Curt McGirt Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 The funny thing is the high-speed jabber of his is so appealing. You just wanna hear him talk just to talk. And he's a wrestler who NEVER SPEAKS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 3 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said: The funny thing is the high-speed jabber of his is so appealing. You just wanna hear him talk just to talk. And he's a wrestler who NEVER SPEAKS. It's a family trend cause you will never unhear Ed Farhat's speaking voice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 I've never heard it! Oh shit... that's now a bucket list thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 1 minute ago, Curt McGirt said: I've never heard it! Oh shit... that's now a bucket list thing. https://youtu.be/F397TFu0HlU This was a clever way of doing this without breaking kayfabe. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 "Heat up his opponents". Love it. I'm not sure he has a better rap than his nephew but him being super honest and saying "I'm a loner" is the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 34 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said: "Heat up his opponents". Love it. I'm not sure he has a better rap than his nephew but him being super honest and saying "I'm a loner" is the best. I didn't buy that many wrestling magazine surprisingly (probably cause I was broke), but I do remember buying a magazine that had photos of Sabu marrying his first wife in Japan. His first wife was Japanese and he was regularly for FMW at the time so technically it made sense, but it was strange seeing nice looking, dapper ass Sabu with his little wife when he was also in the middle of a great run with ECW largely built on his mystique. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 13 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said: I didn't buy that many wrestling magazine surprisingly (probably cause I was broke), but I do remember buying a magazine that had photos of Sabu marrying his first wife in Japan. His first wife was Japanese and he was regularly for FMW at the time so technically it made sense, but it was strange seeing nice looking, dapper ass Sabu with his little wife when he was also in the middle of a great run with ECW largely built on his mystique. Similar to seeing Stan and his wife? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 10 minutes ago, odessasteps said: Similar to seeing Stan and his wife? Probably moreso with Sabu because at least Hansen had settled into a role where I don't think he had to protect his character as much. That also reminds me I just heard Ivan Koloff's real speaking voice for the first time last year, and I was quite shocked. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 Abby is usually high on those kind of lists too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyChamp Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 Sabu was somehow that last oldschool mysterious wrestler and the first new age hardcore wrestler all at once, new age hardcore the way people in America came to define it anyway. People were scared of him yet couldn’t look away. They wanted to see what he would do next, even if it didn’t involve a table. Then if it involved a table they wanted to see that to. He’s a bridge connecting the years and eras. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 11 minutes ago, odessasteps said: Abby is usually high on those kind of lists too. Abdullah is an interesting one because by the time most of the fans who watch wrestling today or watched during the 90s/2000s who are younger than 40 or 45 years old now just saw the dude who waddles around and cannot do anything but get color. Moreover, they doing blood regularly on TV as time wore on so the novelty of a certain type of brutality you only got in Abby's heyday was gone. He largely failed to reinvent himself so I don't think there is a certain aura around him like you have around Brody (mind you death helps that) or even a Kamala if you saw him before more cartoony and somehow more offensive WWF brand Kamala. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 I just meant the surprise on hearing him talk and the discrepancy with visual to the voice. to compare, I don’t think Kamala’s real voice shocked anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 Just now, odessasteps said: I just meant the surprise on hearing him talk and the discrepancy with visual to the voice. to compare, I don’t think Kamala’s real voice shocked anyone. Yeah, that kinda goes with that cause Abby sounds exactly how I expected him to sound. My point largely being I never was enamored enough to care how he sounded. I also think I heard Abby talking in like late 90s/2000s and by then, I already knew he was just some Canadian dude who sold ribs. Now that said, the wildest match I ever seen live was an indy shot Foley did as Cactus Jack vs. Abdullah at the Washington County Convention Center in Greenville, Mississippi. Had that night not happened on top of his sort of possible indirect connection with Bruiser Brody's death, I probably couldn't give two shits about Abdullah the Butcher. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyChamp Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 Abdullah is another example. I think people look through smart colored glasses when talking about him. When Abdullah showed up on a Sunday afternoon, people watched just to see what he would do. He could have continued on through the changes but he lost his fire. He just wanted to get paid. Then finally he just plain got old. And that’s without getting into what kind of a person he is outside of the ring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 37 minutes ago, BloodyChamp said: Abdullah is another example. I think people look through smart colored glasses when talking about him. When Abdullah showed up on a Sunday afternoon, people watched just to see what he would do. He could have continued on through the changes but he lost his fire. He just wanted to get paid. Then finally he just plain got old. And that’s without getting into what kind of a person he is outside of the ring. I think it would be different is he had quietly faded out of the business in the early to mid 90s than kept going. Outside of Chamber of Horrors, I don't remember him being in too many marquees matches after the height of his career like a Terry Funk. I know Terry is a big outlier compared to his contemporaries, but he found ways to be useful despite being older and not as physically capable as other wrestlers. Therefore, you could put in a main event of an ECW PPV and people be genuinely excited to see it. If you read magazines or did research on the early part of his career and read tall tales about the Madman from Sudan, you're expecting this absolute savage monster and this tremendous brawler. Abdullah spent too many years around wrestling NOT being that. He just stayed around too long being an indie guy who is essentially a bleeding Humpty Dumpty. Other guys came around and innovated what he was famous for. The only thing that sort of redeems him is the fact he wrestled Carlos Colon a thousand times in Puerto Rico and the people on the island were invested in that. However, every match was damn near the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 The good thing is we now have a lot of early/earlier Abby to judge his whole career, not just the mid 80s onward. for example , from 1971 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 Also babyface Abby vs the aforementioned Sheik 1980 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 1 hour ago, odessasteps said: The good thing is we now have a lot of early/earlier Abby to judge his whole career, not just the mid 80s onward. for example , from 1971 That's the JWA match I watched recently. I believe I also watched Baba vs. Gorilla Monsoon from 1969. Relatively young-ish Bob Marella looking like a TV character actor. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyChamp Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 Even his best matches aren’t judged fairly IMO. Watching an Abdullah the Butcher match from 1987 isn’t much different than watching Ox Baker or somebody in the 1960s. The sold out crowd can be going insane, responding to their every action, and there we are judging it because those actions don’t involve any flying through the air or something. Then say O he wasn’t that good a worker. I think Abdullah was still a big deal in Japan late in his career, and he was a big part of ECW for what seemed like a long time even though it probably wasn’t. This was all in spite of him just working to get paid by then. He could have gotten away with it had the business not changed IMO and he could have done more than merely gotten away with it if he didn’t qui lt giving a shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 Seeing REALLY young Judoka Abby in a photo in the Calgary book is what flipped me out. Facial hair! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 I’m on vacation so no keyboard but I’ll briefly note that Abby is in my pal, @elliottpwo’s top 50 for his GWE 26 list and he might be there for mine too. He’s one of the best in history when it comes to timing, giving exactly as much as he should when he should, and making the absolute most of his mythos in his actual ringwork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyChamp Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 He’s possibly the GOAT oldschool mysterious/psycho/monster/freak/animal/whatever else you call it heel of alltime. And he’s that without appreciating his in ring ability really. I hate it but it’s true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefanie Sparkleface Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 He had a really great elbow drop. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 1 hour ago, BloodyChamp said: He’s possibly the GOAT oldschool mysterious/psycho/monster/freak/animal/whatever else you call it heel of alltime. And he’s that without appreciating his in ring ability really. I hate it but it’s true. Who would the other contenders be? The Sheik? Firpo? Wild Bull Curry? The Stomper? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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