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2022 Wrestling RIP Thread


RIPPA

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I saw Don do his thing at TNA's first Coney Island show in 2010. They had a huge crowd (like 6-7,000) and EVERYONE wanted some merch. Don was completely inhuman... getting pulled in 19 directions at once, selling everything in sight and still taking the time to get selfies with folks that wanted one. In a lot of ways it was one of greatest performances I've ever seen in wrestling. 

RIP Don... you were absolutely gem mint ten.

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Don was good entertainer who could have been a great entertainer if his boss at his most famous job didn’t tell him that his job was to yell and be stupid. He did that perfectly just like a wrestler does a stupid gimmick perfectly. So in that regard he was great but he was also a great color man period when he wasn’t locked in to that gimmick. That syndicated TNA show was an example. He and Tenay called the matches normally on that show. 

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Meltzer:

Before starting out I'd like to send sympathies to the family and friends of Don West, who passed away earlier today at 59. We talked a lot about him on today's show. I'll just say I barely knew him, but when I saw him, he treated me like he'd been my friend for 20 years. He came into this business with very little product knowledge and was thrown on national television because Jeff Jarrett I believe saw him selling merchandise on the Shop At Home Network on television. It was a ballsy move to put a guy like that on commentary but he also had the advantage of working with Mike Tenay, who has as great an understanding of wrestling as almost anyone. Don was not well received at first because of his over-the-top style and lack of product knowledge, but he wanted to learn, did learn, and he and Tenay jelled quickly. I thought they ended up as a tremendous pairing, with Tenay's X's and O's product knowledge and West's enthusiasm. Announcers can't save a bad product, but announcers an enhance a good one and when new talent was trying to get over, or matches were exciting, Don's ability to enhance the excitement of the audience was tremendous. At the end of the day, he was a great guy who was given a bad hand in recent years with his battles with cancer. After leaving Impact, he worked as a radio host at KPQ in Wenatchee, WA and as the General Manager for the Wenatchee Wild minor league hockey team. He and Tenay had remained close long after they were no longer working together.

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2 minutes ago, DreamBroken said:

Absolute legend. He and Tenay were a perfect duo together for their time in TNA.   RIP Don West 

 

 

Been thinking of you, bud knowing what TNA/Impact Wrestling means to you. Fuck cancer.

Edited by The Natural
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5 hours ago, RIPPA said:

If you have never seen Don West hustling baseball cards (his pre-wrestling gig) - you are in for a treat. Including young Don looking exactly like Jeff Foxworthy

 

Those are trash sets, Don West earned his pay in talking them up.

I pulled out my binder with the 85 Topps Traded/Rookies out of curiosity cause those usually have interesting rookie cards and the best of the lot was an Ozzie Guillen, which is decidedly underwhelming.

RIP to one of the greatest salesmen of professional wrestling and FACTORY SETS in history.

Edited by elizium
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When he first started in TNA, I hated West and wished like hell they would have gotten anyone else to replace him. But damn if he didn't win me over to the point that when he left and was replaced with Taz I was disappointed (and I like Taz as an announcer). West just had such a magnetic personality. He was at one of the TNA house shows they ran up here and dude was a machine getting people to the merch table. Hell I went up and bought a shirt even. West was just impossible to resist. I'm pretty sure he could have sold you the shoes you were already wearing.

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