Ricky Jackson

The Cappetta interview is really good. I'm a big fan of the vintage vault podcasts. Great work. Hope you guys are working hard trying to track down Dennis Stamp for an interview someday.

I have no love for Bischoff, but Nitro coming along in 1995 did revitalize what was a totally comatose, stuck in the past North American wrestling scene (outside of ECW) and arguably got the ball rolling towards what is often considered the hottest period ever for the business. I'm not sure how much credit Bischoff deserves for this, though. And considering the wrestling most of us love more or less ceased to exist after 1997, replaced by high spots, scripts, and the chase for high ratings, maybe he should be damned to hell.

I'm not sure, I was only half listening, but I think Jim Rome just got trolled by an e-mailer into saying "Triple H" on the air multiple times without irony.

Graham was a huge star for most of the 70s in multiple territories. Backlund's fall was maybe greater--going from 6 years on top in NYC to out of wrestling completely in about two years.

I know Piper abruptly left Georgia in late-82 just as he was starting a program with Lawler. He was booked to face him at the Omni and it was hyped on TV, but the match never took place. I'm sure there is a lot more to his leaving Georgia than just missing one show. And if he was "blackballed" in the US it wasn't for long because he was wrestling for Crockett as early as 1/1 83 and likely sooner. I don't think I've ever heard the plane crash story before and the 45 dog collar matches in 60 days is typical wrestler exaggeration. Edit: Piper wrestled Flair in Greensboro on Thanksgiving night 1982.

I'm pretty sure the 67 million you quote was the pre-canceling of TV shows price, and that Fusient backed out once the shows were cancelled.

I grew up in Calgary and have probably watched more Stampede than most on this board, but I could never argue with a straight face that it was better than Memphis.

triple post. sorry.

double post

I think the plan by Bischoff was to shut everything down and start over with this planned show: I think the plan was to use RVD as the new top star. Not sure what the role of the other guys was going to be.

Meltzer? I thought we stopped taking him seriously years ago. I mean really, 78,000 for Mania III? Bah. Nonsense. Seriously though, I'm sticking with the continuation of the Hogan-Savage feud being the main draw, with the addition of a well built-up Zeus as a nice bonus.

The Summerslam 89 number is a definitely a testament to how hot the Hogan-Savage feud really was.

The problem is the nefarious actions of a heel only have meaning and impact when the heel is already hated, or at least at a point where the crowd has begun to slowly turn on them. Punk's turn on the Rock came out of nowhere at a time when he was solidly over as a babyface. My first thought when that happened was it felt really forced to turn him heel, even though the WWE needs a top heel and Punk as a babyface wasn't particularly interesting to me. But the WWE rarely does anything with any subtlety, so the direction they have gone with Punk's turn isn't really surprising (Disclaimer: I haven't actually watched a Raw since the 1000th episode). In some ways it's similar to Austin's turn in 01, without the massive fan backlash and ratings nosedive. In both cases, instead of slowly building to the turn and getting fans to actually want the wrestler to turn, or no longer want to support them as a babyface (ala Bret Hart in 97), they booked it backwards, going with a big shock surprise heel turn angle first, then actually building the turn afterwards, with the explanation for their motivation, change in character, etc. coming AFTER they technically turned. I supose you could argue Hogan's turn in 96 was in this mold, but the crowd had turned on him in previous years and were ready for a heel turn, unlike with Punk and Austin. Maybe, if they stay the course, the crowd will eventually embrace Punk as a heel (and really, a well-timed Rock promo on Punk would likely do a lot to help) but at this rate it seems like they're going to have him burning the American flag in the middle of the ring within a few weeks.

I always found it quite comical when PWI would run Hogan circa 1985 photos, with the short-lived NWA TV title/AWA tag titles-looking belt, and sometimes with the white or blue trunks he no longer wore, on covers 4-5 years later.

Probably the best thing Dave has posted in a while. This is Amy BTW

Or the WWE being kind of boring and uninspired in general, outside of D-Bry and a few others, for several months now.

Where I grew up, wrestling noticeably lost a ton of popularity in the schoolyard over the course of 1991, basically plunging after Mania VII. Looking back, losing the NBC specials probably had a lot to do with it. By early 92 wrestling fandom in my school was basically down to the hardcores, and by the end of 92 you were considered a total dork by the cool kids if you admitted to watching wrestling (although many were likely closet fans).

This may be a good place to start http://www.youtube.com/user/ChannelExtreme/featured This is a really good blog on Memphis history http://kentuckyfriedwrestling.com/theword2/

This interests me as well. If you look at the Greensboro cards from 1962 to 1973, the main event and usually the semi-main event (and often one undercard bout) on almost all of these shows were tag matches. I believe 73 was the year Crockett Sr died, Crockett Jr took over, and George Scott was brought in as booker. I don't know the specifics, but I've read Scott wanted to take the territory in a different direction, emphasizing singles main events, often with the Johnny Valentine/Wahoo McDaniel feud on top (4 straight shows between Aug-Oct 1974; 6 out of 7 shows, including one tag match on Nov 7), but also several NWA title matches involving Jack Brisco. Tag matches remained a staple of the cards, but not nearly as prevalent in the main event slot as pre-73. Attendance, which was in the 5-7,000 range in 73-74, spiked to a consistent 9-12,000 by the end of 1975. As far as the Andersons (Gene and Ole) go, they were mainstays in the territory from 1968-1978. Pre-73 they alternated between the main event and semi main event. Drawing wise, their first main event in Greensboro (Nov, 68) drew 2,986; their last prior to the shift towards singles main events (July, 73) drew 7,100, and the area seemed to be in much better shape in the early-70s than it was in the late-60s, but wrestling as a whole was much hotter at the time. The evidence I've seen doesn't point to them not drawing on top. They don't seem to have been super hot draws, but they weren't duds on top at all, and I don't think they contributed to Scott's decision to shift to singles main events.

Memphis wrestling is as fun as it gets.

Yes. Probably somewhere between 30-50. I've always been a fan, but I can't put him ahead of my faves from the 70s-90s, who are on another level IMO.

Yeah, I've always been a fan of the Garvin feud, and I forgot to mention his tag work, which was strong, even as late as 92 with Terry Taylor (a team I really liked at the time). And seeing this is a board of revisionist opinion, anyone care to pimp any Rhythm and Blues matches?

Good call, and I'm looking forward to reading it. Valentine is someone I've really become interested in during the footage explosion of the last few years. In his prime years he was almost the perfect heel in the way he projected being a despicable asshole with really no redeemable qualities (and he had a nasty racist streak), to the point it's hard to ever picture him as a babyface. He was also a great worker (before he stopped caring around 87 or so), good talker and as far as I know a decent draw. He maybe didn't work on top in as many territories as Patera, but he was a mainstay and top star in two of the biggest ones, NY and the Carolinas, during a period, roughly 77-85, when both were usually either hot or doing consistently strong business.

PBS is airing a lucha documentary in September. Sounds like it could be interesting: http://www.wrestleview.com/viewnews.php?id=1342829036

I think the storyline was DiBiase claimed Luger had joined, but it was a swerve and Tatanka ended up turning on Luger and joining the Corporation. Luger allied with the Dungeon of Doom and tagging with Sting was 95/96, after he returned to WCW and before the start of the NWO angle.