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Mr Harms

By Mr Harms
in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

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clintthecrippler

clintthecrippler

Posted
Posted

Now that I think of it, I dont think I have ever been clear on how exactly Fritz Von Erich transitioned from "evil German Nazi heel" to "beloved son of Texas that loves Jesus Christ, Texas, and his kids." Does anyone know the Cliff's Notes on that?

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Happ Hazzard

Happ Hazzard

Posted
Posted

 

48 minutes ago, clintthecrippler said:

Now that I think of it, I dont think I have ever been clear on how exactly Fritz Von Erich transitioned from "evil German Nazi heel" to "beloved son of Texas that loves Jesus Christ, Texas, and his kids." Does anyone know the Cliff's Notes on that?

It's one of those weird semi-kayfabed things where people accepted that Fritz being German was just a gimmick and that he had really grown up in Texas and was called Jack Adkisson. But wrestling was still real and his kids were still Von Erichs. They could have easily justify Lance being called Ricky Vaughan in high school if they could justify Fritz being a former Nazi and his kids being Adkissons in high school.

I know some wrestlers kids went by their father worked surname in school. I've seen some kind of picture of Mike Graham, maybe in his HS football team, with him being captioned as Mike Graham rather than Mike Gossett. IIRC Jamie Dundee has mentioned that he went to school under that name instead of Jamie Cruikshanks.

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Hustler of Culture

Hustler of Culture

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, clintthecrippler said:

Now that I think of it, I dont think I have ever been clear on how exactly Fritz Von Erich transitioned from "evil German Nazi heel" to "beloved son of Texas that loves Jesus Christ, Texas, and his kids." Does anyone know the Cliff's Notes on that?

Fritz was known to a degree because he was a great discus thrower and football player at TCU (IIRC).  I wondered about this as well for a long time and I was finally told that the family would just say that Von Erich was their 'stage name.'  As far as transitioning from Fritz being the Nazi to Fritz being the ultimate Texas dad babyface, it was not uncommon for stuff like that to happen.  Baron Von Raschke got over as a babyface after a while.  But in the end I think it was people knew that Fritz was born and raised in Texas and some knew his real name and others did not and it never became a big deal.

The thing about Texas wrestling fans back then is that a higher % of them believed pro wrestling was real and would take great offense to anybody saying otherwise.  They believed in the Von Erichs as being what this upstanding model Texas family and when Fritz worked them with Lance Von Erich that was such a slap in the face it ruined Fritz's credibility.  I'm guessing Fritz couldn't quite understand that and thought it's pro wrestling and you work the fans in pro wrestling.  And I would bet he couldn't imagine the uproar and disgust that came from it.  

 

 

HoC

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BloodyChamp

BloodyChamp

Posted
Posted

Another thing that sounds dumb but is totally legit - it took 1 perfectly timed move to go from most hated to most loved dude in wrestling lol! Same for the other way around.

And as for anybody who came along after the fact, like me during Ric Flair’s face run in 1989, well the bad stuff you heard about him just flat out never happened. Dammat. Lol!

Shane

Shane

Posted
Posted

Anyone know offhand how long the black and white nWo Saturday Night segments ran? I assume they were done by the end of '96?

Watched a random WCWSN from October '96 and had mostly forgotten that they even did these segments. This era of Saturday Night was really fun in general. Dusty and Schiavone on commentary and some weird matches that are sorta "dream matches" if you love the B and C-level shows (the show I watched had the Faces of Fear vs. Bunkhouse Buck and Mike Enos, for instance). 

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J.H.

J.H.

Posted
Posted

Fritz also dropped the Nazi gimmick so he could ne considered as an NWA World title holder but Thesz didn't really like Fritz that much and ixnayed any attempt to get the belt on Fritz.

James

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BobbyWhioux

BobbyWhioux

Posted
Posted
On 11/25/2020 at 9:11 PM, thee Reverend Axl Future said:

The Frankenstein's Monster-inspired mocking of The Giant always made me laugh, and was the last thing Scott Hall did that I enjoyed. It was enough. 

 



(for something that he did so frequently for so long, it's surprisingly difficult to find a good gif of it)


https://cdn3.whatculture.com/images/2018/09/85289aca762a191e-600x338.gif

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Brian Fowler

Brian Fowler

Posted
Posted

I feel like they could've hand waved the whole Lance thing so easily. Just say something about him being really close friends with whichever brother he was closest to age with, and he's "been like family to us" so you let him use the name. Something like that. 

I mean, pretty much everyone I know has someone they aren't at all related to that is "family"

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BloodyChamp

BloodyChamp

Posted
Posted
On 12/3/2020 at 1:01 PM, Shane said:

Anyone know offhand how long the black and white nWo Saturday Night segments ran? I assume they were done by the end of '96?

Watched a random WCWSN from October '96 and had mostly forgotten that they even did these segments. This era of Saturday Night was really fun in general. Dusty and Schiavone on commentary and some weird matches that are sorta "dream matches" if you love the B and C-level shows (the show I watched had the Faces of Fear vs. Bunkhouse Buck and Mike Enos, for instance). 


The end of 1996 sounds right. WCWSN the B Show in 1996 doesn’t. Maybe you caught one that wasn’t stellar which happened a time or 2 but WCWSN was important until late 1997 I think.

BobbyWhioux

BobbyWhioux

Posted
Posted
On 12/4/2020 at 2:03 AM, Brian Fowler said:

I feel like they could've hand waved the whole Lance thing so easily. Just say something about him being really close friends with whichever brother he was closest to age with, and he's "been like family to us" so you let him use the name. Something like that. 

I mean, pretty much everyone I know has someone they aren't at all related to that is "family"



wouldn't people love to believe their hero Fritz is the kind of stand up would do a heroic thing like adopt a dead friend's orphaned kid, or just took in a hardworking kid from a broken home who wanted to turn his life around.  Like you said, there's dozens of ways to say "okay well technically he's not a blood relative but he's like family to us."

Or, hey, just invoke the Samoan rule.  "Our cousins are whoever the fuck we say are our cousins, wanna make something of it? Didn't think so."

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BloodyChamp

BloodyChamp

Posted
Posted

What were the promos that mentioned steroids? I know of Michael PS Hayes calling Kerry Von Erich a steroid freak in WCCW and I read somewhere else that Dusty told the Road Warriors there were no steroids in his body, in response to them calling him fat lol!

I ask this having just seen Terry Bradshaw say steroids on the NFL pregame 12-3-21, and it wasn’t a report on the substance abuse policy lol! Did anybody else see that???

Log

Log

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, BloodyChamp said:

What were the promos that mentioned steroids? I know of Michael PS Hayes calling Kerry Von Erich a steroid freak in WCCW and I read somewhere else that Dusty told the Road Warriors there were no steroids in his body, in response to them calling him fat lol!

I ask this having just seen Terry Bradshaw say steroids on the NFL pregame 12-3-21, and it wasn’t a report on the substance abuse policy lol! Did anybody else see that???

I did see that! Hell, he even said Howie Long and Strahan used them. 

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Shane

Shane

Posted
Posted

Larry Nelson trying to do journalism here is funny. Col. DeBeers certainly doesn't mince words on his feelings about Scott Hall and the juice...
 

 

Log

Log

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, BloodyChamp said:

ROFL was that funny or what? And Curt Menefee was like wtf???

And I forgot that Howie said something back basically accusing the Steelers that Bradshaw played with of being on the juice. 
 

I mean, I think it was pretty common back then, but damn. 

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BloodyChamp

BloodyChamp

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Shane said:

Larry Nelson trying to do journalism here is funny. Col. DeBeers certainly doesn't mince words on his feelings about Scott Hall and the juice...
 

 

Holy Lord ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Larry Nelson said in depth like in depth so we would know it was going to be in depth.

Then Colonel didn’t just refer to steroids, or make a joke about steroids, but he...in depth...discussed steroids. Anabolic STEROIDS! ROFL! Then Nelson did, then Scott Hall did, and by the time Colonel said “steroids can increase the size of your biceps but not your...”, I thought he was going to say the 1 thing they hadn’t said yet lol!

They put in in the cattle feed!

I can’t believe I’ve never seen this. This makes 2 very infamous promos Scott Hall was involved in in the AWA? Didn’t he said “you G&$ D%#* son of a b•¥*^%” another time?

BloodyChamp

BloodyChamp

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 1/3/2021 at 12:21 PM, odessasteps said:

Phil Hickerson and the Freedom Fighters (blade runners)

 

??? Warrior almost slips and says it, so Phil comes on out and says it. Then the greatest straight man in the business is standing right there managing the whole thing just like he did everything else. 

Edited by BloodyChamp
Technico Support

Technico Support

Posted
Posted
On 1/3/2021 at 6:27 PM, Shane said:

Larry Nelson trying to do journalism here is funny. Col. DeBeers certainly doesn't mince words on his feelings about Scott Hall and the juice...
 

 

My God, AWA was so low rent by that point!  At least the Koloffs faked their best Boris Badenoff accent and made up a "sympathizer" gimmick for the one guy who couldn't.  Meanwhile AWA has an Afrikaaner straight out of apartheid Cape Town who somehow sounds like he's from Missouri.  Put some pride in your work, son.

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Mister TV

Mister TV

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

My God, AWA was so low rent by that point!  At least the Koloffs faked their best Boris Badenoff accent and made up a "sympathizer" gimmick for the one guy who couldn't.  Meanwhile AWA has an Afrikaaner straight out of apartheid Cape Town who somehow sounds like he's from Missouri.  Put some pride in your work, son.

Would Ed Wiskoski have even known what an Afrikaaner accent sounded like? The only time South Africa was ever shown in the media back then was on the news and usually it was b-roll of some atrocity, the only entertainment media kind of exported from South Africa back then was British productions that featured British actors like The Wild Geese. 

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Technico Support

Technico Support

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, Mister TV said:

Would Ed Wiskoski have even known what an Afrikaaner accent sounded like? The only time South Africa was ever shown in the media back then was on the news and usually it was b-roll of some atrocity, the only entertainment media kind of exported from South Africa back then was British productions that featured British actors like The Wild Geese. 

I was going to say "Lethal Weapon 2" but that was too late.  Well he could have at least researched Dutch surnames instead of lazily picking a large South African diamond company.  That would be like a German wrestler working an American gimmick and calling himself Johnny Wal Mart.  ?

Edited by Technico Support
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