Random stuff you remember that hardly anybody else does

[Wyld Samurai]

Sting would be absolutely justified for being afraid to sign with Titan if that happens

[Michael Sweetser]

1 hour ago, sydneybrown said:

WCW's roster was so depleted in the spring of 1990 due to injuries and guys leaving that Norman and Mike Rotunda were for a couple months the #2 and #3 singles babyfaces on the roster (Luger being #1).

To be fair, Norman was kinda inexplicably over at the time.  But yeah, not good signs for WCW.

2 minutes ago, mattdangerously said:

In an alternate universe somewhere, I bet Magnum TA never has his car accident.  He eventually signs with the WWF in the early 90s, and is given a wrestling chef gimmick. 

Nah.  Valet to Dean Douglas and later, Matt Striker.  Magnum the TA.

[AxB]

Shane Douglas was Magnum TA's protege in WCW, wasn't he? It's why he used the Belly to Belly as a finish for a while. Before the Steamboat team.

[Michael Sweetser]

4 minutes ago, AxB said:

Shane Douglas was Magnum TA's protege in WCW, wasn't he? It's why he used the Belly to Belly as a finish for a while. Before the Steamboat team.

Holy shit, you're right - I totally forgot that.  It comes full circle!

I remember a brief feud between Brian Pillman and Douglas, where Douglas laid Pillman out with a belly to belly on the floor on WCW Saturday Night.  Great execution and Pillman sold it great.

[DreamBroken]

1 hour ago, Tim Evans said:

Speaking of Sunshine Network, I remember when they used to run a late Friday night wrestling block of MLW and WEW. You had Joey Styles doing commentary in a Hawaiian shirt on Nosawa and Vampiro matches. WEW had such gems like GI Ho and Tai Killer Weed. GI Ho once teamed with Norman Smiley vs Francine and Michael Shane, HBK's nephew.

That brings back memories of randomly discovering that while channel surfing late at night. Think TNA Xplosion aired there too around that time. Also reminds me of finding the old WoW Women of Wrestling the same way in 00-01 airing on like the local channel 49.

[Michael Sweetser]

Random WOW tidbit: Had WOW started back up properly, Riot would've been either the next WOW champion or the one after.  Plus, Caged Heat would've done Freebird Rules with the belts.

I actually don't have a lot of WOW tidbits, surprisingly, but I have those.

[Web Conn]

I watched WOW once it use to air at like midnight on Kong (Sweetser would know the channel) up in Washington on like Friday or Saturday I don't remeber much all I remember is a women in gold hot pants.

[Go2Sleep]

Shane McMahon had a heel faction called The Conspiracy that lasted a week in 2000. It was Benoit, Big Show, Angle, and E/C. I think they scrapped it because Show got hurt, but that would've been an interesting group. Shane did continue to manage Benoit for a month or so, though.

 

[username]

I have this recollection of Dan Spivey absolutely spiking a jobber with a powerbomb in a squash match that looked like it may have legit broke the guy's neck, but I've never found any proof that it ever happened.

[Michael Sweetser]

11 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

Shane McMahon had a heel faction called The Conspiracy that lasted a week in 2000. It was Benoit, Big Show, Angle, and E/C. I think they scrapped it because Show got hurt, but that would've been an interesting group. Shane did continue to manage Benoit for a month or so, though.

 

Yup - he was managing Benoit at least one of the times he had the reversed World title wins over the Rock.

1 minute ago, username said:

I have this recollection of Dan Spivey absolutely spiking a jobber with a powerbomb in a squash match that looked like it may have legit broke the guy's neck, but I've never found any proof that it ever happened.

I never saw that, but I remember in 1995 where Sycho Sid just completely DEMOLISHED Aldo Montoya with a powerbomb in a squash leading up to the title match against Diesel.  Looked like it was from ten feet high and just a complete wreck.  Safe bump, just looked like it killed him.

[Niners Fan in CT]

I used to collect Kung Fu movies so every time we went to the mall I'd stop by the video store in there to see what they had. It was a video store for rare/niche kind of stuff so they had wrestling content also.  I remember them having a ton of FMW tapes. I saw a tape labeled 'XPW' and it was a death match tournament. Then another with a scaffold match New Jack v. Vic Grimes. I had no idea what the hell XPW was so I picked up both tapes. They were cool I guess, I was a teen so I didn't know any better. I thought New Jack may have legit killed Vic Grimes.

Also, XPW had some women on the roster I didn't recognize so I went online to see who they were and well that was something.

[BurningBeard]

16 hours ago, J.T. said:

I remember the Skyscrapers (Dan Spivey and Sid Vicious with Teddy Long) winning their debut match on WCW Saturday Night by knockout.  A concept that blew my mind at the time.

They just kept the poor jobber bastard in their corner, tagged in and out, and took turns punching him in the face until he collapsed in a heap.

I'm a huge Mongols mark, so I am a big fan of matches ending with the ref going Okay That Mother Fucker's Had Enough and ringing the bell as a mercy killing rather dudes dying via traditional finishers.

Man, that sounds awesome. Sometimes I find myself going down the Youtube rabbit-hole of Sid Squashes and this is always the jumping off point:

 

This isn't obscure, but I remembered it when the Islanders were mentioned - some time in 93 the Barbarian became the second Headshrinker with Fatu, and Fatu kept losing matches because he wasn't used to wearing boots. Captain Lou and Afa were the managers for the team too IIRC. What was the story behind all that?

 

[Technico Support]

15 hours ago, Wyld Samurai said:

Key? Wasn't he playing a Coke dealer with an angle that he was selling to Hawk?

I thought he was being groomed for a feud with Make a Difference Fatu, no?

14 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

How about Sivi Afi being the third Islander? I believe he only made one TV appearance with them. After Tama left following WM4, Sivi Afi and Haku worked house shows as The Islanders continuing the feud with the Bulldogs. 

Speaking of Islanders, what about Barbarian being brought in under his real name as the third and/or replacement Headshrinker?

12 hours ago, Throat said:

On an episode of Action Zone, probably in 95 or 96, Michael Hayes said something I couldn't believe made air on a taped show pre-Attitude Era. He and Todd Pettingill were talking about tattoos, and Todd goes "Do you have any tattoos?" And Hayes goes "Yeah, I've got a tattoo! Sometimes it says WWF and sometimes it says World Wre-" and Todd cuts him off and goes to break.

Is that a play on the old "Wendy/Welcome to Jamaica Mon Have a Nice Day" joke?  If so, Hayes' takeoff on it makes no sense.

Speaking of Hayes and also speaking of proteges, I remember Hayes taking promising young upstart Steve Cox under his wing and nicknaming him Steve "Do It To It" Cox.  It was short lived and is definitely a candidate for the worst nicknames hall of fame.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

I thought he was being groomed for a feud with Make a Difference Fatu, no?

 

You're thinking of the Samoan Gangsta Party, which consisted of Sammy The Silk (Samu) and Matty Smalls (Rosey). They had some pretty wild brawls with The Gangstas in ECW. 

[BurningBeard]

how come that whole thing went nowhere? It was goofy as fuck but I liked that they were trying an inspirational character like Fatu, all I ever remember was the Samoan's coming out and watching during a few Fatu squashes and then nowt.

[Technico Support]

Does anybody else remember the (annual?) "WWF Superstars" magazine?

It was essentially WWF's version of the "Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe" comic: profiles of every wrestler working for them.  Because of the usual publication date lag you see with all wrestling media, you'd occasionally get profiles of guys who were long gone or barely showed up in the first place.  I remember seeing a piece on The Missing Link, managed by Bobby Heenan, who was only with the fed for 5 months in 1985.

[J.T.]

5 hours ago, CreativeControl said:

This isn't obscure, but I remembered it when the Islanders were mentioned - some time in 93 the Barbarian became the second Headshrinker with Fatu, and Fatu kept losing matches because he wasn't used to wearing boots. Captain Lou and Afa were the managers for the team too IIRC. What was the story behind all that?

From what I remember, Samu was taken off of television to recover from a host of nagging injuries and he was replaced by The Barbarian aka Sione. 

The angle was that Captain Lou and Afa wanted to clean up the tarnished image of the Wild Samoans so they decided to try and civilize the new generation.  Samu "refused to adjust" so he was kicked off the team and replaced with Sione in the hope that Sione could help Fatu learn a more traditional brawling style.. 

The gimmick was that Fatu did the best he could, but he was unable to execute a lot of his moveset because he was not as comfortable wearing boots as Sione was.

They lost in the finals of the WWE Tag-Team Tournament and also jobbed out to Men On A Mission. 

After that, Barbarian went to WCW to form Faces of Fear and Fatu went on a Barry Darsow-esque spree of gimmicks until finally becoming Rikishi.

[Spritenaut 32]

16 hours ago, Throat said:

On an episode of Action Zone, probably in 95 or 96, Michael Hayes said something I couldn't believe made air on a taped show pre-Attitude Era. He and Todd Pettingill were talking about tattoos, and Todd goes "Do you have any tattoos?" And Hayes goes "Yeah, I've got a tattoo! Sometimes it says WWF and sometimes it says World Wre-" and Todd cuts him off and goes to break.

Regarding the Michael Hayes tattoo line, I remember that but I have no idea where he was supposed to be going with that.  The way Todd cut him off makes me think it might have been unscripted.  My best guess is that the punch line was Hayes tattooed his penis and you could only read the full name when he had an erection?

I can't believe I just typed that sentence.

[JonnyLaw]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the joke.

Everyone remembers the Hardys-E&C ladder match at No Mercy, but how many people remember the Hardys were actually with Gangrel as the New Brood during that match?

[Spritenaut 32]

For some reason, I just remembered the Headbangers short-lived repacking as the Flying Nuns/Sisters of Love (they were manged by Brother Love for a couple weeks).  No idea what that was about.  They had already appeared on WWF TV as the Headbangers and were doing the Headbangers gimmick in SMW.

For those that don't remember this, it's basically what it sounds.  Mosh and Thasher crossdressing as nuns  No one will ever accuse Vince of being too classy.  

[Go2Sleep]

1 hour ago, Vader does my taxes! said:

Regarding the Michael Hayes tattoo line, I remember that but I have no idea where he was supposed to be going with that.  The way Todd cut him off makes me think it might have been unscripted.  My best guess is that the punch line was Hayes tattooed his penis and you could only read the full name when he had an erection?

Not only that, but there's also the implication that his penis is very long, because it would take a lot of space to fit a readable "World Wrestling Federation."

33 minutes ago, JonnyLaw said:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the joke.

Everyone remembers the Hardys-E&C ladder match at No Mercy, but how many people remember the Hardys were actually with Gangrel as the New Brood during that match?

Between Hayes, Gangrel, and Terri Runnels, the entirety of the Hardys' managerial history pre-Lita could fit this thread.

[Technico Support]

3 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

 

Between Hayes, Gangrel, and Terri Runnels, the entirety of the Hardys' managerial history pre-Lita could fit this thread.

I completely forgot about Runnels managing them.  Now you just reminded me of the Hardy's vs E&C series that Terri created.  Of course, Russo being Russo, it was called the Terri Invitational Tournament.

[odessasteps]

The Nun gimmick was just for Shotgun Saturday Night, wasnt it? Where thry were trying to be ECW esque in their envelope pushing.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I love this thread and I actually remember a lot of things mentioned. I don't know if that's something I should be proud of or be sad that so much of the space in my brain and so much of my time has been dedicated to wrestling. It could be worse, I suppose. At least, I can't spout off facts about obscure German porn or anything. 

[Go2Sleep]

How about Just Joe? I think he was around for a few weeks or so in 2000. His gimmick was showing up backstage and offering unsolicited advice to various wrestlers, and when they asked who he was, he said "I'm just Joe." I think he only had a couple matches on the weekend jobber shows before they dropped him.