Ricky Jackson

OK Computer The Best of the York Foundation Pet Sounds Highlighting the WWF's obsession with animal gimmicks in the 80s. Forever Changes The endless gimmicks of Barry Darsow.

Maybe Savage was just unmotivated and didn't feel the need to go all out most of the time, like a lot of the WWF guys who came over to WCW during that period.

It was much more than the UWF purchase. Basically a bunch of frivolous spending--private jets, an office in Dallas, and all kinds of comps and big money being tossed around for a long time--that finally caught up with Crockett despite any financial success. Meltzer always tells the story of Crockett's lawyer or accountant informing him just after Bash 88 that he was essentially bankrupt.

As I've mentioned in the past, I grew up in Calgary in the 80s and didn't have access to JCP on TV. I'm told it was sometimes featured on Pro Wrestling Plus, but I don't remember it being on any of the episodes I watched at the time, but then again we are talking about 25 + year old memories here. Wrestling on TV in Calgary in the 80s was 1hr of Stampede followed by 1hr of WWF on Saturday afternoons after the cartoons on Ch.7. AWA was on TSN, but was constantly shifted around in different time slots and different days, which made it hard to follow. I collected the mags and knew all about JCP and all the major stars and angles but frustratingly could never see the shows. There were a few tapes out there (Lords of Ring or whatever the PWI tape with the Piper/Valentine dog collar match on it was called, and the 85 Bash being two I remember) but not much else. It wasn't until 92/93 that I was able to watch WCW on TV consistently and the tape selection got (relatively) better. Scoring a copy of Bash 89 for $5 from the bargin bin of a local video store when I was 15 or 16 is still a fond memory.

Masters of the moustache is definitely an overlooked aspect of wrestling history that warrants investigtion.

OK brain, as part of your initiation to this board you have to reveal the name. I'm guessing the Ultimate Warrior. As a 9 year old in 1986 my # 1 team was the Bulldogs. As a 35 year old in 2013 my # 1 team for the 80s is the Rockers. And yes, I'm a "WWF guy". I'll get around to watching a substantial amount of JCP someday and probably have a new # 1 by the time I'm 50.

I'll let the YouTube comments do the talking for this one:

I figure this can double as the Nash douchebag thread

Slaughter's bump was great, but don't forget Bossman's awkward elimination where he almost snaps his neck on the bottom rope.

Compared to a lot of other boards and wrestling hangouts on the internet, this place is a haven of politeness and understanding. I think the difference between here and some other places is that, yeah, a lot of otherwise conventional internet opinions are challenged (eg. the greatness of Michaels and Angle), and you need to back things up with something more than "Flair sux, Bret rulz u loser", you are dealing with people who watch more wrestling in a day than most do in a lifetime, so they can argue just about ANYTHING and back it up in a way that is well thought out and not just a bunch of swearing and ridicule. You can like whatever you like, but if you choose to make a post with a arguable statement of some sort ("Sting should be in the WON HoF") someone is going to step up and challenge it. Just don't take it personal.

Didn't he use it on Savage at Mania before Hogan stepped in with the chair? Yep, that's what I was going to say. What did he use to beat jobbers during his first few months in WWF?

Makes sense I suppose. My guess was Ryback would win the Rumble and beat Show at Mania, but that looks to be out the window now.

Love the new and improved PWO.

What was the deal with Hogan's war bonnet anyway? At the time it seemed like something he randomly did for a couple months that the mags reported, but I don't remember it ever being on any of the TV.

Man, I haven't felt this out of the loop in a while. I totally didn't know Show dropped the title to Del Rio until reading the previous post. Kind of seems like a needless switch.

I'm just impressed tomk was able to calculate the number of people leaving as exactly 11%, like it was clearly more than 10% but less than 12% based on an eyeball estimate.

I've always felt "he did the same things in every match" was a pretty weak smark criticism anyway. Why wouldn't you do the same things if they popped the crowd every night? Just to please the hardcores and sheet writers?

Funny you mention Karras, because he actually had stronger ties to wrestling than Alzado ever did. He wrestled sporadically in the 50s and 60s during the NFL off season. Most famously, in 1963 he was involved in a match with Dick the Bruiser in Detroit that garnered a lot of publicity at the time, mostly because the two ran an angle prior to the match where the Bruiser showed up at a bar co-owned by Karras and started a worked brawl, which became a big newspaper story the next day. He also played the wrestler-husband of Babe Didrickson in a 70s TV movie of her life.

That is one of my all time favorite wrestling segments as well.

My interest in wrestling, new or old, has been hanging on by a thread lately, but the last hour of tonight's Raw provided a spark.

Hey! Just joking. I like Eadie, but he's not a guy I'll defend to the death or anything. Definitely better than Darsow, though.

And Bruno vs Larry Z was a pretty intense feud. Don't forget Tito vs Greg.

Objectively, yes, Flair was the better all around performer. Many of you may not agree with this, but one of the ways I judge how "great" a performer a wrestler was is by observing how non-fans respond to them. During a period when I routinely subjected a group of friends, all of the non/very casual fan variety, to wrestling, a few wrestlers stood out from the pack in their eyes. Randy Savage was definitely one. So were Hogan and the Rock. Flair, however, probably garnered the strongest response from them, especially for his promos. That said, Bret's matches sucked them in as much as anybody. But if I had took a vote with them asking who they liked the most, Flair probably would have won. Even my wife, who has zero interest in wrestling, occasionally marks out for classic Flair (Santino was her favorite wrestler, so I'm not sure what importance any of my non-fan observation criteria for judging wrestlers holds). Anyway, I love Flair. I love Bret. Savage is likely the only guy I would rate above them, and it's very close. I chose Bret out of a vague feeling of loyalty. Whatever, this thread wouldn't be much fun if we all voted for Flair and weren't swearing at each other and setting up camps preparing for a civil war.

I think the stereotypical workrate and movez are king/"Hogan was a shitty worker"/anything pre-94 was boring attitude is still dominant in most hardcore circles.

I suggested Summerslam 89 as one of the WWF's best shows in my first post, but I don't have time for a full match by match breakdown. The highlighted matches, depending on your appreciaiton of 80s WWF, range from good to great IMO, and five is more than you usually got from a WWF PPV during an era with a lot of short matches and crap finishes. The crowd is mostly hot throughout, as I mentioned before. Just a really fun show...but likely not on par with all your Dreamslams and Egg shows and what not. *WWF Tag Team Champions Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (w/ Bobby Heenan) defeated Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart in a non-title match at 16:23 when Anderson, the illegal man, pinned Hart after Anderson hit a double axe handle off the top on Hart behind the referee's back as Hart had Blanchard covered Dusty Rhodes pinned the Honkytonk Man (w/ Jimmy Hart) at 9:36 with the Bionic Elbow after Hart accidentally hit Honky over the head with the guitar Mr. Perfect pinned the Red Rooster with the Perfect Plex at 3:21 as Rooster attempted to climb back inside the ring; late in the bout, it appeared as if Rooster suffered a knee injury *Rick Martel (w/ Slick), Jacques & Raymond Rougeau (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated Tito Santana, Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty at 14:58 when Martel pinned Jannetty with a clothesline as Jannetty had one of the Rougeaus covered with a roll over; twice during the live telecast, the Rougeaus' music was accidentally played during the match, thus giving away the finish *The Ultimate Warrior pinned WWF IC Champion Rick Rude (w/ Bobby Heenan) to win the title at 16:02 with a back suplex and splash after Roddy Piper mooned the champion from ringside *King Jim Duggan & Demolition defeated Andre the Giant (w/ Bobby Heenan), the Big Bossman, & Akeem (w/ Slick) at 7:26 when Smash pinned Akeem after Duggan hit Akeem over the back with his 2x4 as Akeem had Smash covered following a splash from the middle turnbuckle; Bobby Heenan was introduced as being in Andre's corner but did not appear ringside until after the match began; Duggan wore one of Demolition's face masks for their ring entrance, had his face painted like the American flag, and had his 2x4 wrapped in the flag Greg Valentine (w/ Jimmy Hart) pinned Hercules with both feet on the ropes for leverage at 3:06; prior to the bout, Ron Garvin was introduced as the guest ring announcer for the match, with Garvin insulting both Valentine and Hart during their entrance; following the bout, Garvin announced Hercules as the winner until he was corrected by the referee, with Garvin then saying Hercules was the winner by disqualification; moments later, Valentine knocked Garvin to the floor and brawled with Hercules until Garvin climbed back in the ring and knocked Valentine to the floor with a punch Ted Dibiase (w/ Virgil) defeated Jimmy Snuka via count-out at 6:26 when Dibiase threw Snuka into the ringpost after Snuka became distracted by Virgil on the floor; following his introduction, Dibiase took the mic and bragged about ending Jake Roberts' career; after the contest, Snuka knocked Dibiase to the floor, assaulted Virgil, and hit the splash off the top *WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan & Brutus Beefcake (w/ Miss Elizabeth) defeated Randy Savage (w/ Sensational Sherri) & Zeus at 15:04 when Hogan pinned Zeus with a body slam and legdrop after hitting him with Sherri's loaded purse; prior to the ring introductions, the Genius read a poem in the ring in which he predicted Savage & Zeus to win; after Hogan & Beefcake's entrances, Hogan whispered something in Howard Finkel's ear, with Finkel then introducing Miss Elizabeth to be in Hogan & Beefcake's corner; after the match, Beefcake cut some of Sherri's hair