Wrestler whom found footage would excite you the most

[Al]

It's probably not the highest priority you really should have if you built a time machine, but - man! - bringing back an old VCR and collecting some of this stuff would be lovely.

Well, cataloging not just wrestling but a great deal of early television would be a hell of a cultural contribution.

[Grimmas]

I would give so much to see Muraco outside the WWF. All of his pre-85 stuff from other terretories.

 

From the Brisco matches in full to being the babyface partner to Andre, I want to see it.

[Kostka]

Prime Terry Funk and Ray Stevens.

My exact thoughts.

[grapplin' apple]

" I would love to have more Southeastern footage. I am refering to Ron Fuller 's promotion , not other companies using the Southeastern name. I have some footage from the early in mid 80 ;s. However there is almost no footage from 74 to 80. This run included talent like Bob Armstrong , The Monogolian Stomper, Jimmy Golden, Stan Lane, . Brad Armstrong , Ron Bass, Mr, Saito , Jerry Stubbs a.k.a. Mr. Olympia , Arn Anderson , The Sheepherders , Ron Garvin , Bob Roop , Jacques Rougeau , Joe LeDuc, Paul Orndorff, Ken Lucas The Fuller Brothers and Midnight Express, INc. and many others. The Southeastern Midnight Express members were Dennis Condry , Randy Rose , Norvell Austin , Wayne Farris and Ron Starr . Plus The Stomper and Ric Harris were in Midnight Express , Inc.

 

There is a handful of shows fron 80 to 84 that were saved , alot of 85 to 89 were taped by fans, however this was arter the glory years.I think Ron Fuller taped over everything , so most of the territory is lost to time ."

 

This is a great territory, and I have some of the footage. I bought it from a guy last year at the NWA Mid-Atlantic Legends Fan Fest. I bought a 3 disc set of Knoxville that contains arena footage from the '70s and a couple of episodes of the TV show from the late '70s and 1980. The arena footage is pretty incredible. It has snippets from a Ron Fuller vs. Terry Funk NWA title match where the title seemingly changes hand (it's reversed) but the crowd is crazy hot for. Lots of Ron Wright too and some other surprises.

 

From what I understand from talking to the person who I bought it from, there was a fire at the TV station in Knoxville where it was kept. Then, the rescued tapes were put in a garage that also burned down.

 

Finding more Ron Wright footage (especially his stuff against Whitey Caldwell and their chain matches) would be something I would really like to see. Also, the Assassins in the early '70s as well as the Interns in that same time period.

[goc]

I read an interview with Ron Wright where he said he had one tape of a chain match along with some other tapes and a lot of photos in his basement but it got flooded and everything was ruined. He said after that, he pretty much has no footage of his own career.

[jdw]

Londos. Complete match footage from the 20s and 30s.

[Strand Peanut]

george gordienko in the 50's.

 

I don't think it'd necessarily be great matches, but I've always been interested in him.

[Loss]

Danny Hodge. He's talked up as much as any wrestler of his era, but we have absolutely no full matches available that I'm aware of.

 

This would be my pick as well. What we know about the guy makes him seem pretty amazing and it's sad that we don't have any footage to back that up. Also, while we do have a few matches of his, I'd love to have more Jim Londos footage available so we could look at his performances and figure out what about his working style contributed to his stardom.

[Smack2k]

Didn't Schire write that?

 

wagnerpanther, I don't know how early they taped arena stuff but the TV that appeared on 24/7 from the 70's was stuff that I hadn't seen about 75% of.

Holy shit, Shire did write that...fuck I messed that up...thanks for the point...

 

I am gonna message him on KM and tell him sorry, even if he never saw it....that book is like a bible to an era I'd die to see

 

Also, full footage of the buildup and run of the SECW ORIGINAL Midnight Express (Condrey / Rose / Austin) and their big matches / title matches....

[zep81]

How about that Liger/Sano match from '89. Isn't that out there in full somewhere?

[JerryvonKramer]

Dory Funk Sr's Texas promotion. Footage was filmed and certain people claim to have it, but I've never seen anything outside of a couple of bits here and there. With so many great talents at a young age passing through there as well as veteran talents at the end of their lines.

There appears to be a complete episode from 1979 and an older one from 1978.

 

I'm going to review it soon. Footage features Ted DiBiase, Dick Murdoch, Akio Sato, Dennis Stamp, Dory Funk Jr, and the Black Jacks.

[goc]

That footage is from after Dory Sr.'s death. It's from after the sons sold it to Dick Murdoch & Blackjack Mulligan. I think Gary Hart wrote that no one would have been able to keep the territory going because the territory had indoctrinated everyone on the Funks to the point where no one else could draw on top there and the Funks weren't going to be staying in Amarillo on a full time basis.

[JerryvonKramer]

Is there any other Amarillo out there or is that it?

[Matt Farmer]

I would also really like to see some more of the highly respected tag teams of the 60's and early 70's like Assassins, the Infernos with JC Dykes and even the Fabulous Kangaroos and of course Ray Stevens & Pat Patterson. It would be cool to see how their psychology as tag teams were for the era.

 

I'm on board with the rest in regards to Luchadores. One of my big wishes is that someday we discovery more footage from the 70's and early 80's in Mexico. Business was so hot during that time it's almost hard for people to contemplate today. If you look at some of the weekly cards at El Toreo in Naucalpan they are filled from top to bottom of Hall of Famers or guys that should be in the HOF.

 

Also put me in for wanting more footage from Europe. Would love to see some of the old tournaments out of Germany or Austria, heck I want to see more footage of the underrated Otto Wanz. I'd also like to see footage of South African wrestling from the 70's and early 80's. After hearing from both Don Leo Jonathan and Ed Wiskoski how much of a crowbar and how over Jan Wilkens was I'd like to see it with my own eyes.

[JerryvonKramer]

Matt, you've probably seen it, but did you ever watch the Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson vs. Johnny Weaver and Art Nelson match from the Cornette garbage tapes? I think that's a really neat insight in tag psychology of the period.

[Matt Farmer]

I'm sure I've seen it but need to go back and watch it. As it's been a really long time since I've watched that footage, don't even think I've seen it since I had most of the tapes transferred to DVD. I'll have to go and watch it.

[Matt D]

We definitely don't have the Andre and Buddy Rose interaction from Portland, right Matt?

[khawk20]

Speaking of Buddy, When Verne lost the title to Nick in November of 1975, Buddy was apparently the referee for the bout and they allegedly did some TV interactions with a bit of footage from the switch, the idea being that Pershmann had deliberately missed Bobby Duncum interfering or something like that. Now, I have no idea if Buddy had any TV time trying to explain himself if this happened and he certainly didn't do anything off of it in the AWA afterwards, but I'd love for the Network to find that bit in their vault and pull it out someday to see it.

Would be interesting to see if Rose's alleged actions implied a heel ref turn and if we could sense that it was supposed to go somewhere in the weeks afterwards (as far as I know, it didn't), or if it was just a bit stirred up to legitimize Verne actually getting beat.

Was Rose interviewed, or just spoken of through the clip explaining the chicanery?

At the end of the day Verne ended up going after Bobby Duncum for the interference, and apparently put him over in some places. The result would have been two-fold: legitimize Duncum as a force to rekon with in the AWA, and to give Bock and Heenan an excuse for not defending against Verne, at least not very often.

Would be nice to come across one of those Verne-Duncum matches too, just to see how those went in the wake of the title change.

 

Just an odd curiosity I was thinking about again this morning after discussing Buddy from the old KM days on another board.

[Herodes]

I would love to see more footage from places around the globe where we have little to no footage at all but did have televised wrestling e.g. Titanes en el ring from Argentina where we at least have some footage, but there were multiple other South American versions such as Titanes del ring from chile, Brazil, Peru and lucha from Guatemala. Also other countries which had wrestling tv such as Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Spain, France, India etc. Similar to the recent batch of footage that emerged from France, we have barely scratched the surface of our understanding of wrestling globally.