December 2023 Wrestling Talk

[Cobra Commander]

Considering the reputation STL had, kinda wish there was more STL TV out there. Although I don’t know how far back people could have been recording their TV

[Curt McGirt]

There is a fair amount of Wrestling at the Chase on Youtube, btw. I didn't look too hard but there's a match on one episode involving the Von Erichs and Dick Murdoch and after it Murdoch busts out a top three promo of all time that once got transcribed just about verbatim in a DVDVR it was so good. He also busts out another great one where he wields a broom and tells Larry Matysik he's gonna sweep all the garbage out of the territory. 

EDIT: AH HA! They cut the end off but it's mostly there. The line about Muchnick has just perfect comic timing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdDu-OgOpzw&ab_channel=TheVintageWrestlingChannel

To go with what our Commander was saying above, Matysik was actually selling HOURS AND HOURS of St. Louis footage on tape before he passed away. Full page list in his book. There is a treasure trove out there. One was a full hour broadway between King Kong Brody (as he went by only in St. Louis) and Flair that's supposed to be a classic.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Curt McGirt

[clintthecrippler]

Whats out there for the footage that Larry Matysik put out there himself is 81-83 Wrestling at the Chase that was taped in the studio. The Flair/Brody Broadway and the precious little other "arena" footage from that era primarily exists from All Japan sending production crews during that time period to record matches whenever Giant Baba came over for a US tour or other American stars they were pushing like Brody had major matches, which is how we have that Broadway. 

Sadly not much else from those loaded arena shows proper exists beyond that on tape.

I just took a look at the date for the Flair/Brody poster that was noted earlier in the thread. That show itself was actually from after Sam Muchnick retired in 82, but the cards were still loaded for a while after that. The drop off really doesn't seem to hit until second half of 83 when Matysik splits off from what the new ownership group (which I believe was a consortium of Verne Gagne, Harley Race and Bob Geigel)

Matysik then tries to run his own shows (taking Brody with him) in STL for the second half of 1983, but ultimately ends up brokering the deal for the WWF to take the classic Wrestling At The Chase time slot with market-specific tapings initially at the Chase Hotel itself, which ends up being the first real "shot fired" for Vince storming into a vital NWA market, and those tapings being the debut date for Hulk Hogan, who himself had been on quite a few of the St. Louis group's cards in 83. 

Even into 84 and 85 there are still some loaded shows with the remaining group, with the NWA World Championship still being defended regularly, and stars from the AWA, World Class, and other remaining territories popping in with a little more Central States support, but ultimately the oversaturation of the core St. Louis group running every three weeks and the WWF running their own shows aggressively every few weeks in the early going led to the final "true" St. Louis shows as 85 transitioned into 86, and ultimately Jim Crockett came in to run his own shows as the last alternative option to the WWF for St. Louis wrestling fans. 

[Curt McGirt]

Thanks for clearing that up. I don't think Matysik talked much about that period in his book, it was mostly reminiscing about "the good old days". 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

@Curt McGirtthanks for sharing that link. I've always wanted to watch stuff from the Chase (even if just in studio) after I caught that Bob Costas doc years and years ago. Good look

Edited December 8, 2023 by Zakk_Sabbath

[Log]

1 hour ago, clintthecrippler said:

Matysik then tries to run his own shows (taking Brody with him) in STL for the second half of 1983, but ultimately ends up brokering the deal for the WWF to take the classic Wrestling At The Chase time slot with market-specific tapings initially at the Chase Hotel itself, which ends up being the first real "shot fired" for Vince storming into a vital NWA market, and those tapings being the debut date for Hulk Hogan, who himself had been on quite a few of the St. Louis group's cards in 83.

When I was a kid, and first got into WWF (probably '85-'86), a lot of adults would refer to it as "Wrestling at the Chase" and I never understood why. Now I'm wondering if it was due to the timeslot takeover.

[odessasteps]

Funny how working with Vince robbed Costas of his love of wrestling esp the STL version. 

[Curt McGirt]

23 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

@Curt McGirtthanks for sharing that link. I've always wanted to watch stuff from the Chase (even if just in studio) after I caught that Bob Costas doc years and years ago. Good look

Well thank you because I had no idea that Costas doc existed until now! Awesome. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db3xhS_ppoo&ab_channel=SaintLouisWrestling

[clintthecrippler]

1 hour ago, Log said:

When I was a kid, and first got into WWF (probably '85-'86), a lot of adults would refer to it as "Wrestling at the Chase" and I never understood why. Now I'm wondering if it was due to the timeslot takeover.

That reminds me of growing up in Michigan in the 80s and 90s and older relatives just casually referring to all wrestling as "Big Time Wrestling" since The Sheik had used that for the Detroit TV show (along with a few other regions throughout the country)

[odessasteps]

It’s funny how many places just called their promotions or TV shows very generic things like “all star wrestling” or “championship wrestling” or “big time wrestling.” 

[Elsalvajeloco]

24 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

It’s funny how many places just called their promotions or TV shows very generic things like “all star wrestling” or “championship wrestling” or “big time wrestling.” 

When someone (a board search shows @Zakk_Sabbath) posed the hypothetical way back in January what you would name your promotion, my assertion is that you already have had every possible combo of "World", "(E)xtreme", "Global", "US/A", "International", "Universal", "Federation", and "Championship Wrestling" you can think of. 

I believe Cobra Commander posted the old TV Guide listings for pro wrestling. The generic "Wrestling" always gets me. Then I remember, back when the TV Guide channel was still around, the generic "Boxing" for some regional boxing program Lou DiBella is doing out of Foxwoods and in and around the five NYC boroughs or CES Boxing out of Rhode Island and various other parts of New England is pretty much the exact same thing. And guess what? That's what best describes the content that was put out and don't expect any more than that.

[Infinit]

In the beginning days of The Fight Network in Canada,they showed lots of the St Louis shows shot in the studio. 

[odessasteps]

8 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

When someone (a board search shows @Zakk_Sabbath) posed the hypothetical way back in January what you would name your promotion, my assertion is that you already have had every possible combo of "World", "(E)xtreme", "Global", "US/A", "International", "Universal", "Federation", and "Championship Wrestling" you can think of. 

I believe Cobra Commander posted the old TV Guide listings for pro wrestling. The generic "Wrestling" always gets me. Then I remember, back when the TV Guide channel was still around, the generic "Boxing" for some regional boxing program Lou DiBella is doing out of Foxwoods and in and around the five NYC boroughs or CES Boxing out of Rhode Island and various other parts of New England is pretty much the exact same thing. And guess what? That's what best describes the content that was put out and don't expect any more than that.

When Sempervive and I were talking about doing a pod about mid 1980s DMV wrestling TV, I ran into that problem where all the wrestling shows are just labeled as wrestling. Luckily, we have which shows were on when memorized from being kids with sponge brains. 

[zendragon]

When Little Joey would not still still for the family christmass photo he was told "would you stop?" and given a smack in the external occipital protuberance

[ka-to]

When I was young all wrestling whether in English (WWWF, Florida) or Spanish (LA, Ringside 41) was on the Spanish language stations. The TV  listings for all of them was Lucha Libre.

[colonial]

Forget the year of the listing and what city it was, but I saw a TV Guide listing from back in the day on FB that showed upcoming airings of "Wrestling" and "Rasslin'". Curious where the latter was based.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

Basically at the time I was trying to make a little extra dough doing like very minor graphic design for peoples' WWE2K games, and then I got kinda into the game again myself. I needed like a bit of an EWR type fantasy booking outlet anyway instead of boring with you guys with my bullshit. I literally sat there and went "ACW, no, BCW, no, CCW no, DCW maybe, ECW definitely no..." Every permutation has been done. It's gonna get to the point where there's gonna have to be repeats with them like GCW.

[AxB]

Matt Hardy's promotion wasn't called Pro Wrestling Omega, or Omega Pro Wrestling. It was called The Organisation of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts.

[BloodyChamp]

I just heard about Tammy and I listened to Jim Cornette’s thoughts. I also read everybody here’s thoughts in the November thread. I guess I have nothing to add to that. What Jim said though, that needs to be told to every middle class dumbass crybaby girl that ever lived. You could substitute people I know’s name for Tammy and the rant be spot on. 
 

 

[zendragon]

I know WWE was offering no questions asked rehab to all ex wrestlers/ employees and if she refused to take help change her lifestyle that’s on her. She was smart enough to be pre med or pre law at one point. She could have just gone into another line of work

[Curt McGirt]

Gorilla Monsoon: First neckbeard ever? (Somebody from the Civil War era probably was, but the glasses really set it off.)

[twiztor]

2 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I literally sat there and went "ACW, no, BCW, no, CCW no, DCW maybe, ECW definitely no..."

DCW was a promotion on local access tv here. Definitely a backyard hardcore fed that had such luminaries as "the Undertoker". 

8 hours ago, odessasteps said:

It’s funny how many places just called their promotions or TV shows very generic things like “all star wrestling” or “championship wrestling” or “big time wrestling.” 

the old timers around here referred to all pro wrestling as "All Star Wrestling" and i've never been able to pin down exactly which promotion they would have been exposed to with that name because there were numerous that may have aired here at different times. (i believe it to be AWA but will never be 100%)

[BloodyChamp]

1 hour ago, zendragon said:

I know WWE was offering no questions asked rehab to all ex wrestlers/ employees and if she refused to take help change her lifestyle that’s on her. She was smart enough to be pre med or pre law at one point. She could have just gone into another line of work

That’s what Jim said, with cuss words thrown in. 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

She was one of the first who they eventually refused to pay for after she went a bunch of times IIRC.

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

Another excellent bonenkai (year-end party) all you can drink and Japanese style Chinese food, with my old drinking buddy Asian Coogar and a bar-full of friends. Including some wrestlers, like Tachibana, Moriya (ex-FUCK, whom I met at the Nepalese rooftop  BBQ party), and Taiyoto Kamen (whom I maybe last drank with at A-Toys MMA bar in 2015). It's always great to see everyone and I was very happy to hear my name shouted out joyfully again and again, by my old drinking friends. The food was excellent, the beer and umeshu flowed like wine, three hours passed like ten minutes. I am one lucky prick. Also, the Gee! Store around the corner from the back-alley party location had a neato t-shirt in my size.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Gordi the former AEW fan