Matt Farmer

Owen was one of those guys like Sayama who was a really early tape trader favorite. When Owen first started with WWF in 1988 as a full timer. The tapes from house shows that aired on satellite of local cable networks became a big deal on the tape trader scene. It may have been the only time matches of Barry Horowitz were soaght after like those were.

There's some great old newsletters out there. Some of the early great ones were Burt Ray's Matmania fro the 60's.

We've been posting a lot of clippings on the group page. And some good information is being traded.

I posted this clipping on my History of Puerto Rico wrestling Facebook page. This card went head to head with the WWF card we've seen where Hulk Hogan wrestles Big John Studd in a rainstorm. Also Vince brought in Cyndi Lauper to manage Wendi Richter. So they brought in all the top draws. One of the contributors to the site is Chris Romero aka Chris Youngblood. This took place about a month after the death of his brother Jay Youngblood. He wrote this about memories of this night. "Wow, very dearest and special to me, at the ripe old age of 18 and right after Jay past, Mark handing Jays Halliburton suitcase and booking sheet, "you have to fill these Moccasins, he would have wanted you to", a month and a half after Jay passed, my first major match top spot in WWC against the Pastores/the Sheepherders, where we drew more fans than the WWF and Hulk Hogan with a loaded card, can't believe my name was in the upper echelon!!! Great piece of fact to think we out drew The WWF, WWC was one of the last strongholds to last against WWF until the death of Bruiser Brody!"

Again if people are reading this thread, check out the facebook link I posted. There's some great discussions about Puerto Rico going on there. We even have some former wrestlers who worked often in Puerto Rico posting including Chris Youngblood, Gino Dellaserra, Bart Batten, and Ron Starr. I know I've had some questions cleared up for me already.

Hey guys I started a Puerto Rico wrestling history group on Facebook. We've already got a good number of members and have seen some cool discussions. I'm hoping with the page to learn more about the history of wrestling on the islands. https://www.facebook.com/groups/456473817891680/

Hey everyone, I started a Puerto Rico & Caribbean wrestling history group on Facebook. Feel free to join the group so we can discuss wrestling on the islands! https://www.facebook.com/groups/456473817891680/

The Villano III vs Flama Roja mascara versus mascara match was May 11, 1988. They apparently broke the cities live gate record.

Good thread. Dunno about $26 million though; hasn't Meltzer said that the most Hogan ever earned in a year was $6 million? I've seen Meltzer list it from $6 to $8 million. It appears during his best periods of you do the math it's closer to the $8 million. Yes Austin made more in his best year than Hogan, but fuck Hogan probably worked less than 75 days.

Yeah I've been searching for more footage from Juarez. I've recently come across a contact in Mexico that allegedly has about 12 hours of footage. Hope it comes through as it's one of the more interesting territories. In the late 80's and early 90's the territory was doing some major business. As you can see from the footage above.

Someone took the time to put together a cool set of Stan Hansen/Carlos Colon matches. In the subject box they put the dates for the matches too. https://youtu.be/FgGxUo90kC0

Gotta disagree with this one. I went to one of the rare WCW house shows during this time when HTM was working there, and he had a really great match with Brian Pillman. And he was super over with the crowd. He worked the undercard of the first Hogan/Flair WCW house shows and he was the most over wrestler right under Hogan/Flair on the card. As for being an ego maniac, he refused to put over Johnny B. Badd at Starrcade (he had put him over on house shows and a Clash by DQ) because they wanted him to do a clean lose. And he was not under contract, he had a per date deal. And had been pushing to be put under contract. Doing a job on a PPV with out a contract and only making the same per deal amount was not what he agreed to. There is nothing wrong with that, it's smart business. If you do business (doing a job) you deserve to be properly compensated for it.

Perfect example is Dragon Gate claiming more people at their Osaka show then New Japan Power Struggle even though New Japan looked like it had more people there. WWE does it too. Just look how they were claiming 13,500 for NXT Brooklyn and they bumped it up to over 15k on the night of. I don't know how it works in Japan, but WWE at least keeps accurate attendance records for the official books and a bullshit number for kayfabe purposes. WM this year should be real interesting, since it was noted in the WON that the capacity at AT&T Stadium with the usual stage setup would be around 75,000 and they maybe could get to 90,000 legit without the elaborate staging (although Dave doubts they'd do that) but they still will claim 100,000. It's one thing to bump up a show that size 5k or so, but a 25k kayfabe bump seems too exaggerated for them to seriously try to push. They showed the Mayor of Dallas in the Mania Pre Sale Show on Raw saying that they wanted to break the attendance record and that number for Cowboys Stadium is 108,713 from the 2010 NBA All Star game. So they might have to bump the figure by 30 to 35k instead of 25k in order to top it. There's a little mistake there, and even on Dave's part. The way AT&T Stadium is set up there are like 80,000 seats or so. When they put 108k into the building there were that many people in the building. But not all were seated or had a place to seat. The was the stadium is designed they have room for thousands and thousands of standing room only customers. So even with their production blocking 15,000 seats or more. They could probably put an close around 90,000 or so into the building. With the exception of their stage a wrestling event is really similar to the number they can put into a building for basketball.

ROH also became a big influence on young luchadores. If you look at the history between Mexico and Japan, you'll see a ton of influence crossing over promotions. Satoru Sayama was a major star in Mexico under his own name and an even bigger star when he returned as Tiger Mask. Before that Tatsumi Fujinami was a major star, and a huge drawing card in Mexico, same can be said about Antonio Inoki. And of course the magazine always covered wrestling in Japan.

Of course I'm kidding, there is no way he'll get any support. Now let's get back to talking about Puerto Rico and it's history!

Okay now that Carlos Colon is in. Who wants to start pushing to get Invader I on the ballot? He was the number two biggest star on the island and at times as big of a draw as Colon, and could be at times a darn good wrestler.

Going to start listening to this now

Over 400k of those 600k votes came from international buys. The first year or so the Network was not avaliable internationally (legally).

Mero was disliked more for his ability, or lack of ability. When he went to WWF he had been trained to be Johnny B. Badd, he was protected and pushed. His matches were planned out in spots. Which drew heat for a lot of guys, others who favored working that way like Randy Savage could get away with it because he was a top guy and drew/made money for the boys. When Mero went to WWF he got the stigma put on him quickly that he couldn't work, because he could not call it in the ring. And he estentially was trained to be "Johnny B Badd" and not trained as a wrestler first. He lacked the basic fundamentals that stand out quickly to the boys that have been trained. Plus he got heat in WWF because he came in with guaranteed money while many of the other boys worked on the old system.

I know there are a lot of indy fans here, so if you've got a guest you'd like to hear or a topic to discuss. Let me know!

Hey everyone I wanted to let everyone know what I've been up to besides my weekly discussions about the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame on their website and as a guest of Jim Cornette's on his MLW program. I've also been hosting a weekly podcast on MLWRadio.com that is dedicated to spreading the word on independent wrestling. We've had numerous guest's from the world of independent wrestling and we just posted our sixth podcast. Guests so far have included. Jeff Cobb - 2004 Olympian. Lucha Underground and independent star! 'Brutal' Bob Evans - Ring of Honor veteran Scott Mac - Canadian veteran and co-owner of Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling and found of Paraguay's Luchando. 'All Ego' Ethan Page - Evolve and DGUSA star This week we have Kevin Kleinrock who produced and worked with such programs as XPW, MTV's Wrestle Society X, Urban Wrestling Federation and now works with Masked Republic! The first couple episodes were a bit choppy due to my lack of production knowledge when it comes to producing a podcast. The program has improved greatly since the first one so I invite everyone to check it out! http://mlwradio.com/indyriffic-6-kevin-kleinrock/ @MLW Along with that I've also written an article on Lucha Libre trios Los Misioneros de la Muerte for a new monthly Lucha zine called Rudo Can't Fail. It has a lot of great features in it including an awesome color centerfold of Lucha Underground's Melissa Santos! You can learn more about it by checking out their Facebook page or go to Luchaloot.com! Luchaloot offers these awesome Lucha crates that have officially licensed Lucha Libre gifts every month, just in time for Christmas! Rudo Can't Fail Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/RudoCantFail Luchaloot.com https://luchaloot.cratejoy.com/ twitter: @LuchaLoot twitter: @RudoCan'tFail The zine Rudo Can't Fail can be purchased for a big discount in bulk if you are operating a independent promotion. It's a great way to earn some extra revenue. And it can even be used to place a line-up sheet for that nights event! I'm really proud of both so check them out and let me know what you think!

No there were a lot of lower priced tickets that were not purchased either. And one of the reasons they were heavily papering the event the last week, it was very well know if you wanted a ticket you could easily get one for free.

Yup like I said I understand the critism. But the positives way out weigh those.

Except when they don't sellout. (like this years)