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Titans of Wrestling #16


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http://placetobenation.com/titans-of-wrest...um-august-1980/

 

titans16.jpg

 

Parv, Johnny, Pete and Kelly take a trip to Shea Stadium for this August supershow from 1980:

 

On the docket:

 

08-80 SHEA HYPE: SEVERAL PROMOS WWF TV

08-09 BOB BACKLUND/PEDRO MORALES vs SAMOANS TAG TITLE SHOWDOWN AT SHEA

08-09 KEN PATERA vs TONY ATLAS IC TITLE SHOWDOWN AT SHEA

08-09 ANDRE THE GIANT vs HULK HOGAN SHOWDOWN AT SHEA

08-09 BRUNO SAMMARTINO vs LARRY ZBYSZKO CAGE MATCH SHOWDOWN AT SHEA

 

Highlights include:

 

- Titans of Wrestling celebrates joining twitter (@titansowrestlin) by launching a poster competition: can you come up with a great poster for the show?

- More talk of Bruno Sammartino vs. Larry Zbysko as one of the all-time great feuds

- Addressing the criticisms of Gorilla Monsoon as a commentator

- Kelly offers a lesson on the history of stadium shows in the 1970s

- Thoughts on stadium shows in general

- Plus Sciculna and Shakespeare

 

The PWO-PTBN Podcast Network features great shows you can find right here at Place to Be Nation. By subscribing on iTunes or SoundCloud, you’ll have access to new episodes, bonus content, as well as a complete archive of: Where the Big Boys Play, Titans of Wrestling, Pro-Wrestling Super-Show, Good Will Wrestling, and Wrestling With the Past.

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I want to clear up some controversy. I do like the Rock N Sock Connection. I may not talk about them, but I do like them. I know that Titans listeners everywhere were wondering what the Teen Titan's feelings were on the subject.

 

If you really wanted to relate to true neophytes, you may have wanted to mention Punk's and Bryan's recent teaming at Survivor Series. Still only 30 mins deep.

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I really enjoyed Kelly's piece on the history of big stadium shows in this one. Top notch stuff.

 

But really, learning the NWA ran Veteran's Stadium in 1987 - where as a kid we would go and sit 3B side for Mike Schmidt - was just awesome. I'm going to seek out the card. So great that Johnny was there.

As lead historian, it is my duty to point out that the card Johnny attended at the Vet was in 1986 not 1987. :)

JCP @ Philadelphia, PA - Veterans Stadium - July 1, 1986 (10,900)

The Barbarian defeated Denny Brown

NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion Black Bart defeated Todd Champion

Manny Fernandez defeated Shaska Whatley in a bunkhouse match

Wahoo McDaniel defeated Jimmy Garvin in an Indian Death Match; the show was nearly shut down by Commissioner JJ Bins due to the blood loss during the match; there was speculation Bins had been paid off by the WWF to threaten to shut the show down; he reportedly said he attended the show with his kids and doesn't generally go to wrestling cards; however he appeared during the 6/28/86 Philadelphia Spectrum show, was part of the action, and - during the show - ordered the Junkyard Dog to face Don Muraco the following month in a dog collar match

Ron Garvin defeated NWA National Heavyweight Champion Tully Blanchard in a non-title taped fist match

Jimmy Valiant defeated Baron Von Raschke in a pole match

Baby Doll, Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson defeated Jim Cornette, Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey

NWA US Championship Best of 7 Series: Nikita Koloff defeated Magnum TA; Magnum: 0, Nikita: 1

NWA World Champion Ric Flair defeated Road Warrior Hawk (w/ Paul Ellering) via disqualification at 11:43 after Hawk accidentally knocked referee Tommy Young to the floor when the champion moved out of the way; the ball rang as Young crawled back in the ring as Hawk had Flair covered following a backbreaker, with fans thinking Young was counting to three as he crawled back in and that Hawk had won the title (Great American Bash 86)

Dusty Rhodes & Road Warrior Animal defeated Ole & NWA TV Champion Arn Anderson in a steel cage match

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You guys tweaking the format/content a bit for the shows now? You only covered Shea Stadium for this show and seem to be doing a Spectrum only show for the next one. Does this just come down to just too much to discuss as I see you still go your three wonderful hours on both shows while only covering one youtube disc in total. Impressive. I found the matches to be average to disappointing this time around. Past previous discs had some great matches. As far as outdoor stadiums, Football stadiums are so much better than Baseball. At least they do a better job with having fans on the field for football. With football you are probably out of season when a wrestling card is being held so you don't have to worry as much about the playing surface. When they are holding this show they are right in the middle of baseball season so they probably couldn't have any fans on the field. So fans end up being too far from stadium. As others mentioned the commentary on these matches dragged it down. But just the overall audio sucked. We just couldn't hear the crowd good enough to see how hot they were. Being in an outdoor stadium not going to help either. I wonder if having a Dome/Roof on a big stadium helps. The crowd sound pretty good at WrestleMania III and X7 as they are both in Domes. But Summerslam 92 is a great example of an excellent crowd coming off in an outdoor venue. In the NFL you have the Seattle Seahawks and Kansas City Chiefs who set ridiculous levels on crowd noise for outdoor stadiums. Can be the fans but what extent is engineering of the stadium play effect? Being at the new Metlife Stadium in NJ for WrestleMania I can totally agree with Parv that crowd came off dead on TV but also being there live it didn't sound to hot. It's a dull looking stadium and lacks character. I like the visual of the big stadium with huge crowd but I agree with you all about preferring the big Arenas like Garden. The noise level by fans is so much better. So when I think about Bruno/Larry at Shea it was great they got that big crowd of people to go but watching it 30 plus years later I wish they blew that feud off at MSG as crowd would have been going nuts. Being able to watch the promos and matches now for Bruno/Larry will have to agree that it is one of the best feuds ever. Skaaland must have been playing cards by home plate with his back to the cage match. Can't believe he tried to raise Bruno's messed up arm at the end. Great stuff from Kelly on the history of stadium shows. Think Parv is bit harsh on Patera when pointing to match with Atlas. Such a rushed match on a card with many other matches. I think matches with Patterson and Backlund have been excellent for the year.

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Good write up Kevin. Yeah we decided to tweak the format. We were on pace for a 5 hr show. Johnny made the point that we are our own bosses so their is no set rules. We cut down the footage so we are not doing a rush job, and to keep the show tighter and more energy in the show.

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You guys tweaking the format/content a bit for the shows now? You only covered Shea Stadium for this show and seem to be doing a Spectrum only show for the next one. Does this just come down to just too much to discuss as I see you still go your three wonderful hours on both shows while only covering one youtube disc in total. Impressive.

Yes, we're breaking up the discs more to give ourselves more space to get into talking points. Also aiming to go closer to 2 hours than 3 hours ... though with us four on the line that is often tough!

 

Can be the fans but what extent is engineering of the stadium play effect?

It's all about acoustics and the way the stadium is shaped. The old Wembley retained sound pretty well. Other stadiums -- famously the one in Monaco -- just let sound escape.

 

It's about having open ends. I heard before an oval shape lets the sound escape too. You want a more classic "box-y" type stadium with the big over hangs over the the seats. Look at the old Wembley Stadium:

 

Posted Image

 

The the roof comes all the way over the crowd. That sound is going to bounce back off the roof and into the ground.

 

Let's look at the Metlife:

 

Posted Image

 

The sound has nothing to bounce off so it's just going to escape into the sky. You wouldn't hear anything if the fans were shouting with all their lung capacity.

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You guys are doing the shows more frequently so I like that you not necessarily just taking a disc at a time as there can be so much to cover. I love the three hour shows personally as it never feels like you guys are running out of material to talk about it. Not sure you can do a two hour show with the four people as I think it would feel rushed. There will continue to be new guys coming in so you need bios from Kelly. Can't take time away from Pete's match analysis or Johnny's viewpoints/impressions. Parv is always going to throw things out there to discuss among the group. Also, you guys tend to bring up topics where the end result is "we need to discuss this more in detail another time". You guys are in such a groove that hard to strip down/cut back right now. But not worrying about doing a disc at a time is smart idea.

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  • 5 months later...

Is the June 25th 1976 card in the pipline for a Titans '75 episode?

 

From ProWrestlingHistory.com:

 

Showdown at Shea 1976
June 25, 1976 in Flushing, NY
Shea Stadium drawing 32,000 ($400,000)
  1. Ivan Putski beat Baron Scicluna.
  2. Jose Gonzales drew Kevin Sullivan (20:00).
  3. WWWF Tag Champs Jay Strongbow & Billy White Wolf beat The Executioners in three falls.
    • The Executioners were DQed in the third fall.
  4. Andre the Giant beat Chuck Wepner (1:15 - 3rd) via countout in a "wrestler vs boxer" match.
  5. WWWF World Champ Bruno Sammartino beat Stan Hansen (10:19) via countout.
  6. Antonio Inoki drew Muhammad Ali (15 Rnds) in a "wrestler vs boxer" match. This occurred in Tokyo, Japan and was shown on closed circuit TV. Due to time zone differences this match actually occurred on June 26, 1976.
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Yep, we will be covering the Ali-Inoki match when it comes along, including the build (which is actually pretty cool). We have the footage of Andre-Wepner, but as far as I know nothing else of the live card exists, although Johnny swears he has seen at least the finish of Bruno-Hansen.

 

As far as 72 goes, I don't know of any footage existing. Tons of photos of Bruno vs Pedro out there though!

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