khawk20

Give me "Things posted at PWO that made Loss lose his lunch all over his keyboard" for $200, Alex

I'm shocked Rocky Mountain Thunder lasted in the business, even in a minimal capacity, until 1995. I hope he got better in the ring than he was back in the late 80's when he was almost killing AWA job guys left and right.

There has to be some sort of access to the VOD for Canada. It is/will be eventually the main reason I would subscribe to the network.

Wait, the network is being offered as a pay TV channel in Canada? If I read that right...WTF????

Though I saw little of it growing up, from my viewing experience over the years I find I can't imagine anyone but Lance Russell calling Memphis as effectively. To that end, mention Memphis and I think of Lawler, then Dundee, and then Russell. I don't think there is another promotion that I can say I would think of their announcer within the top three "first thought" people I associate with it. So I went with Lance.

One of the most endearing aspects of the AWA was their tendency to turn long-time killer heels face as their careers progressed, usually towards the end of what one would perceive as the end of their time as a winning guy. As such, you got the best of both worlds, since the guys were still brawling heels, but they were now beating up other heels and teaming with the faces, often "teaching them how to be mean and to fight dirty." A point brought up during the DVDVR AWA project was how often the faces in the AWA cheated and got away with it. That in itself probably swayed a lot of people in the area to cheer the heels over time. A lot of the old time AWA guys I talk to definitely had a heel preference in their tastes.

Plus they added old Stampede 1979 TV, AWA TV from 1981, and WCCW TV right through April of 1984 on a rotating basis. There seemed to be a new AWA TV show every second month, for example, and something else in the other month. You would get some "unseen" matches in the HOF segments, which they rotated every month, and when it was a repeat of someone they did previously they would add different matches. Plus the Shorties often had "new" matches on it depending on the theme. Never mind there was usually a different MSG, Philly or Boston show each month. The lack of even the most minimal of old school uploads given the content they have in the bank from CoD alone is baffling to me. An update schedule even monthly like they did with CoD would solve most of the complaints listed in this thread. Ten bucks for ten hours of new material every month? Everyone's happy. I haven't even got this yet being in Canada. Hopefully by the time it gets here they will start uploading some stuff that will make getting a sub a no-brainer.

I am so going there the next time I'm in the Twin Cities. **drools uncontrollably**

Malenko's speed would be the intial separator that the average fan would probably point to. Dean had to be quicker given the guys he was working with when he was getting all his attention, because his opponents worked pretty fast. I don't think you can say the same about Dory at any given point, but that's more a product of the era where each wrestled in their prime. At an even more base level, Dory looking over 50 for his entire career has to work against him right from the get-go, at least in comparison to others with a similar style.

Pretty much sums up my Malenko experience in a nutshell.

Maybe not on TV but Baba's NWA title wins were chronicled in the magazines of the time, at least against Race. Unsure of any coverage the Brisco switch might have gotten at the time. Others like Veneno were never acknowledged even in the mags.

I hate the hot tag/clothseline both opposing team members several times spot. Very unbelievable that guys get hit with a clothesline and then immediately spring back up for another one. Happens in singles matches too, of course. I would guess the tag version sprung out of the expectation that the fans were going too apeshit about a good hot tag to notice it too much, and it caught on as a visual that looked fine in the immediacy of the match.

Abdullah the Butcher was a lot scarier as a performer live and up-close than he was on TV. Dan Kroffatt looked like he could jump up to the roof in person. ...come to think of it, every wrestling event I've ever attended has always had me marvel at how small the ring looks in person as opposed to how it looks on TV. That in itself makes pretty much everyone seem like they're better live, because the space they are executing their moves and their match seems so much more confined.

The people I discussed it with as a kid/teen did basically the same thing. We would discuss what made the most sense if it happened, what was likely to happen, and what we hoped would happen. I remember seeing Greg Gagne beat Nick Bockwinkel on TV in 1979 in a non-title match as a soon-to-be-ten year old. When they began promoting the July Minneapolis card with a Greg-Bock main event, I was already surmising that it would be cool if Greg won the title, but he wouldn't win it in that first match, guessing whether it would be a two or three match series, and knowing if it got to a cage match that Greg wouldn't win the title but he would win the match. I was doing that without knowing anything about the concept of booking as it related to wrestling, in terms of the terminology.

From my experience, it was the co-operation aspect that led to the knowledge that the matches were pre-determined somehow. But yeah, those two ideas were arrived at fairly early on in my or anyone else I knew that watched it's viewing experience.

Knowing and talking to several AWA people that watched the AWA both live and on TV faithfully through the 70's, 80's (and in some cases the 60's), it isn't a stretch to say that fans that were into it way-back-when talked about wrestling in a Meltzer-ian way, discussing "insider" rumours, tidbits about interactions with wrestlers in the community, and talking with people that were actually on the inside. Those guys talked if you got to know them. Same with some of the Montreal-area old-time fans I've talked with over the years, and even discussions with my father and grandfather when I was a kid about when wrestling used to come here and appear on their tv. What it demonstrates to me is that the community of "smart" fans existed, and the insider information was an enjoyable part of being a fan. It trickled out in smaller doses, but it was discussed amongst the fans of the product at the time, even sought out by them. The era of the internet and the WON becoming popular brought those smaller communities together in a way that could not happen before, and in time I believe did indeed expand the community of "smart" fans. I also believe those fans existed in greater numbers pre-internet and pre-WON than Jerry will acknowledge, but the broadness of the discussions were limited before either entity became as big as they did. *** Also, to Jerry's point about the stories of people having to be smartened up, I think there is some merit to that being necessary back then in some cases, but I often question the things like "Verne didn't smarten me up until I was in the dressing room before my debut". I just can't accept that someone could train for any length of time before realizing how much co-operation was involved to make almost any hold work. We figured that out as grade school kids the first time we mimicked our tv heroes in the schoolyard. No way new wrestlers and new backstage people could go so long without figuring out the performance aspect of it. I can accept the illusion of a face and a heel hating each other being maintained backstage to outsiders and potentially new insiders, but I imagine the questions would center more around "This is pretend and they still seem to not like each other and are kept apart and I have no idea why". The fans rioting and attacking wrestlers I consider a separate entity from the above. People went to the matches to lose themselves in the spectacle, and spending two hours geting their blood up watching the matches makes it easy for me to believe the basis for those kinds of stories. I've seen also seen it regularly in minor-pro hockey around here, where fans get so into hating the opposing team that their bus gets egged, players get attacked and there are fights with them off the ice and in the stands, things like that. Hockey isn't "worked" like wrestling is, but the ability of the fan to immerse himself in the game to the point of losing his concept of the game vs. real life is very similar to the way wrestling fans behave.

Got a quick overview of that for those without subs?

There is minimal Grand Prix around...maybe 6 shows worth. A few others were lost. Good footage (Andre vs. Mad Dog, Mad Dog vs. Carpentier, that stuff). Stampede footage from 1961 appeared on Classics on Demand. I suspect they have a show or two they could use, and probably some older individual matches. The Classics Stampede video run began IIRC in late 78. They titled the shows monthly as opposed to the week they aired, but they didn't appear or feel cobbled together from a whole month's worth of footage. Not too sure about the other ones, but outside of Grand Prix I have serious doubts that there is footage around from the other older Montreal promotions listed. The 1986 one maybe (not sure who was even in that version of it as International was still going strong at that time), but the others, probably not.

I've been watching some Central States discs I got in from April of 1984. Central States gets a bad rap a lot, but this era was actually pretty good and had some pretty fun stuff, including a Butch Reed/Wahoo McDaniel tag team, a young bearded Tommy Rogers, The Grapplers, One Man Gang, and plenty more. Much more fun than I expected.