khawk20

I'm guessing it's the Philly match given how much Philly footage is available.

Abdullah and Mascaras are also good choices. They made Mascaras sound like the perfect wrestler and Abby sound like he would kill someone without even thinking about it. We should also remember the evolution of the Apter mags while we're at it. The 70's and pre-84 stuff was a lot different than the mags that came after Hogan got the belt, both in tone and style of writing. After 1984, the opinions of the editors in their columns became much less fiction-oriented, and then you started to see more of a bias in who was good and who wasn't in their opinion. That happened rarely before 1984.

...also, regarding my comments about Flair, I wasn't able to see Flair at all until a long time after 1981 as we did not have any TV he appeared on here. In that sense, the Apter mags boosted a lot of guys stock in my mind that I had never seen before. When you read about these guys every month for years without ever seeing them, those mags were a big factor in promoting how much you wanted to see them. Flair was tops in that department for me from reading them, no doubt.

I thought of the LOD first, but Flair was pushed to the moon from day 1 as champ, too. Lots of talk about how spectacular a champion he was, and about all the guys he was beating that they themselves pushed so heavily. That was from the end of 1981, never mind those mags flat-out declaring him the greatest, period, after their WWF war began in early 1984. That was funny as well because Hogan was on their covers a ton, yet they wrote tons of negative stuff about him. The pics they had to use were arena shots and cut-out older pics and stuff. Very funny looking for such a professional set of magazines, but they didn't have a choice. ...so yeah, LOD, Flair, Tommy Rich in 80-81, probably Dusty too, would be my choices.

I don't watch RAW a ton but I happened to be watching the Kofi-Cesaro match tonight. The match ended on break, seemingly so they could promote your NEED for the WWE App. Does this happen a lot? It didn't make me want to get the WWE app, it just pissed me off.

I did the same thing as a child after reading Peanuts/Charlie Brown paperbacks.

Well shit. RIP Larry.

Step one: Cut a hole in the box.

Related to Brody, i just watched a disc that had Brody's only "clean" job in the States possibly through the entire 80's on it a few days ago, vs. Kabuki of all people in Texas. That would have been circa 81 or 82. I had seen it before but not for years. ...and, to clarify, that "Clean Job" sees Brody get pinned for a 3 count but he does mostly kick out at 2 and a half, but as far as I know he took the pinfall loss unless there was an after-the-fact DQ. It did not appear that was the case. *** Brody is polarizing for many different reasons. I would investigate the Microscope forum to see if there is a thread on him, IIRC there is, and all the divisive points of Brody and his style/matches/attitude would be in it. If not there, it is somewhere on these boards...has to be.

I'd be interested in seeing the AWA linear title compilation.

Good one, forgot about that.

I find it hard to fathom that the Mad Dog blade accident aired on TV. Can you imagine if that happened on Raw or Smackdown now?

Mad Dog Vachon, on TV, was blading during a brawl with the Crusher when Crusher kicked him in the back of the head, driving the blade deep into an artery. Absolutely brutal and I believe the story that Mad Dog almost died before he got to the hospital. Roger Kent knew something was waaaaaaaaay wrong when he saw it and was trying to get help for Mad Dog while maintaining some semblance of kayfabe on the commentary. It's a bit disconcerting to hear him realizing Mad Dog could be dying right in front of him without really being able to say it. His calls for help were pretty frantic. It should be on youtube, check it out. It happened in either 1970 or 1971.

Something basic would be if there was anyone he regrets never having a chance to work with, either just once or in a longer program.

Only problem I have with this is that a film can edit out/remove anything that would act as a *wink* to the audience before it gets sent out to the theatre. Mistakes/missed spots happen all the time in wrestling, live, and as such can bring the viewer back to the reality of things in an instant. In the case of wrestling, a mistake/blown spot is a wink all it's own that movies don't have to contend with.

The AWA in 1984 is a personal favourite. A changing of the guard and new direction in the title picture, big names being brought in, the WWF invading the Twin Cities and seeing how much busier the AWA got on a lot of fronts with different angles, the Blackwell face turn and the emergence of the Sheik's army, The LOD-Fabs matches (at a time when they were possibly the two top tag teams going), Slaughter coming in...it was a very promising time for the AWA, even in the face of losing a lot of the old stalwarts like Heenan, Jesse, Vachon, and of course, Hulk Hogan.

If they haven't specifically said what that target is it's smart because if they need the bump for their "million subscribers", they can use it and claim that those foreign subs were factored into the number. "Spin to Win", so to speak... What that might mean for the overall network success expectations is another thing.

Man I hope that 1971 episode of AWA TV with a very young Andre the Giant on the card survived. Also Carpentier vs. Robinson on the evening arena show would have been a ton of fun, I bet.

Too bad they don't think they have the audience to have Martel cover 1984 or 1985 in the AWA, when Martel was the champ, the promotional war was in full flight, the advent of Pro Wrestling USA, losing to Hansen, AWA Freebirds stories, the impact of long-term guys leaving and the effectiveness of the new guys coming in, Brody and all the fun he had...soooo much good stuff there. There are probably lots of guys that could do 1981 WWF, but not so many left that could do 1984 or 85 in the AWA. Again, I get that they probably don't see an audience for it, but it's a darn shame nonetheless.

No, no, they will TOTALLY get 2 million+ subscribers if they put up weekly AWA TV. Hunter, if you're reading this, you NEED to add AWA TV to get the subscribers! You'll get a million new ones for every year of AWA TV you show before 1981, guaranteed!