Titans of Wrestling #11

[Evil Jim Herd]

I went through my old tapes to find this "Grandma" St. Louis you speak of on this entertainment radio show. That fine woman is my wife! She isn't pointing to the wrestlers (Dick Murdoch? Dream on) and action in the ring, she is pointing over to me while I work with my good friend and wrestling business mentor Sam Mushnick.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Thanks for inviting me onto the show and I am sorry I could not make it. I shouldn't have to work nights for a while so let me when the next one is. You guys were hilarious and insightful as always.

 

To the point about gauntlet style handicap matches, they were common in the 20s & 30s (probably earlier too) to match the world champions (Lewis, Stetcher, etc...) against up and comers (Londos and such) for them to prove their mettle and cheat gamblers out of money. Another version of this, which happens from time to time still, is set a time limit that the challenger would have to compete with the champion. Since wrestling used to be gambled on, they could book the non-obvious finish in these gimmick matches, which allowed them to cheat out all the gamblers of their money and build a star in the process. My reference for all this is Steve Yohe's excellent Ed "Strangler" Lewis biography, which can be found at Hisa's titles website, wrestling-titles.com.

 

I agree with Pete's ranking of the Von Erich brothers. I went through a phase where I could not get enough Kevin Von Erich. He was such a friggin dynamo in there. I remember I watched a couple of his St. Louis matches against Patera and Murdoch (though Kerry may have been in one) and enjoyed the Von Erichs in St. Louis. Kerry at times was a better version of Lex Luger. As of now, I have Luger ahead of KVE, but that could change when I watch more Kerry,

 

It is too bad we don't have the Kiel stuff because all of this stuff is really just a tease.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

I agree with Pete's ranking of the Von Erich brothers. I went through a phase where I could not get enough Kevin Von Erich. He was such a friggin dynamo in there. I remember I watched a couple of his St. Louis matches against Patera and Murdoch (though Kerry may have been in one) and enjoyed the Von Erichs in St. Louis. Kerry at times was a better version of Lex Luger. As of now, I have Luger ahead of KVE, but that could change when I watch more Kerry,

I also totally agreed on the Von Erich rankings. The whole "David was going to be NWA champ" idea just seems like one of those gross things that is said after someone dies, seemingly to try to make one young death seem more important than another. Plus, a lot of times that story came from guys like Flair, and why would anyone believe anything he says?