Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4

[strobogo]

Has anyone ever cut off a chunk of hair on accident when blading

[Dav'oh]

Don't want to derail the Superstar thread, but is "legacy" a euphemism for "ushered in the steroid era"? The list of people he "influenced" includes Hogan, Ventura, Steiner - no strangers to the syringe.

[The Thread Killer]

43 minutes ago, Dav'oh said:

Don't want to derail the Superstar thread, but is "legacy" a euphemism for "ushered in the steroid era"? The list of people he "influenced" includes Hogan, Ventura, Steiner - no strangers to the syringe.

I was thinking that exact same thing, except I didn’t want to be one of those guys that derailed a eulogy thread. Superstar Billy Graham is responsible for a lot of things that were…questionable at best. Aside from pretty much ushering in the steroid era, he also falsely accused Pat Patterson, of being a pedophile, purely out of spite towards Vince McMahon.

[strobogo]

Ushered in is lol, dude was literally cutting promos in the 70s about how many vials of decca he was doing to prep for a match

[MLB]

11 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

Don't want to derail the Superstar thread, but is "legacy" a euphemism for "ushered in the steroid era"? The list of people he "influenced" includes Hogan, Ventura, Steiner - no strangers to the syringe.

That's fair to say.

10 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

I was thinking that exact same thing, except I didn’t want to be one of those guys that derailed a eulogy thread. Superstar Billy Graham is responsible for a lot of things that were…questionable at best. Aside from pretty much ushering in the steroid era, he also falsely accused Pat Patterson, of being a pedophile, purely out of spite towards Vince McMahon.

Graham was a public relations nightmare for WWE and a royal pain in the ass to Vince for years. His appearance on Donahue with VKM was legendary. I recall Graham's war of words with Jericho over Eddy's funeral. He called Jericho a liar and threatened to cut his tongue out (they were able to bury the hatchet lol). I think a star like Billy didn't want to be forgotten. I know Hunter had spoken a bit with him. In the last year, Graham insinuated that VKM personally reached out to him on the phone. You could tell hearing from Vince really meant the world to Billy despite all of his claims.  

[sek69]

While the steroids certainly did their damage, the drinking might have been Graham's worst enemy. He drank himself into needing a liver transplant, and then promptly ended up with cirrhosis in that one too. It's most likely the cause of all his mood swings toward Vince/WWE and the reason he'd go back with his hand out when he needed money.

I've always wondered if Vince had a soft spot for him even after all the bullshit since he's the type of guy who would have got a megapush under VKM but his dad insisted on sticking with Bob Backlund. I've often theorized that's why he became such a "body guy", there was clearly still some mileage in Graham as champ but Sr had to keep his word to Howdy Doody instead. 

[MLB]

28 minutes ago, sek69 said:

While the steroids certainly did their damage, the drinking might have been Graham's worst enemy. He drank himself into needing a liver transplant, and then promptly ended up with cirrhosis in that one too. It's most likely the cause of all his mood swings toward Vince/WWE and the reason he'd go back with his hand out when he needed money.

I've always wondered if Vince had a soft spot for him even after all the bullshit since he's the type of guy who would have got a megapush under VKM but his dad insisted on sticking with Bob Backlund. I've often theorized that's why he became such a "body guy", there was clearly still some mileage in Graham as champ but Sr had to keep his word to Howdy Doody instead. 

From what I understand, Dusty Rhodes vs Superstar was Vince Jr's favorite match of all-time.

Very good point about Billy's drinking.

[JRH]

Does anyone think that Sherri Martel would have been a better fit for the NWO than Elizabeth? She definitely could play a great villain, and had the bonus of being willing to get more physically involved in matches. 

[Ricky Jackson]

Yeah, definitely. I never bought Elizabeth as a heel, felt forced

[Mr JMML]

17 hours ago, JRH said:

Does anyone think that Sherri Martel would have been a better fit for the NWO than Elizabeth? She definitely could play a great villain, and had the bonus of being willing to get more physically involved in matches. 

For sure.

[drokk]

So I just randomly searched "UWFi" on YouTube and found a Kawada vs. Takayama match from 1996 in a UWFi ring? How did this end up happening? A comment on the video says this was a try-out for Takayama but if that's the case I'm confused as to why Baba would loan out one of his hottest stars during one of AJPW's hottest periods to UWFi. I left a comment on the video hoping Tabe would reply with any info but does anyone know how this came about?

[NintendoLogic]

Kawada was actually in the doghouse at that point, supposedly for publicly questioning Baba's isolationist policies. And All Japan's business had started slumping by that point as well due largely to staleness on top, which made the company more amenable to working with other promotions (Baba allowed UWFi to use Kawada but wouldn't allow the match to be included on the show's commercial release, which is why only a handheld was available until very recently). They tried to sign Takada after UWFi folded, but his asking price was too high. As for the 1996 show, UWFi originally asked for Stan Hansen (going back to the tried-and-true formula of drawing with big-name foreigners working UWFi style and building them up to be eventually vanquished by Takada), but Hansen turned it down. Kawada and Taue were their backup choices.

[drokk]

Very interesting. Thanks.

I knew about Kawada's comments re: isolationist Baba and the slump due to staleness but thought that came a year or two later. Were there any other inter-promotional dealings or was this the only one?

[Mr JMML]

 

17 hours ago, drokk said:

So I just randomly searched "UWFi" on YouTube and found a Kawada vs. Takayama match from 1996 in a UWFi ring? How did this end up happening? A comment on the video says this was a try-out for Takayama but if that's the case I'm confused as to why Baba would loan out one of his hottest stars during one of AJPW's hottest periods to UWFi. I left a comment on the video hoping Tabe would reply with any info but does anyone know how this came about?

Where's that match?

[Mr JMML]

I'm an idiot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqg4zpqoWys 

[NintendoLogic]

On 5/24/2023 at 4:21 PM, drokk said:

Very interesting. Thanks.

I knew about Kawada's comments re: isolationist Baba and the slump due to staleness but thought that came a year or two later. Were there any other inter-promotional dealings or was this the only one?

There were dealings with FMW in 1997. I don't know the full extent of it to be honest, but Kenta Kobashi and Maunakea Mossman wrestled as a tag team at FMW's Kawasaki Stadium show and Hayabusa and Jinsei Shinzaki entered that year's RWTL.

By the way, I find it hilarious for some reason that Kawada was seconded by Masao Inoue in that UWFi match. Of all the guys in All Japan he could have brought along to have his back, that's who he picks.

[drokk]

10 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

There were dealings with FMW in 1997. I don't know the full extent of it to be honest, but Kenta Kobashi and Maunakea Mossman wrestled as a tag team at FMW's Kawasaki Stadium show and Hayabusa and Jinsei Shinzaki entered that year's RWTL.

By the way, I find it hilarious for some reason that Kawada was seconded by Masao Inoue in that UWFi match. Of all the guys in All Japan he could have brought along to have his back, that's who he picks.

Now I have to track down that FMW show. I read somewhere (Bahu's site maybe?) that Misawa and Hayabusa were friends going way back and that also helped getting he and Shinzaki the AJPW shots but I may be misremembering.

[fxnj]

On 5/24/2023 at 5:41 AM, NintendoLogic said:

Kawada was actually in the doghouse at that point, supposedly for publicly questioning Baba's isolationist policies. And All Japan's business had started slumping by that point as well due largely to staleness on top, which made the company more amenable to working with other promotions (Baba allowed UWFi to use Kawada but wouldn't allow the match to be included on the show's commercial release, which is why only a handheld was available until very recently). They tried to sign Takada after UWFi folded, but his asking price was too high. As for the 1996 show, UWFi originally asked for Stan Hansen (going back to the tried-and-true formula of drawing with big-name foreigners working UWFi style and building them up to be eventually vanquished by Takada), but Hansen turned it down. Kawada and Taue were their backup choices.

Where did the pro-shot version of Kawada's UWFi match get released? Haven't seen it on any classics airings or DVD releases I'm airing of.

[Ma Stump Puller]

1 hour ago, fxnj said:

Where did the pro-shot version of Kawada's UWFi match get released? Haven't seen it on any classics airings or DVD releases I'm airing of.

No idea, it just showed up on Youtube/other video sharing websites a while back. Not complaining tho

 

[strobogo]

There should be a team/stable called the Smart Marx who are wrestling's first Marxist team

[Mr JMML]

33 minutes ago, strobogo said:

There should be a team/stable called the Smart Marx who are wrestling's first Marxist team

That would be awesome.

[Dav'oh]

How quickly we forget the Bolsheviks...

[NintendoLogic]

There's a subreddit called r/SmartMarx dedicated to wrestling-related leftist memes and vice-versa.

[strobogo]

The real American Nightmare is the people/labor rising up. Really makes you think.

[KawadaSmile]

Instead of The Butcher and The Blade, we should have The Sickle and The Hammer.