Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 3

[Bix]

I just finished reading Confessions of the Game Doctor by Bill Kunkel (which can be purchased as an ebook for a limited time from https://storybundle.com/games - and no, I have nothing to do with that site, author, book, etc.). It's mostly about Kunkel's lengthy career as a video game scribe, obviously, but he also wrote about wrestling on the side and there were a few interesting tidbits about that.

 

- Kunkel and his partners Arnie Katz and Joyce Worley created the original Micro League Wrestling PC game (remember that?)

 

- Andre was ornery and drunk during an autograph signing and hated doing them - all because of his disease. Nothing new there.

- Funny Sting autograph signing story. Everyone expected the singer and wondered "what happened to him?" when they saw the wrestler Sting, as if the singer suddenly became very sick or weird. Hahaha.

 

- Bill Cosby was an "unpleasant" asshole during an autograph signing, even though he was paid to be pleasant. Okay, that has nothing to do with wrestling, but I found it interesting. Keep in mind, this book was written years before the current controversy.

 

Kunkel's first words about his side career as a wrestling writer described it almost dismissively - referring to it as wrestling "of all things" - but the guy was obviously a true blue fan, considering that he wrote for The Wrestling Perspective for several years (which was a great newsletter, but I'm guessing only the hardest of hardcore wrestling fans knew about it). To be fair, he did mention his wrestling fandom few more times in the book without any shame.

 

The book probably isn't worth it just for the wrestling content, but if you like games too, it's a great read.

 

Kunkel wrote for...like, every single newsletter. Perspective, Torch...I'm forgetting a bunch. Why write about wrestling in the book in the first place if you're going to whitewash it in such a strange way?

[C.S.]

Kunkel wrote for...like, every single newsletter. Perspective, Torch...I'm forgetting a bunch. Why write about wrestling in the book in the first place if you're going to whitewash it in such a strange way?

 

I might have been unintentionally misleading in my post. Other than the strange "of all things" line, he was never embarrassed or dismissive of pro wrestling at all.

 

I just remembered another story from the book: Kunkel and his business partners/friends would play the Atari 2600 game Air-Sea Battle, with the winner being the World Champion and then the rest going after the U.S. or I-C Titles...a concept he admitted he took from wrestling. That made me smile, because my childhood was exactly the same way...except with NHL Hockey on Sega Genesis (never mind the "logic" of playing a hockey game for wrestling-sounding titles).

 

Of course, there's very little mention of wrestling overall, but that's to be expected from a book focused on his career in gaming.

[Corona]

I was amused by a couple of John Petrie's observations on the Raw where Kane was first mentioned by name:

 

 

 

Twenty years ago, Bearer was an apprentice at a funeral home owned and
operated by the Undertaker's parents. The Undertaker had a younger
brother named Cain, who emulated everything the Undertaker did. Bearer
says the Undertaker was a wild, unruly child. He and his brother used to
sneak out behind the mortuary for smokes. One day the Undertaker burned
down the mortuary, killing his family. He calls him a murderer. "A god-
damned murderer!" (Which gets blanked out-even on the closed captioning).

That's it. That's the secret.

 

 

 

- The Undertaker gives his reply in a lengthy, but good speech. He says
it was Cain, not he, who started the fire (by playing with matches and
flammable embalming fluids). He's been haunted by this because he could
have stopped Cain but didn't. Paul Bearer made him look at their dead
bodies at the "neighboring" mortuary. That's about it.

(The closed captioning spelled his name "C-A-N-E", but the WWF website
spells it "C-A-I-N", so that's the official spelling. Not "Kane", "Kain",
"Kaine", "Cane" or "Caine").

 

 

 

 

Speaking of the Undertaker, they really let that one be as bad as we all
feared, didn't they? Taking the very vague comments that Paul Bearer made
weeks ago, many people speculated that the story would be that the
Undertaker killed his parents. Nah ... they'd never say that! The only thing
Paul Bearer's wild yarn was missing was an explanation as to how and why he
became Percy Pringle in World Class after leaving the mortuary. The USA
Network thought this was a more appropriate angle than the Papa Shango idea?
Now let us now put this ugliness behind us and never speak of it again.
Hopefully they won't take too long to produce his long lost not-dead brother.

 

 

 

A personal plea to Vince McMahon: stop putting Hunter Hearst Helmsley on
RAW! He's been on every week this year.

 

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20081118140102/http://rspw.org/petrie/970630.txt

[Sean Liska]

What was Gigantes del Catch? Looks like an TV show from Argentina that had some money behind it?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySm1Iy12Rw0

[SomethingSavage]

Yeah. I remember them tinkering with the spelling of Kane's name for a good while there at the beginning. I still think the debut is one of those big time moments that really sticks with you & stands the test of time. Strong visual. Emphatic, effective drama - even if it does detract from the "star rating" of the HBK Cell match for some.

 

Meanwhile... I went back and scoped out some random WCW cruiserweight matches. To my absolute friggin' delight, the Dream was on commentary for most of 'em. And I gotta say, I think I'd forgotten just how endlessly entertaining his announcing could be. Whether Big Dust was comparing suicide dives to wild nights on the road with Murdoch... or "figgerin" that La Parka was going to "sit 'im down and TAWK TO 'EM BOUT SUMTHIN" whenever he pulled out a steel chair... there was never a dull moment with the Dream in those matches.

[goc]

What was Gigantes del Catch? Looks like an TV show from Argentina that had some money behind it?

 

Somewhere in reading about Titanes I read something about Gigantes. Don't remember where it was but all it said was just that it popped up and had started to get successful before seemingly disappearing overnight. Might have just been a youtube comment.

[PhilTLL]

Meanwhile... I went back and scoped out some random WCW cruiserweight matches. To my absolute friggin' delight, the Dream was on commentary for most of 'em. And I gotta say, I think I'd forgotten just how endlessly entertaining his announcing could be. Whether Big Dust was comparing suicide dives to wild nights on the road with Murdoch... or "figgerin" that La Parka was going to "sit 'im down and TAWK TO 'EM BOUT SUMTHIN" whenever he pulled out a steel chair... there was never a dull moment with the Dream in those matches.

There are quite a few matches where Dusty blows off the action to talk about himself or something else, but yeah, there are plenty where his tongue-tied amazement actually gets the action over.

 

Dusty, at Starrcade '96 during Liger/Rey, cracking up and going totally raunchy when he hears Tenay use the name "dragon screw leg whip" is one of my all-time favorite announcing moments. "Imonna save that one for later on tonight! 'Ooh honey, what was that?' 'That was a dragon screw leg whip!'"

[SomethingSavage]

Yeah, Dusty always had his moments. I think familiarity & overexposure are detrimental to just about ANY announcer, really... but the three-man booth had a way of keeping some of those things in check at times. I like that he allowed Heenan to get his shtick over & get his shots in on him, as he always seemed to be a good sport about it.

 

Another match that comes to mind - just off the top of my head - is the Rey Mysterio debut against Malenko. Dust put 'em over strong there. He talked up the talent & skills of BOTH men, even comparing Dean's arm work & grip strength to Danny Hodge. Totally random, I know... but it's something that always stuck with me whenever people wanted to knock Dusty on commentary.

[iamthedoctor]

 

Was there any underlying reason behind Andre appearing at Clash 20 in 1992?

 

To fuck around with McMahon. I don't remember the reason, but Andre wasn't happy with Vince for some reason, so he choose to appear in WCW.

 

 

1992 seemed such a solid year for WCW. I dunno why alot of fans talk about how 1996 or 1998 was WCW's best year because 1992 was pretty impressive the amount of talent they had on their roster.

[sek69]

Well 1996 kicked off the biggest boom period in wrestling ever with the nWo stuff, and I think 1998 was their most profitable year before the bottom fell out. I do agree 1992 was the better year in ring wise.

[Troy]

92 was a bad year financially

[Loss]

Funny that while it was no success, by losing only $400,000, they had their least bad year to that point.

[Fantastic]

Dusty Rhodes has lost a hell of a lot of weight in a short time recently? Gastric bypass?

[Sidebottom]

JR has announced that Dixie Carter will be appearing on his Podcast soon. It will be very interesting to see if Jim softballs her; sadly I imagine he will.

[Fantastic]

Hulk Hogan interview with the Sioux City Journal

 

 

 

I weigh 295. I’m in really good shape and I’m training like I’m going to get in the ring. I’m like a convict given a life sentence.

 

The Hulkster's at it again!

[Eduardo]

Looks like El Hijo del Santo is returning to the ring in 2015:

 

[Sean Liska]

Did you guys know that, just last month, Yoshiaki Fujiwara mixed it up with Terry Funk, Mil Mascaras and Masakatsu Funaki? You have to keep your eyes open with the Japanese indies.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dn55ZFjdw4

[NintendoLogic]

Funny that while it was no success, by losing only $400,000, they had their least bad year to that point.

 

I love 1992 WCW as much as the next guy, but wasn't that mainly due to Watts going on an insane cost-cutting spree? My understanding is that attendance and PPV buyrates were in the gutter at that point.

[sek69]

Dusty Rhodes has lost a hell of a lot of weight in a short time recently? Gastric bypass?

 

Possibly, but he's also said he's changed his diet in recent years that started off the weight loss as well.

[pantherwagner]

Did you guys know that, just last month, Yoshiaki Fujiwara mixed it up with Terry Funk, Mil Mascaras and Masakatsu Funaki? You have to keep your eyes open with the Japanese indies.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dn55ZFjdw4

 

I'm going to watch that now. Has by any chance Mascaras ever wrestled Fujiwara before (it probably would have been in the last decade)?

[goc]

Here is something fun from an old August 92 Observer:

 

The Italian Stallion broke his old world record by eating one pound of spaghetti in 23 seconds last month in the spaghetti eating championships.

[sek69]

It's great that Destination America is going to run all these "Best of..." TNA specials, but I shudder at the thought of how that will just give ammo to the TNA Asylum types who still insist the only reason Impact didn't take over WWE is because Spike didn't promote them enough.

[Sidebottom]

It's great that Destination America is going to run all these "Best of..." TNA specials, but I shudder at the thought of how that will just give ammo to the TNA Asylum types who still insist the only reason Impact didn't take over WWE is because Spike didn't promote them enough.

 

My big reservation with running a best of month is that it may highlight how lacking the current (or most recent rather) product is in comparison.

[goc]

From a November 1992 Observer:

 

The latest in the Howard Finkel angle took place in Louisville. Finkel was all set to announce Kimala when
Harvey Whippleman started yelling at him. Finkel loses his cool and Kimala gives him the big chop and two
big splashes and Finkel does a stretcher job. All the agents came out and put Finkel on the stretcher, but
he fell off. Later as they were wheeling him from the ring, the stretcher collapsed so he fell off a second
time. We'll know in a week or two what the story on this angle is. A lot of people seem to think they are
just gathering footage for the Christmas party and that none of this will ever air on television. But if stage
one airs, than you can figure they're going all the way with this.

That didn't happen on TV did it?

[Loss]

It aired on USWA TV for sure. Not sure about WWF TV.