BruiserBrody

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/from-the-wwe-network-battle-at-the-royal-albert-hall/ The WWF puts on a show in the historic and beautiful Royal Albert Hall. - Gorilla Monsoon continues to provide moments that justify his Observer awards for worst announcer. A part of me feels very dirty even writing that. - The rule book changes on the fly. - Earthquake tries stand up comedy - The thin line between working smart and having a dull match is breached. - The Undertaker prepares for mass homicides. - The Bulldog seems uninspired, despite being the hero of the nation. - We learn the medical science behind Zombie nut shots. - A big final surprise ends the night on a high note at least.

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/from-the-wwe-network-rampage-91/ Rampage 91 features... - Bobby Heenan golfing. Not since Dorf has golf been so entertaining! - John Tolos continues not to impress. - The best match at Summerslam 91 that did not happen. - A steroid addict meets a drug addict. The result is Valium in wrestling form. - Paul Roma. Ugh. - The Rockers have the match of the tape, to the surprise of no one. - Demolition Smash's sad last days in the grease paint. - Massive overbooking to protect THE BARBARIAN. - Haku chooses to spare the life of an unruly fan. - A rare heel vs heel tag match provides intrigue - Paul Bearer shows off his Ed Gein side. - Bearer also hints at his sexual kinks while watching Undertaker fight. - Sigh.

"Jules" is Francis Huntington. He grew up in Wisconsin, and was recruited due to his excellent grades to work in military special forces in the mid-60s. After serving for several years, Francis came home. Instead of using his brains to get rich, his ego got in the way and he sought the stardom of wrestling. He started training in Milwaukee and worked a few outlaw shows before he became an AWA job guy Frank Hill. After a few years of that, Verne used Francis as a regular on the road, with Francis keeping a full time job at a phone company at the same time. He would get off of work at 3 in Milwaukee and race like heck to hit the Minn, Wisconsin, Illinois, etc shows as he was othen the opening act. His biggest early win was besting Ricky Steamboat as the Dragon was set to leave for....Florida(?). Da Crusher, Ray Stevens and Nick Bockwinkel were all big fans of Francis and they worked as his mentors. Crusher even tried to convince Verne to push Francis, but Gagne felt his years of losing would make it impossible. Eventually it was pitched to Wahoo to form a team and work on top. Wahoo refused. This was around the time Francis and Wahoo headed for Japan for the World League. Baba discovered Francis was fluent in Japanese (and German) and asked him to deliver the finishes and whatnot in his locker room. In 1980 Francis finally branched out and went to work in L.A., he eventually worked for Leroy McGuirk in 1982 when George Scott was there trying to recreate Mid Atlantic with Paul Jones, Snuka, and others working on top. Vince Sr got word of his size and experience and called Francis up to NY to team with the 50 something Jay. Since Jay was a road agent, he had Jules help him with paperwork and such. When Vince found out he chewed Jay out for bypassing his duties, and gave Francis more money each week to cover the time spent doing the books. Francis was at the hotel the night Snuka was arrested for the murder of his gf. Francis closed the drapes and avoided the whole scene. He was/is a non drinker and was not a part of the crazy events of the road. Eventually he was given his end date and went on to work for Portland and WCCW before his friendship with Afa got him working with Afa's group as a booker and wrestler. Jules spent much of the late 80s on the East Coast working NWF shows. He also did many international tours of Australia, the Middle East and so on.

Jules spent around 45 mins with me discussing the Von Erichs, as well as his spiritual beliefs. He is one of the leaders of the local Oneida nation as an elder. His story is that while at a giant Pow Wow in Oklahoma or somesuch, a medicine man who he had never met came up to Jules and told him basically he has an aura. That aura is partly the spirits of the fallen who use him as a vessel to spread the Oneida traditions. Due to his upbringing in the tribe, and his respect for their history and traditions, he is a chosen one within their people. To elaborate a bit further, he said if a white man had taken the arrow heads, the spirits would not usually follow them as the spirits realize the ignorance of the whites to their culture. Therefore, Jules believes that the Adkinson's had some native blood in them.

I genuinely appreciate your feedback! Thanks for reading! ====== http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/from-the-wwe-network-demolition/ Coliseum Home Video presents the best of Demolition~! - Battles with Strike Force, the Hart Foundation, the Powers of Pain, the Bulldogs and others are shown. - We see Jim Neidhart show off his Lucha skill set. - Bobby Heenan adds to his resume of being a national treasure. - A rare Heel vs Heel match is among the offerings. - Barry Darsow is compared to Ricky Morton for perhaps the only time ever. - The Powers of Pain/Demolition double turn still baffles me 31 years later.

Not to derail the thread, but the more I see about Turner, the more he is the liberal classic wrasslin' babyface to Vince's MAGA heel in the "real world".

I talked to Jules Strongbow about the Von Erich episode since he was there for several months starting in August or so of 1985. He had a unique take on the family deaths. When he arrived in the territory, Chris Von Erich ran up to him and said "Hey Chief, I have Indian arrowheads from the family property!" Jules: "Oh? From where?" Chris: "There's an Indian burial ground we go play in" Jules backed away and asked Chris if he ever has dreams about being chased by Indians. Chris turned white and asked "How do you know that?!!?" Jules: "Chris, you need to take the arrow heads and some tobacco and put it back on the graves or else the spirits will keep coming for you and your family." Apparently the spirits already had taken David, and since Chris did not heed the advice, they took Mike, Kerry and Chris too.

The story of Chris' suicide hit me the hardest. I am not sure I've ever heard Kevin was the one who found him, much less that it sounded at least temporarily preventable.

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/hulk-and-linda-hogan-gossip-and-scandal/ I recently stumbled upon some trash TV tabloid show covering Hulk Hogan's career and the scandals of his later years. The show was full of talking heads from the gossip world trying to talk about the history of our beloved wrestling. Within 5 minutes I was annoyed, but instead of shutting it off I decided to write a pithy review of the whole thing. What followed was an hour of misused and mismatched photos helping tell a story that was at best at least partially fictional. I hope my pain lead to an amusing recap.

The Twitter for this series is very much worth following. They are sharing some unique pics each week. This one is from a Japan High School who made Brody their mascot after his death.

Unless I am taking the context wrong, I think I am with Scott here as it reads like he is saying being gay is not a big deal either way, so you do not need to flaunt it. That seems like the opposite of something offensive.

Derek St Holmes is a good vet hand here in Wisconsin, so I absolve him of being the problem.

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/wwf-the-boston-garden-8-3-1985/ - A former world champ has perhaps the worst match on the card. - We learn that the Honky Tonk Man is probably broke, if the commission rules are accurate - Roddy Piper and Mr. Wonderful get a little hardcore - Terry Funk gives Rick McGraw a chance to shine - Ricky Steamboat and the JYD dispense some retribution to the dastardly villains, Mr. Fuji and Don Muraco. - We test the theory that smaller wrestlers mean better workrate. - A former football player teases his potential as a wrestler.

Pretty neat drop this week with a Leroy McGuirk studio wrasslin' show from 1978. - McGuirk is dull and needs his announcing partner to feed him names and such as they discuss angles. Bill Watts comes in a few minutes later to replace McGuirk and covers for his bland and uninspired promoting by saying something like "Men of Leroy's generation were masters of hiding their emotions". I thought it was a great spin. - Paul Orndorff works a rookie Bill Irwin. Irwin is the exact type of semi-star that gets my juices flowing. The men shake hands to start, but Irwin gets a cheap forearm in on a rope break to establish a heelish persona. - Ray Candy works next, far less fat than I am accustomed to. He and Orndorff both used takedowns and grappling on the mat, as if this is some sort of sport or something. I Dotel'd by this point. - We get a fine assortment of geeks and freaks as THE MONGOL, The CHALLENGER and The BRUTE eat up TV time. Plus Jose Lothario!

I can't hate on the guys for ads, but the robotic woman delivering clearly prerecorded answers to Eric and Conrad's questions was funny/sad to kick off the Bischoff/Russo Nitro reboot ep. --- BTW... I met Bischoff in Milwaukee this weekend. I made him laugh with the prerequisite "Where's the Blue Chew samples?" at the meet and greet. Then he had an hour long talk/Q and A focused on WCW's video games (It was a gamer's convention). He was a very entertaining guest speaker.

https://www.sescoops.com/aew-plans-to-use-3-man-commentary-booth/ “I’m not a big fan of three-man booths,” Ross says. “I’m even less of a fan of three-man booths when it’s with people I’ve never worked with.” “So how do you fix that? If the company wants a three-man booth, we’ll give them a three-man booth,” says Ross. “But we’ve got to prepare for it.”

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/mid-south-wrestlefest-1985/ Mid South Wrestling holds an outdoor show at the Tulsa Fairgrounds headlined by a mega tag match with Bill Watts, Dick Murdoch and Hacksaw Duggan partnering up to face Gen. Akbar, Kareem Muhammed and Kamala. Dusty Rhodes attempts to wrest the NWA title from Ric Flair in the co-feature. Plus Jake the Snake battles Ted Dibiase. Butch Reed, Eddie Gilbert, John Nord, the One Man Gang and others take part in action on the undercard. A fine afternoon of rednecks, country music and wrasslin!

From Minneapolis papers from the time.

Some Twitter rumblings that JR is going to take Bruce's place as Conrad's WWE pod guy.

This week's Clash ep is worth it for around the 55 min mark where Conrad tells of how he and Bruce had recently been to a Colorado show where their ride was a former indy geek who was a "dick dancer". The driver got drunk later on and proceeded to tell them about how he sexual dominated an old man after the dude offered him enough money. /Wrasslin!

I have a log jam of these on the backburner, this lead to an amusing little moment recently. In the Starrcade 92 ep, Tony complains that he doesn't have sponsors like Bish and Brother Love. FFWD to a ep from a the Fall of 2018 and Conrad has him do a Blue Chew plug. Tony won't play along with Conrad and tell a sex story like the one's Eric makes up. The next episode...no Blue Chew ad....

When I was a young lad, I read about Cash being picked out of the crowd for a match with John Tolos, earning an upset victory and the title in his "debut". It blew my mind and the image from that PWI history piece is burned into my head. I suppose the only frame of reference I would have had was Quake's debut.

At the risk of being crass, congrats to Peter for having his wife come on to admit she has a strong gag reflex. Giggity.

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/kayfabe-lies-and-alibis-kamala-shoot-interview-review/ Kamala discusses his early career before discovering his Ugandan heritage, working with Lawler, dealing with the Von Erichs, Andre the giant racist, pay scales for the many places he worked at, injures from working barefoot, refusing to do jobs for most of the industries biggest promoters, his recent severe medical issues and more!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAmbK135FVw TNA uploaded their first ever PPV. Worth it alone just to watch them open with 3 of their biggest stars (Jarrett, Hall and Shamrock) all come out 1 by 1 and bury the main event battle royal for the NWA World title as a stupid way to crown a champ. - NASCAR drivers get a big pop as the scary black heel confronts them. - Toby Keith sings about putting boots in terrorist asses a year after 9/11 as the crowd goes nuts - AJ Styled jobs to Jimmy Wang Yang dressed as Elvis - Midget hardcore wrestling - Ed Ferrara grew out a full long dreadlocks!?! - Mickie James in the underwear battle royal - The Infamous Wrestling Penises