JerryvonKramer

The crowd dynamics are deceiving though because ... put a British guy in a union jack at Wembley stadium -- the home of English football, the national stadium -- and it doesn't matter who you're putting in there, that crowd is going to cheer him. That doesn't mean that Bret wasn't over massive in the UK at that time. I don't know if it's anything to go by but around that time out of about 30 boys in my class maybe 10 of them had Bret lunchboxes or pencil cases. Plenty more had Warrior stuff. I had a friend who went to Summerslam who was a massive Bret mark, Bret was easily his favourite wrestler and I'd describe him as a typical casual kid fan at that time. Obviously, on the day, he cheered Davey Boy, obviously he did. That doesn't mean when his mum bought the tickets it wasn't to see Bret. Like Loss says though, the vast majority of ticket sales there weren't down to any one guy, they were down to "here's a chance to see the WWF". The reason I flagged it up as being ABSOLUTELY REMARKABLE is that WWF was never on regular TV here and at that time probably less than 5% of households would have had Sky Sports to watch it. So how with such a small portion of the population getting the weekly TV did Vince manage to pack out Wembley? Just an amazing piece of promotion right there. I'd be interested to know how many kids in the crowd that day actually had access to any WWF programming at that time. I'd be willing to bet it was less than half.

I can accept that he was A draw for that show, but I can't accept that he was THE draw. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if as many people had bought their tickets to see the Legion of Doom. And I fully believe that more people had bought tickets to see Warrior and Bret.

I'm about 85% convinced that the real draws for that show were Bret and Warrior. Think the idea it was Davey Boy is a WWF-manufactured myth that makes for a neat story. Obviously he was going to be way over with the live crowd but I don't think he sold the show at all.

So you don't think that his idea of having the WCW guys come out and say they wanted to legit injure the WWF guys would have worked? Is that really "old school"? I mean the angle itself of having Vince want the WCW guys to lay down for his guys takes the death of kayfabe as a given. I thought that part of his thinking was quite modern. I haven't got beyond his week 1 planning yet though. Might watch the rest tonight.

Does anyone have this match and if so could you upload it or send it to me? I am not a trader or a maker of comps, but I'm thinking now of putting together a 1-disc "Fat Man" comp of 600lbers.

Where the Big Boys Play #13 – Starrcade 86: Part 1 Brian, Chad and Parv tackle the first half of Starrcade 86. Topics include: thoughts on Magnum TA and what could have been, how Ronnie Garvin and Jimmy Garvin are related, Chad’s dad’s love of Bob Armstrong and general assessment of Brad Armstrong vs. his rep, thoughts on both Hector and Chavo Guerrero, has Baron von Raschke ever had a good match?, Parv vs. Brian on the worth of the US tag belts, poor Jimmy Valiant and JCP’s fundamental inability to book decent pay offs for babyfaces.

Was watching Cornette's Guestbooker shoot earlier, the one where he rebooks the invasion and I really find his energy and enthusiasm and frustration and anger infectious. I went through a period of going off him, but he's on absolute fire on this one. His stuff about OVW just makes you wander how the hell WWE runs. I haven't finished it all the way through yet, but there's a bit where he does week 1 promos for Vince, Bischoff, Flair, Austin and Undertaker and I swear I was actually watching the real thing as if it was happening. Anyone else seen this?

Here's my prediction, as soon as this lawsuit business is over. Flair goes back to the WWE.

Are any of those Ted-Kerry matches any good?

My god, who's this guy now? Happy Humphrey Apparently wrestled at over 800lbs!! One time over 900lbs!!! There's a video of him on youtube where he's more towards the 700 mark. I'm thinking a big 6 man here. Giant Haystacks, Haystacks Calouhn and Yokozuna vs. Happy Humphrey and The McCrary Twins. Reckon that would sell out MSG even now.

Didn't realise Giant Haystacks was 670lbs. He's getting on team fat for sure.

Having just done a bit of googling around to see what sort of play Big Daddy still gets in mainstream press, there are plenty of articles and things out there comparing him to Hogan and what not. One thing I couldn't help but notice is that the feud with Giant Haystacks gets massive play and Haystacks is almost treated as being on Big Daddy's level. No one is making cases for Giant Haystacks for the HoF, but really if Big Daddy goes in, he's your logical number 2 over someone like Kendo Nagasaki. To be honest, I have no problem with no British wrestlers going in.

Also, look at this: It's a bit reductive to say that he "killed the territory". If the controller of ITV doesn't like wrestling, then wrestling isn't getting a slot no matter who is on top. And wrestling on the BBC is borderline unimaginable. He'd retired anyway.

I'd agree that some guys might use Big Daddy to knock wrestling in general. If you know what I mean by that. I'm in no way a fan of his either. But basically, if he doesn't go in, then it's borderline hopeless to talk about the Mark Roccos of this world. Look at this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituari...dy-1286571.html That's his obituary in The Independent. Let me ask you how many wrestlers in history have had that level of mainstream cultural penetration? The very fact that The Indy was covering the death of A WRESTLER is significant enough.

Also, saying his run as a top draw was short isn't seeing the bigger picture. The UK is not New York or Philly or Atlanta. Wrestling is not a big part of our culture. Working class towns have football ("soccer") and boxing. Getting wrestling over to any sort of mainstream exposure is a big achievement and shouldn't be sniffed at. You can't see it as a run on top of just another territory. As a side point, don't think Vince gets nearly enough credit for almost selling out Wembley in 92. In a way, almost as incredible as Mania 3.

All I'm saying is, ask anyone over 40 or so in Britain to name one wrestler and 9/10 are going to say Big Daddy, even now. People talk about Carlos Calon, the UK is a lot bigger than Puerto Rico.

There seems to be a lot of Gene Anderson on those Cornette tapes. Don't know if he's a guy where people say "there's not enough footage"? Also didn't they stay in Georgia because they had a financial stake in it?

Did Williams go in as a Japanese candidate?

This was very enjoyable and found myself agreeing with a huge amount you guys were saying. The one very obvious thing you never pointed to when considering who else who could done what he did and during the Dusty comparison was the look. Not just the pythons and the size of the man, but the trademark moustache -- as iconic and Mr. T's mohawk. The significance of something like that can't be underestimated when getting over with millions of people. I enjoyed the 5 minutes or so on DiBiase and you made some interesting points re: Hogan's in-ring work pre-and post-87. On another note: you guys mentioned three guys you could do whole shows on -- Paul Ornforff, Yokozuna and Lex Luger -- what would be the chances of a three-in-one sort of deal where you spend 30-40 minutes on each of them in the same show?

I've heard a few people heavily criticise Memphis wrestling. Not least Bret Hart and Scott from the Place to Be Podcast. Seems like some people treat it as a by-word for "carny shit". Is this attitude still prevalent? From everything I've read about it, I think I'd love Memphis -- at some point I'll see if I can get the 80s set.