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March 2022 Wrestling Discussion


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One of the few things in this grim version of reality that makes RAF giddy is old (circa 1966-1985 preferably) wrestling magazines. i love 'em. Recently I was gifted a few, and also won a shockingly reasonable eBay auction (I refuse to pay more than $3@): I am in heaven. I just discovered that a really good time frame for my reading enjoyment is that 3 month publishing delay between Hulk Hogan returning to the AWA from Japan and quickly jumping to the WWF - so say, an Inside Wrestling with a cover date of March '84 is still reporting on how HH is going to unseat Bockwinkel because The Fans Demand It, but meanwhile the face, future, direction and reality of pro wrestling has changed forever. It's like a document for an alternate universe. The mags often have an element of innocence to them, in maintaining the kay fabes, but this is almost poignant. Damn, I love these things - now I am going to read "Johnny Powers - Is His Middle Name Violence?" and "The Night The Sheik Burned A Young REFEREE!!!". I am always learning...

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Stuff that leaps to mind from the old magazines in no particular order:

  • The Crockett-era Road Warriors being ranked the #1 team in the world in PWI forever despite not holding a title
  • Magazines running their own storylines wherein they hand-wring over giving or taking away World Title recognition
  • Wrestling Superstars magazine's Dream Matches.  Hogan vs Tyson!  WWF vs NWA in a Battle of the Network Stars style competition!  A tag tournaemnt where the regular teams are mixed up and the final was Eaton/Morton vs Lane/Gibson!
  • Eddie Ellner's heel act.
  • Dr. Sydney M. Basil
  • Second tier mag (Wrestling Eye?  Main Event?) weirdness, like a story about how HTM made a deal with the spirits of the Mississippi Delta so he could keep the IC title.
  • Ads for Champions of the Galaxy wrestling card game.  Yeah, I bought that.
  • General anti-Hogan sentiment, in all their kayfabe stories, after Vince cut the Apter mags off
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33 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Stuff that leaps to mind from the old magazines in no particular order:

  • The Crockett-era Road Warriors being ranked the #1 team in the world in PWI forever despite not holding a title
  • Magazines running their own storylines wherein they hand-wring over giving or taking away World Title recognition
  • Wrestling Superstars magazine's Dream Matches.  Hogan vs Tyson!  WWF vs NWA in a Battle of the Network Stars style competition!  A tag tournaemnt where the regular teams are mixed up and the final was Eaton/Morton vs Lane/Gibson!
  • Eddie Ellner's heel act.
  • Dr. Sydney M. Basil
  • Second tier mag (Wrestling Eye?  Main Event?) weirdness, like a story about how HTM made a deal with the spirits of the Mississippi Delta so he could keep the IC title.
  • Ads for Champions of the Galaxy wrestling card game.  Yeah, I bought that.
  • General anti-Hogan sentiment, in all their kayfabe stories, after Vince cut the Apter mags off

I loved that magazine. The highlights were Terry Funk winning one of the swimming competitions by punching someone while underwater, The Road Warriors destroying everyone in the weightlifting competition, Macho Man leading the WWF to victory in softball and the final obstacle course race between Flair and Hogan with Flair winning.

And don't forget about when PWI broke down the original fake Sting plot where the Horsemen had Barry Windham impersonate Sting so that Sid could win the title. They talked about how they bribed Sting's tailor who was broke into making Windham copies of Sting's tights, Windham being upset at JJ for telling him to lose some flab in order to better look like Sting and I quote, "one of Flair's numerous girlfriends in the Atlanta area was enlisted to apply Sting's face paint to Windham."

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In the pages of PWI Lex Luger/Lugar seemed like the most unstoppable force in wrestling.  The hindsight opinions on Luger's drawing and in ring ability, no matter how accurate, can never erase the power and glory the Apter mag words/photographs suggested of this young stallion.  Powers, Roma, Hercules puns initially unintended.

The cover that comes to mind when I think of the Apters is the 'Who is the Best in the UWF?'  We didn't get UWF in rural Ontario, but this feature unleashed the imagination.  Within a year I was awfully perplexed by the image of Ted Dibiase on said cover versus the man I was seeing on weekly 'Maple Leaf Wrestling (our recut version of 'Superstars of Wrestling')'.  Where did all that money come from I would wonder aloud? 

Edited by HarryArchieGus
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12 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

I loved that magazine. The highlights were Terry Funk winning one of the swimming competitions by punching someone while underwater, The Road Warriors destroying everyone in the weightlifting competition, Macho Man leading the WWF to victory in softball and the final obstacle course race between Flair and Hogan with Flair winning.

And don't forget about when PWI broke down the original fake Sting plot where the Horsemen had Barry Windham impersonate Sting so that Sid could win the title. They talked about how they bribed Sting's tailor who was broke into making Windham copies of Sting's tights, Windham being upset at JJ for telling him to lose some flab in order to better look like Sting and I quote, "one of Flair's numerous girlfriends in the Atlanta area was enlisted to apply Sting's face paint to Windham."

Flair and Windham in a footrace, pummeling each other with the batons!

I absolutely remember the Sting/Windham story.  You know your promotion is having issues when a magazine is writing better storylines and explanations for your angles than you can.

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8 minutes ago, HarryArchieGus said:

In the pages of PWI Lex Luger/Lugar seemed like the most unstoppable force in wrestling.  The hindsight opinions on Luger's drawing and in ring ability, no matter how accurate, can never erase the power and glory the Apter mag words/photographs suggested of this young stallion.  Powers, Roma, Hercules puns initially unintended.

The cover that comes to mind when I think of the Apters is the 'Who is the Best in the UWF?'  We didn't get UWF in rural Ontario, but this feature unleashed the imagination.  Within a year I was awfully perplexed by the image of Ted Dibiase on said cover versus the man I was seeing on weekly 'Maple Leaf Wrestling (our recut version of 'Superstars of Wrestling').  Where did all that money come from I wonder aloud? 

Hell yeah, man.  I don't know if it was a matter of Luger just understanding the power of magazine covers and made himself available to Apter whenever he could, or Apter understanding the power of a muscular dude on the cover to sell magazines.  Probably somewhere in the middle.  Luger was anointed the next Hogan so fast and was all over those mags.

I had that issue of PWI.  Really, if you look at DiBiase's face, he's pretty nonchalant about grabbing that trophy. Like his heart's not into it.  Like....he's maybe already filthy rich, doesn't need that thing, but is just half heartedly playing along!

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17 minutes ago, HarryArchieGus said:

In the pages of PWI Lex Luger/Lugar seemed like the most unstoppable force in wrestling.  The hindsight opinions on Luger's drawing and in ring ability, no matter how accurate, can never erase the power and glory the Apter mag words/photographs suggested of this young stallion.  Powers, Roma, Hercules puns initially unintended.

This is why I was flabbergasted one day in the late '80s when I looked at one of those second-tier non-Apter mags and read them lumping in Luger with the Honkytonk Man as guys who managed to hold titles while completely lacking in ability. 

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There's an account on Instagram called "depths of wikipidia".  They post weird things on wikipedia or random, fun facts about it.  On their stories, they were posting some fun wikipedia stats.  Turns out, the most edited page (55,089 edits) on wikipedia is the "list of WWE personnel".  

https://www.instagram.com/stories/depthsofwikipedia/2804239127999970468/

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1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

Hell yeah, man.  I don't know if it was a matter of Luger just understanding the power of magazine covers and made himself available to Apter whenever he could, or Apter understanding the power of a muscular dude on the cover to sell magazines.  Probably somewhere in the middle.  Luger was anointed the next Hogan so fast and was all over those mags.

I had that issue of PWI.  Really, if you look at DiBiase's face, he's pretty nonchalant about grabbing that trophy. Like his heart's not into it.  Like....he's maybe already filthy rich, doesn't need that thing, but is just half heartedly playing along!

I remember PWI did run a story creating a backstory for how Dibiase became the Million Dollar Man. He used an inheritance from one of his family members dying. I can't remember if they explicitly said it was from his dad dying in the ring but I think they shied away from that and just said it was his uncle or something like that. They tied that into his heel run in the UWF too.

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1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

I had that issue of PWI.  Really, if you look at DiBiase's face, he's pretty nonchalant about grabbing that trophy. Like his heart's not into it.  Like....he's maybe already filthy rich, doesn't need that thing, but is just half heartedly playing along!

Absolutely.  I was also suspicious of what looks like baby blue tights and a white boot with red trim.  Not sure why, but those colors seemed to indicate something much different from the man in the shiny suit on my favorite Saturday afternoon television program.

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PWI would always go to bat for the WWF having Intercontinental Tag-Team titles. As a kid I was into that idea and thought it was so logical. I mean, the NWA had a bunch of tag-teams and had a secondary title for the other guys to fight over. Why wouldn't the WWF do the same?

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16 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

PWI would always go to bat for the WWF having Intercontinental Tag-Team titles. As a kid I was into that idea and thought it was so logical. I mean, the NWA had a bunch of tag-teams and had a secondary title for the other guys to fight over. Why wouldn't the WWF do the same?

My action figure fed growing up had Intercontinental Tag Team titles based off of PWI championing this idea. Brian Pillman/Z-Man feuded with Doom and Demolition forever over those belts since I refused to let anyone other than The Rockers or The Steiner Bros have the main belts.

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1 hour ago, cwoy2j said:

I remember PWI did run a story creating a backstory for how Dibiase became the Million Dollar Man. He used an inheritance from one of his family members dying. I can't remember if they explicitly said it was from his dad dying in the ring but I think they shied away from that and just said it was his uncle or something like that. They tied that into his heel run in the UWF too.

Semi-related, they absolutely ran a story about how Ted was afraid of dying in the ring because that's how his dad went.

1 hour ago, GodzillaPerez said:

My action figure fed growing up had Intercontinental Tag Team titles based off of PWI championing this idea. Brian Pillman/Z-Man feuded with Doom and Demolition forever over those belts since I refused to let anyone other than The Rockers or The Steiner Bros have the main belts.

Speaking of action figure feds and tying in to the Sting/Windham discussion with @cwoy2j...I ran the Halloween Havoc storyline but my twist was, coming out of it, dressing as Sting drove Windham crazy and he kept working as Evil Surfer Sting.  I was a weird kid.

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18 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

ran the Halloween Havoc storyline but my twist was, coming out of it, dressing as Sting drove Windham crazy and he kept working as Evil Surfer Sting.  I was a weird kid.

Honestly, you were a bit ahead of your time on that one by a couple years, if you ask me

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3 hours ago, cwoy2j said:

PWI still has me convinced that Al Perez and Wildcat Wendall Cooley are going to be among the stars of the 90s.

I see no reason to doubt that. 

Perez was silky smooth.  Sounds like the industry soiled his spirit (tho, I don't know any facts of the matter).  Pro Wrestling Plus here in Canada would feature Continental Wrestling from time to time.  My pals and I all thought we were pretty fuckin cool when we'd list the somewhat obscure (regionally) Wildcat as one of our favorite wrestlers.  Like knowing a really cool band that nobody had heard of (outside of NY and pre-internet) like ESG

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42 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Semi-related, they absolutely ran a story about how Ted was afraid of dying in the ring because that's how his dad went.

Speaking of action figure feds and tying in to the Sting/Windham discussion with @cwoy2j...I ran the Halloween Havoc storyline but my twist was, coming out of it, dressing as Sting drove Windham crazy and he kept working as Evil Surfer Sting.  I was a weird kid.

Barry Windham was the GOAT Galoob figure since he was about the only one posed like he was actually doing a move.

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2 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

The big Apter mag up and comer for my era of reading them definitely has to be Reckless Youth.

Reckless Youth was the Al Perez/Wendell Cooley of the 90s in that respect.

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55 minutes ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

On the topic of Sting doubles, I'm just sad we never got Stang. 

I hope AEW is listening.  You throw Jake Roberts in the mix with this devious 'Stang' and you might as well print the darn'd money.

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5 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Stuff that leaps to mind from the old magazines in no particular order:

  • The Crockett-era Road Warriors being ranked the #1 team in the world in PWI forever despite not holding a title
  • Magazines running their own storylines wherein they hand-wring over giving or taking away World Title recognition
  • Wrestling Superstars magazine's Dream Matches.  Hogan vs Tyson!  WWF vs NWA in a Battle of the Network Stars style competition!  A tag tournaemnt where the regular teams are mixed up and the final was Eaton/Morton vs Lane/Gibson!
  • Eddie Ellner's heel act.
  • Dr. Sydney M. Basil
  • Second tier mag (Wrestling Eye?  Main Event?) weirdness, like a story about how HTM made a deal with the spirits of the Mississippi Delta so he could keep the IC title.
  • Ads for Champions of the Galaxy wrestling card game.  Yeah, I bought that.
  • General anti-Hogan sentiment, in all their kayfabe stories, after Vince cut the Apter mags off

Even as a 9 year old when the WWF started their own magazine "Victory" it was easy to see that PWI stripping the WWF of World Title status was just sour grapes. 

I always loved that they'd mention Tony Atlas was the last person to pin Hogan.

The Supercard's issues were always fun, even if the AWA and World Class Supercard's weren't that super.

I always assumed that any of the prizes they gave away like Dusty's boots were rigged, now I think they never actually gave out said prizes.

While PWI, Inside Wrestling, The Wrestler, and WWF magazine were sold at grocery stores, drug stores and chain convince stores/dairy's, Wrestling Eye, Main Event, and Wrestling All Stars were only sold in mom and pop convince stores mixed in with "dirty" magazines.

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TIL Mr TV and I are the same age!

My favorite WWF Magazine memory was the time the mom & pop store up the block from me would just ignore street dates and put the issue on sale as soon as they got it.  So I read a story about Zeus' heinous attack at the hands of Zeus on Saturday Night's Main Event on a Saturday morning, 14ish hours before it would air.

Also, really old WWF magazines were like really old WWF TV: they'd do stories on wrestlers outside WWF if they thought there was a chance they could get them.  A friend of mine had an old issue with a story about the Von Erichs in it.

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