PeteF3

I know these interviews were from before he died but holy shit do Brett, Joey, and GCW probably deserve a liability investigation reading this. Joey's already trying to do damage control saying that he was just adding to "the lore" by claiming Sabu was knocked out and that he actually wasn't, but I don't know how you fucking watch that match and think he was anything but unconscious on that floor bump.

The '50s U.S. footage is almost all (partially) televised house shows, similar to catch (it seems World of Sport/JP could be afford to be a bit more choosy in what aired from where, whereas the U.S. shows just showed whatever was happening at the Olympic Auditorium or Marigold Arena in Chicago that week, depending on the network). The rise of "studio wrestling" was pretty much post-national-TV boom and that's where what we perceive as the modern territorial TV format began. (Of course, even within that there were exceptions--Portland and Dallas continued with the same televised-house-show format for their almost their entire existence).

We're not asking for WWE to employ people indefinitely. We're asking them to honor the fucking contracts they signed talent to. ("But--but, the contract allows for a 90-day termination clause, so they're honoring them!" Shut the fuck up with that bullshit.) If they want to do what they did with Shotzi and just not renew her contract when it expires, that's fine and dandy. You need turnover and you could argue that WWE should actually be more aggressive with doing that instead of less. Also, personally, in the abstract I don't give much of a fuck about how much either company "benches" people except selfishly when it happens to people I really like. If they don't want to use someone, they're free not to as long as they're honoring the contract. But calling out WWE when they do bench people is more than fair after Nick Khan confidently declared that they don't do that.

Unbelievably, Hogan had not one but two decent takes in that interview, talking up Toni Storm and AEW and also saying what a lot of people have been saying about the (lack of) follow-up to the Cena turn.

Let's call it "higher" rather than "high."

Yep, it's the Fuji match, with a big VQ upgrade.

Someone on Richard's Patreon believes it's Yasu Fuji.

In the file from Richard Land, it's Saturski against a guy in a sky-blue leotard and long tights. Black hair and a beard. It might be Judd Harris as I watch the match more closely. Yeah, it's obviously a date discrepancy because that's Kauroff in the match above, but this match is shot from a different angle, elevated and farther back and from the corner of the ring as opposed to ringside.

We've got another discrepancy on that show--the results sites have it as Wolfgang Saturski vs. Klaus Kauroff, but that's definitely not Kauroff and I couldn't recognize him or make out the name.

The WWF on their own television had a doctor talking about how you can't "tough" your way through a concussion and that the effects are permanent. Watch the TV after Shawn collapsed on Raw and you'll see it. Everyone in the medical community knew that concussions were bad not just short-term but long-term at *least* by 1995 and probably earlier.

I've been binging random episodes of Taskmaster and in the 2023 New Year's special, Alex Horne refers to author/broadcaster Greg James as the third-most famous Greg, "behind Greg Dyke and Greg 'The Hammer' Valentine." Not really a setting I expected a wrestling reference and I have to wonder if the Dyke reference was intentional or a coincidence.

Star Trek revivals were based on the huge syndicated ratings TOS repeats got for decades afterward moreso than just the letter-writing campaign. I don't know of wrestling having any kind of comparable possible KPI. Contemporary ratings would draw the attention of any TV exec even if they weren't around 20 years before. And it's not like the major networks ever brought it back. TOS aired on NBC but all the revivals have been in first-run syndication, on a lesser startup network (UPN or CW), or streaming-only.

74 years old and probably still could go in the ring yesterday if he wanted to.

Got it. Cut the Crap is the greatest album of the 1980s. Any criticisms of the dumbed-down songwriting, patchwork band lineup, and horrible production is purely based on cultural expectations that don't relate to the original context.

Am I listening to The Clash wrong because I didn't grow up in the Winter of Discontent? Is it cultural appropriation for me to listen to Ladysmith Black Mambazo?

That cross-buttock attempt out of the headlock looked like a dance routine. Like something from someone two months into wrestling training. I dunno, I think Jose was pretty fair if not generous. I'd love to know what luchador Flesh was supposedly inspired by because it doesn't look like any one that I've seen.

Note that the match is missing the ending--the WWE vault either doesn't have that portion of the match or the tape was un-convertible.

Burke was a results-compiler and I think a photographer, who wrote for the non-Apter/Weston magazines of the late '70s and early '80s. He was a guest several times on Brian Last's old 6:05 Superpodcast. Yes, he did write about the international scene quite a bit, more than just about any other magazine writer, which was an impressive feat with no video tape. I have one magazine around where he has a big write-up on Bert Mychel, of all people.

Yeah, I'm not sure how much I buy that supposed list. Some real, "Tony Khan loved me, it was that damn Jimmy Jacobs who fucked me over" vibes a la Vince and Johnny Ace.

Still waiting for another villain to do this "avoid the knockout and get pinned anyway" spot.

That was peak WWF/WWE "book minorities in the most stereotypical gimmick possible and hide behind 'satire'" bullshit. See also: voice-dubbed Kaientai, Latino Heat Eddie Guerrero, Cryme Tyme, right up through the New Day. (And yeah, I'll hear that some of these were the talent's own idea--what were they going to do, propose ideas that *didn't* appeal to Vince? Come on.)

I love Fujiwara as much as any PWO poster but there are definitely longtime Observer voters who would be confused (not even shocked, just confused) at the suggestion that he's a top-10 or even top-50 worker all-time. He wasn't disliked or anything but neither Dave nor a lot of his readers see him the same way a lot of us do. Gordienko...man, the rep is there, but I thought I struck the motherlode on getting early-'70s Grand Prix footage of him and he showed me *nothing.* Not as an interview, not as a personality, not as a worker. It was at the end of his career and he was maybe miscast as a heel, but it was the most disappointing "find" in my personal wrestling footage-collecting hobby probably ever. It certainly casts doubt that he was a major name into the "mid-'70s" though because he looks pretty washed-up by 1972-73.

I feel like Saint's a HOFer on influence. Even though George Kidd was a TV pioneer of the style, Saint's the one whose tapes were studied and the one most closely associated with British wrestling spots elsewhere in the world.

Strongbow was not the babyface, though.

It should also be noted that Strongbow's bump to the floor against Wanz would 100% be cause for a countout/KO finish, as it was a bigger bump than most bumps to the floor on WoS outside of maybe some Clive Myers matches. Yet he got back into the ring and was pinned with a suplex soon after. Maybe one could argue that that was the American Strongbow's influence but I doubt he was the one dictating the finishes.