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Professional Wrestling in the 1980's
CantonDawg
Posts: 250 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
Since it is off-season, let's get some professional wrestling memories going. From 1981ish to 1987ish, EVERY DANG SATURDAY NIGHT I was glued to my TV, Channel 36, I believe. From 6 pm until midnight, There was varying area wrestling on. My favorite was Mid-South Championship wrestling. Magnum TA, The Road Warriors, The Junk Yard Dog, Piper, Lawler, and my favorite, Jake the Snake. NO ONE got up from his DDT! When I found out that he was from Stone Mountain (I was in Lilburn) it was over. He was immediately my favorite. I used to pull in our small 13-inch, black and white, 25 lb tv with the rabbit ears and watch it in my room, pretending to fall asleep because we had church early Sunday morning. Sometimes I made it all the way through the WWF, as it was the last one that was on. The night started with Tony Schiavone, and they played Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero". Every time I hear that now, I immediately think of that show. Man, what fun it was. Life was good.
Then I discovered girls...and they were not into wrestling.
Anyone else remember watching that?
PS. When I found out that Jim Duggan and The Iron Shiek got busted with cocaine while driving one night, I could not understand it. THEY WERE MORTAL ENEMIES. There was no way they were hanging out together!
Comments
Shocking. I was demoralized when I saw Mickey Mantle smoking a cigarette on the bench one game. Couldn't believe it. Mickey? No way! What a naive kid I was.
I got bit by the wrestling bug in 88/89. If it was wrestling, I was watching it. WWF, WCW, WCCW and AWA reruns on espn.
In those days it was hulk hogan and whoever had paint on their face (sting, ultimate warrior, road warriors, demolition)
Back in the 80's when I taught at West Georgia, I would help a friend out by sitting at the door of a bar called the Library. One night Jake the Snake came in - chatted with him for a minute - very nice, personable guy. Pretty large too. Can't even guess how many students would tell their folks, I was at the Library last night until it closed. haha
I’ll try and keep this short (always a challenge for me)
Worked on the floor of in the CNN newsroom in the mid-eighties when Ted still owned WCW. Matches were taped in the studio above CNN’s on Sunday afternoon and since CNN’s shows were pre-recorded, we’d go up and watch.
Two things I remember most…
1. Walking around a corner in the downstairs studio and running smack dab into Animal of the Road Warriors in full regalia. My forehead hit him square in the buckle of his shoulder pads and I bounced back like a ball off concrete. Thought I was going to die or be killed, so I quickly said, “Excuse me.” To which Animal growled, “This time.”
2. The other was when a few of us walked out the side door exit after the match and there were about a half dozen wrestling fans/groupies out there. One of looks at me and asks excitedly, “Are you a wrestler!!!!!!!!!” I stopped, looked at her, looked at my own scrawny ass*d physique in street clothes, then back at her and said, “Yes. Yes I am.”
She squealed, and loudly asked, “WHICH ONE??? CAN I HAVE YOU’RE YOUR AUTOGRAPH???
I answered, “I’m the meat they toss in during tv time limit matches and no, I don’t do autographs” and kept walking.
He was more of a 70's guy, but Thunderbolt Patterson was always my favorite.
Two wrestling stories from my youth. I had a summer job working in a cafeteria on Jekyll Island. In walks Kurt and Karl Von Brawner (spelling?) and their manager Gentleman Sol Weindroff., supposedly all from Germany. They would goose step across the ring and allegedly spoke only German. They were polite and ordered their food in a New Jersey/NY accent.
A friend of mine had a job one summer as a cameraman in Augusta. Two wrestlers who were to wrestle at Bell Auditorium came into the studio together. They were interviewed separately. They both stated they were looking all over Augusta so they could street fight the other but if they couldn’t find the other they would destroy the other that night at their match. Then they left together.
Used to love watching NWA on TBS Saturday mornings. Flair, the Garvins, Blanchard, Barry Windham, Lex Luger, the Anderson brothers, Rick Rude, Ivan Koloff, Dusty Rhodes, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, JJ Dillon and so many more!
Loved Magnum TA as well…got to meet him at ATL after his car accident, very personable guy and happy to speak with a fan.
Moved to San Diego in 1986…would wake up at the crack of dawn (no matter how hard I ran on Friday night) to watch NWA on TBS!
Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin had one of the best lines I ever heard when he was doing promos to set up a match with Ric Flair. Flair came out and told Garvin that not only was he unable to fill his shoes, he couldn’t afford those shoes! Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin came out at the next break and said to Flair… “We all know the true story behind Space Mountain. It’s the shortest ride in the park, and you always feel a little bit sick when you get off of it! Still one of my favorites!
We used to go to the wrestling matches at the Macon Coliseum back in the early 70s. I saw Doug Gilbert "The Professional" and El Mongol beat the crap out of each other and then they came to the same steak house we went to and sat down together to eat.
I never went to another "rassling" match after that.
My wrestling education actually began in the 1970s when I was a kid and watching WTBS with my grandparents. Ric Flair was the only one who could make my grandma cuss at the TV. I met Barry Windham in the early 1990s when he’d moved to Clinch Co., Ga. Huge man and very nice guy. He was living there because he married a local and because his Dad, Blackjack Mulligan and his brother, Kendall were both in federal prison in Jesup, Ga. at the time for counterfeiting, and it was an easy drive up there from Homerville to visit, I guess.
Was into wrestling a bit when I was a kid. Right around the time Wrestlemania III happened.
Somebodies parents were nice enough to pay for it. That was the one where Hogan was going to body slam Andre the Giant.
My favorite. The JunkYard Dawg. Shouldn't have to explain why.
I've had several pro wrestlers as patients, names you would almost certainly recognize (but obviously can't reveal). I had fun chatting with them about some of the old time wrestlers from the 1970's. One told me about Blackjack Mulligan slapping Andre on the back of the head at a beach, whereupon Andre dragged him into the ocean and held him under the water.
They have been happy enough with the cosmetic outcomes to be repeat patients.
The late 70’s set the standard with Regional Stars before the 80’s national broadcasts. It was Gordon Solie announcing on the local Atlanta station, Small auditoriums and small TV studios made the action more personal.
1.Mr. Wrestling #2 who was better 2.than Mr. Wrestling #1 somehow. 3.Abdullah the Butcher 4.Dusty Rhodes. 5. Tony Atlas 6. Thunderbolt Patterson 7. Tommy Wildfire Rich, probably up there with Mr. W#2 in popularity for awhile. 8. Anderson Brothers Minnesota Wrecking Crew 9. The Iron Sheik 10. Pak Song
In Memphis it was Jerry Lawler. In Chattanooga it was Tojo Yamamoto with Harry Thornton being the local announcer and doubling as the morning news anchor. True raw genuine characters.
Anyone into wrestling should watch the documentary on Andre the Giant. I think HBO did it.
Was fantastic. Amazing life that guy led. Some of the stories they told about his ability to drink etc were hilarious. Most of his life though wasn't happy. Kind of a sad story but he was a gamer and always showed up.
It was hbo. Fun Easter egg to see Pat Patterson talking about him with a huge portrait of Pat Patterson behind him.
Yeah it really was a first class documentary too. The kind of thing HBO does well.
So many funny stories. My favorite was Andre passing out in the hotel lobby. The manager called the other wrestlers to come down there. Then told them they needed to move Andre out of the lobby.
Flair looked at him and paraphrasing said something like.....Are you nuts???
Andre always let the other guys know who the boss was too. In the ring he would let you know that hey this is scripted but if it wasn't I would be in charge and you wouldn't have a chance.