Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4

[strobogo]

My step-grandpa used to bring up how he went to WWA Indianapolis shows a lot in his younger days and would always bring up Dick The Bruiser and Bobby Heenan when I'd rent wrestling tapes with him.

[ButchReedMark]

My Nain (Grandmother) despised Jackie Pallo with a passion.

[NintendoLogic]

My mom watched CWF in the 1970s and once took her German cousin to a show headlined by a Dusty Rhodes/Ivan Koloff bloodbath. Needless to say, it was quite the culture shock for him.

[Clayton Jones]

My mom's favorite was the Fabulous Kangaroos, she said she caught a cardboard boomerang they threw into the crowd during their entrance as a kid. Also loved Bruno as any self respecting northeastern Italian did.

[Graham Crackers]

My dad talks about Dick Hutton a lot but I wonder if age has lead to Hutton being confused with some other wrestlers he remembers from his childhood. He's a mark for Hutton's shoot credentials but also tells stories about his character that don't match his rep as a dry champion who didn't draw. Still, my dad was eleven when Hutton was NWA Champ and there is something about nostalgia for that age that does a number on all of us.

[Al]

My dad saw Superstar Graham on the 700 Club and remembered it as “Gorgeous George.”

I have older co-workers who remember Andre, Chief Jay, Fuji, Tanaka and that crew that worked the Scranton CYC. 

[ohtani's jacket]

My parents were big fans of Dusty Rhodes, who they used to watch when he toured New Zealand. When I got into wrestling, they would stay up and watch it with me until Dusty's match was over. They loved Sapphire and polka dot Dusty. 

My uncle was the person who introduced me to wrestling, but he's gone now, and I can't remember who his favorite wrestler was. 

[The Thread Killer]

5 hours ago, brockobama said:

Real recognize real.

 

You guys got any relatives with favorite wrestlers? None of mine ever liked the stuff unfortunately.

I am probably the oldest active poster here at PWO, so it stands to reason that at 86 years old, my Dad is older than most of yours and saw stuff from an earlier era.

My Dad claims he was at the infamous match where Killer Kowalski ripped off Yukon Eric’s ear. The date and location jibes with where he was at in life at that time, so I believe him.

I am pretty sure he saw Whipper Billy Watson defend the NWA World Title at Maple Leaf Gardens too, but it might have been the NWA British Empire Championship that Watson used to defend in Toronto in later years, I’m not sure. My Dad also used to talk about some big wrestler named “Sky High Lee” who I have personally never heard of.

My Dad was never a die hard fan, and by the time the 80’s boom hit, he had long since stopped watching and he HATED Vince McMahon and the WWF in that era. I only have two distinct memories from when I was a teenager with my Dad watching wrestling. He thought it was really funny that George Steele (who my Dad loved) was a comedy character because he said years before Steele had been presented as a real killer.

I also remember him seeing me watching The Hart Foundation on TV, and he watched over my shoulder for a few minutes. He told me that Bret Hart was like what a “real Pro Wrestler should be…not all this cartoon crap.” At the time, I thought my Dad was nuts because The Hart Foundation had pretty much just formed, and to me at that time Bret was just a boring guy with no personality. The Anvil and Jimmy Hart were the exciting part of that team!

Years later, when Bret became the champ, and a household name (especially here in Canada) my Dad saw him one night getting interviewed and looked at me and said: “See? Told you so.”

[khawk20]

Sky Hi Lee has some matches available from Chicago in the 1950's, for what it's worth.

[The Thread Killer]

4 minutes ago, khawk20 said:

Sky Hi Lee has some matches available from Chicago in the 1950's, for what it's worth.

Nice, I might check that out. Was he any good?

[Ricky Jackson]

Sky Hi Lee was a major star in Calgary in the 50s. I've always loved the name, like a Dick Tracy villain or something 

[Dewar]

My grandfather LOVED Jerry Blackwell after he turned face in the AWA, which meant six year old me got to go on a weeknight to watch the wrestling with him.

[drokk]

My mom grew up in El Salvador and when I became a fan as a kid, she told me Mil Mascaras would regularly appear at shows in her neighborhood. I got more and more incredulous the older (and "smarter") I got. Eventually during a trip to my grandma's house she produced a photo of her and "Mil Mascaras" who seemed to be a good 100 lbs heavier and 6 inches shorter than the true article. I broke the truth to my mom, aunts, and uncles and surprisingly they weren't bothered - in their young minds they had seen the legendary Mil Mascaras and even the revelation that it was probably the butcher down the street did nothing to tarnish the memories.

As an aside - are there any good resources for wrestling info in latin America? Aside from Titanes en el Ring from Argentina and Las Cholitas from Bolivia I haven't seen much online regarding the region. I seem to remember reading about Brazil having a scene in the 70s or 80s.

[Blehschmidt]

My Dad always mentions watching Studio Wrestling from Pittsburgh hosted by Chilly Billy. I'm not exactly sure who his favorites were but Sammartino, Dennuci, and Sicluna are the guys he always seems to mention. 

In later years when he got me into it, he always had a soft spot for Big John Studd, which is probably why I have a soft spot for Studd as well.

[KawadaSmile]

1 hour ago, drokk said:

As an aside - are there any good resources for wrestling info in latin America? Aside from Titanes en el Ring from Argentina and Las Cholitas from Bolivia I haven't seen much online regarding the region. I seem to remember reading about Brazil having a scene in the 70s or 80s.

Woof, a good part of the footage from the Brazilian scen in the 60s and 70s are basically lost or archived media at this point. I know for a fact they were broadcast in some capacity, but I doubt they were kept intact. We do have some notorious matches from the 80s, 90s and 00s in the Gigantes do Ringue Archives, but other than that it's hard to have a hold of a meaningful, thorough compilaiton. 

Michel Serdan cage matches in the 80s were dope as fuck!

[Matt D]

1 hour ago, drokk said:

My mom grew up in El Salvador and when I became a fan as a kid, she told me Mil Mascaras would regularly appear at shows in her neighborhood. I got more and more incredulous the older (and "smarter") I got. Eventually during a trip to my grandma's house she produced a photo of her and "Mil Mascaras" who seemed to be a good 100 lbs heavier and 6 inches shorter than the true article. I broke the truth to my mom, aunts, and uncles and surprisingly they weren't bothered - in their young minds they had seen the legendary Mil Mascaras and even the revelation that it was probably the butcher down the street did nothing to tarnish the memories.

As an aside - are there any good resources for wrestling info in latin America? Aside from Titanes en el Ring from Argentina and Las Cholitas from Bolivia I haven't seen much online regarding the region. I seem to remember reading about Brazil having a scene in the 70s or 80s.

We've started a project on Panama, though @Rah is the man doing the heavy lifting on the research.

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/search/label/Espectáculos Promociones Panama

[drokk]

Wow, thanks guys! Will dig deeper into all of that tonight.

Also found something called Titanes del Ring from Chile and watched all just now. The wrestling isn't all that great but the presentation is absolutely fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I795btutTDU

[Dav'oh]

My Hungarian father always referred to it as "Punkwraczio" (sp?). 

Punk Wrestling. As opposed to real wrestling.

[Embrodak]

My dad is from New Jersey and he liked the WWWF heels.

[sek69]

my grandfather is who got me into pro wrestling, i'd spend summers at my grandparents house and the only things he would watch on TV was baseball and wrestling at 6:05 on Saturdays.  He was a Bruno fan, as any proper wrestling fan in Pittsburgh was, but he got into JCP because my grandparents would go to Florida in the winter and that's when Dusty was blowing up as a huge star. 

[MoS]

My dad has hated every single thing about wrestling ever since he walked into the room when I was watching WWE and Rikishi was smothering some opponent's face with his ass in the corner like he used to do

[NintendoLogic]

Whenever there are discussions of "why I stopped watching wrestling" or "times I was embarrassed watching wrestling with my family," instances where someone shoved their ass or crotch into someone else's face are virtually guaranteed to be mentioned.

[brockobama]

7 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

My Hungarian father always referred to it as "Punkwraczio" (sp?). 

Punk Wrestling. As opposed to real wrestling.

Think that's the new AEW Saturday show

[BigBadMick]

Some of my uncles moved to New York in the 60s. About 10 years ago, one of them was home and somehow during a chat with the whole family the subject veered towards wrestling. I was promptly pushed forward as the wrestling fan and he told me about watching Sammartino in the Garden in the 70s, but didn't like it after that when it became 'phony'. 

 

I wasn't a conversation I expected in that setting....

[MoS]

14 hours ago, Embrodak said:

My dad is from New Jersey and he liked the WWWF heels.

Jersey huh. Of course he did