was allowed?

This is and was one of the most memorable bumps I ever saw. I was stunned that Blackwell didn't break his neck hitting the mat like that.

I don't think they really have footage going back that far. They uploaded 2 "matches" from the early 70s but it was really just pictures in a slideshow narrated by Paul Boesch. That's a shame. Sometime I read that they had stock starting from the 60s so I took that literally. So there's this legend of a match where Kintaro Oki tried to shoot on Thesz to go back to Japan as NWA champion. Key word being "tried" as Thesz made a point of making it a long slow beat up. Oki and Thesz eventually became good friends (Thesz carried Oki's wheelchair at some events decades later). The legend says that this was taped and never shown on TV but it was part of the Boesch archive. Well it might be. They could have matches dating back that far on tape and maybe haven't converted them yet. The still pic stuff I've read about is disconcerting a little in that regard, but you never know.

My first show was a Lars Anderson owned promotion that came to town called World League Wrestling. That would have been either late 1979 or early 1980. Lars Anderson (Champion) vs. The Bounty Hunter was the main event. It was low rent but fun. WLW had TV based out of Duluth that we got for some time and they came back a few times after that show. I've looked for tape of the TV for decades but have never found any, which I guess isn't surprising since it would have been on right around when VCRs first became available to the public as a whole (at about a grand per).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JDWG-vNLAw Only one I could find on youtube. THere are plenty of Rhodes/Murdoch tag bouts from Chicago during his AWA stint, those might be around on youtube under Texas Outlaws.

I don't have a problem with it if it's honest sentiment expressed in a way that might not be PC now, but is still an honest question, which is how I took her comment when I read it. I hope I get the same consideration when I'm older...mostly because I'm closer to "old fart" status than most of you here, I think.

Was wanz-Bock on that list?

Wow. RIP to an absolute staple of the expansion of my wrestling interests outside of the AWA. They don't build 'em like Dusty anymore, and sadly never will again.

Yeah but for me I already knew how good Bret the singles wrestler could be from the Steamboat match so I never looked at that one quite the same way.

The announcers in the AWA always sold the piledriver as an exceptionally dangerous move that should be banned whenever someone whipped it out (talking pre-1984 here).

Bret Hart losing to Rick Steamboat at the Boston Garden, early in 1986 IIRC. I first saw that match on Prime Time Wrestling and thought Steamboat would squash him. By the end, I was half-convinced Hart could actually pull the giant upset. It's still one of my favourite matches and it really introduced me to Bret Hart outside of his at-the-time realm of tag team wrestling with the Hart Foundation.

For AWA material in the form of classic matches and angles, DotDotkins has a channel that is pretty good. Nothing new or extraordinary, but a lot of the standard good matches and angles from the 70's and 80's are there.

I give that tandem full credit for being the ultimate small-weasel-want-to-see-them-get-hammered tag team.

Garvin and Regal vs. The Road Warriors sprung to mind, but I don't know if the two matches I've seen between the two teams would qualify as great matches. The LOD's title loss to them was interesting for the shock value.

Yelling, screaming, pain...you know, fun.

Yeah, but that's half the fun, no?

Nick Bockwinkel becomes NWA Heavyweight Champion in 1975 and holds it off and on until Flair wins it in 1981. Book Bockwinkel's 6 years on top of the NWA and...what of Harley Race? Book his next six years too, with the caveat that Verne gave the AWA title to Ray Stevens so Harley taking the AWA title isn't an option.

Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell. They were either chasing the AWA Tag straps or holding them from my earliest memories, and their feuds with Blackwell and Kaissie, Adonis and Ventura, Patera and Duncum, Patera and Blackwell and the rest of Sheik's Army were long-running battles filled with dramatic matches.

Watched the Duggan 1988 WWF Timeline last night. It was nothing earth-shattering but it was better than I thought it would be. I also watched a mixed disc that started off with a Bruiser Brody vs. Ox Baker match from Portland, Maine in 1986, seemingly pro-shot from a single ringside camera. Weird pairing and one I wish had happend when Ox was at least a little bit mobile.

Dino Bravo vs. SD II, Fall 1979, AWA TV. Bravo pulls the huge upset as he was a newcomer to the AWA at the time. SD II was a real monster heel at that point which made the result very significant. Greg Gagne vs. Nick Bockwinkel, Spring 1979, non title match. Gagne pulls off a huge upset and wins with the sleeper. No video out there of that one right now but it was awesome.

Wanz's AWA title win over Bockwinkel: Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODgn2FDrRAw Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64cz57SWbQ One of the most surprising match results, well, ever. As an aside, I found someone uploaded my Bockwinkel-Zbyszko feud comp I made about ten years ago looking for this. Cool to see it up there.