Chris Markoff

[Grimmas]

GOTNW: 

[1969-05-16-JWA] Antonio Inoki vs Chris Markoff

[1969-4-16 JWA] Chris Markoff & Bobo Brazil vs Giant Baba & Kintaro Oki

[1973-5-15 CWF] Chris Markoff & Buddy Colt vs Paul Jones & Eddie Graham

 

Speaking of Southeastern European greats! Chris Markoff is a man of mystery. He is supposed to have been born in Yugoslavia, from where his family had migrated to Minneapolis. Where in Yugoslavia? Both Serbia and North Macedonia are cited. Since North Macedonia used to be a part of Serbia before WWII, this would make it more likely he was from Vardar than Serbia proper. No data on his birth name is available online. My detective work also led me to strangers on social media claiming to be related to him and their surnames and social media profiles would point to him being a Pole instead of a south Slav. Since anyone can write anything on the internet and I didn't manage to find proof strangers online were actually related to him, we'll have to go with what's in the books.

How is this relevant for the career of Chris Markoff and the case for him being one of the best wrestlers? His case is basically completely dependent on the Inoki match. For my money, it's an absolute classic in the "brutal, bloody brawls" genre, a cousin of Sangre Chicana vs MS-1, Lawler vs Dundee and so on. Why then do I insist on bringing his ethnicity and origin into this? Well, Northern Macedonia is a land where more than 4 wars took place in the span of about 40 years, and they traumatized the local population so bad it resulted in an identity crisis where they now think they're descendants of Greeks who never even stepped foot on today's territory of Northern Macedonia. Excuse to talk about historical Balkan geopolitics? No, this post is about Chris Markoff. Markoff was either from this area (and with his family fleeing to the US in the 40s, it's a safe bet they were fascist collaborators) or was willing to lie and make it his entire gimmick that he was from there, only to be redirected to being an evil Russian due to pragmatic reasons.

Point being. This dude was clearly out there. And you can sense it. When he stomps on Inoki's head and punches it, yeah it looks great, but he's really being a prick about it, you can feel the hate flowing through him. He ramps the crowd up and makes Inoki look like the mythical warrior hero your grandfather would tell you about, except it's every bit as good as his memory made him to be. This is the epic spectacle of violence a film director imagines for his main scene, except it's come to life, live, with Markoff smacking Inoki's head into the announce table.

We also have a very good performance from him in the Baba/Oki tag, where we get some quality stooging mixed in with the compact and crisp offence. And the Paul Jones tag is really good. There is more Markoff footage but unfortunately it seems to be mostly be him as an old guy in AWA and what I've seen isn't bad, but it's not exactly spectacular either. One amazing match might not be enough to make it even for his biggest advocates, but he is someone whom I'd really like to learn more about and look into (if it is even possible to do so with how much footage has survived).