Mount Olympus, (Late) Spring 2018: Holy Grails

[Ricky Jackson]

https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/mount-olympus-late-spring-2018-holy-grails

 

Kelly and Pete get together (remarkably, for the first time without anyone else) and have an epic chat about Holy Grail wrestling footage! All kinds of wrestling legends and classic territories are discussed...

 

-Mid South and JYD

-Georgia greats and the Omni

-Various MSG matches, including the famous 1957 riot

-Houston legends

-Canadian Grails, from Calgary, Toronto and Montreal

-Hogan vs Lawler in Memphis and Rose vs Andre in Portland

-Mr. Fuji vs Bobby Heenan ???

-And many more

 

Fans of wrestling history, as always, look no further than Mount Olympus!

[gunder]

Just heard this yesterday. The last two shows have been great.  Can we expect an Indian Summer edition, Kelly? 

My hopes for Canadian footage basically rest with CBC at this point. They keep stuff forever, and we have some idea of how deep the archives go from the clips that have come out so far (the Wild Bull Curry/Killer Kowalski match that popped up  on the website from 58, and some of the clips from the 60s and 70s that have been in news pieces).    They could have almost anything from Toronto up to the early 60s (when Maple Leaf Wrestling moved to CFTO), anything from Stampede until 84, anything from Montreal, and any Vancouver up until they started syndicating on CTV. Simply because most TV stations in Canada, even private ones, were CBC affiliates until the mid-70s.  So who knows. Most of the World Series games that were thought lost from the 50s and 60s are out there because Major League Baseball cut a deal with CBC, which had simulcast them at the time, unbeknownst to anyone still working there!

Somebody like Pat Laprade or Greg Oliver really should approach them with a serious proposal for a documentary series or something of the sort, who could assure them they wouldn't need clearances from WWE and weren't trying to rip them off, etc. Could be a goldmine!

[gunder]

Not to mention my personal holy grail: anything at all from the Northland territory. Studio wrestling with a bunch of rowdy miners and farmers throwing shit at the Vachons and Dory Sr.? Yes please! Their TV went from the early 50s until 75-76, I believe. Since the Amarillo footage you guys watched popped up, Northland is the only territory I can think of where absolutely nothing is out there. Except maybe preserved on dusty quarter inch reels in a cold locker in North Bay or Sudbury. It is to dream...

[Ricky Jackson]

Wow, thanks for the compliment and thanks for the info on CBC. They potentially could have a goldmine in their archives.

Northland is probably the most obscure territory of them all. I know next to nothing about it.

And yes, there is a new Mount Olympus in the works. The idea of even one per season has been difficult to maintain lol. Expect it to drop in October. Right now the plan is for a show completely about the year 1966 in wrestling. Why the hell did we choose that subject? Tune in to find out!

[gunder]

Hey, that's great.  I'm certainly intrigued. As you brought out, the 60s in general are sort of a black hole for wrestling knowledge these days.

Definitely the most obscure.  I was a Canadian wrestling fan for 20+ years before I even found out it existed (thanks to whoever did that NWA territory map).. Gary Howard's book is pretty much the only source out there with any info, and it's almost out of print by now.   Like the Maritimes, it was a seasonal territory, so even at the time it was probably pretty ephemeral for the TV guys.  Hopefully they didn't erase the tapes every summer!