JerryvonKramer

What were they? Andre worked face and heel, he could be sympathetic despite being massive, or he could be pissed off and work more brutally. He could work as a more subtle heel or the out and out villain. Plus he could do monster. I just want to tease out why you think Vader has more dimensions than that. He always plays monster doesn't he?

Feel free to update, change or adapt this. Just a starting point.

goc, on a side note, I'll be watching some 81 Mid-Atlantic later on and the thing that's got me most excited for it is seeing that Ivan is on the listings. On Andre, I think we could draw the analogy with Vader's WWF run. Would it be fair to consider Vader's WWF run only and then just snippets here and there from the rest of his career?

It is unfair, Will, because we have practically Vader's entire career on tape, and mostly everyone has seen his greatest hits. We only have a fraction of Andre's career on tape and most people have only seen his farewell tour. There is quite a lot of 70s Andre out there, but it's piecemeal and no systematic comp has been made. Most people, even if they have sought out 70s stuff, have only seen Andre here and there. We get glimpses rather than the overall picture we get with Vader. We need Andre in Florida, Andre in AWA, Andre in the Montreal, Andre in Japan, Andre in WWWF, Andre in Calgary, Andre in Germany, Andre in Mexico, Andre in Texas, Andre in Portland, Andre in Georgia, Andre in LA, Andre in Mid-South, Andre in Toronto, Andre in Crockett. Even thought there's only a fraction of all of that on tape, basically NO ONE has seen it all or even a quarter. That's why it isn't fair.

Hmmm, I'm not sure if this was the best use of my morning ...

Feel like this is unfair to Andre and this is akin to throwing him under a bus.

Andre worked heel here? This would have been around the time he had that match with Bock and Stevens I watched last night and he was babyface. Kobayshi was heel vs. Bruiser in another match I saw in that sitting, being managed by The Big K. So ... 1. Did Andre turn heel? 2. Did Kobayashi ditch the Big K? 3. Where and when did this match take place? I've just assumed AWA around 72-3.

Luce AWA randomness pics: Heenan just a bloody mess vs. Pepper Gomez Bockwinkel squares off with Doctor X Andre backdrops Ray "Thunder" Stevens Hans Schmidt sticks an awesome Nazi boot into Yukon "Moose" Cholak Haystacks Calhoun: fat as fuck, but had some psychology Dick The Bruiser, as per usual giving nothing to his opponent The truly insane Bob Luce (right) with an older Yukon Cholak in 1990

Okay, time to jump into this badly labelled AWA stuff. 1. The Crusher and Dick the Brusier vs. The Blackjacks Bobby Heenan is managing the Blackjacks. Bob Luce on commentary. This is from September 1st 1972 at the Chicago Soldier field.Luce tells us the referee is Jersey Joe Walcott. Despite not being an official participant in this match, Heenan stands on the apron. Luce goes on about how excited everyone was to be at Soldier Field that day and that he doesn't like this match because it's so bloody. Lanza is bloodied. Bruiser sends Heenan crashing into the cage because he'd been taunting him throughout the match. There is quite heavy clipping so hard to get a sense of the flow of this match, been very back and forth so far. Luce is like a slightly annoying old uncle or something who won't stop talking through a film. The Blackjacks work over The Crusher. Faces regain control. They take every opportunity they can to nail Heenan who takes several cage shots. Heenan tries to escape the cage and JERSEY JOE lays him out! Heenan sells the punch like a shot gun. Heels try to escape again. I have to say Crusher and Bruiser have given the Blackjacks NOTHING in this match, totally dominant. They beat the crap out of Heenan who is extremely bloodied. Luce even mentions he felt sorry for Heenan here. We don't get the whole thing, so it would be unfair to be too critical, but this was very AWA structure with the faces guzzling the heels from start to finish. Heenan takes an incredible pounding here which is worth tracking down this footage for. 2. Bobby Heenan vs. Pepper Gomez We get a shot of Luce presenting this "Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame presents ... The Classics" show. This is June 1st 1974 and another cage match. Heenan jumps Gomez to start and this is a fight from the start. Gomez immediately sends Bobby into the cage. Cover. 2 count. Another cage blow. Gomez goes for a cover again but only 2. Heenan still has his jacket on. He's "Pretty Boy" here by the way, not "The Brain". Heenan tries to escape again. Can't decide where I stand on Luce's commentary. He's somewhere between Larry Matysik, mid-80s Vince and Rocky Raymond. Heenan is wearing the black Andre-in-87 style single-shoulder strap black tights. He's got a foreign object. Luce coughs. He uses a blatant choke with a rope or chain or something. Gomez acquires the brass knucks from Heenan and pounds on him. Heenan has colour, but he's able to break the momentum with a stomp to the groin. Gomez has colour now too. Pepper still has those brass knucks. Shit, Heenan is SO BLOODIED here. He ties to escape the cage but Gomez pulls him back. They climb up together but Heenan falls down and Gomez jumps on top. Is that it? NO, two count! Heenan has showed some guts and determination here. His face is so bloodied it looks black. His entire face is a dark red. The ref intervenes to restrain Gomez. I think he's stopping the match because Heenan has lost so much blood. That was pretty good. 3. Dick the Bruiser vs. Ray Stevens Luce mentions Ed "Strangler" Lewis ... "and for all you youngsters watching at home wondering who is Ed 'Stranlger' Lewis ... look, you've got to get some books on the history of pro wrestling". Ha ha, warming up to Luce now. "Unfortunately, you don't find too many in the book stores around Chicago, but let me tell ya ... go to the library and read up on some of these great pro wrestlers and one of them was Strangler Lewis, a LEGEND". Heenan is there now and Bruiser beats on him. Luce is losing his shit on commentary now. "WHOOOP HA" He's a crazy old man! "And YOU thought wrestling was just starting to be a big thing now, but look at it here, wrestling in the CHICAGO AMPITHEATRE!". Can't fault the guy for enthusiasm. Bruiser wins. We didn't get to see too much of Stevens, it was mostly Heenan getting decked by Bruiser. This disc is following the listing that khawk sent me so far (Luce Classics #3, Part 1). 4. Verne Gagne vs. Nick Bockwinkel This is from Fall 1972. Bock has Verne in a half-crab. He punches Gagne's leg. Luce talks up Gagne's amatuer credentials, including his 48 Olympics appearance. Bock is decimating his leg. Smashes it on the apron. Half crab again. Luce mentions Bock's father, Warren Bockwinkel as being a great wrestler. Mentions that Bock broke both his knees during his collegiate year in football. Luce is wildly eccentric, now he's excited, now he's cranky. You get the impression that he thinks life was better in 1948 than it was in 1990 (when he recorded the commentary) and if only kids could appreciate that -- while keeping off his lawn -- the world would be a better place. Gagne hits a knee from the top rope. He covers but the ref has a problem and isn't counting. Verne used the fist! He admonishes Verne and it's all over, because Gagne's been DQ'd! Ha ha, he was DQ'd for punching. I wish they could bring that back on current WWE, no match would go longer than 2 minutes. 5. Billy Red Cloud vs. Bobby Heenan June 24th 1972. Luce shills Bill Haggerty Cars, "he was born to sell cars!" Awesome, this is proper old-school American salesmanship, shades of Violet Beauregarde's dad out of Wonka. This is a chain match by the way. Another old man rant by Luce now. "THAT'S RIGHT! All you .... you ... younger fans ... who thought wrestling had only just now blossomed to what it is today ... Oh no! Back in 1972 fans it was wall to wall people. WALL TO WALL PEOPLE at the Ampitheatre!" He runs down all the "big Meccas of wrestling". Runs down all the towns. The guy is out of his fucking tree, but it's pretty entertaining. Heenan lays in a shot on Red Cloud, he's wrapped the chain around his fist. And ... HOLY SHIT Luce is singing now! This is so surreal and so amazing. "Oh brother! Working on the chain gang, chain gang! Working on the chaiiiinnnn gannng all day long! I love it" This guy is amazing! This is a really grissly brawl. Billy Red Cloud has Heenan wrapped up and he's bleeding profusely yet again. Wow did Heenan bleed during these years. Crowd is wild. And what a variety of matches he worked too. 6. Andre and Doctor X vs. Nick Bockwinkel and Ray Stevens. Okay, this is October 7th 1972. Young skinny Andre, a younger and closer to his prime Stevens, and a younger Bock. I believe Dr X is The Destroyer aka Dick Beyer and a legendary wrestler. So basically four lock all-time Hall of Fame guys in this match. I'm excited, and so's Bob. Bock and X lock up to start, Bock gets the worst of it and bails. Luce is rambling on some stuff about Andre's weight when he was a baby. Headlock applied by Doctor X. Andre in now. Headbutt. Chinlock, Bock looks tiny next to Andre. Bearhug. Heels take over on Doctor X. Stevens tags in now. Stomps on X. They've injured X's leg and the first fall is over, they got the three count on him. Second fall and Bock is working over that injured leg. The heels have cut the ring in half here. But eventually Andre comes in and clears house. He's pretty agile. Diving elbow drops onto Bock's leg and then one onto Stevens's. The faces take the second fall. Luce keeps mentioning how Bill Haggerty (yes, the car salesman) is very excited by all of this. Big splash by Andre on Stevens. He slaps Bock. Backdrop on Stevens. We don't get the finish! I'm guessing somehow the heels skanked the win. Andre looked very sprightly here. I mean, forgetting he was 7-feet tall and massive for a moment, he moved like a regular worker in many ways, but always got over the special aura of being a giant. 7. Baron von Raschke and Hans Schmidt vs. Yukon "Moose" Cholak and Wilbur Snyder June 4th 1971. Luce mentions a time when Schidt was on the Dumont network where he declared his didn't believe in sportsmanship and the channel received hundreds of letters and complaints denouncing the statement! Luce says The Teuton Terror made over $2 milllion that year in appearance fees. Cholak is a stiff-looking brawler. Snyder gives Schmidt a few shots to the head, but he comes back with blows of his own to the mid-section. Schmidt looks pretty good.Snyder gets Schmidt in the cobra twist and that's it for the first fall. He submits. Second fall now. Ref asks Schmidt if he can count his fingers. Heels double team Cholak. I really like the look of Schmidt, his character work is superb, I like the unique way he moves -- better than von Raschke even at this age. Cholak's punches are really good too. Clip and suddenly it's 1-1 and the ref loses control. 8. The Vachon Brothers vs. Red Bastien and Hercules Cortez June 26th 1971. Bastien works over Mad Dog's arm. We scarcely glimpse this match, the clip is so short it's almost pointless. 9. Dick the Bruiser vs. Sho Zo Kobayashi This is from April 24th 1971. Kobayashi is managed by The Big K. This is Strong Kobayashi by the way, not to be confused with Kuniaki Kobayashi of 80s NJPW, AJPW and Elvis-hair-stylings fame, even though he did work New Japan in the early 80s. Kobayashi is quite big and muscular for a Japanese wrestler of this era. "WHERE WERE YOU, April 24th! 1971! I tell ya, the big pictures were MASH and Patton! WHERE WERE YOU? I'll tell you where I was, I was right here! You missed out!" Luce is fucking nuts. Bruiser is not giving Kobayashi very much. I don't think I like Bruiser, he doesn't sell or anything, he just beats on heels. Bruiser ties to get the claw on but Big K interferes. The police move in. The match is out of control. Bruiser beats on The Big K. Kobayashi bails and raises his arm. Bruiser wants blood. On this evidence, Bruiser was no better in 1971 than he was in 1981 -- a very limited worker who gave basically nothing to his opponent and did little but weak-looking punches. Luce is sitting with Yukon Cholak, who has packed on some pounds since 1990. This is cut though, so we don't get to hear Cholak speak, darn! 10. Yukon "Moose" Cholak and Haystacks Calhoun vs. Baron von Raschke and Hans Schmidt May 15th, 1971. I can see we're going to get less than 2 minutes of this. Luce announces Calhoun as being 622lbs, and yes he's fucking MASSIVE. He sleeps in a custom-made bed. "What were YOU doing fans? On May 15th 1971? Well, I was right here at ringside!" Cholak looks good again with stiff punches. I'd like to see Schmidt vs. Cholak in a singles match. Calhoun is in now and he splashes Schmidt. Leg work by Calhoun now. And ... the disc finishes there. Just checking the next one to see if we get any more, but now, it seems to skip to something else. ---- Ranging forward just to see what sort of thing is on the rest of this AWA footage and it looks like there are several repeat matches, but fuller than what we saw on this one -- I think this one has been badly edited together by a tape trader, from longer episodes of this show Luce was presenting and then some of the later discs are the shows in full unedited. I guess this wasn't a bad taster session though. ---- Thoughts: This was not so much AWA as Luce's Hall of Fame Classics, and it is quite a ride. With Luce you're kind of in some weird time-warp bizarro world, but it's so surreal that it's almost compulsive viewing. I'd prefer to see the full presentation though, rather than the tape-trader edit and will look forward to some of the weirdness ahead. I may have to go and try to track down some actual AWA TV as well though to give the promotion a fair shake, Luce is such a strong presence that it's quite difficult to see past him and appreciate the action. In terms of style in the ring, however, not a tremendous difference between this stuff and what we saw in the early 80s. MVP: Based on what we saw, it has to be Heenan who bled and bled and bled. Generally this stuff was too clipped to get much of an impression of most of the workers. Hans Schidt and Moose Cholak both looked good to me. Haystacks Calhoun was surprisingly agile. Andre showed glimpses of being a good worker. I thought Crusher and Bruiser both fucking sucked and the Blackjacks didn't look much better.

Al, there is a lot of stuff about certain titles not being recognised in certain areas and it seems like some of the matches were built around that. Questions over who is the real world champ etc. O'Mahoney was recognised as undisputed champ for a while in 1935 but that was short lived. I've also seen different lineages for these titles... For example, some sources don't seem to recognise Ali Baba's run with the titles.

If we're mentioning that, we might as well also mention the WWA title from out of LA in the 50s and 60s. This was held by, among others, Eduard Carpentier, Fred Blassie, Rikidozan, Bobo Brazil, The Destroyer, Iron Mike DiBiase, and that man again Lou Thesz.

I have successfully introduced wrestling lingo to several groups of friends who are not wrestling fans. Example text exchange: "No-sell" has definitely entered the lexicon. I think some of my friends use it without even knowing where it came from. I forget myself sometimes though. I've had quizzical looks a few times when I've said "oh I'm a mark for ..."

Funny enough, Kelly and I were discussing the World title on Facebook last night. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing an excerpt from that exchange here: Anyway, I bring this up because the 1905 "Catch-as-catch-can" title -- the one that Hackenschmidt and Gotch wrestled over -- you'd think would be the big one before the NWA title. And the lineage is theoretically there through Thesz as the last champ of that belt and the first champ of the NWA belt. Of the other world titles, the Jim Londos "National Wrestling Association" title existed from 1930 to 1949 when it was unified with the Thesz belt. The Boston version of the AWA world title ran from 1928 when Ed "Strangler" Lewis held it to 1950 when Don Eagle was the last champion. Gorgeous George held this belt for a short time. It seems to split off from the Hackenschmidt World title line some time in 1936. QUESTION: When the three belts were active at the same time, which one was considered the most prestigious? You'd THINK it was the Hackenscmidt title, but Londos held the National Wrestling Alliance title for the longest time and was the biggest draw of the era. To help answer this, I've found some stats over on KM: http://www.infinitecore.ca/superstar/index.php?threadid=73365 Notice how many of these gates are for the AWA Boston or the National Wrestling Association title. As far as I can see, the only bouts for the Hackenschmidt 1905 lineage World title are: 9/11/35 Danno O'Mahoney vs Ed Don George- World Title Fenway Park, Boston MA 25,000 (postponed from 9/09. Paul Bowser) 9/30/36 Yvon Robert vs Cy Williams- World Title Montreal Forum, Montreal QUE 12,800 (Jack Ganson) 10/04/37 Jim Londos vs George Penchoff- World Title 5th Regiment Armory, Baltimore MD 15,000 ($30,000 State Gate Record. Police Benefit.) 9/14/38 Masked Marvel (Ted Cox) vs Yvon Robert- World Title Change Montreal Forum, Montreal QUE 12,000 (Jack Ganson) And then these dates in 1939 when Jim Londos won that tile: 1/11 Jim Londos vs Hard Boiled Haggerty- World Title Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles CA 10,400* (Lou Daro) 11/08 Jim Londos vs Sandor Szabo- World Title Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles CA 10,400* (Lou Daro) 3/17 Jim Londos vs Golden Terror- World Title Philadelphia Arena, Philadelphia PA 10,000 (Ray Fabiani) 1/23 Hans Steinke vs Babe Zaharias/ Golden Terror vs Tommy O'Toole Convention Hall, Camden NJ 10,000 4/05 Jim Londos vs Tarzan White- World Title Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles CA 10,000 (Jack Daro) 3/22 Jim Londos vs Dean Detton- World Title Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles CA 10,000 (Jack Daro) So based on that, the titles that people seemed to really care about in the 1930s were, in order of importance: 1. National Wrestling Association title - this is the one derived from the NY State Athletic Commission world title held by Jim London from 1930 to 1935 and then it was briefly unified with the other titles by Danno O'Mahoney. During the early 1930s, there's seems to have been a dispute, however, between the NY World Title and the CA World Title, which I believe were both under this "NWA" (Association) banner. 2. The AWA (Boston Version) World title - Boston looks like it consistently had the biggest gates in the period and after the time when Danno O'Mahoney held all three titles -- and he dropped the other two -- this was the one that seemed to be drawing higher than the others. 3. The Hackenschmidt 1905 World title - This looks like a distinct third based on the numbers provided here. At a time when Danno O'Mahoney was contesting all three titles in 1935 and 1936, this one only features TWICE in the top ten gates. It only really starts to feature more prominently when Jim Londos wins the title, and surely you can put that down to it being Londos elevating the title. Any thoughts on these matters appreciated. NB. The "NWA" mentioned in the world title here should not be confused with the NWA we all know and love, the "National Wrestling Alliance", which was formed in 1948.

Seems like there were about 20 posts made while I was writing that longer one. Just wanted to add that the Titans crew will be watching some Don Leo Jonathan matches when we do our 1950s special in a few months. Been planning that for over 9 months at this point. That'll be taking in matches from "The Encyclopedia of Pro Wrestling" set, 1949-1960. Quite a bit of Don Leo on there so it is not like footage does not exist. We'll likely look at him vs. Verne Gange in the final listing, but there's also matches of his vs. Otto Wanz, Roy McClarity, and Antonio Rocca.

1. I'm talking about the guy taking the tag and clearing house. 2. I think Loss makes a good point and this was just laziness on my part. I'd much prefer a conversation around "who are the greatest 'hot tag' wrestlers? or "Who'd be in the conversation for 'best hot tag'?" than striving for some definitive answer. I partly made this thread because I wasn't actually sure who'd be in that conversation and wanted to draw up a shortlist of 8-10 people. So, Loss, feel free to change the thread title

Loss, the simple reason why no one has been able to tie together Andre as an in-ring performer is because: 1. The majority of his peak work was 70s and early 80s, which is generally slept on 2. Andre worked EVERYWHERE, every territory -- shit, he even turns up on the Lucha set. Footage is out there, but you could count the number of people who'd seen all of it on two hands (likely in the world). 3. I think Andre's strengths as a worker, even in his prime, are more nuanced and less "obvious" than Vader's strengths. So I'm not sure, even here on PWO, whether we have anyone quite in the position to make the case. I can see Andre coming up in some more of the 70s AWA stuff I'll be watching soon for my territories thread (there's an Andre match vs. Stevens and Bockwinkel from around 1974 that I'm INTRIGUED to see) and Andre will definitely crop up in the Mid-Atlantic and GCW stuff too. I can keep a special eye out for him. But the point is that we have Vader's work all in four main places (AWA, New Japan, WCW, WWF) and most fans will be keener to jump into 90s footage than 70s footage in general. I'm not saying it's not true that Vader overall was the better worker, I'm just saying that the case isn't being put forward for Andre because there's no one to make it.

For all the people saying Vader, what's the argument for him over Andre? That he could do moonsaults?

I want to saw that the answer is Rick Martel. I haven't seen Bruno in too many tags but I imagine he'd be a GREAT hot tag. Here's a question, is "best hot tag" virtually the same thing as "best comeback" or is there something else that you'd be looking for in one or the other?

I think the most interesting aspect of Buzz, as I mentioned, is his relationship with Ole where he's almost like a well-behaved little boy when the old man is talking, then something will upset him or set him off. He's quite easily tormented though, and what's interesting is that it's often his own paranoia. Tommy Rich and Butch Reed aren't really doing many psychological plays, it's almost all in Sawyer's own head ... apart from that fucking box!

And no one say "Big Daddy"

Was Blackwell really a "big man" or just a fat man?

In terms of drawing, no one else compares. I think you could make a case for him being the biggest draw of the 70s. He'd pop gates in New York and Philly, but unlike Bruno, if he went to St. Louis, he'd pop the gate there. If he went to New Orleans, he'd do so there. There wasn't a territory he wouldn't draw in. And he was a massive star in Canada. In terms of playing his role to perfection and effectively, again, hard to think of anyone who did it better.

If Andre counts, the answer is Andre.

If we had watched Breaking Bad together and you had said shit like that I'd have punched you. It's true though, the way the show played with audience sympathies everyone had a run where you hated them and a run where you were rooting for them. Probably levels out so that it's all shades of grey and "tweener" by the end, but there are some blatant turns in it along the way.

I second the mention of that Funk vs. Hansen match from All Japan, but for some reason a much lesser match from the same promotion in the same time frame stands out to me as being particularly heated, despite it being ... Bruiser Brody vs. Dory Funk Jr. There's also a Dory vs. Jerry Lawler match from around 80 or 81 that is really heated too. For all his rep as a technician, boring Dory was pretty good in a brawl.