JerryvonKramer

It's June 12th, 1984! And we're here once again for TNT! Alfred mentions Vince's Idi Amin reference from the last episode. Still think that's so bizarre. They are talking about Big John Studd. There'll be a segment on Paul Orndorff and a match of his against SD Jones ... Orndorff vs Jones. Massive Paula chant. Gene and Alfred in the booth. Orndorff refuses to take his robe off untilt the fans stop with the Paul chants. A woman in the crowd cackles like a witch. Crossbody from Jones. Orndorff stalls and then gets on top. This is a very typical WWF-style match, Orndorff's elbows look precise and vicious. Big comeback from Jones now, Piledriver from Orndorff and that's all she wrote. Alfred says that it's a shame that Jones lost because he's been trying to position himself as a world title contender. I reckon Alfred just says the first thing that comes into his head. Video of Orndorff training. "No matter how hard you train, you'll never look like me, so get that out of your minds". Ha ha. He's in a gym and has some members of the public with him. He points to a slightly overweight woman and says "obviously, you need to quit eating". This gym looks like the gayest possible place imaginable, the 80s hair and moustaches on the men aren't helping matters. Orndorff shows some punks how to do some curls while admiring his own biceps. He gets one of the punks to do some reps and keeps taunting him "you'll never be like me". Great heeling. A rather large woman is at one of the machines. "Don't you have any pride in yourself? No you don't otherwise you wouldn't look like this. It's disgusting. I can't believe you've walked in here looking like that". The woman just takes this abuse and smiles inanely. "This woman is so far gone, so far overweight, that I don't think there's anything that can be done about it, to tell you the truth", says Orndorff, "I can see that she's still got all her teeth, most fat women I know don't have all their teeth -- so I will say that". Ha ha ha ha. This goes on a few more minutes. She tries to get his attention by touching his arm. Orndorff goes nuts: "GET OFF OF ME YOU FAT PIG! Don't ever put your hands on me! Don't ever let me see you in a gym again, you hog!" Amazing. Alfred is impressed with Orndorff's dedication to training. That's all you've got to say Alfred? Vince is excited to introduce -- and he gives it the big Italian -- Salvatore Bellomo! I can confirm that this was not the chap in the last episode in the Andre match, if Ricky Jackson is right, I'm pretty sure that that was Frank Williams. Vince says that "Salvatroe Bellomo" is a name with a certain sort of flair. Bellomo speaks FIVE different languages. Judging by his English, I'm not sure how great an achievement that is. Vince says that the transition from the European style to the American catch-as-catch-can style must have been difficult. Video package now: It's Salvatore Bellomo vs. Ron Shaw. Shaw gets some offense in to start. But he misses an elbow to let Bellomo in. Standing dropkick, two arm drags. Vince is on commentary here and seems to speak with at least TWO different voices here -- one a sort of fast-talking play-by-play guy, the other in his cheesy TNT voice. Weird. Is this the 70s style Vince jdw always talks about? Gene Okerlund is also here. The ref is very fat. Back suplex from Bellomo. Shaw comes back with some more basic offense. Bellomo puts a leg stretch on Shaw -- I call it that, Shaw is sitting cross-legged and Bellomo kneedrops ontop of the legs, looks painful. Shaw comes back again -- I assumed he was a jobber, but he's getting more than his fair share of this match. Bellomo, of course, gets the 3 count. He looked alright to be honest. Vince mentions that Bellomo has a few unusual hobbies outside of wrestling, including ship building. He means the little wood and paper ships inside of bottles. Alfred is in the process of trying to make one himself. This month's WWF magazine has one you can cut out and that's the one they are making. Bellomo is very mild-mannered and has zero charisma. This is a very boring segment as Bellomo shows us different ships he's made. Alfred says "I guess you could say his ships come home". You can see why Bellomo quickly became a jobber in this setting. The timing for his move was all wrong: he was a retrograde, backwards-looking hire for Vince, trying to emulate a Pedro Morales or Bruno Sammartino effect, but by 1983-4 the time was too late for that. By 85, Bellomo and the entire genre of the "ethnic hero" wrestler were basically ancient history so his slide down the card was inevitable. We're taken to MSG now and Gorilla Monsoon is our commentator with Mean Gene. Speaking of dated ethnic heroes, it's the Polish power Ivan Putski taking on Roddy Piper. Putski is actually looking in great shape and seems like he's spent 3-weeks straight under a sunbed. Putski is not impressed by the bagpipes and fanfare with which Piper enters. Piper tells the fans to kiss his ass and then shouts abuse at Putski. A lot of clubbering from Putski to start. This is a real scrap from the get go. Piper goes to the eyes before a face flop. The bagpipes start playing again outside the ring. Slow hulk up from Putski and more wild clubbering, in the fray the ref catches a punch and it seems Putski has been DQed. Terrible match. Putski's flurry of punches look like shit as well. Oh yes! The mail has arrived! Here we go. Love the mailbag. From Wetplanes, NY: "Dear TNT, I have two questions I would like to have the answers for. 1. Is Lou Albano going to manage the Somoans again? Afterall, they were world champions with him telling them what to do, and 2. Will the Hulk ever give a title match to Don Muraco now he has the Captain behind him? Signed, Lester Bailey" I reckon ol' Lester was a heel fan. Vince thinks that Albano has problems with the Somoans. As far as the Hulk goes, Vince has this to say: "Mr. Muraco has a long, hard climb back up to the top rung of the ladder. If you'll recall Mr. Muraco did not retire in any way but he decided to, well, go back to his native Sunset Beach in Hawaii and take it easy for a while." That, my friends, is what they call in the business "a burial". From Santiago, CA: "Dear Vince, sometime ago when I was living in California, I used to go to Los Angeles to the Olympic Stadium to watch wrestling. Did Hulk Hogan wrestle there about five years ago? And is it true that he once played lead guitar with his own group? I think he's the greatest ever. Could you show some of his matches on TNT? Lisa Perez" Vince: "Hulk plays bass guitar as a matter of fact". Hey! he didn't answer the question about LA! Our next guest is Classie Freddie Blassie. Vince talks Blassie up as being a great wrestler in his day. Blassie says that most of his success was a result of his own hard work. We're taking a trip down memory lane as we go ... back to the archives. Freddie Blassie vs. Baron Leone from the Hollywood legion stadium. Jesus Christ it's black and white. Well this is a treat. The original commentary too, god knows who. Blassie gets Leone in a head scissors and cranks nastily on his neck. Leone stands up, still in the head scissors. He drops Blassie down almost in the powerbomb position. Blassie keeps the head scissors on. Another mini-power bomb, but Blassie keeps the hold on. He goes to the eyes to stop Leone struggle. Sneaky jab to the face. You can hear individual fans shouting things. Leone goes to a head stand and tries to work his way out of it. He arches over so his feet are on Blassie's head but STILL he keeps the head scissors on. Finally, Leone breaks the hold and applies a toehold to Blassie. They lock up again. Blassie gets a headlock on. Three snapmares from Blassie and then a neckbreaker! That gets him a three. But that's only the first fall! WOW, really good match from what we saw of it. Blassie mentions that that match was from 1952. I'm in legimitate shock by how good that was. Blassie has an old belt with him -- the Pacific Coast Heavyweight title. Vince mentions that the one title that always eluded him was the WWF title. Blassie said he wanted it more than life itself, but he did get it through the Iron Sheik. We get a video of the Iron Sheik vs. Hulk Hogan now. JIP during a terrific gutwrench suplex from Sheik. 2 count. Camel clutch. Hulk up. Big foot. Leg drop. Winner and NEW World Heavyweight Champion, Hulk Hogan! Blassie is angry. Says they were "jobbed" out of the title. That they'd trained for and were expecting Backlund, that they'd signed for a match with Backlund, not Hogan. Blassie said the Sheik will destroy Hogan. Vince starts saying "well the Sheik achieved what you failed to do from a personal standpoint", but Blassie is hot now: "KEEP SAYING IT! I failed! I failed! I failed!" This is terrific. Blassie says that the Aytollah himself told the Sheik that Blassie should now be known as the "Ayotollah of America". "Go ahead", growls Blassie, "sneer about that!" Vince is being amazingly smarmy in this segment, slowly winding up Blassie. This is probably the best interview segment I've seen so far on TNT. There's a big gong. "What's that?!" Blassie shouts. "Perhaps you've been gonged, Mr. Blassie", says Vince wryly and we go into a break. The gong was for Mr. Fuji who is here. Vince says that he's perhaps the greatest Japanese wrestler in WWF history. Fuji is wondering what the hell Salvatore is still doing making those little paper ships. "What's the matter with you?", he says, "Perhaps you have no girlfriend?" ha ha ha ha "For your type of people, the Japanese, we call them sissy" Unbelievable. Vince asks him how he compares himself to other wrestlers in the WWF. Fuji says he's number 1. Video package now. Mr. Fuji vs. Nick DeCarlo. WHOOOO? Vince is commentating in his early 80s style. Mentions that DeCarlo is a veteran in his own right. Fuji goes through his salt ritual. I think Pat Patterson is with Vince here. Slam by Fuji, Banzai from the second rope, and that's 3. Guessing DeCarlo was just a jobber at this stage in his career -- must admit I've never heard of him. Back to the studio and Fuji is doing his whole routine. Vince screws up his face. Alfred: "It's always difficult to understand the inscrutible East but Mr. Fuji is not inscrutible, he smiles and laughs, he enjoys other people's suffering". "Very true", says Fuji, "when Americans suffer, I just giggle". He has a big surprise he claims. A tradtionally dressed Japanese woman dances with a fan on a mat in front of a screen with a rising sun on it and a gong. There is some Japanese singing. This shit can't be Fuji's surprise surely? Surely not. This sucks. We go to a break. As we come back, Lord Alfred is in a robe sitting on the mat. Fuji wants them to enjoy Japanese hospitality. The woman takes Vince's shoes off, Fuji says the geisha girl will do anything he says. She takes Vince's jacket off. He's wearing a nice waist-coat I notice. She puts a silk robe on him. Vince thanks her, Fuji tells him that it's not customery to thank the geisha girl. She puts some white socks on him and Alfred starts cracking up. You can tell Fuji is absolutely loving this. They sit at the table and the geisha girl serves some sake. Vince notes how large Fuji's drink is. Ha ha. "Bottoms up". Fuji gets the geisha girl to massage him and scolds her in Japanese. "It appears they have more customs than anyone else in the world", says Alfred. Vince asks Fuji if he likes American customs. Fuji goes on a mysogenistic rant about how American wives aren't obedient. The geisha girl spills some sake and Fuji loses his shit and starts shouting at her. He's angry and says he's going to punish her. Fucking hell, 1984, look at this stuff. Fuji karate chops the table. Back at the sofas and Fuji is still pissed off. Vince says they weren't offended and wants to talk about Fuji's new career as a manager. Video now of Fuji with Don Muraco, former IC champ vs. Billy Travis. Stomach breaker on Travis. Snapmare. Front headlock. Gene and Alfred talk about Muraco's "sabbatical". Travis takes a nasty bump to the outside. Fuji is in his bowler hat and tails. Powerslam from Muraco but he doesn't pin him. Wants to punish him. Misses a dropkick. Back to the studio. Vince says, "Mr. Fuji, you're right in the pinaccle of your wrestling career, why a manager?" Fuji laughs and says some incoherent things before shouting BANZAI. Vince introduces his next guest, Big John Studd. Wow, big guy. Studd: "how does it feel to shake a man's hand eh? First real man you've met all day eh?" Big John Studd vs. Salvatore Bellomo. Think I know who's going over here. Bellomo seems fatter here and somehow ... womanly. He looks like a woman. Studd towers over him. Throws him down to the mat several times. Throws him to a turnbuckle. Very brief comeback from Bellomo but Studd gets an elbow drop for the 3 in what is a basic squash. Back to the studio for analysis and Vince weirdly asks Studd what would have happened if he'd been more scientific in that match. What sort of question is that?! Salvatore Bellomo is still in the corner making paper ships, what a total loser. Vince says that Studd is second only to Andre. Studd says he's going to destroy the myth of Andre. He bets Vince $10,000 that he can benchpress more than Andre. Vince says it's not about benchpressing ... Andre is still undefeated. Vince brings up Hogan. Studd says that Hogan just isn't as big as he is. He reckons people tell him that he's one person who could probably beat Hogan. Vince says that you need luck too. Studd says luck has nothing to do with it. Salvatore Bellomo shouts that he got lucky in their match (yeah right!). Studd goes over to Bellomo, "you have no business putting on wrestling boots, you belong here just making these boats". Studd knocks one of the boats with his finger. Bellomo really mildly says "don't ever touch my boats" Ohhhhhh. Studd says he has no fat on his body, unluck Alfred in his entire career! He shouts at Vince "you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you got lucky!" Studd says he wants to have a title shot against Hogan, but Hogan is scared. Aw dammit, I was hoping he was going to destroy Bellomo's gay paper ships. Video review roundup now: Jesse Ventura vs. Ron Shaw. Jesse has a long beard here. Some basic offense from Ventura, punches to the small of the back. Shaw takes a tumble to outside. Slammed into the apron by Ventura. Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas vs. Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch. Shine segment as Johnson gives the heels some armdrags. Slam on Adonis, another armdrag and an armbar. Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch vs. Tony Garea and SD Jones. Murdoch has Garea in a headlock. Shoulder block. Abdominal strethc. Double teaming on Garea now as the ref stops Jones coming in. Snapmare. Elbow drop. 2 count. Adonis in. Flying mare. Knee drop. Nasty shinbreaker. Vince references the fact that Tony Garea is a many-time co-holder of the tag titles and might want to think about his choice of partner next time. Poor SD Jones! Vince wants to see what progress Bollomo has made on his ships. He's finished his masterpiece. Mild Bellomo dedicates the ship to Vince and all the crew. They both shake his hand and Vince wishes him "all the best of luck". What the fuck? Surreal. And that's it for another episode. Seriously, track down that Blassie vs. Leone match if you can, the one fall shown here is really good.

Cross Face, that's really interesting stuff, thanks for taking the time to explain it. As for the rest of the stuff on Vince, guys, we live in a world where this man: Is the Mayor of London. He just got re-elected for a second term and as of right now is probably the most popular politician in the UK. He's also a complete buffoon, with a long history of doing and saying stupid shit -- all part of his "charm". Also, lest I remind you, that you had a certain President not too long along ago. All of which is to say that Vince isn't a complete no hoper. I still agree with the idea that he'd have had more chance than Linda, despite everything.

Amazing call. I think it was him, yes.

The fact that Jesse Ventura got elected with all the shit he'd said as a heel and commentator, with all the stupid costumes etc., I mean they didn't make a difference in the end. Not seeing how Vince is any more "wacky" than Ventura must have seemed in the late 90s.

Do you think Vince himself could have got elected? Y'know, having more charisma and star power than his wife?

jdw, on the random TNT from 84 I watched earlier, Andre seemed to be having a 3 vs 1 match. One of the men looked somewhat like Belushi in that shot, with a small moustache. Any ideas as to who that was?

Yes, what he said

How about quarterly? December 1st March 1st June 1st October 1st

Footage of Andre now. Seems like it's a 3 vs 1 handicap match or the final four of a battle royale. One of them is Johnny Rodz, not sure of the other two. One is a 300lber with a beard, the other looks Italian and is possibly Salvatore Bellomo but he looks a little too out of shape to be him in 1984. Anyway, it's only a brief clip, back to the studio. Just a little reminder to the folks at home that Andre is out there. Clip of Hogan vs. The Masked Superstar now. He pulls a foreign object out of his mask and nails Hogan, some clubbing blows now. Hulk up already. Back to the studio! Vince is impressed. Just a little reminder Hulk is out there. Clip of Jimmy Snuka now against Greg Valentine. Hits the splash from the top, Valentine does the body convulsing selling. Valentine rolls out and nails Snuka on the fence. Lord Alfred says that "diametrically opposed to Snuka, we have the Iron Shiek". Another clip now, and it seems like a 2 vs 1 scenario: Sheik vs. two jobbers. Gutwrench suplex and then he dumps one jobber onto the other via a kind of stomach breaker type move. Camel clutch on the said jobber ON TOP of the other jobber. Sheik's face is intense. Impressive. That rounds up this little "review" from Vince and Alfred, who think that this is the most exciting time in wrestling. Afa and Sika are back in the studio. Vince says they'll be back on June 12th ... let me see if I have that disc. Totally bizarre hour and a half that was. Reckon TNT is genuinely one of the oddest shows ever to go out on US national TV.

David Schultz vs. Billy Travis now. Good suplex. Terrible drop kick. Mean Gene and Vince on commentary - odd duo. His finisher is an elbow from the second rope? Ha ha ha We're off to Nashville now to see Schultz with his family at their farm residence. Oh boy ... He appears to live in a log cabin. He quickly shouts at both his kids and wife. This shit is properly terrible. Schultz just doesn't have the acting chops or charisma to pull this act off. The only positive thing I can draw from this abysmal piece of tv is that, in 1984, it was mildly socially progressive for the WWF to be depicting this guy as a heel. Lord Alfred's analysis of that: "I think he uses his family to pysche himself up ... so he can become the best wrestler in the world". . Mentally what he does is hurt is wife and his family to make himself a better wrestler ... and I think that's an awful, awful thing. That's all you've say your lordship? Tito Santana is in the studio now. He's not happy with what he's just seen from Schultz. But he's not here for that. Vince tells us that we're going to be shown a video package featuring Santana and Chris Beevers. Who is Chris Beevers? Well, he's the WINNER of the "on-going" contest to have lunch with your favourite WWF star! Out of all the superstars, Beevers chose Tito. Santana says that being picked out by Beevers was "a feeling like that I've never felt in my life". Tito says a limo picked them up. The "video tape" is actually just a series of stills. Beevers looks like he's about 6 years old. Awwww. Tito looks massive hanging out with everyday people. Santana vs. Adrian Adonis now for the IC title, JIP. Vince-Mean Gene combo on commentary again. Adonis on top and getting a lot of heat. Do my ears deceive me? Is that a "you fucked up" chant in 1984?!!! I had to rewind it .... actually it's a "New York sucks" chant. You can tell Vince is uneasy about it, but he acknowledges it several times. It's a very loud chant. Bulldog on Santana by Adonis. Goes for another one but Tito blocks. Comeback now. 7-8 turnbuckle spot. Adonis goes to the eyes. Goes to the top, Tito catches him and he lands with the top rope between his legs. Ref calls for the bell. WHY? Tito is pissed. Oh, a 30-minute time-limit draw. Odd and unexpected. Tito is really pissed off. Adonis milks some boos. Tito posts his head on the announce table. Back to the studio. Vince with the cheesiest grin in the world mentions that little Chris Beevers must have loved that. Someone throws a sack onto the set. It's a post bag. Lord Alfred: "If someone threw a postbag like that in England, I'd sack him immediately". Vince is fucking loving this. Ha ha ha From San Francisco: "Dear Vince, were you ever a wrestler? You seem to know so much about it. Please send me a photo of the Tonga Kid. Sharon O'Donno, San Francisco" Vince: "Well I appreciate Sharon's comments. Never a professional wrestler: not big enough, not bad enough ..." Lord Alfred: "Hmmm, I don't know about that last one ..." Vince: "Collegiate wrestler, a little bit yet" Vince is in full-on talk-show schmaltz mode tonight, it's really incredible. "Dear Alfred, last week I heard that the Queen of Eng ... well I really don't I ought go into that on television ummmmm ..." I can't actually believe this was a tv show. From Chicago: "Dear Tuesday Night Titans, I occassionaly watch wrestling on a another tv channel. After all, a person must read all political papers in order to decide if they are a Republican or a democrat. Here is my point: this other tv channel has wrestlers that wear coloured-grease makeup, something like rock stars including the original wearers of this paint, Kiss. Is there a rule against this? Personally, I find it intriguing. Will you clear up this point? Yours, Sue Russell" On the one hand, I'm having a hard time believing these are keyfabed. On the other, I'm simply not buying the idea that two random bits of fanmail both came from women. Let's see what Vince says: "Interesting question, interesting comments ... in the World Wrestling Federation, I'm sure we'll be seeing individuals of that nature, there's no telling what you may see in the World Wrestling Federation." Smoothly done and I believe him too. Back to the archives now for ... Arnold Skaaland vs. Joe Turco!! What the flying fuck? Vince says that Skaaland didn't find himself on his back too many times in his career. Lord Alfred confesses that he's not that familar with Skaaland's work but if he's like most wrestlers he spent most of his career on his back! Turco has him in a headlock and Alfred says that Skaaland is an embarrassment. What the hell is this?! There's a puff of smoke down near the bottom of the ring and Vince notes that it's from a smoker in the crowd, not from Turko's posterior. Ha ha ha!! Lord Alfred says that he doesn't know much about Turco but that he was a nasty Italian wrestler. He's still thinking about Vince's smoke comment. Turco is laying some pretty stiff blows here. Vince postulates that this match was a real turning point in Skaaland's career. Alfred says that he doesn't think that either of these guys were world champ material and that wrestling has come a long way since the likes of Turco were around -- he seems intent on absoutely burying these two. Vince asks him to compare and contrast these two with modern wrestlers. Alfred says "well look at the condition that these two men are in. We saw Tito Santana earlier who was in tip-top condition compared to these two ... I think in this day and age it was very macho to be a beer swiller and a wench chaser and possibly both of these were of that mould". Vince is completely bemused. "Nonetheless they were tough", he says. "Yes, they had big hearts", Alfred says derisively. Skaaland gets a backslide on Turco for the three. Back to the studio and Vince is in full flow talking about Skaaland's career as a manager when he's stopped by a strange smell. Vince: "I think perhaps some of the smoke from the film that we saw from the posterior of Joe Turco has come into the studio". Vince's look of disgust at the smell is absolutely AMAZING. My prediction is that the big fat sloppy pig Lou Albano is in town. Oh no, it's 3-time former tag champs Afa and Sika! They are cooking a massive fish. Afa gives it some karate chops. Alfred is hiding out back at the sofa with his fingers on his nose. Vince reprimands him and beckons him over. Afa and Sika start eating bits of raw fish guts. They put the fish tail in a pan of boiling water with an onion. Lord Alfred: "Are you sure these chaps know what they are doing?" Vince goads Alfred into tasting the dish. He says he's already eaten. They give him a bit of raw fish. Vince is losing his shit. Alfred has a mouthful and makes a face. They take a break and when we come back we're back at the sofa. They give them a bowl of fish. Alfred has the head, Vince the tail. Alfred: "Do you know what, this would give a cat rabies". We get taken back now to a tag title match: The Wild Somoans vs. Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas. JIP as always. Sika has a nerve pinch on Johnson. Announcers are Vince and, I'm pretty sure, Pat Patterson. Albano is in the corner of the Somoans. Face in peril section is kind of going on and going nowhere here, couple of hope spots. Eventually Atlas gets the hot tag. Ref bump. Very messy slam from Atlas. Albano comes in for the chairshow but nails Afa by mistake. We've got NEW tag team champs here. "UNBELIEVABLE" screams Vince. Ring announcer is some ancient looking dude who has an interesting (and awesome) accent. Johnson and Atlas look pretty good together in an early 80s-black-stereotype kinda way. Back to the studio. Vince notes that the current tag champs aren't Johnson and Atlas but in fact Dick Murdoch and Adrian Adonis. Weird for them to show that title victory given that fact. Ah now it makes sense ... Lou Albano is coming out and the Somoans are still pissed off at him for losing them the match. Albano stumbles with his words, he's got no explanation. After a break, Afa and Sika have left the set temporarily. Albano is no longer stumbling and is now more confident -- wonderful character detail. He calls them cry babies and said they should have been tough enough. "I took them from nothing ... they were savages in the trees, and just like with Jimmy Snuka, I made them who they are. 3-time world champions." Vince asks Alfred his opinion, he says that the mistake Albano made is inexcusable. Vince suggests that he's now got his eye on managing Adonis and Murdoch now anyway. Albano claims he had secret meetings with them before they won the belts and gave them a bit of coaching on the side. Anyway, now we are going to go to a video package show-casing Albano as the manager of 14-tag team title reigns. 1. Mr. Fuji and Mr. Saito 2. The Moondogs 3. The Wild Samoans 4. The Executioners Albano then reels off all the teams he managed who won gold: The Mongols, Tarzan Tyler and Luke Graham, Scicluna and King Curtis, The Executioners, The Valiant Brothers (twice), Mulligan and Lanza, The Lumberjacks, The Moondogs, and the Somoans (three times). This is quite the history lesson. Albano also talks about Cyndi Lauper. Strange that he's still a heel here. "I took the woman from the slums of New York, from the worst part of Queens, and made her what she is today, a superstar". This is a very odd segment. It's doing FIVE different things: - Positioning Albano for a feud with the Somoans - Getting over Albano as a bullshit artist - Getting over Albano's legacy as a manager of tag champs - Positioning Albano as the future manager for Murdoch and Adonis - Continuing the Lauper angle Vince asks what his percentage fee is. And goes to a break. We're taken to footage of a panel discussion in front of a live audience now. "Shelly" (female chair of panel) spots that the man who is about to ask a question has an apple. Albano rants at him, the man shows him his middle fingers!! Freddie Blassie calls him an idiot (the other member panels are Piper and Slaughter). Question from the crowd: Woman: "Mr. Blassie, you go on about Russia and Iran, but you make all your money here, why?" Blassie: "I can make my money any place I go. I can but and sell a dozen like you or that other idiot who was speaking just before you" Albano: "And another thing, why can't you get your hair done? Have some class! Look at his hair it's all nice, yours has got black roots showing!" Woman: "Can I hit him?" That fan with the apple seemed drunk and disorderly to me. He was irrate. More of this episode coming soon ...

They did a great one once with Gary Michael Cappetta.

So coming back to this ... and I'm rewinding back to May 29th 1984 for an episode of TNT! Lord Alfred gives us an intro to our host Vince McMahon! Guests are going to include Lou Albano and the IC champ Tito Santana. In a totally bizarre intro, Vince calls Lord Alfred "Britain's answer to Idi Amin", then goes on to imply that Afa and Sika are two of Amin's proteges. Lord Alfred then wonders "whatever happened to Idi Amin"? WTF this is just surreal. We're going to see Paul Orndorff vs. B. Brian Blair now. Alfred gives a bit of analysis: Blair coming from the same town as Orndorff has done his homework and knows all his tricks. Vince says with a smirk: "Blair is someone who, how can I put this, just hasn't had the same sort of breaks as Mr. Wonderful". Lord Alfred seems flummoxed by that. This studio banter is fucking woeful. Match is joined in progress in the midst of some matwork. Orndorff does the cheap heel moving of throwing Blair out of the ring. He's in great shape here. Couldn't help but notice an extremely fat cameraman on the outside. Orndorff gullotines Blair on the railings outside who sells it by coughing and spluttering -- sees to spit out a ton of gob there. Vicious knee by Orndorff. Hope spot from Blair. Orndorff throws him out again and goes for some megaposing. Big comeback from Blair now. Elbow to the breadbasket. Not sure who the colour commentator with Vince is here. Sunset flip reversal and a handful of tights gets the three for Orndorff. Shots of the crowd reveal that in 1984 a lot of men were sporting big nerdy glasses and a moustache. Vince says that is "One of the matches best typifying the action here in the World Wrestling Federaion". The dialogue between Vince and Alfred here is amazingly stilted. They've spent almost 4 minutes in total talking about this match now. A "house call" with Doctor D. David Schultz now. Alfred says that he "speaks funny" and that he's also a bully. Mean Gene is here with Schultz now. Terrible blonde perm! Wow Alfred was right -- he's got that Southern drawl that Hank's friend from King of the Hill has. Schultz says that he was the kid at school who used to take the others lunch money. He says that if his "momma" was there, he'd slap here. WHAT?! Lord Alfred "he said something about going to school, where was that? ... Didn't I tell you he was a bully? He bullied his own mother!" I must pause here, to be continued ...

In that case, the WWF were pretty good at protecting guys on TV back then.

One little spot of Flair's that has been bugging me of late is his cage escape attempts. They make zero sense and are really quite silly. However, in the interests of balance and fairplay: What are Terry Funk's weaknesses? What are Jumbo's weaknesses? What are Lawler's weaknesses? What are Stan Hansen's weaknesses? Surely only after all of those things are meted out can anything like a fair call be made. Let's be .

Would anyone object if I ran a new "best worker of the 80s" poll with around 20 different options?I am generally rather curious as to who would win.

ohtani -- you might not get anything as crude as GOAT discussions in other fields, but most fields have their canons and sacred cows. Shakespeare in literature, Bob Dylan in pop music, Hitchcock or Kurosawa or Bergman or Welles in film -- the idea that pimping of incredibly canonical figures is unique to wrestling is surely wrong. What I think happens in wrestling though is that wrestling fans don't think about wrestlers like they think about writers or directors, they think about them like sportsmen. The idea of a GOAT is more of a sports thing than an entertainment thing, and this is why it takes the form it does in wrestling.

I like the idea of El-P moving in trendier wrestling circles than Dylan circa 1998. What elite clubs did he frequent during that time-frame, I wonder?

Can you say more about this Matt? If Flair has any sort of wrestling philosophy at all it's calling matches in the ring, thinking on your feet and reacting to / controlling the crowd. Which is to say that going into a 45-minute match, he probably only knows a few things: 1. the opponent, 2. the finish, 3. possibly one transitional detail How he gets from A to B is develops organically. A Flair match is almost entirely unplanned. Flair will dictate the match, the tempo and the transitions. This is the opposite of the "self-conscious epic" of today that El-P keeps talking about. Because of this, sometimes his matches aren't coherent, but A LOT of them time they tell very compelling stories. I watched the Jimmy Garvin cage match from Great American Bash 87 recently, and that match tells a fantastic story built around a chance knee injury from Garvin. Flair spends the first half of the match getting his ass kicked, but then the second half viciously going after the injured leg like an assassin. Garvin eventually passes out in pain. Flair is the consummate dick heel throughout. How did that set wrestling back 30 years?

Ha ha, just been looking for any other instances that a rapper name dropped DiBiase, and apparently, some chap called Jay Rock says this on the song "2 Raw": Just me and my posse Strapped up boy you gotta know the ropes like Ted DiBiase What an awful rhyme! That's not the only one though: Lupe Fiasco, "The One" In high school I was voted the most Ted DiBiase-est Also the most slept on, cause my Ted DiBiase-ness What the flying fuck? Is he saying DiBiase is slept on? Or is that an oblique reference to the Million Dollar Dream? There's more: The Roots, "Ain't Sayin' Nothing New" Dig what I'm sayin yo? D-I-C-E Shove a mic in your mouth, like Ted DiBiase At least this one works, shows off a nice bit of wrestling knowledge. Big Pun ft. Donnell Jones, “It's So Hard” Poppin’ shit like a Nazi Iced out like Dibiase --------------------- It makes sense why wrestling and rap would make such easy bedfellows. Both are impossibly cartoonish macho worlds where men show off their masculinity and try to best each other through a mixture of toughness and braggadocio. Wrestlers cut promos bigging themselves up while denegrating their opponents, while rappers do the same through diss verses. Wu-Tang definitely have a 70s wrestling thing going on though. Method Man name checks Bob Backlund several times and RZA mentions Wahoo McDaniel.

Dusty Rhodes seemed to have an injured leg from 1984 until 1987.

It took us 18 shows, but it finally happened and we discussed current WWE (well, mostly Chad did) and for a surprising amount of time. Where the Big Boys Play #18 – Great American Bash 87: Part 2 Chad and Parv finish up their review of Great American Bash 1987. In this show: Parv reveals the extent of Vladimir Pietrov’s ‘legal problems’, an unexpected detour to discuss the current WWE product, Dusty Rhodes: weighing in at 285lbs, Chad tells a story about when his mum saw Ric Flair live and got an eyefull of more than she’d bargained for, picks for End of the Show Awards, and the pod says farewell to Brian.

That was me jdw. But the fact remained that no matter how much Football Italia I could watch on Channel 4, I still probably saw 5-6 times as much Shearer as I did Batistuta. If you asked me who was better, I'd have said Batistuta without doubt. But his greatness was still sort of shrouded in mystique and magnified by the fact that your average English football fan doesn't watch Serie A and gets their football opinions from The Sun or TalkSport. The notion that Batistuta was a god came from the fact that he seemed to be top scorer in Italy every year. And he looked amazing whenever I saw him. I didn't see him week in, week out like I saw Shearer. As it happens, Shearer scored many more goals than Batistuta and was also amazing in that time frame. You could make a very convincing argument that Shearer was better than Batistuta. In fact, Shearer over the course of his career probably WAS better than Batistuta. The fact that I thought it was definitely Batistuta does point towards a certain "exoticism". Would Batistuta have scored a shedload of goals in England? Probably. Would Shearer have done the same in Italy? Probably. So what's separating them then aside from the fact that one is a burly Georgie with a boring voice and the other one looks like this and has a cool name? If we flipped it. If Batistuta looked like Shearer with Shearer's name and played in England and vice versa but their skills were identical -- i.e. only name and appearances are changed -- I am not convinced we'd have entirely the same view of it. I SUSPECT, although I might be wrong, that something similar to this happens in wrestling too, only with Japanese wrestlers.

Did you ever feel tempted to ask him a question and then say "It doesn't matter what you think"? This is very topical for this board right now.

I think WWF was much better booked week-to-week between say 86 and 89 than it was in the Attitude Era. The Hogan booking arc from the Andre feud to the Warrior feud is, in my view, purely from a booking / tv-storyline perspective stronger than the Austin run and then the Corporate-Ministry blah blah stuff that followed it. Something that is forgotten about 80s WWF, is how much NON-WRESTLING stuff was on TV. TNT and PrimeTime were essentially non-wrestling, angle-heavy shows. They advanced a lot of stories not through matches but vignettes and promos and through Heenan/ Monsoon / McMahon / Ventura. Incidental jobber matches were just part of that overall character development. The art of the slow burn. Look at how they developed the Mr. Perfect character over a period of months compared to how they developed someone like ... I dunno Val Venis? It's long-term booking vs. short-term week-to-week booking. I must admit though, like everyone else, I was hooked on RAW from 1998-2001.

Wonder what the demand for a 16-disc "Best of Dory Funk Jr" set would be like ...