khawk20

No AWA stuff. I guess he wouldn't have seen the Bock-Hennig draw from a few weeks earlier yet since it didn't air until New Years Eve, but I would have thought someone would have seen it and reported about it to him.

We used to pick everyone, 1-30. Five points for every guy that enters in the spot you have him in. ten points if you pick the winner, bonus points if you pick certain numbers randomly drawn correctly (i.e. 4, 16, 23). We would also pick the undercard bouts like any standard pick 'em. We'd all throw in 5 or 10 bucks and divide to pay the top 3. Keep in mind there were usually 10-15 people watching it together back in the day. We used to do pick 'ems for all the PPVs but the Rumble was always the best one due to the big match.

That would be something like 10 matches a day, every day, for 30 years or so. (at least with my limited math skills and brain power at this time of the day it comes out to that....)

Just saw this thread.... Greg Valentine: I've been watching some 70's era WWWF stuff over the last little while and I've enjoyed his work a lot. Valentine's work pre-1986 has always stood out for me as excellent. Rick Martel: Going over some of his 1984 material, including matches against Abdullah the Butcher, Nick Bockwinkel, and King Tonga. Lots of fun. I'm hoping puropotsy can find a copy of Martel vs. Leo Burke from 1984 for us someday, it was supposedly a prety big event out in the Maritimes when it happened. Bobby Heenan: Hulk Hogan leaving the AWA wasn't the turning point for that promotion, Heenan leaving was. You never didn't want to see Heenan get his ass kicked no matter how many times he'd been put in a situation to get it kicked before. Bret Hart: I've met very few Bret Hart matches I didn't like in my time. His bout with Rick Steamboat from the Boston Garden remains a personal favourite and has stayed a fav for 25 years now. Nick Bockwinkel: I could have paired him with Heenan but there is a lot of Bockwinkel after Heenan left that is really good and very enjoyable to watch.

Hansen/Bobby Duncum vs. Billy Robinson/Doug Gilbert from 7/79 in Minneapolis is available, albeit in not great quality. Gilbert is a late sub for whoever Billy's partner was supposed to be as they no-showed. The angle where Hansen attacks Wally Karbo during a match and gets suspended from the AWA in the same time frame is also around on one of the old AWA PPV specials.

I'm re-watching and finalizing an AWA 1984 Year in Review set. Been working on this forever...should finally have it done in a week or so. In between I've been watching some old WWF house shows for shits and giggles. A Tiger Chung Lee vs. Pedro Morales match from IIRC early 1985 in Philly stands out at the moment, mostly for the surprising amount of offense Chung Lee got in on Pedro.

Did Backlund do this when he was WWF Champion and he used the cross-faced chicken wing as his finisher? I've watched a lot of Backlund matches from that era but never really noticed.

I'd grab Bix's Texas Outlaws comp from a few years back for a view of his early work with Dusty. Thing about a lot of it is that it's old Chicago film with Bob Luce doing commentary, which is fine except the matches are clipped up a lot. Murdoch and Rhodes rank very highly as a team from the AWA fans that grew up watching them, much like the Larry Hennig and Harley Race team is spoken of very well. the difference is that there is some Rhodes/Murdoch footage to check out for yourself.

While I'm sure there are guys that did the bulldog well, I find it looks weak more often than not. Guys that used kneelifts drove me nuts, too, because it was always a spot that had you looking to see how close he really got (often, not close at all), which took you right out your mindset while watching the match.

In Canada, it's an excellent-paying job with top-notch benefits and good hours in certain environments, such as in a public school system, a provincially-run Casino, a University or College, or a government building. In other environments, like a contract-outfit that bids on jobs for a finite term, it stinks. Minimum wage, no benefits, shitty hours. Most jobs are like this to a certain degree, I think, in the sense that the circumstances that you perform the job in are somewhat important in how the job is perceived by those not doing it. The difference with janitorial work is it still carries a stigma even if you're at the top-end of the food chain in terms of wage, benefits, etc. "What do you do for a living?" "I'm a janitor for the Public School Board." "oh...." (conversation dies, despite the fact that the janitor makes great money and has excellent benefits) *** "What do you do for a living?" "I'm a janitor for a lowball, fly-by-night operation." "oh...." (conversation dies, and the janitor is glad since his job sucks for pay and hours and general working conditions) Same reaction, different circumstances. Only one is really correct.

Ditto.

Yeah, but I'd guess that most of those were tied to the annual fall battleroyal cards and probably some angle/match with Andre the card immediately after that, and Battleroyals were big business in the AWA. Those and cage matches. Andre is of course part of the attraction of the Battleroyal, no doubt.

There is a lot of wrestling hiding in video archives in the UK.

From Graham Cawthon's History of WWE site: WWF @ Denver, CO - November 27, 1985 (10,000) Dan Spivey pinned Barry O King Tonga pinned Steve Lombardi Pedro Morales pinned Alexis Smirnoff Jesse Ventura defeated Uncle Elmer via disqualification Terry Gibbs pinned Ivan Putski Ricky Steamboat defeated Don Muraco via disqualification WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan (w/ Mr. T) pinned Terry Funk at 9:39 Graham didn't have a card on the 25th for a Providence show.