Indikator

In the end probably, he was successful in some capacity in South Africa and other countries that we tend to forget, had a couple of ~10 000 fans houses and was the company ace for quite some time. There are also claims that he was responsible for the wrestling revival in a small number of towns, his hometown Graz for instance. God dammit I hate myself for saying something good about Wanz A funny tidbit - his predecessor in Vienna was Georg "Schurl" Blemenschütz who wrestled until he was over 70 and was adequately called "The Heumarkt mummy" (Heumarkt being the open air venue in Vienna where pretty much every big tournament was held). Take that whoever thought wrestling was serious business back then over here. (für dich Robert im Originalton, "Mumie vom Heumarkt") Edit: Personally I find people like Paul/Ivar/Jan Martinson to be way more interesting. He was a guy who was also in the American world title scene around 1948 and had several huge matches against the likes of Frank Sexton and Lou Thesz and did some good houses in Paris. That was back in the day when it was said that the German/Austrian wrestling scene was in big trouble because taxes where so high that most top names preferred to go to Paris or Madrid where they often wrestled in front of +20 000 fans and earned more money

I think it was Black Tiger vs Cobra from 84/85

You do know that the these British guys are having it a lot easier than their Pre-WWII counterparts and pretty much all other Europeans. There are quite a number of instances where I read lines like "....and my biggest career moment was wrestling in front of 40 000 fans in Athens" that today almost nobody knows anything about and that are hard to research. Just look at King Kong Czaya and you will see that there are a lot of potential candidates . I remember a newspaper article about a wrestling scandal in Vienna during the 50s in which the promoter was quoted "They never write about us when we have sellouts with 20 000 people, they only write when there is a scandal " . Then I think about how one tournament in particular produced about 8.000 fans on weekdays and 10.000 fans on the weekends and I wonder why Pallo and McManus are deemed to be better HoF prospects. I don't want to disregard them, but the British scene was notorious for bad pay days and small venues. You don't get into the HoF for selling out the Zembo Mosque 100 times, you have to sell out big venues like Madison Square Garden

So could I say that Muto was the Japanese Rock and Hashimoto was the Japanese Foley?

Is this footage in circulation? I've always wanted to see Portland Snuka. Date is (probably) either 74-07-20 or 74-07-23 (André the Giant beat Ripper Collins and Kim Sung Ho and Rasputin on the undercard or André the Giant and Jimmy Snuka beat Rasputin, Ripper Collins and Kim Sung Ho

On either WCMB or KFM there was a newspaper report from I think 1932 where Wild Red Berry was arrested for sitting on a tree high on some kind of drugs. Things like this make me laugh when people say how much the business supposedly has changed

Done by the right person - a lot. Done by RF or most other shoot interviewers - nothing. Maybe a new "how tough was Haku" story

I really noticed this watching ICW Poffo. Whenever "Chase", the MX theme by Giorgio Moroder was used ICW felt like a predecessor to ECW and I came to appreciate this style

Condrey version was the best Lane version was the most fun So it depends which version you favour

That was after his first Michinoku tour IIRC so it shouldn't count. Look what I found 17. November 1998 Erin O'Grady beat Chad Collyer (4:12 Minutes) OVW

I´d say the moment ECW got infamous

It's rather often the case that a certain event triggers the beginning of a new style and that yearnumbers are not that imortant You could argue that the Choshu style triggered the "real" 80s style in NJPW after his turn on Fujinami and in AJPW when he debuted. Or does anybody not think that Harley Race was pretty much done when the JWP guys arrived in AJPW?

When I got into old school (Pre WWII) wrestling and World Of Sports I was suprised how fast they always returned into the standup position. I got used to it quite fast and now I can really appreciate it, although it is not a thing you can do in todays normal 10 minute US-style match . On the other hand it could really improve a 60 minute match.

AFAIK Robinson was the anchor guy around 1970, but frankly only an older Japanese expert could tell us who the company ace was. I know too little of Rusher Kimuras and Strong Kobayashis status as IWE topcarders to list them in the correct order. Also, whoever said Robinson was the anchor guy might have been biased as a pro-gaijin. I once spoke to an European guy who had a tour for IWE, a normal no-name one-tour gaijin, and it was funny how he tried to con me into thinking he was a superstar over there as I knew his match results. At least he told me a couple of things about the IWE midcarders Oh... could it be that Terry Funk was the most popular AJPW guy from... lets say 1980-1983? I am always amazed watching his AJPW run and don't forget how Freebirds vs. Baba/Tsuruta couldn't sell out Korakuen Hall in 1984 at one point. I was seeking the Universal information because the UWF success could be used as a benchmark. Maybe every wrestling show in Tokyo like Pioneer Senshi sold out as there might have been a wrestling boom. Maybe it wasn't like that and people didn't care about fired midcarders and guys who had to go to Mexico to get into the business. "-FMW trainee Kanemura ended up anchoring WAR’s junior heavyweight division" How about Masato Tanaka? I have to admit that I don't follow Z1 that much so somebody else needs to school me on that topic.

tomk, you wrote in that thread "..I must be missing someone, but I can't think of another Gaijin who was put in role of being anchor guy in Japan." The answer is Billy Robinson for IWE. The success is disputable of course. Regarding Hamada, we all know how fast Shoot UWF Version 2 shows sold out - are any kind of informations for Universal available?

It's often hard to distinguish between wrestlers who were burnt out from WWF schedules and guys who really tried to deliver. Bob Orton Jr. is a weird case as his IWCCW match is really fun but I didn't like his NWA stint when I first watched it almost a decade ago. Maybe that would change with another viewing. To me Orton is better the smaller the promotion gets. Jim Duggan was probably left behind, although you wonder what was left in his tank once he signed with WWF. MX & RR Express did not really transition that well. The Fantastics and the Can Am Express were wise to go to AJPW. Rogers in ECW was almost irritating although well intentioned. Guys like Rocco Rock and Scott Hall are probably my picks for best transition.

I wonder if that Yatsu match is available. I guess now we know why he left All Japan and deteriorated

Found this gem on a football board. No clue when this happened, this was the first time I heard about the incident. "Worst form of sportsmanship----a chilean goalie faked an injury, captured on film taking a razor and cutting his eyebrow......i think chile was banned from the qualifiers for that i think"

I actually frequent a blog that covers many of the wrestling promotions in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois - even the really small indys. This dude's name is nowhere to be found on the entire site. There's some hilarious quotes in that article, but yeah, this is awful journalism. As someone who used to write for a newspaper, it frustrates me to see garbage like this that clearly wasn't researched at all, and if it was, not on reputable websites or sources. Could he have been Big Nasty Bill from WLW? Anyway, please post the link of that blog. Thank you

The Giant was not Andres son. Ugh ....I was ten years old dammit

I personally never got "X-Pac heat" and still adore his Lightning Kid independent phase. Also, I need a DVD with Fright Train Fulton vs Bill Wilcox right now.