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Random stuff you remember that hardly anybody else does

BrianS81177

By BrianS81177
in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

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EricR

EricR

Posted
Posted
On September 8, 2016 at 1:26 PM, sydneybrown said:

Him looking like an idiot almost wiping out on the top rope because he was wearing dress shoes and not boots didn't help either.

Years and years ago Grimes came on my college radio show and did a nice long interview. Really friendly guy, still can't believe he agreed to do it (and don't even remember how I even contacted him in the first place) brought his wife and little girl (sheesh who is probably 20 now), sat with me in our tiny basement studio for a couple hours at midnight on a Saturday night. I asked him about his attire as Key, and he said he was given hardly any notice and had just a day or two to procure an all white outfit. They didn't provide it. He didn't know anybody with white wrestling boots, and WWE said they wanted them to have a shine like wrestling boots, so no getting white tennis shoes or anything. So he got white shoes from a tuxedo rental place. They were slippery as hell, and to try and make them "safe" he got some skateboard grip tape and put it on the bottom of the dress shoes. Alas, it obviously did not work. 

He also said he thought he got under Vince's skin by proposing a different idea for his character after they gave him their idea for Key. He wanted to come in as Foley's baby brother (which, yea, of course you'd want to be aligned with one of the biggest stars when you debut) and he got the sense that once he suggested it he realized it was not a good idea to immediately counter propose your own gimmick. 

His wife shared a story that they *think* happened after his big fall against New Jack, where on the long drive home he was so out of it (while she was driving) that he kept starting the exact same conversation the entire 7 hour ride home. He kept asking her how the match was, and every time he would ask it would be like he was asking a brand new question. She was not telling the story to be funny. 

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EricR

EricR

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On September 9, 2016 at 10:21 AM, Go2Sleep said:

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.

Man I saw like every Just Joe match in 2000. As mentioned before I had my college radio show at midnight to 2 AM on Saturday nights, and in my area WWF Jakked and WCW Worldwide aired in the early AM hours on Saturday night. I would do my show, get two bean burritos and two double decker tacos at the 24 hr. Taco Bell drive thru, and then go home and watched syndicated wrestling! It was the best. Just Joe was one Jakked every single week that year. I remember really liking a match against Malenko. I loved how he would do drop downs on his back, instead of dropping down onto his stomach. Actually makes way more sense as it puts you in position to grab your opponent's leg!

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Matt788

Matt788

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Yeah man Velocity and Heat were awesome too. The WWF syndicated shows back then gave us some awesome stuff. Albert matches were a favorite of mine. WCW C-shows were the stuff of legend, but WWF C-shows had some great matches too. I still watch Superstars and Main Event. I skip NXT and ROH most weeks but I won't miss a WWE C-show.

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Cyanide

Cyanide

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I remember Velocity from like 2003-2005 being appointment viewing because that's where they'd shunt all the cruiserweights to for a time. Paul London especially was the MVP then with a bunch of really good matches with the likes of Jamie Noble, Nunzio, and Akio (Jimmy Yang), and of course the tag stuff with Kendrick. Also that's the period where you get those fun early Danielson cameos.

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Pete

Pete

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I remember Fujiwara Gumi booking this big dude named Glen Jacobs back around 1993-94... he was kind of green but actually picked up the style nicely and you could see his potential.

That dude went on to become Kane, and now you know the rest of the story.

360_harvey_0301.jpg

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Ace

Ace

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On 9/10/2016 at 10:20 PM, Matt788 said:

Bam Neely had a cup of coffee in WWE but I remember virtually nothing about him. Ron Waterman was a Heat jobber who was supposed to go places but never did. Sakoda was Yang's extremely injury prone partner. Tiger Ali Sing was supposedly hated by other wrestlers and shitcanned quickly. The Maestro was hated by WCW and shitcanned as well. Jesus Aguilera was a talented man with an unescapable bad gimmick. Joy Giovanni was Big Show's hot platonic friend.

I heard they all got jobs at the Olive Garden and Shane Douglas is their manager.

Jesus hired me to do his father's wedding while he was laid up with an injured neck.

 

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colonial

colonial

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17 minutes ago, Michael Sweetser said:

I remember seeing Ron Waterman work a WWF house show in San Diego in 2001.  Other than looking disturbingly like Scott Steiner both in face and in body type, he showed absolutely nothing and it's not surprising he didn't make it past that level.  Just wasn't a spark there.

Waterman was put into the "dark match group" with Lesnar, Orton and Rico for about a year in 2001-02. The four of them always seemed to be paired off/teaming up with one another before Raw and SmackDown tapings for the longest time. Only memory of Waterman came from people reviewing the tapings online, always remarking that they couldn't remember his name or what he actually did in the ring, but that he was "the guy who looked like Scott Steiner".

Then the WWE signed Scott Steiner and released Waterman.

There seemed to be a few of those guys stuck in WWE dark match purgatory for months, even years, before being released. Waterman, Bo Dupp, Scott "Sick Boy" Vick. Worst victim -- Steve Bradley. Saw him in a pair of dark matches in DC and he was great to watch -- won his second match with a Diamond Dust that got quite the audible "ooooh" from the crowd, followed by a nice round of applause. Bradley definitely deserved a shot on TV (IIRC, he got released because the WWF signed Rob Van Dam and the original plan with Bradley was to be the Fed's version of RVD).

 

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colonial

colonial

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Shane said:

Until today, I'd forgotten that the Truth Commission had a manager before Jackyl/Cyrus. The Commandant. Not sure what else he did. 

I'd also forgotten about Tank, who I believe was Mantaur under a hood. 

The Commandant was a professional actor from South Africa named Robin Smith. He had apparently befriended Bret Hart, who recommended him to Vince.

AFAIK, he didn't last long because he couldn't take bumps/get physical in matches. He went back to acting and still works in TV and movies -- had a part in "Invictus", IIRC.

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sydneybrown

sydneybrown

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5 minutes ago, PetrolCB said:

Didn't they bring in Vick with the plan to reveal him as Katie's brother, or something like that? I feel like I remember reading that and it wasn't just some joke post. 

Scott had been in the WWF for about three years before the Vick angle, so he wasn't brought in for it, but yeah, the last name wasn't a coincidence.

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PetrolCB

PetrolCB

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21 minutes ago, colonial said:

The Commandant was a professional actor from South Africa named Robin Smith. He had apparently befriended Bret Hart, who recommended him to Vince.

This reminded me of a story Justin Gabriel told on Cabana's podcast about the Hitman. Bret apparently loved going to South Africa and (I think) "refused" to work there after WM 12 (since he was taking a break and was in a contract year) except on the condition that he fly first class and everything was on Vince's dime. So somehow Vince is persuaded to let Bret use the company's black card, in which he rents an Aston Martin and some mansion to live in for the whole tour. 

I think that's the gist of it, I could be sketchy on some parts. 

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HumanChessgame

HumanChessgame

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10 hours ago, Cyanide said:

I remember Velocity from like 2003-2005 being appointment viewing because that's where they'd shunt all the cruiserweights to for a time. Paul London especially was the MVP then with a bunch of really good matches with the likes of Jamie Noble, Nunzio, and Akio (Jimmy Yang), and of course the tag stuff with Kendrick. Also that's the period where you get those fun early Danielson cameos.

London and Akio had a best of 3 match series sometime around there that was really great.  I've got it on a comp somewhere and I think all the matches were from Velocity.

Steve Bradley worked a dark match on a Raw I went to back in 1999.  He definitely seemed to have some talent, it's a shame he never caught on anywhere else.

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