khawk20

I guess there's no video of this ? Too bad, I remember their match in London being pretty cool. It got missed by a day... WWF DORTMUND GERMANY 9/25/92 (handheld) The Bushwhackers vs Skinner & Kato, Rick Martel vs El Matador, Crush & Road Warrior Animal vs Beverly Brothers, WWF Champ Ric Flair vs Randy Savage, Virgil vs the Genius, Bret Hart vs Papa Shango, WWF Tag Team Champions the Natural Disasters vs Ted Dibiase & IRS VQ VG/EX

I really liked his match against Bob Orton at MSG in the summer of 1984. It always strikes a chord with me even though I can't specify why. Tito was very good in his AWA run as well. His feud with Sheik Kaissie was cut short when they plugged Sheik in with Bockwinkel to try and get Bock re-established as champ, and that was too bad...the TV angle where Kaissie bloodied Tito with his sword was really a big deal at the time. One of my all-time favourite title wins was Tito regaining the IC title from Valentine in the cage. One of the reasons it worked is that Tito's time as a challenger seemed "up", and it made his win improbable. That was reflected in the crowd going batshit when Tito hit the floor first.

I can totally see this conversation happening, to be honest.

Jumbo and Verne had a match in Japan too, sometime between 76 and 78.

I don't know a lot about this, to be honest. One cool thing I do know about that happened was in 1988-89-ish. Verne signed off on his guys being contracted to wrestle at a big cereal company convention in Chicago. The AWA guys on the roster came to a ring, set up in the middle of a convention, and wrestled with monikers named after various cereals. Someone would have been "Captain Crunch", for example, fighting the evil "Cheerio Man" (not sure if those ones were real or not but you get the idea). A very different kind of "sold show", if you will. tape of this still exists, apparently. I've been working on getting it for years, but no dice so far. ...Can you imagine Verne et al being reduced to taking a booking like that? When I heard about this it was as graphic an illustration as to how bad off the AWA was by then. Must've been a helluva pill for Verne to swallow when you look back at the areas and territories that the AWA was recognized in only a few years before that we discussed above.

I dunno. It may have given hima sense that he could compete with Vince once Vince started doing his thing, but Nick was defending the title on the road almost right away when he won the title in 1975. The travelling Bockwinkel show did not start in the 80's, so it wasn't a new thing. Verne and Nick had been defending the AWA title in Japan since the very early 70's, beginning with IWE but moving on to Baba later...but still in the 70's. Winnipeg was always a regular stop on the AWA circuit given it's closeness to Minnesota. I'd look at the AWA champ wrestling in Montreal as more of a sign of spreading their wings in Canada, since Montreal and Quebec were a lot further away. That relationship was partially born out of Mad Dog and Buthcer Vachon owning Grand Prix back in 1972. Verne defended the AWA title in Montreal for them at least once (there is the briefest snippet of Verne-Mad Dog from the Fourm available on Wrestling with the PAst, a comedy/doc on Mad Dog that came out a decade ago). The AWA-Montreal connection was much more pronounced in the early 80's, with the areas regularly doing joint cards. Verne's interest in Martel was probably a big catalyst there. Honestly, I don't think Verne ever cared if he was as big as the NWA. his war with Vince was a defensive posture on his part at the start, and trying to expand was reactionary to Vince more than it was innovation on his part. Verne was making money doing things "the old way". He never would have changed that formula if he wasn't forced to.

Bockwinkel did indeed travel more than Verne ever did, and your assertion that the tag matches were pushed to help offset Bock's travel is probably true to a point. However, the AWA was pretty much always a tag team-first sort of area from the very beginning. I would offer that the design of the tag titles getting pushed hard might have allowed Bockwinkel to travel more with the title, but it may have been Bock's idea to make more money. Verne wouldn't likely have felt the need to travel with the title as much since he was making money from owning the company, never mind being the champ of it so often.

11/27/86, the AWA's Thanksgiving show that year in St. Paul.

With this theme in mind, the Saito-Zbyszko AWA title changes are hopefully going on this set. Marking the end of one of the largest US Promotions between 1960 - 90 seems appropriate, and having at least one of those bouts on the set makes sense. (Either that, or the Iron man Survivor Battleroyal from the Team Challenge series, which was hideous but possibly the last match the AWA ever ran for TV. Race vs. Zbyszko for the AWA title could work ,too.) I don't think you need more than 1 AWA match to make the point that the promotion died in 1990, but it's a relevant point that needs highlighting.

I'll put together a patera-AWA comp at some point, although the majority of what I have is already on Disc 7 of my Blackwell set since it's basically a Patera-Blackwell comp of their tag title run. I think most of the rest of his AWA work is on the AWA 1982 Year in review set.

Nope, he had a run of several months as a face in Montreal in 1986-87, feuding with Bruiser Brody, Sheik Ali, and The Creatchmans (Eddie and Floyd).

If he likes L and H you have to get the new 10-disc set that just came out. I picked it up on Amazon and it's phenomenal. tons of good stuff that you just don't see on the tube anymore.

According to the Observer website, Raw did a 3.1 last night. The question becomes whether the Muppets (a) turned people off from watching, lowering the rating, (b ) drew viewers in, saving what would have been a rock-bottom rating and huge panic in the office, or (c ) drew nobody extra at all, leaving the WWE with their average rating for Raw. (Plus no bump from a Rock appearance has to be concerning)

I never really thought about it like that, but him putting those little bits together for his column wouldn't surprise me.

Apter didn't really have a byline under any of the articles that appeared in the mags. His columns were all news bits and tidbits from around the country...."Mr. Wrestling II is headed to Georgia to battle Ken Patera", "Jim Brunzell pinned Nick Bockwinkel in a non-title match in Madison, Wisconsin", "dusty Rhodes is furious that Jos Leduc pulled a fast one on him during a tag match in Florida", and so on. Stuff like that. His columns never took on a singular theme. It was the random tidbit aspect of them, at a time when you could only read about most of these guys outside of your own area, that made his stuff appealing. That column was a good springboard into any of the articles about those same guys that might appear in other places in the magazine.

I enjoyed the columns first and foremost, and I know that Apter's section was always the first one I turned to. Back in the day when all you could do was read about most of the areas he covered with his tidbits, it was by far the most impactful for me. I contrast this with a magazine like Wrestling World, which had lengthy sections for several geographic areas in every magazine. Those covered every area in far more detail (in terms of wrestlers in the area, feuds, etc.), but the way it was written never made me go back to the magazine right away..it was hit or miss whether I bought it (mostly miss). Given that, I conclude that Apter's writing style in those mags had to have had some draw for me, and while his column wasn't the only reason I bought those ones, it was definitely a "hook".

I thought that was Rob "Sgt. Slaughter" Remus, but wikipedia says you are correct. Jardine was the first Super Destroyer in the AWA, Remus came later as SD II, followed by Neil Guay as SD III. II and III teamed and feuded at various points.

That's not out there in circulation as far as I know. Here are some 70's AWA matches that would be available to pick from, of the non Bob-Luce clipped variety: 8/10/74 TV: Nick Bockwinkel/Ray Stevens vs. Greg Gagne/Jim Brunzell (Bobby Heenan debuts as Bock/Stevens manager) 1979 TV: Dino Bravo vs. Super Destroyer II July 7 1977 Arena: Blackjack Lanza/Bobby Duncum (AWA Tag Champs) vs. Greg Gagne/Jim Brunzell (Winnipeg, title change) October 6 1973 TV: Dick Murdoch/Dusty Rhodes vs. Don Muraco/Billy Robinson (2/3 falls) 1979 TV: Nick Bockwinkel (AWA Champ) vs. Buck Zumhofe 7/15/79 Arena: Paul Ellering vs. Jesse Ventura (Minneapolis Auditorium Dead Lift Contest from 7/15/79), 7/29/79 TV: Greg Gagne vs. Super Destroyer Mark III 8/14/76 TV: Verne Gagne vs. George Gadaski 5/20/78 TV: Billy Robinson/Frank Hill vs. Ray Stevens/Pat Patterson 7/15/79 Arena: Billy Robinson/Dough Gilbert vs. Stan Hansen/Bobby Duncum 12/20/72 TV: Nick Bockwinkel/Ray Stevens vs. Billy Robinson/Red Bastien 1978 TV: Larry Hennig vs. Super Destroyer Arm Wrestling Challenge 1978 TV: Billy Robinson vs. Baron Von Raschke (#1 contenders match) last 7 minutes only 7/15/79 Arena: Nick Bockwinkel (AWA Champion) vs. Greg Gagne (last 6:30 only) 2/10/79 Arena: Nick Bockwinkel vs. Verne Gagne (taped by Japan TV) 2.10/79 Arena: Tsuruta/Tenryu vs. Guy Mitchell/Roger Kirby (taped for Japan TV) ...plus the Japan stuff, like Verne vs. Billy. ..not to mention several great angles and clips, like Mad Dog's gusher against the Crusher, Vachon and Raschke attacking and bloodying Jos Leduc.

When talking about Japan footage one must note the IWE material that is out there. The last one that came out had some real gems on it, including several clips of "Bobby Slaughter" matches from what was probably his rookie year (1975), really early Sheepherders clips (from 1974), and lots more. AWA stuff from the 70's is not bad but a lot of it is Bob Luce stuff, which is clipped. Not all of it, though.

Thing is, Nash would know that too, so you would think if HE thought he had something to hold over Dixie's head, it would have to be pretty big for it to mean anything at this point. Or it's more werking on his part..who the hell can tell anymore?

Someone has to have sucked the least, though. As such, they should win, no?

I'd love to have seen a Bugs-Baby Kangaroo series, too. Could Bugs bring out the rage in the gentle simpleton, or would the Baby merely fall for all of Bugs' tricks and get squashed? It's either a huge hit or a giant flop...no in-between with that program.

At a certain point in ones career, even the biggest in the biz will do the job if the money is right.

One of the qualities of Hennig's AWA title reign was that, for the hardcore AWA fans, he was a real hope that the AWA could turn things around amidst the Mitch Snows, Soldat Ustinovs, JT Southerns and Rocky Mountain Thunders that we were being subjected to on TV every week. Hennig was great, no doubt, but think about how much better he looked compared to the rest of the AWA TV fare at that time. Put it this way: I enjoyed his early Mr. Perfect bouts in the WWF against guys like Jim Brunzell as much as I did some of his title defenses in the main-event slot on AWA TV shows. It's something to think about, if nothing else.

This is what they did in the Twin Cities.