Cobra Commander

photographic aid... with Ivan Koloff included to remind you that they had so many bald wrestlers from Montreal that Ivan Koloff had to be a Russian

the Mad Dog Vachon stories on the AWA episode and Jos LeDuc being mentioned in the Memphis episode inspired me to check into "did Mad Dog Vachon and Jos LeDuc work together" and of course they did It started in 1972 in Montreal with Jos & Paul LeDuc working against Mad Dog Vachon & Ivan Rapapotsky. There was a LeDuc vs Mad Dog match in Quebec City in August 1972. Then in December 1973 in Florida, Jos and Paul LeDuc worked against Mad Dog Vachon and a series of partners, cumulating in the LeDucs facing Mad Dog and Stan Vachon. Stan Vachon had a series of other names and wasn't a legit Vachon. Paul LeDuc was a legit LeDuc. That feud wrapped up in January 1974. One of the matches had Haystacks Calhoun as a referee which is a novelty. Then there were Mad Dog vs LeDuc matches in Texas in 1975, leading to them teaming together one week in the AWA, and then working tag matches against each other through 1976. Then in 1986, they teamed twice in Montreal. Mad Dog had a mustache and Jos LeDuc didn't, that's how you tell them apart. Butcher Vachon had a few matches with Jos LeDuc over the years too (1972 in Quebec, 1973 in Ottawa, and twice in 1977 in Florida) The Florida matches sound like a good time Jos LeDuc and The Brisco Brothers vs Butcher Vachon, Crusher Verdu, and Siegfried Steinke. Then LeDuc and Dusty vs Buddy Wolf and Butcher Vachon. It took until the beginning of 1979 for Jos LeDuc to become a heel and face Dusty because you knew Babyface Jos LeDuc wasn't made to last.

if you're not a Padres or Phillies fanatic, the only thing you can really complain about with this game is the timeslot because this might be one of the better playoff games for the postseason so far. if the Angels can use the Rally Monkey for 20 years, the Padres are probably gonna get their mileage out of the LSD Goose.

yeah, Ken Patera wasn't gonna do a stint as a Friend of Hogan followed by a heel turn and a huge house show run. I mean, he might have lost out on a chance to feud with Billy Jack Haynes (Patera and Haynes were a tag team in 87/88, which has to be a great pairing of people telling insane stories) Now if Patera wasn't in prison from 1985-87, does he end up in Crockett being managed by Paul Jones? Patera's life probably plays out slightly differently if he ended up in the Schultz spot in the WWF at the beginning of 1984. Same goes for Schultz's life and John Stossel's bank account balance.

those teams: the Marlins and Royals

with Cleveland out, the Phillies are right there for the "built to win in the postseason/does the little things" people

McDonalds was April 6th, 1984. Patera went on a New Japan tour in May-June 1984. Then he debuted in the WWF in August 1984 and worked there through June 1985. He was sentenced to 2 years in June 1985. Then he came back to the WWF in April 1987 through Survivor Series 1988.

The really incredible part about Patera is that he had a whole WWF run *after* the McDonalds incident. It was the 80s. They really thought "gotta get the most out of this guy before he goes to prison". It's be like if Teddy Hart kept getting bookings while going through the legal process for his situation, only with someone who draws money.

*Florida episode producers quietly cut Sullivan veering into talking about using the Dungeon Of Doom to gain Hogan's trust for a heel turn*

yeah, he sorta combined "MSG Shows are airing on HBO" (to not as many homes as TBS/GCW) with "we sent footage to Vince and he stole our talent" to make the story about sending footage to air on HBO

The Hogan/Matsuda story would be a natural branch off into how Lex Luger started there and other Matsuda guys. If they wanted to go that way. But aside from some vacation bookings, there wasn’t a lot of Hogan in Florida. If you were Dusty, even with how over Dusty was there, an over babyface Hogan in Florida would have had a high ceiling at least for awhile. Patera would probably cite Tony Atlas (they worked together, right?) to talk about how he doesn’t see color

Also Lanza died in 2021, Mulligan in 2016, Larry Nelson in 2014, Masa Saito in 2018. Granted, we just had the 5 year anniversary of Lance Russell passing and he might have been the one person to have been a better traffic cop in that panel than Jeff Jarrett. Also Patera taking time out of a story about fighting cops to talk about how most of them are good makes me think he unironically has a Blue Lives Matter flag on his vehicle.

Also because the talent might a little less friendly about the boss in the AWA than Memphis, even with all the references to low payoffs from Jarrett. Like how Patera used the phrase “Verne Gagne special” to mock Verne in front of Greg Gagne. Also some good potential panelists are either recently dead or otherwise unavailable. Mean Gene, Bobby Heenan (whose cancer made him unavailable way before he died), Jesse the Body (unavailable, he’s still alive), Nick Bockwinkel, Larry the Ax, they’re not getting Hulk Hogan for an episode where Greg says Hulk Hogan was the first to doublecross Verne. DDP did so little that it’s possible that they could have gotten more by putting Brian Knobbs on the panel. Provided that Knobbs didn’t get into a fight with Ken Patera midtaping

i'm 1 for 3 in remembering to watch this show during it's first run so i'm watching the AWA episode for the first time on it's replay Summary of the first 2 big stories: the AWA is about people trying to accidentally kill their coworkers Edit: kinda applicable through 3 big stories.. when the guy who threw a boulder through a McDonald's Window was doing the least to get his coworkers hurt Edit 2: Ken Patera claims some random kid threw the boulder, well okay sure, Harvey the Pink Rabbit did it. Edit 3: Ken Patera looks so fucking sauced. Jim Brunzell looks like he sold drugs to Jr. High students. But Patera is just on another weird level. For some reason I never really read/heard the Patera/Saito story well enough before tonight and I might have thought that they were fighting the cops at the McDonalds. Also I'm guessing DDP is here to drive Ken Patera home safely. Edit 4: Greg's story about territories sending Vince Sr their footage to age on HBO probably isn't exactly true but I recall that they had aired some non-WWF stuff to coincidentally build interest for raids but not on HBO. Greg once told a story about inventing MMA so some of his details might not be entirely there

Schwarber's HR had an xBA of 50,000. It was hit 488 feet.

Bryce Harper's oppo home run had a slightly lower hit expectancy than the two oppo HRs in NY (Stanton was .820 xBA on a 379ft HR, Judge was .560 on a 394ft HR, and Harper was .220 xBA and 368ft)

Kinda wild that either Harper or Machado, after 10 years of being stars, is on the doorstep of the World Series and it's the more low-key League Championship Series and it's almost being treated like a disappointment because there's no Braves or Dodgers. (I didn't forget about Machado on the Dodgers in 2018 so maybe the storyline is a little too complex as a result). For all the criticism over MLB marketing stars, one of the two people who has been marketed for years is about to play in the World Series. I mean, if Mike Trout ever got on a team that wasn't a disaster, his first deep postseason run would seem like sort of a big deal. (knock on wood in regards to health, obviously)

kinda amazing how much "playing a getaway day game on June 17th" energy Cleveland has in this elimination game. Pitching Civale, who has a road ERA near 6, over Bieber, pretty much ended this game.

hoping Cleveland unleashes Bieber tomorrow just to make this whole rain clusterfuck sting a little harder

but due to the lack of uniform zoning in Houston, the saloon is next to a strip mall and a church and nobody has a basement due to the water table

Years ago, one of the KC sports talk guys referred to the Chiefs mascot as a bear, inspiring years of jokes since the Chiefs mascot is named "KC Wolf" Don't ask how a wolf got to be the mascot, just be happy that the Chiefs mascot isn't racist

so that's why the Chiefs didn't make a move for Robbie Anderson

The Nielsen DMA rankings have Philly at #4 (almost 3 million TV homes) and Houston at #8 (a little over 2.5M TV homes). Houston was ahead of Atlanta in Nielsen before the last rankings. Even with the TBS fanbase that the Braves had, I'd still question Heyman's depiction that the Phillies are a downgrade in fanbase size compared to the Braves. As for the Padres, who are one of the smallest markets with an MLB team, they averaged 37k fans a game. So Padres/Phillies has potential to come off well on TV if enthusiasm is infectious.

naming one of his kids America Rising would get him a commit with an SEC school at age 13

For the record, i'm not *seriously* endorsing Mattingly. The only upsides to such a hire is that it'd probably keep the Yankees from getting too good and it'd keep sports talk caller tier people from suggesting the Royals hire Mattingly. Anyways.. NY-based national writers aren't thrilled with the idea of baseball playoffs where the largest remaining city is Philadelphia