Cobra Commander

Adrian Adonis in the WWF post-WM3 has the look of a deranged Curly Howard Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket also comes to mind as a comp for bald WWF Adrian Adonis, and that movie was released a few months after this interview

there's literally 4 Adonis results on TheHistoryOfWWE post-WM3 April 23rd: a squash win (his only televised match in the WWF after WM3) April 25th: beating Brutus Beefcake in Adonis' home town (Buffalo) April 26th: a draw with Brutus in Indianpolis April 27th: the match in London, Ontario that got Adonis fired One can only imagine how much of a pain in the ass Adonis had to be to somebody in that period to get fired so quickly. Like did he negotiate his way into not jobbing in his hometown shortly before they fired him?

Watching Mid-South 7/9/1983: Bill recently visited a correctional institute in Hominy, Oklahoma where the inmates watched Mid-South Bundy's using a powerslam. Plus we get to see Bundy attacking Dusty Rhodes in Houston and a replay of Dibiase/Bundy vs JYD/Duggan. Reed's shoulderblock off the top looked like he was almost flipping over while hitting JYD If you think about it, running someone into a ringpost really should be sold a little bit more since, in theory, it's a stationary post. Bill Watts got a letter from a couple from Oklahoma with 176 years combined age who are driving long distances to watch MidSouth We don't see a lot of shoulderblocks off the top rope these days, do we? at the risk of inspiring people to start doing top rope spears We're really early into the time of Boris Zhukov, and he's Boris Zurkhov here. I think we're deep in the "JYD is getting fat bulking up to take on Bundy and Reed" era Here's a clip of Kamala beating up Iron Mike Sharpe to prove that Mid-South is tougher than New York. I think a golf commentator is working this clip. 7/16/1983 awww yes, got a "technical difficulties" disclaimer for this episode! Dr. Death is back from the USFL this week When did Arn Anderson stop wearing amazing hats? We got Dr. Death returning in a Dr. Death/Joe Stark vs Arn Anderson/Big Boy Williams tag team match, which is certainly a choice they made. Or as Bill Watts would tell us, Dr. Death is working himself back into wrestling shape after the USFL season, which was apparently a disappointing season, and Dr. Death is aiming to play for the Denver Gold next year (he didn't). The Dude called Big Boy Williams is the third largest man in the match so the nickname might be a joke. Arn hit a nice Gourdbuster on Joe Stark. Here's Kamala kicking some ass in World Class. It's possible I should just do a dive into this era of World Class one of these days but I haven't yet. Bill Watts talking up how many huge dudes are on this show is a very 1983 Mid-South thing. Bill Watts telling the same story about Dr. Death visiting Atlantic City to gather intelligence on King Kong Bundy and how there's a lot of extortion in Atlantic City. They've changed the spelling of Boris Zurkov's name this week. He's also teaming with Rip Rogers. Rip Rogers slapped Jim Duggan to start off and Bill Watts finds it hilarious for how dumb an idea that seems. TA and Duggan is certainly a hell of a team. "Rip Rogers trying to make a name for himself, he may make one alright, it might be in the obituary column" (that's a good line to steal, Bill Watts spitting bars this in this match) Johnny Rich can't wrestle Ted DiBiase today due to a hand injury. Ted DiBiase just can't believe that and Jim Duggan takes the match instead and he's out for revenge. King Kong Bundy runs in and beats Jim Duggan with his forearm tape of death. Johnny Rich, Joe Stark, TA and JYD all run in at different times to make saves. Hey, a promotion where the babyfaces actually like each other. George Weingroff, one of the more Uncle Rico looking wrestlers of the 1980s. He's also legally blind. This goes for a while and it's pretty solid Tim Horner and Doug Vines take up a few minutes and Horner wins with a Thesz Press Wrestling II beats Tony Zane as time is running out. Bill Watts sends a message to fans who are fickle on II just because. So, I don't think this promotion starts really dragging until later in 83? Or was it dragging a bit by July 83?

you'd think that Jimmy Hart would be in that act

until Ricky explained why he was calling himself Soulman, I was getting "Gallagher Too" vibes

the reenactment involving the bear was a fucking insane piece of television

the photos of Adrian Adonis when he was younger and had dark hair kinda give off John Belushi vibes

Gotta love how Arozarena has a pro wrestling video game worthy taunt that he does all the time

Extra notes from 5/11/98 Raw: 1) Jim Cornette pretty clearly venting some of his real life angst on screen as he took over for Lawler during the second hour. Undertaker snuck up on Lawler and kicked his ass. 2) Terry Funk doing a spinning toe hold on Raw in 1998 and Bradshaw makes a save because he was attacked earlier while teaching Taka how to drive

Watching the 5/11/1998 Monday Night Raw, which I didn’t see at the time because I was attending Nitro that night. Ahh, this Russovision era of trying to give everybody something to do is fun. Even if dudes like Vader and Barry Windham were clearly dead in the water around the WWF by early 98. When the LOD 2000 wasn’t the coldest act on the card. Also Marc Mero taking the Sablebomb and early Al Snow and Mick Foley wearing false teeth. The DX CNN Center stuff is clearly much less remembered than the DX stuff when the WWF and WCW ran the same market in the same night. But this thing did inspire the bad idea of Bischoff challenging Vince McMahon to face him at Slamboree. Tony Siragusa has a gigantic head and he’s sitting directly behind JR. IIRC, there’s a Dustin Rhodes repackage coming up during the second hour that I haven’t seen yet (EDIT: upon seeing it... we have at least 3 babyfaces doing some form of "raging against the WWF Machine" in the same show between Austin, Al Snow, and this shortlived Dustin Rhodes stint and I gotta imagine that Austin just sucked up all the energy for that sort of gimmick compared to Snow and Dustin)

I knew there was a reason why John Tenta never faced the Undertaker (Could the Undertaker do a zombie sit-up to avoid the Earthquake splash or would that be too obvious?)

You’d think the Bingo Warrior would have gotten an ECW run

just found a new Wrestler name typo a newspaper article referring to "Ox Backer".. an even worse typo when it's a Kansas City newspaper and Ox is Sedalia, also Ox being a really known wrestler in general, and it not being an obvious "misheard a phone call" typo

that 2020 Northwestern team appears to have been unstoppable in home games where no fans were allowed into the stadium the only thing weirder than empty stadium college football was empty arena college basketball

It would suck to be the criminal who died as a result of the Tongan Death Grip

no pressure kid... also, white hair Haku seems like he's gonna be in a story where he decimates some idiot criminal

are there any promoters/promotions who've published a record book of results (both the ones widely known and the ones not known before)? I think that they've mentioned the concept of Cornette writing a Smoky Mountain book on and off for years but if anything is gonna get done there, it'll get done when it's done (I'm sure that doing multiple long podcasts each week would slow down Jim's process along with the question of how different a book could be compared to the results on line.. like would it be a scrapbook or what)

for some weird reason, I was drifting down the thread, saw "Bret vs Ricky" and thought it was a Bret Hart vs Ricky Morton match.. which would have been interesting but probably not as good as Bret vs Ricky Steamboat

and the Yankees go into the All-Star Break by firing their hitting coach

Huggins moving towards the Vince strategy

The really wild thing about Elly De La Cruz is that the worst series of his career so far was against the Royals. EDLC went 0 for 12 vs the Royals and he's hitting .363 vs everybody else

the Marlins demoted Eury Perez (2.36 ERA/185 ERA+ in 11 starts/53 1/3 innings) due to reasons that may involve "limiting innings" We're also around the time of year where some pitchers get demoted purely because they're not pitching until after the break (although you have to keep pitchers in the minors for 2 weeks if nobody gets hurt, so this is pretty late to do that sort of thing)

It wouldn't totally shock me if the Jays made an impulse trade of Manoah sometime in the next few months and if there's any team interested in giving the Jays a rental for the cost of Manoah, they'd like to see how Manoah pitches in the majors instead of in the minors. of course that sort of thing would have to work out for the Jays to avoid being an infamous trade

so he did the two most illegal things in the history of wrestling

Egypt just opened "New Administrative Capital Stadium" if they want the WWE to hold a show in New Administrative Capital, Egypt in a 94,940 seat stadium Egypt is a bit underrepresented in real or kayfabe pro wrestlers Would it be culturally insensitive to give the Ramses Nacho Libre gimmick to a real/fake Egyptian?