Your Wrestlers RIP Thread

[Matt D]

For a guy active into the 80s, we don't have a ton of Steinborn on tape. Here's what I wrote about the Gran Apollo match from the PR Set:

Okay, so this isn't a match that would have made a lot of other sets, I don't think. There's not a lot to it. It's not very long. It's very straightforward. It's more or less back and forth with just a short chinlock for heat. The finish is definitive but not elaborate. There's no sense of stakes. Apollo is a serviceable babyface with a good look but nothing special. My guess is that this has to do with footage availability to some degree, as there are only three other 1983 matches on the set, but more than that, I bet you that the committee just really wanted people to see Dick Steinborn.

Steinborn was a guy who was around Wrestling Classics years ago so his name came off as familiar at least. He was a second generation wrestler, whose dad promoted a bit as well. We have very little footage of him online. There's 8 minutes of a Dory Funk match from the late 60s, some of him vs Bruce Hart in the late 70s, etc. That sort of thing. Apparently, he had some top angles in PR, but I'm not the one to tell you about those. He does have some fun stories here: http://www.1wrestlinglegends.com/column/stein-00.html.

And he was great here. I'm someone who loves the little things, a bit of positioning here, a bit of footwork there, an extra flourish to set up a move, etc. That's what this was all about, as he guided Apollo around the ring and made everything that happened feel more natural and meaningful. He was such a mechanic in there but also constantly portrayed a sense of struggle and engagement with what was going on.

Let me give an examples: my favorite thing in the match came after a really nice drop toe hold. He turned it into a leglock, twisting the leg back. Apollo countered by wrapping his arm around Steinborn's head to pull him forward. Instead of breaking the lock, however, Steinborn slipped his own foot in there to keep the pressure on, and then, in order to break Apollo's hold on him, looped his arm around his leg to add additional pressure. All of this seemed like the most natural and obvious thing in the world. He made it look easy.

The match was full of things like that, these little moments that made me take notice. He did things that we tend to take for granted very well; he had a great eye poke, a mean chinlock (with a grimacing face), and when pulling Apollo back down by the hair to keep a hold, he did it so tightly and deeply that you actually sympathized with the ref for missing it. You didn't blame him for once. The heat was solely on Steinborn.

There wasn't much here, certainly not enough to rank it highly, but I enjoyed just about everything Steinborn did. It was obvious he knew all the tricks and had the experience-honed instinct to use them well. I see some of the other match ups he had, in PR and out, and it bugs me that we don't have, for instance, the Les Thornton matches easily available. I still plan on watching everything that we do have out there, though.

[odessasteps]

Fuller has talked about Steinborn (and his father Milo) few times on the Studcast, including the current ones about April 1976 when he came to Knoxville to feud with Don Carson. 
 

 

[Pete]

Steinborn under the hood as Mr Wrestling. And he lived up to the name as this match is the goods.

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

DSteinborn told many illuminating and amusing tales in the great Whatever Happened to...? publication. Even if you were too young to have seen him at all, his stories preserved core elements of the biz that he was there for. It also stood out how much his peers respected him.

- RAF

[clintthecrippler]

 

From the very small amount of All-South 1973 reels that the family of Tommy Seigler posted a few years back.

[Pete]

Long time WWF referee Jack Lotz passed away at 86 on Friday.

Obit

[RIPPA]

 

[odessasteps]

In the pre internet era, Pro Wrestling This Week was a fun show to expand d your horizons. 

[colonial]

PWTW was a godsend for wrestling fans stuck with watching just WWF shows in the 80s. Always a treat to see clips from, say, Portland, Puerto Rico and Memphis on a weekly basis.

Aging myself here, but I remember Pedicino dropping by some of the more ancient online wrestling forums in the late 80s/early 90s (such as CompuServe), promoting Global Wrestling Federation, encouraging people to watch and answering questions about the GWF TV shows (he congratulated a friend of mine who put 2+2 together and realized that the GWF's Patriot was the same guy as the AWA's Trooper).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RIPPA]

 

[sydneybrown]

The Apter magazines opened my world to the other federations, and Pro Wrestling This Week was the TV version.  Federations and talent who had never have gotten the exposure were introduced to kids like me.  I even knew about Savage injuring Steamboat with the bell weeks before it aired.  

[odessasteps]

7 minutes ago, sydneybrown said:

The Apter magazines opened my world to the other federations, and Pro Wrestling This Week was the TV version.  Federations and talent who had never have gotten the exposure were introduced to kids like me.  I even knew about Savage injuring Steamboat with the bell weeks before it aired.  

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by odessasteps

[Shane]

The UWF/World Class/PWTW block on Saturday nights was one of the fondest memories of my childhood. Pedicino and Solie had great chemistry and it was definitely a gateway to a lot of wrestling I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. 

[LoneWolf&Subs]

6 hours ago, RIPPA said:

 

Wait, was GWF on five days a week? I remember catching it on at my Grandmas who had cable, but I didn’t realize it was on all week. Was it just the same episode repeated five times?

[BobbyWhioux]

it was on five days a week and it was original content every day. The angles just moved at a glacial pace (big roster, 2-3 matches per show, squashes included)

and yes I saw an awful lot of Sean Waltman as The Lightning Kid.

Bagwell got started there too I think.

[Ace]

Bagwell was The Handsome Stranger. 

[sydneybrown]

6 hours ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Wait, was GWF on five days a week? I remember catching it on at my Grandmas who had cable, but I didn’t realize it was on all week. Was it just the same episode repeated five times?

I don't think it lasted more than a few months but yes, they had five fresh hours of TV every week.  Harlem Heat got their start there too.  Cactus Jack was also talent on their first set of tapings.  I remember them pushing The Patriot as the Hulk Hogan of their federation.

[LoneWolf&Subs]

The only episode of GWF I watched in that time period was the title tournament Lightning Kid won. Which shocked me given his finals opponent was ripped to shreds, and he was a rosey red babyface’d heel.

[RIPPA]

I know nothing else beyond Kris tweet here

 

[RIPPA]

More from PWI

Quote

PWInsider.com is sorry to report the passing of Travis Scott Bowden, who worked as a manager for the USWA in Memphis before settling into a role as a Memphis Wrestling historian, writing and podcasting about the territory in recent years.  The circumstances of Bowden's passing have not yet been released.  His childhood friend Kevin Lawler was the first to announce it via Facebook, writing he was "beyond devastated."  Bowden would have turned 49 next week.

A lifelong fan of Memphis, Bowden befriended Kevin Lawler and his brother, the late Brian Lawler after discovering that they were putting together their own version of what would later become known as backyard wrestling.  That opened the doors for Bowden to be allowed backstage, where he helped out setting up rings and doing whatever was needed.  When he and Brian were both in college, Bowden used him as a subject in a project for journalism class, which led to him being around at shows more often and interviewing different Memphis personalities.  When the USWA was short a referee, Jerry Lawler asked him to step in and gave him a crash course in what the referee's job entailed.  Bowden debuted that night.

After appearing for some time on TV as a referee, he was turned heel and shifted into a manager's role, which was an idea Eddie Gilbert came up with.  The plan was to make it a short-term role that would lead to him getting laid out and a few months later, return to the referee gig but Bowden ignored the instructions for his first live promo and instead cut what he thought would work out better.

"Just seeing my name on the TV outline for my designated promo freaked me out that morning," Bowden told George Wren on this website in a 2011 interview.  "It didn't help when Kevin Lawler walked up to me and said, 'Just think--if you go on to be a big star, people will always point back to this as your first interview.' Great--thanks a lot. However, I had a certain idea of what I should I say after planting my size 12 Doc Marten on Lawler's head. Not only had I been practicing heel interviews in front of a mirror dating back to the '70s, but also I had been carefully scripting in my mind what I wanted to say that day based on the events of last Monday night. But I was dismayed to arrive at TV Saturday to learn that I was to apologize to Lance and Lawler for my behavior, with Russell cutting me off saying, 'Sorry, son, it's too late. Promoter Eddie Marlin has fired you.' At that point, Eddie is supposed to come out as I'm shocked speechless, promising me a job as a manager. But even more disconcerting: They informed backstage that in two weeks, Eddie would beat me up after I screwed up some kind of interference and then they'd bring me back in a month as a babyface referee. Figuring it was live TV and my only chance to deliver the heel promo of my dreams, I came out as a heel from the start, claiming that I'd "stomped Lawler like the cockroach that he is." Lance carried me the rest of the way, including a classic exchange where he warned me of hanging out with the likes of Gilbert when I roll my eyes and say disdainfully, "Oh, OK, DAD! OK, DAD!" Afterward, Lance pulled me aside and told me that he nearly cracked up on that line. I also accused Lance of not leaving in 1989 to go to Atlanta to WCW but to run the Jerry Lawler Fan Club full time. Basically, I figured it was live TV, so what would they do, except fire me? Lawler called me over when I waked through the curtain and said, "Good. Very good. But next time, try to say what we told you to say." Hours later, Kevin Lawler told that while Jerry and Eddie were laughing backstage, that Jerry was also a little pissed, saying, "What the HELL is he doing?!"

As a manager, Bowden cornered Eddie and Doug Gilbert, Jerry Lawler, Bam Bam Bigelow, The Dream Machine, Tommy Rich and many others.  He was designed to be a modern day version of a Jimmy Hart type manager who talked a big game but was really a coward who used a football helmet as his foreign object of choice, based off the worked claim that Bowden was the nephew of Florida State Seminoles Coach Bobby Bowden.  Eventually, he shifted into a role where he would be wrestling Ms. Texas (WWE Hall of Famer Jacqueline Moore) and would be take the big beatings to get her over as a tough woman who could hang (legitimately, in terms of toughness) with the men in the territory.

Bowden was a regular for the territory from 1991 through 1996 - taking beatings from everyone you can think of, including Bill Dundee, Steve Austin and Flex Kavana (aka Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson).  He was also very influential at the time behind the scenes, passing on information regarding what was happening locally to different outlets in order to keep a spotlight on the area, which was slowly heading towards its last legs.   

Bowden left the area as he had moved to Los Angeles to pursue work as a screenwriter and actor.  He hooked up with Clerks Director Kevin Smith and wrote a regular column for Smith's now-defunct pop culture website MoviePoopShoot.com, a real life website that was a play on a joke in his film Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.  Bowden's Kentucky Fried Wrassling column became his calling card, recounting not just his own experiences in the Memphis territory but lots of historical pieces on classic angles and personalities. 

Although he would occasionally pop up on Memphis TV (mostly because the shows landed in the same time period he was visiting home), Bowden had moved on as a performer.  Bowden was the lead Editorial Copy Writer for RPA Marketing & Advertising out of Los Angeles, handling the marketing and promotional materials for Disney and character-centric campaigns for Minnie Mouse, The Secret Life of Pets, Finding Dory, Star Wars and more. 

Bowden at one point had some interest in WWE as a writer but didn't get the job, which he later noted was likely because the pieces he submitted as sample storylines were based on title belts and personal grudges, as opposed to someone's girlfriend being the centerpiece of the feud.  Bowden had long talked of wanting to write a book on the Memphis area and in recent years, continued his column and maintained a podcast dedicated to the territory and was selling Memphis t-shirts featuring designed based on classic Memphis wrestlers and logos from the '70s and '80s. 

Bowden would occasionally pop up at conventions, hosting Memphis-related discussion panels.   He was very passionate about keeping the Memphis torch lit and pointing out what made that territory so vibrant.

 

[Matt D]

Here's the whole angle/promo, btw.

[odessasteps]

Oh man. He was supposed to do the pod last week. And i was just tweeting him over the weekend. 

[LP Steve]

He was posting on Twitter just a couple of days ago.

[odessasteps]

http://www.odessasteps.co.uk/podcast/2015/12/5/episode-nineteen-cretinous-humanoids

Heres our pod with Scott talking about the passing of Tommy Gilbert and a bunch of other Memphis stuff. 

[Pete]

This is turning into a really bad week for former WWF personnel as long time referee Billy Caputo has passed away. Besides the E, he worked a million indy shows in and around NYC into the 00s... many were the times myself and @Rev Ray yelled "DO YOUR JOB CAPUTO!" as he found a way to miss blatant heel cheating and whatnot. RIP sir, and no hard feelings.