November 2023 Wrestling Talk

[Cobra Commander]

The 80s boxing mentions reminds me that since Panama Lewis is dead, you can rip off at least one Panama Lewis spot for a heel manager

That spot would be the Magic Bottle from Pryor/Arguello.

You don't even have to actually put something in the bottle. Just have the manager give him the bottle and the heel almost hulk up to win the match to get over the concept that "something hinky's going on here"

Now if you really wanna gimmick it up, a big feud with a match that has the bottle on a pole and once the good guy gets the implied amphetamine drink and wipes out the heel. Which probably sounds like a way to just end the magic bottle gimmick, or put it on the backburner for awhile until it's "needed". Like it's Ted DiBiase's black glove.

[Mister TV]

2 hours ago, Shartnado said:

Wasn't this generally thought of as one of the best debuts/ debut angles at the time and for a long time afterwards?

It’s one of the best, I was watching that night and it was a totally “holy shit” moment when those things were rare. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

9 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

The 80s boxing mentions reminds me that since Panama Lewis is dead, you can rip off at least one Panama Lewis spot for a heel manager

That spot would be the Magic Bottle from Pryor/Arguello.

You don't even have to actually put something in the bottle. Just have the manager give him the bottle and the heel almost hulk up to win the match to get over the concept that "something hinky's going on here"

Now if you really wanna gimmick it up, a big feud with a match that has the bottle on a pole and once the good guy gets the implied amphetamine drink and wipes out the heel. Which probably sounds like a way to just end the magic bottle gimmick, or put it on the backburner for awhile until it's "needed". Like it's Ted DiBiase's black glove.

Ironic that you mention gloves cause Panama Lewis's other famous cheating (and more heinous) scandal was the Billy Collins Jr./Luis Resto plaster of Paris saga. The loaded glove thing was a staple of pro wrestling forever, including but not limited to Ted DiBiase's having just watched DiBiase use it to beat Master G the other week.

BTW I suggest for boxing and non boxing fans alike watch Assault in the Ring if they haven't. I mean it's going to make you super enraged and also very sad, but it's worth the watch.

[Cobra Commander]

I might have seen that documentary, or at the very least I've heard of it and the other things Panama Lewis did

That also makes me realize that Panama Lewis was a trainer and I don't know if wrestling has ever had a wellknown heel 'trainer' who would essentially be a de-facto manager. I guess a personal trainer in a non-wrestling role has the logical hole of "if they look that good, they should be able to wrestle too".

I make this claim knowing that I've been watching an era of JCP when they had Hiro Matsuda (Lex Luger's trainer) making a cameo as a heel aligned with Lex Luger. So i'm sure there's probably been a few wrestling trainers who could parlay that job into being a heel trainer. Although guys like Larry Sharpe were wrestling school trainers and were just managers on-screen.

I guess "I am evil on TV" might not be the greatest way to inspire people to go to your wrestling school, but most wrestling schools are a bit scammy so having an on-screen trainer who's evil might be hitting a profession too close to home.

[Shartnado]

1 hour ago, Mister TV said:

It’s one of the best, I was watching that night and it was a totally “holy shit” moment when those things were rare. 

Wish I could see stuff like this these days!

[Elsalvajeloco]

10 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

I might have seen that documentary, or at the very least I've heard of it and the other things Panama Lewis did

That also makes me realize that Panama Lewis was a trainer and I don't know if wrestling has ever had a wellknown heel 'trainer' who would essentially be a de-facto manager. I guess a personal trainer in a non-wrestling role has the logical hole of "if they look that good, they should be able to wrestle too".

I make this claim knowing that I've been watching an era of JCP when they had Hiro Matsuda (Lex Luger's trainer) making a cameo as a heel aligned with Lex Luger. So i'm sure there's probably been a few wrestling trainers who could parlay that job into being a heel trainer. Although guys like Larry Sharpe were wrestling school trainers and were just managers on-screen.

I guess "I am evil on TV" might not be the greatest way to inspire people to go to your wrestling school, but most wrestling schools are a bit scammy so having an on-screen trainer who's evil might be hitting a profession too close to home.

And AFAIK Panama wasn't even a trainer trainer. He was a guy who I believe made up his bones by just being in the camp of Roberto Duran (hence the name Panama). He was basically like the guidance/training camp coordinator/chief strategist guy much like the aforementioned Lou Duva who had guys George Benton (probably the 2nd greatest boxing trainer all time after his mentor Eddie Futch), Ronnie Shields, Roger Bloodworth, Tommy Brooks, and others do the actual in ring training. From that, a little later on Panama would become a chief second and a highly sought after one. So much so that when he did eventually get banned for his various crimes, people were still trying to get him to corner them. I mean I watched some fight from the 90s or maybe early 2000s either earlier this week or last week where Panama Lewis was the trainer for someone, but he wasn't even allowed in the damn building to watch the fight. 

He wasn't the only slimy person in that arena cause there was Javier Capetillo (who I believed passed away this past August), Memo Heredia, and others who are still in high demand after getting caught cheating. You probably can also throw in Victor Conte, who for years was able to resurrect his name through boxing after the BALCO scandal and was hired by a bunch of top boxers for their strength and conditioning program.

Going back to Mid South, the past episode I watched had Bill Watts realizing he probably wrote/booked himself into a corner with some of the dastardly shit Cornette was getting away with and just did a short little announcement to lead off the show of, "Hey, we cannot punish him...what can you do? Such is life". Wait, you have visual evidence of something (a mountain of it) and you come up with nonsensical shit to get around it? Wrestling, ladies and gentlemen.

[Cobra Commander]

maybe "Cornerman" is the role that's in-between trainer-trainer and manager-manager in regards to roles not really dipped into for Wrestling. Outside of Lucha title matches (and Bret Hart/Bob Backlund), they don't really use a cornerman/second in match situations much.

(edit: introducing the concept of 'seconds' would help explain the situations where the friends of the heel just hang out with him during matches despite not really having an overt permission to be at ringside)

But by that description, Panama doesn't sound like a total hanger-on who parlayed his role into sticking around longer. Like if a wrestling territory brought in the NWA champ and one of his flunkies ended up sticking around to cause trouble after the big match?

48 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Going back to Mid South, the past episode I watched had Bill Watts realizing he probably wrote/booked himself into a corner with some of the dastardly shit Cornette was getting away with and just did a short little announcement to lead off the show of, "Hey, we cannot punish him...what can you do? Such is life". Wait, you have visual evidence of something (a mountain of it) and you come up with nonsensical shit to get around it? Wrestling, ladies and gentlemen.

was that essentially the "Cornette's mother has enough money to pay any fine we put on her son anyways" explanation or a different announcement?

I know they did "let's ban all the objects" one week which didn't really stick either.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Cobra Commander

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, Cobra Commander said:

maybe "Cornerman" is the role that's in-between trainer-trainer and manager-manager in regards to roles not really dipped into for Wrestling. Outside of Lucha title matches (and Bret Hart/Bob Backlund), they don't really use a cornerman/second in match situations much.

(edit: introducing the concept of 'seconds' would help explain the situations where the friends of the heel just hang out with him during matches despite not really having an overt permission to be at ringside)

That would force people to actually differentiate between all those categories and also make sense of those roles (see: having a managerial license that can be revoked at any time) or some plausible explanation why they can just do whatever, which is why I brought up the Cornette example. When the angles and storyline are logically booked, when you go outside that conventional logic, it becomes very noticeable. Nowadays, if you just don't explain it in the first place, you don't worry about that. Thus, why managers/advisers/valets/etc. have been defanged for the purposes they should serve. This goes double for when authority figures can just make rulings on the spots frequently with no outside additional counsel or consultation with other high ranking officials. You can just do shit and either get away with it or folks just blindly accept it.

In my real time rewatch of SMW in late 94, Cornette has kinda ran into that same issue in that he (through what's played out on TV) logically explained everything. However, because the Bullet Bob Armstrong/Cornette and various intersecting feuds have gone on forever, he (Cornette as a booker) has to do stuff that doesn't make sense like the shadowy interim authority figure to un-explain shit that has already happened or retcon something. Problem is now a lot stuff just doesn't make sense. You have multiple parties that are doing shit that would get you suspended in real life if not banned if wrestling were real as wrestler, manager, or authority figure but since Cornette and Bullet Bob have to be TV in some shape or form, you have to make up some shit that is totally illogical and goes against what was originally set up to keep them there. Granted Cornette probably deserves a little sympathy cause he ain't really ran a promotion before that, and he's trying to do that when WWF is his primary gig. So I get that but it still doesn't make sense.

1 hour ago, Cobra Commander said:

But by that description, Panama doesn't sound like a total hanger-on who parlayed his role into sticking around longer. Like if a wrestling territory brought in the NWA champ and one of his flunkies ended up sticking around to cause trouble after the big match?

I think Panama stayed around cause boxing during the time he was there operated on a very seedy, grimy basis and you needed lightning rods for controversy. As I was telling @SirFozzie in Boxing/MMA folder, if you didn't have the connections, it was hard to make money whether as a boxer, trainer, or whatever. Also, pre Ali Act, you can basically be someone's trainer, manager, and promoter and no one (not even the boxer) challenge that. The Duva family ran Main Events (aka Main Events/Monitor) so if you were a Main Events promoted fighter and weren't trained by Lou Duva and/or his coaching staff made up of various guys mentioned above, it was hard to get in the door of any real paydays. The promoters could basically help dictate who trained you and when they trained you. Before Mike Tyson left Don King and he had a revolving door of head/assistant co-head trainers from Richie Giachetti to Stacey McKinley to Tommy Brooks, Don King basically installed John Horne and Rory Holloway who grew up with Mike Tyson as co-managers but in reality be basically unofficial moles in the Tyson camp.  So not only was Don grifting from Mike on the outside as his promoter but he had folks who Mike dearly trusted on the inside to basically control Mike, his decisions, and influence everything he did. In a fucked up world like that, a Panama Lewis is going to have a job somewhere even he isn't even allowed in the building (sometimes he could be in the crowd and just not the corner) to actually do his job. Now, at some point, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze and Panama basically disappeared completely up until the Assault in the Ring doc.

1 hour ago, Cobra Commander said:

was that essentially the "Cornette's mother has enough money to pay any fine we put on her son anyways" explanation or a different announcement?

I know they did "let's ban all the objects" one week which didn't really stick either.

I think it's the former but IIRC it was more in the vain of Cornette has found so many loopholes that we cannot actually punish him. That begs the questions of, going back to what's logical, how fucking dumb is the promotion? I think that's why Bill did the announcement kinda in passing. When you tilt the thing so far the other way, it makes the babyface side look totally moronic. In a promotion that's driven by if pro wrestling was a real sport, the toughest competition in the world is here in Mid South, and you ran away to where the competition is easier, then a lot of the stuff that is happening doesn't make sense in respect to what you're trying to accomplish in terms of storylines.

[Cobra Commander]

Maybe someone showed Bill Watts the movie "Death Wish" and he decided that Charles Bronson's character was filling a void that law enforcement couldn't handle with all the criminals gaming the system.

Mid-South feels like a program that loses a certain amount by not having local promos attached to episodes on the network.

[Curt McGirt]

Man, I just watched the Iron Savages in ROH (formerly Bear Country) do the Magic Potion. I think it was supposed to be muscle milk but the announce team claimed they gave him water as a placebo last week 

Dunno if Ross ever gave Watts a tape of Death Wish but he sure as shit saw Walking Tall. 

[Cobra Commander]

Wrestling personality estimated net worths, from the pages of Wrestling89 Magazine ( https://archive.org/details/wrestling-89-1989-summer-mega-powers-c/page/39/mode/1up )

Quote

 

• Ted Turner: $2.5B
• Vince McMahon: $200M
• Hulk Hogan: $25M
• Ted DiBiase: $14M
• Ric Flair: $8M
• Tully Blanchard: $7.5M
• Randy Savage: $5M
• Paul Ellering: $4.25M
• Jim Cornette: $2.5M
• Bobby Heenan: $1.5M
• Ronnie Garvin: $950K
• Hiro Matsuda: $750K

 

Same magazine has a photo of Cornette and the Midnight Express sitting at a replica of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show set while in NYC.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

@ElsalvajelocoI always learn a shit ton from your posts dude. You have to forgive me because I'm sure this is gonna end up being one of those things where the guys/incident end up being like household names but I think it was a bit before my time, or I was extremely young - I saw this clip years and years ago where after a heated weigh in and/or presser, two guys keep jawing out into the parking lot and the one guy hops right over the hood of the guys limo to get to him (or something similar) and they're surrounded by cameras and entourages, it's a wild scene. In my minds eye, it's a white Cadillac, and the dude who hops over it is a tall Black guy in a (red?) windbreaker?? I haven't seen it in forever but I always thought it visually looked very wrestling in nature, and would have made for an awesome angle for AEW or NJPW to lift at one of those post shows (or WWE back when the network started). Or better yet, if a promotion were able to get say a Comicon panel or something like that.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Zakk_Sabbath
or awesome to lift *for* an angle, I should say - lest I imply boxing is ever fixed in any fashion whatsoever 😉

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

@ElsalvajelocoI always learn a shit ton from your posts dude. You have to forgive me because I'm sure this is gonna end up being one of those things where the guys/incident end up being like household names but I think it was a bit before my time, or I was extremely young - I saw this clip years and years ago where after a heated weigh in and/or presser, two guys keep jawing out into the parking lot and the one guy hops right over the hood of the guys limo to get to him (or something similar) and they're surrounded by cameras and entourages, it's a wild scene. In my minds eye, it's a white Cadillac, and the dude who hops over it is a tall Black guy in a (red?) windbreaker?? I haven't seen it in forever but I always thought it visually looked very wrestling in nature, and would have made for an awesome angle for AEW or NJPW to lift at one of those post shows (or WWE back when the network started). Or better yet, if a promotion were able to get say a Comicon panel or something like that.

Yeah, that was Larry Holmes leaping onto Trevor Berbick back when Larry was in the middle of his boxing comeback (or 2nd boxing comeback cause he retired after the second Michael Spinks fight, came back to fight Tyson a couple years later, and got absolutely demolished). Yes indeed, the whole thing was lifted from some pro wrestling angle. Basically, Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick fought when Larry was champ back in the early 80s. Trevor Berbick, who had always been a super strange dude in and out of the ring for various reasons, about ten years later started blaming Holmes for Trevor's acrimonious split with his wife. Berbick claims that the night before or week of his fight with Holmes, Larry sent his (Larry's) mistress to Trevor's room. I guess he's implying sabotage and that he was too weak from sex to the point he couldn't beat Larry? I dunno. It's hard to make out from Trevor's thick ass garbled Jamaican accent. Anyway, Larry being a notorious family man who has been married to his wife for several years didn't like that obviously seeing as Trevor was trying to start shit in Larry's home as well.

So at one of Larry's comeback fights in Florida (IIRC it was only on local TV in Florida, which tells you the level of who Larry fought given Larry's own name recognition), Trevor decided to make an appearance at the post fight presser and levied those accusations against Larry. Larry just sorta ignored it and played it off, but Trevor was extremely belligerent. That comes to an end. Then at some point, off camera after the post fight presser, Trevor ran into Larry face-to-face and Larry put hands on him and feet as well apparently. I think the same TV crew that picked up the post fight antics of Berbick started their cameras back up and caught the aftermath, which was some straight up WCW Nitro shit from 1997. Or WWF Raw from the same year cause Larry Holmes came leaping off that car like Stone Cold Steve Austin and flying karate kicked the shit out of Berbick (IN COWBOY BOOTS!) and on camera this time. 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

I had a few details wrong but that is 100% what it was holy shit

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I had a few details wrong but that is 100% what it was holy shit

No you're good cause the only time it's been referenced in the last twenty years was one of those list shows The Best Damn Sports Show, Period had about 15+ years ago of all the wildest moments in sports or craziest moments or whatever random list they came up with. They just played the kick and the "Larry Holmes kicked and punched me!" part before that. You saw like five seconds of it. The other boxing moment I remember from that same show was the Mitch "Blood" Green/Mike Tyson nightclub incident. Mike tells the story much better on his podcast, but in summary, Mitch was high out of his mind on PCP and Mike basically had to literally almost kill him for him to stay down. Mike basically ran away cause he thought he actually murdered a man. The aftermath was Mitch did survive (thankfully), but the right side of face looked like hamburger meat.

Oh and speaking of managers and crazy shit: Since I heard JR bring up his name on a Raw from 1996 I watched not too long ago, Rock Newman would have been a perfect fit for pro wrestling. He was what the Nation of Domination should have been instead that weird ass five to six months where they had like a Puerto Rican dude and a white ex con as like 2/3 of the group and then two white dudes following them in their posse. Rock has since been reborn as an online talk show host for a (sometimes very educational and insightful actually) program he hosts on the campus on Howard University. However, before that when he was managing Dwight Muhammad Qawi and more famously Riddick Bowe during his rise and subsequent fall as Heavyweight champion, Rock Newman had ALL the fucking heat in the world. I dunno but there is something about a black dude with ZERO melanin who is the absolutely proudest black man ever. I guessed that along with some of his behavior rubbed people the wrong way. All I know he was perhaps the most entertaining manager in boxing (save for Butch Lewis probably). My favorite moment personally and somehow maybe not even top five craziest Rock Newman moment* is the moment in the first Riddick Bowe vs. Elijah Tillery fight. Bowe was a contender on his way up after fighting on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team with names like Kennedy McKinney, Michael Carbajal, Roy Jones Jr., and eventual rival Ray Mercer. Tillery was basically just a fringe contender guys like Bowe fight on the way up. Anyway, Bowe was winning the fight and for some reason it got heated after the bell to end the round. It got heated to the point where Elijah Tillery starts KICKING Riddick Bowe and probably accidentally invents MMA. Bowe retaliates a little. Then, things start getting hairy. Tillery backs up towards the rings to evade Bowe, Rock Newman who had been just sitting ringside facing the hard camera jumps on the apron to stop Tillery from going after Bowe, Tillery's trainer or manager then INTERCEDES on the behalf of Tillery and grabs by the leg or maybe part of the waist Rock Newman who himself has his arm wrapped around Tillery's neck. The momentum from Tillery's manager/trainer pulling Rock backwards sends Elijah Tillery UP AND OUT of the ring on some Royal Rumble shit and almost looks like Rock lifted Elijah Tillery out of the ring and suplexed him. Rock is not a big man at all and this is the era where most of the heavyweights are huge individuals. Thus, visually, it looks fucking INSANE. You see Elijah Tillery and then five seconds later, HE DISAPPEARS! Vanishes. Once you watch it, you cannot stop replaying it. It's going live rent free in your head.

*Okay, the crazier Rock Newman moments that I can think of just off the top of my head:

1. The Fan Man incident, which had to be #1 by default. It's probably the most infamous moment in boxing outside of Down Goes Frazier, Ali's celebration after the first Liston fight, Tyson biting Holyfield in the rematch, No Mas, Jim Lampley's spine chilling "IT HAPPENED...IT HAPPENED!" after Foreman's upset of Michael Moorer in 1994 which I just watched and his excellent money quote afterwards ("...Moorer becomes the 68th man, in 26 years to have fallen before the professional fury of George Foreman"). Rock hit the "fan man" with one of those giant brick phones. REPEATEDLY.

2. The Bowe/Golota I pier six brawl that lasted a good ten minutes. It could be 1a just for the mayhem, but it's two cause Rock was just a contributor of many.

3. Starting shit at the Bowe/Pierre Coetzer pre fight presser conference protesting Apartheid. Larry Merchant got so angry he started caping for white people to the point it was ridiculous. You would NEVER hear a commentator do that on an MNF or Sunday night football broadcast or anywhere and get away with it. Merchant crying over perceived race baiting and almost inadvertently supporting Apartheid South Africa is something even Vince didn't do until almost six years later.

4. He got into it with manager of Ray Mercer on Tuesday Nights Fights after a tuneup Bowe had getting ready to fight Mercer. Just like Bowe vs. Lennox Lewis in the pros, Bowe vs. Mercer never actually happened so that's the only keepsake of it never happening.

 

[clintthecrippler]

Loving the trip down memory lane to when I followed boxing during my teenage years. Being a kid during the heyday of Mike Tyson his dominance, that world, and reading about the history was as awe-inspiring to me back then as wrestling was. 

Speaking of Trevor Berbick, did we ever figure out if Nobuhiko Takada really shot on him in UWFI or if this was just a really well done work?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru8DzzSBq2s

[Mister TV]

7 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

No you're good cause the only time it's been referenced in the last twenty years was one of those list shows The Best Damn Sports Show, Period had about 15+ years ago of all the wildest moments in sports or craziest moments or whatever random list they came up with. They just played the kick and the "Larry Holmes kicked and punched me!" part before that. You saw like five seconds of it. The other boxing moment I remember from that same show was the Mitch "Blood" Green/Mike Tyson nightclub incident. Mike tells the story much better on his podcast, but in summary, Mitch was high out of his mind on PCP and Mike basically had to literally almost kill him for him to stay down. Mike basically ran away cause he thought he actually murdered a man. The aftermath was Mitch did survive (thankfully), but the right side of face looked like hamburger meat.

Oh and speaking of managers and crazy shit: Since I heard JR bring up his name on a Raw from 1996 I watched not too long ago, Rock Newman would have been a perfect fit for pro wrestling. He was what the Nation of Domination should have been instead that weird ass five to six months where they had like a Puerto Rican dude and a white ex con as like 2/3 of the group and then two white dudes following them in their posse. Rock has since been reborn as an online talk show host for a (sometimes very educational and insightful actually) program he hosts on the campus on Howard University. However, before that when he was managing Dwight Muhammad Qawi and more famously Riddick Bowe during his rise and subsequent fall as Heavyweight champion, Rock Newman had ALL the fucking heat in the world. I dunno but there is something about a black dude with ZERO melanin who is the absolutely proudest black man ever. I guessed that along with some of his behavior rubbed people the wrong way. All I know he was perhaps the most entertaining manager in boxing (save for Butch Lewis probably). My favorite moment personally and somehow maybe not even top five craziest Rock Newman moment* is the moment in the first Riddick Bowe vs. Elijah Tillery fight. Bowe was a contender on his way up after fighting on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team with names like Kennedy McKinney, Michael Carbajal, Roy Jones Jr., and eventual rival Ray Mercer. Tillery was basically just a fringe contender guys like Bowe fight on the way up. Anyway, Bowe was winning the fight and for some reason it got heated after the bell to end the round. It got heated to the point where Elijah Tillery starts KICKING Riddick Bowe and probably accidentally invents MMA. Bowe retaliates a little. Then, things start getting hairy. Tillery backs up towards the rings to evade Bowe, Rock Newman who had been just sitting ringside facing the hard camera jumps on the apron to stop Tillery from going after Bowe, Tillery's trainer or manager then INTERCEDES on the behalf of Tillery and grabs by the leg or maybe part of the waist Rock Newman who himself has his arm wrapped around Tillery's neck. The momentum from Tillery's manager/trainer pulling Rock backwards sends Elijah Tillery UP AND OUT of the ring on some Royal Rumble shit and almost looks like Rock lifted Elijah Tillery out of the ring and suplexed him. Rock is not a big man at all and this is the era where most of the heavyweights are huge individuals. Thus, visually, it looks fucking INSANE. You see Elijah Tillery and then five seconds later, HE DISAPPEARS! Vanishes. Once you watch it, you cannot stop replaying it. It's going live rent free in your head.

*Okay, the crazier Rock Newman moments that I can think of just off the top of my head:

1. The Fan Man incident, which had to be #1 by default. It's probably the most infamous moment in boxing outside of Down Goes Frazier, Ali's celebration after the first Liston fight, Tyson biting Holyfield in the rematch, No Mas, Jim Lampley's spine chilling "IT HAPPENED...IT HAPPENED!" after Foreman's upset of Michael Moorer in 1994 which I just watched and his excellent money quote afterwards ("...Moorer becomes the 68th man, in 26 years to have fallen before the professional fury of George Foreman"). Rock hit the "fan man" with one of those giant brick phones. REPEATEDLY.

2. The Bowe/Golota I pier six brawl that lasted a good ten minutes. It could be 1a just for the mayhem, but it's two cause Rock was just a contributor of many.

3. Starting shit at the Bowe/Pierre Coetzer pre fight presser conference protesting Apartheid. Larry Merchant got so angry he started caping for white people to the point it was ridiculous. You would NEVER hear a commentator do that on an MNF or Sunday night football broadcast or anywhere and get away with it. Merchant crying over perceived race baiting and almost inadvertently supporting Apartheid South Africa is something even Vince didn't do until almost six years later.

4. He got into it with manager of Ray Mercer on Tuesday Nights Fights after a tuneup Bowe had getting ready to fight Mercer. Just like Bowe vs. Lennox Lewis in the pros, Bowe vs. Mercer never actually happened so that's the only keepsake of it never happening.

 

Realizing the 30th anniversary of the Fan Man incident was the other day makes feel really old. 

[J.H.]

Man, I remember that Holmes/Berbick incident. The day after it hapoened I was couldn't belueve how peo-wrestlubg it was

Janes

[Curt McGirt]

9 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I guess he's implying sabotage and that he was too weak from sex to the point he couldn't beat Larry? I dunno.

That is some hilariously macho shit right there. "I was nuttin all nite longa, you sapped mah energy! Not all the tigah bone drink I drank could help me!"

Is there footage of that Bowe/Golota fight or any other boxing riots still there where you can see anything and it's not just a mess, or the footage was taken away by the cops and never returned? Got to be something out there.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Curt McGirt

[Zimbra]

I was watching random old Memphis matches in the tub last night and seeing Stan Hansen begging off and throwing powder as a cowardly heel is the weirdest goddamned thing I've ever seen.  

The bullrope match with Austin Idol was fuckin' ace, though.

[odessasteps]

It’s funny that Idol is still annoyed about having to work Stan back then. 

[S.K.o.S.]

New wrestling crossword!

https://twitter.com/avalanchestyle/status/1723362949115621516

Thumbs down to the tweet not embedding, because I photoshopped a crossword onto Muta's face and I think I did a pretty good job of it. Anyway, people seem to be enjoying this particular crossword, so take a look!

[odessasteps]

Missy is tweeting from the convention in NYC, lots of photos of her with a bunch of folks.

[Zimbra]

14 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

It’s funny that Idol is still annoyed about having to work Stan back then. 

Oh?  Why is he annoyed by it?

[Zakk_Sabbath]

31 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

I was watching random old Memphis matches in the tub last night

This rules. Settle a debate among my IRL friends and I, please:

Recently in our group chat, it came up that none of us had taken a bath since we were really young, we're all shower guys and gals, so we were talking hypothetically about the following: in an adult bathtime situation, do you shower off first then soak your clean self in the water, or do you sit your unclean self in the water then shower the human broth off after? I'm sure by my phrasing you can tell where I land so apologies if you represent the opposing view on this one