Ricky Jackson

Nah, Valentine in 79 looks like a baby compared to the years and years of 3 packs a day and God knows how much booze Greg from ten years later. My favorite Backlund/Valentine match is 11/23/81 for the held-up-in-NYC-only WWF title. Awesome crowd heat, and the fans go crazy after the match when Bob holds up his reclaimed belt for all four sides of the arena to a big pop each time. One of Bob's greatest moments as champ I think. I really liked the 1979 60-minute draw and the 1984 match as well. I must admit I wasn't blown away by the Inoki 78 draw. I think I went into it expecting a match of the 70s contender and was kinda let down. But I'm a guy who thought Bob's 1980 title vs title match with Race was really good, and I never really see that match receive much praise at all. Oh, and the Hogan matches from Philly are really good too, especially 5/10/80.

Ditto

No, because what made the feud special is that Bruno's protege, who had debuted 6-7 years prior and had always been a babyface, betrayed him and left him pool of his own blood, basically out of the sheer frustration of not being able to escape his massive shadow.

Yeah, Tatanka's return was random as fuck. What did he do during those 10 lost years? Did he work WCW during the Nitro era? I don't remember.

Boston shows were not televised on NESN until 1985, May 18 to be exact. There is footage of Tito winning the IC belt in Feb 1984, but that was a ringside camera of some sort IIRC and not a TV shoot. That's all I know about that. Bob was a draw, end of story. The strong undercards helped, but Bruno, Superstar and Pedro had strong undercards during their reigns as well. Vince Sr was just a damn good promoter and knew how to put together cards that drew money.

Well, Hogan/Andre 2/5/88 won the PWI match of the year in 1988. Or is that not "great" enough for you? (the angle was great)

Other than one of my closest friends (and fellow wrestling-obsessive...well, not as obsessive as me of course--I'm posting on a message board for christs sake), nobody I knew gave a shit about WCW in Canada pre-NWO. During the 97-99 years, I knew tons of WCW fans, and the whole Raw-Nitro Monday war (Monday-Tuesday war on TSN) was really hot for a while. A lot of the interest in WCW was due to old WWF guys being there no doubt. As far as the whole "fans taking sides" thing, I was always interested in whatever wrestling I could see, read the mags religiously and followed NWA, AWA, etc going back to the very beginning of my fandom, but yes, Canada is WWF/WWE country, and I can definitely remember wanting WWF to make a comeback in 97 and win the ratings war in a way that was similar to rooting for your hometown team to win a championship.

Just listened to the first Walton interview and it was really good. Thanks again Smack.

I'd be down with doing a Portland podcast. I have all the 1977-80 stuff and have been waiting for the right excuse to seriously delve into it. There is 70s LA and San Fran footage readily available as well (far from the prime years of each, but still), and also IWA, Detroit, and WWA. We could do an all-70s wrestling podcast and include WWWF and Japan, etc.

How about the LA stuff? (please and thank you)

I don't have a card yet, but don't worry about the multiple threads thing, because it happens all the time. I wasn't going to say anything, but there are now TWO Roddy Piper threads in the microscope. (Parv, I'm looking at you )

The Savage/Tito series is awesome, one of the best WWF feuds of the 80s. Try this one out for a start and work from there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLS4sBtz3WA As far as the match with the RnRs goes, you can judge for yourself :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csb4P9a7mf4...C7F&index=5 This tag match with Randy from Memphis is really good:

Good first show guys. You'll need to learn to love those Backlund headlock spots though.

Thanks

Link please, I can't find it. And the answer is very little footage as far as I know.

Also, RIP Art Donovan.

RIP Dutch Savage http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-sto...age-passes-away

Looking at Meltzer's Rose bio, it seems June 8, 1979 at the Cow Palace was the date of the incident. For context, Rose had been wrestling in SF since around mid-1978. The last episode of "Big Time Wrestling" taped in Sacramento aired March 19, 1979. Thereafter, "Big Time Wrestling" from Portland (yes, the show had the same name) aired in the time slot and Shire used Portland talent for his Cow Palace shows. Attendance for these shows wasn't very good though, and Shire began having problems with Owen and the Portland guys. Portland guys were no-showing dates during this time as well. On top of all this apparently the Amarillo territory of all places (now owned by Blackjack Mulligan and Dick Murdoch) had TV in San Fran and were running shows in towns Shire had abandoned. Anyway, things were very tense at the time and Rose wasn't being paid what he felt he was owed, which led to the shoot promo. It looks as though the incident was the last straw for Shire and Owen, and Portland Wrestling was replaced by "All Star Wrestling" from KC. This was a total disaster, and crowds at the Cow Palace plunged to less than 500 at times. Shire finally pulled the plug after the January 1981 Battle Royal show (which actually drew 6,000, as the Battle Royal card was annually the biggest show of the year in SF).

He was actually wrestling as the Iron Sheik as early as 1978 Portland. This neat little PBS doc features his feud with Dutch Savage:

I think Piper blurted out "It's the Iron Sheik!" during his first appearance as Mustafa. Can't remember how often it was referenced after that.