YR's Pro Wrestling of the Day

[MichaelWinicki]

One of my favorite stories is Ricky working with Bill Dundee and telling Dundee he should start throwing 'shoot' punches. Dundee asked 'why?' Morton replied 'cuz your working punches are KILLING ME.'

Ricky was so great at selling. Him and Steamboat were the best sellers I ever saw.






YR

Like you've posted before, guys don't know how to sell like they used too.

 

[timb2]

Asuka I like a lot!!! Hopefully WWE won't screw her over like they do all import wrestlers. She could be a big star if used right.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Interesting video from 1969 with Gordon Solie reviewing Dory Funk Jr's. win over "Big Thunder" Gene Kiniski to win the NWA world title:

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Interesting video from 1969 with Gordon Solie reviewing Dory Funk Jr's. win over "Big Thunder" Gene Kiniski to win the NWA world title:

Back when the wrestlers and announcers treated it like it was real. And back when wrestling sold money, wrestlers made a good living and fans from small towns could watch live wrestling each month.




YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Back when the wrestlers and announcers treated it like it was real. And back when wrestling sold money, wrestlers made a good living and fans from small towns could watch live wrestling each month.




YR

And "Big Thunder" lost cleanly via submission (which was quite a common way for championships to change hand for decades).

A champion today losing cleanly via submission?

Doesn't happen.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

I was thinking about this a while ago, but it is a shame that one of the most important people in the pro wrestling business in the 70’s and 80’s almost never gets talked about these days. He almost never gets the ‘shoot interviews’ or the podcasts nor does he get an Appreciate Night or a Lifetime Achievement Awards much less does he ever have a chance of making the WWE Hall of Fame.

In fact, I think you could make an argument that this man is directly responsible for creating more wrestling fans, sustaining those fans for the business and further fueling their passion for the business than just about anybody ever involved with pro wrestling. All the while he has never been a burden to pro wrestling, acted unprofessionally nor has he tried to sabotage careers. And he always refuses to put himself and his accomplishments over.

That man?

Bill Apter.

***​

A while ago a radio show I was listening to brought up the question as to what was the best decade for wrestling? The answers usually were either the 80’s or the 90’s, but my answer would have been the 70’s.

Why?

Because everybody basically won in the 70’s.

People forget the beauty of the territory system in wrestling and how wrestling was designed and ran and how much fun it was, particularly for the fans. The fans won because they could not only see wrestling on TV, but fans from even the smallest towns could go and watch live pro wrestling several times a month.

The wrestlers won because they could travel from territory to territory and either pick up work, refresh their characters/personas in a new territory and they had plenty of work which meant plenty of money and less travel than we see today (or even in the 80’s).

The promoters won because there was more of them and they were allowed to promote their territory as they deemed fit and if they got in a bind, other promoters would help lift them up by bringing in their own talent.

But, what this also created was a mystique for the wrestlers with their fans. There was always those ‘dream matches’ that fans would think up of like Flair vs. Hogan, Piper vs. Lawler, The Von Erichs vs. the Midnight Express, etc.

Nobody captured that better than Bill Apter and his ‘Apter Mags’...The Wrestler, Inside Wrestling and later on Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

***​

Before the internet was available, the only way to track wrestling in other territories was to either be lucky enough to have a big satellite like my parents had and catch some of the territories like Championship Wrestling from Florida, Memphis, World Class, the AWA, Crockett, Georgia Championship Wrestling and the WWF. Or you could be crazy enough and wealthy enough to actually fly out to other territories or somehow develop friendships with people that would tape their local TV and swap tapes from your local territory.

However, the Apter Mags served as our internet during this time. You could get the pictures and read about what was going on in Japan or Portland or Kansas City, etc. And Apter had such a knack for bringing feuds to life and making wrestlers you didn’t get to see into larger-than-life superstars.

What I didn’t know until my 20’s was that Apter actually wrote most of the wrestler’s interviews himself, thus creating ‘fake interviews.’ But again, he had the knack for knowing what to say that made it sound believable and either furthered the storyline or made the wrestler sound more impressive. I can’t begin to think of how difficult that must have been because as the WWE should hopefully find out by now, it’s impossible to be able to write interviews where your voice is the same as the wrestler’s. But somehow Bill Apter was able to do it convincingly.

One of the interviews that remains with me to this day is the Nikita Koloff interview with the cover of ‘I cry for Magnum TA.’

It was something that all Magnum TA fans felt, but never quite articulated upon. And then comes ‘The Russian Nightmare’ telling the world (albeit Apter really saying it) that he cries for what happened to Mangum TA. It was such a powerful statement to make.

You also had the gory wrestling covers:

The covers that in hindsight humorous, but back then were just great:

And the downright comical:

***​

But as the internet came along, the popularity of the Apter Mags declined. Not only because they couldn’t print out the news and results as fast as the internet, but more fans started to get exposed to Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter which took a serious ‘shoot style’ approach to covering and analyzing wrestling. Dave is a personal acquaintance of mine that I’ve known for nearly 25 years, so it’s not a knock against him as his WON. But, the attitude towards wrestling shifted from the fans being marks to them being more interested in pulling back the curtain a little bit.

Apter, like Meltzer, took a while to adapt to the internet and that drew the ire of his readers as well. And eventually there were fans, myself included, that took Apter to task for being a pro wrestling apologist. Particularly at the time when wrestlers were dropping like flies due to rampant drug and steroid abuse.

However, as I got to know Apter a little better I started to see the follies in my thinking. That he wasn’t the apologist that I thought he was. And he had much trepidation whether or not to get involved with the internet not only for his worry about the internet being a fad, but he thought that we were getting ‘too inside’ with the information presented to the fans and thus it could kills the business that he loves.

And now looking back not only do I think he was right, but I miss those days of reading his magazines for my pro wrestling fix. And I miss those days of contemplating who was better than who and those dream matches and wrestling cards.





YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I was thinking about this a while ago, but it is a shame that one of the most important people in the pro wrestling business in the 70’s and 80’s almost never gets talked about these days. He almost never gets the ‘shoot interviews’ or the podcasts nor does he get an Appreciate Night or a Lifetime Achievement Awards much less does he ever have a chance of making the WWE Hall of Fame.

In fact, I think you could make an argument that this man is directly responsible for creating more wrestling fans, sustaining those fans for the business and further fueling their passion for the business than just about anybody ever involved with pro wrestling. All the while he has never been a burden to pro wrestling, acted unprofessionally nor has he tried to sabotage careers. And he always refuses to put himself and his accomplishments over.

That man?

Bill Apter.

***​

A while ago a radio show I was listening to brought up the question as to what was the best decade for wrestling? The answers usually were either the 80’s or the 90’s, but my answer would have been the 70’s.

Why?

Because everybody basically won in the 70’s.

People forget the beauty of the territory system in wrestling and how wrestling was designed and ran and how much fun it was, particularly for the fans. The fans won because they could not only see wrestling on TV, but fans from even the smallest towns could go and watch live pro wrestling several times a month.

The wrestlers won because they could travel from territory to territory and either pick up work, refresh their characters/personas in a new territory and they had plenty of work which meant plenty of money and less travel than we see today (or even in the 80’s).

The promoters won because there was more of them and they were allowed to promote their territory as they deemed fit and if they got in a bind, other promoters would help lift them up by bringing in their own talent.

But, what this also created was a mystique for the wrestlers with their fans. There was always those ‘dream matches’ that fans would think up of like Flair vs. Hogan, Piper vs. Lawler, The Von Erichs vs. the Midnight Express, etc.

Nobody captured that better than Bill Apter and his ‘Apter Mags’...The Wrestler, Inside Wrestling and later on Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

***​

Before the internet was available, the only way to track wrestling in other territories was to either be lucky enough to have a big satellite like my parents had and catch some of the territories like Championship Wrestling from Florida, Memphis, World Class, the AWA, Crockett, Georgia Championship Wrestling and the WWF. Or you could be crazy enough and wealthy enough to actually fly out to other territories or somehow develop friendships with people that would tape their local TV and swap tapes from your local territory.

However, the Apter Mags served as our internet during this time. You could get the pictures and read about what was going on in Japan or Portland or Kansas City, etc. And Apter had such a knack for bringing feuds to life and making wrestlers you didn’t get to see into larger-than-life superstars.

What I didn’t know until my 20’s was that Apter actually wrote most of the wrestler’s interviews himself, thus creating ‘fake interviews.’ But again, he had the knack for knowing what to say that made it sound believable and either furthered the storyline or made the wrestler sound more impressive. I can’t begin to think of how difficult that must have been because as the WWE should hopefully find out by now, it’s impossible to be able to write interviews where your voice is the same as the wrestler’s. But somehow Bill Apter was able to do it convincingly.

One of the interviews that remains with me to this day is the Nikita Koloff interview with the cover of ‘I cry for Magnum TA.’

It was something that all Magnum TA fans felt, but never quite articulated upon. And then comes ‘The Russian Nightmare’ telling the world (albeit Apter really saying it) that he cries for what happened to Mangum TA. It was such a powerful statement to make.

You also had the gory wrestling covers:

The covers that in hindsight humorous, but back then were just great:

And the downright comical:

***​

But as the internet came along, the popularity of the Apter Mags declined. Not only because they couldn’t print out the news and results as fast as the internet, but more fans started to get exposed to Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter which took a serious ‘shoot style’ approach to covering and analyzing wrestling. Dave is a personal acquaintance of mine that I’ve known for nearly 25 years, so it’s not a knock against him as his WON. But, the attitude towards wrestling shifted from the fans being marks to them being more interested in pulling back the curtain a little bit.

Apter, like Meltzer, took a while to adapt to the internet and that drew the ire of his readers as well. And eventually there were fans, myself included, that took Apter to task for being a pro wrestling apologist. Particularly at the time when wrestlers were dropping like flies due to rampant drug and steroid abuse.

However, as I got to know Apter a little better I started to see the follies in my thinking. That he wasn’t the apologist that I thought he was. And he had much trepidation whether or not to get involved with the internet not only for his worry about the internet being a fad, but he thought that we were getting ‘too inside’ with the information presented to the fans and thus it could kills the business that he loves.

And now looking back not only do I think he was right, but I miss those days of reading his magazines for my pro wrestling fix. And I miss those days of contemplating who was better than who and those dream matches and wrestling cards.





YR

Luved wrestling mags.

As I look back on it today I'm in awe (as both a fan and a business guy) of the system that was pro-wrestling until it came apart in the mid 80's.

I still remember titles of articles like 'Harley Race: "Am I hated as much as the Spoiler?"' LOL!

Pure gold!

And we as fans just ate it up.

I especially enjoyed the "Top 10" lists. This was especially true in the late 60's and early 70's when the only wrestling I could watch on TV was based in Toronto, Canada the other territory of the original Sheik, Ed Farhat,

I was always interested in seeing if a favorite wrestler like Ernie Ladd was up or down in the rankings.

Likewise I would wonder who other wrestlers were... "Who's this Buddy Colt guy?"

I feel bad for prowrestling fans today. The business of prowrestling was so much better then– And the magazines were a big part of that.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Luved wrestling mags.

As I look back on it today I'm in awe (as both a fan and a business guy) of the system that was pro-wrestling until it came apart in the mid 80's.

I still remember titles of articles like 'Harley Race: "Am I hated as much as the Spoiler?"' LOL!

Pure gold!

And we as fans just ate it up.

I especially enjoyed the "Top 10" lists. This was especially true in the late 60's and early 70's when the only wrestling I could watch on TV was based in Toronto, Canada the other territory of the original Sheik, Ed Farhat,

I was always interested in seeing if a favorite wrestler like Ernie Ladd was up or down in the rankings.

Likewise I would wonder who other wrestlers were... "Who's this Buddy Colt guy?"

I feel bad for prowrestling fans today. The business of prowrestling was so much better then– And the magazines were a big part of that.

It's how I got interested in ECW. I kept reading about the 'crazy ECW fans in Philly' and the mystique behind Sabu. They were also having cards with some of my favorite wrestlers like Steve Austin (before he came to ECW after he was fired from WCW), Arn Anderson, Dory and Terry Funk. Most people look at ECW 'originals' like the Dudley Boyz (who I think are vastly overrated). But the real originals of that morph from Eastern Championship Wrestling were guys like JT Smith, Taz, Dean Malenko, Tommy Cairo, Shane Douglas, Taz, Sabu, etc.

At that time it was common for mainstream wrestling coverage to shun ECW for being too extreme, too lewd, etc. But Bill Apter had no problem giving it plenty of coverage and it sparked my initial interest and then me and friends traveling 4-1/2 hours in snow storms to go to the ECW Arena and making a lot of friends that are still friends of mine to this day.





YR

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Females in pro wrestling for decades were mostly a sideshow along with midget wrestlers or they were female valets. The valets were usually reserved for southern promotions as outside of Miss Elizabeth, the female valet was not prevalent in the northern territories. Eventually Wendy Richter came along and was mega-over due to her connection with Cyndi Lauper and Hulk Hogan. However, after having a dispute with Vince McMahon, the Fabulous Moolah helped double cross Richter and pinned her in an impromptu shoot match.



Richter was never to be seen again and for the most part, female wrestling in the USA was dead. However, female wrestling in Japan remained a strong business. They treated wrestling as a sport and the females like real athletes. The emergence of wrestlers like Akira Hokuta, Manami Toyota, Aja Kong and Bull Nakano made female wrestling a viable business in Japan.

Speaking of Nakano, when WCW and WWF started to see the business that the women were doing in Japan, they tried to bring that stateside again with female wrestlers like Nakano. And usually the main American opponent was Alundra Blaze.

That quickly died out. So much so that Blaze (aka Madusa Miceli) came onto WCW and dumped the WWF Woman’s Title in the trash.



And nobody cared.

In fact, she was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this past year.

And women’s wrestling in the US died again. That was until Sable came along. Sable (Rena Lesnar) was married to wrestler Marc Mero at the time. When the WWF signed Mero they found Sable to be very appealing to the crowd and then started to use Sable as the ‘T and A’ portion of the Attitude Era. But, the crowd was not completely convinced of her until one person put her over. And that same person put over Alundra Blaze and many other women in wrestling. And she goes down as my favorite female wrestler…

Luna Vachon.

Luna was adopted by wrestler Butcher Vachon. Her uncle ended up being Mad Dog Vachon and her aunt was Vivian Vachon. Her godfather was Andre the Giant as the Vachons were from Quebec and Andre had an affinity for Quebec wrestlers.

Luna wanted to be a wrestler since she was a child despite her parents wishes. She eventually trained to be a wrestler and became a female version of her uncle, Mad Dog.

Luna’s goal in wrestling was to one day become the WWF Woman’s Champion. While today that would seem like a worthy goal for an aspiring female wrestler, back in the 80’s it virtually meant nothing (as noted by Miceli dumping the best and nobody caring).

But Vachon didn’t want it just gifted to her. She wanted to be a great wrestler which she was. When she was a heel…nobody cheered for her. But, they didn’t leave the building either. They rooted for the Alundra Blaze’s and Sable’s of the world. But when she was a face, which only really happened in ECW, everybody cheered for her:



That’s what a great wrestler does. They incite hate when they are heels and they provoke cheers when they are faces. And to do it to the tilt like Luna did is extremely difficult to pull off.

But getting back to the point, all Luna wanted to do was become the WWF Woman’s Champ. Sable on the other hand just wanted the money. She didn’t like the business, didn’t like having to wrestle and really didn’t have the talent to wrestle. And she didn’t give a rat’s arse about the WWF Woman’s belt and she felt that Luna was beneath her.

What most people don’t remember about Sable is that while she first got over as Mark Mero’s wife, that pop was going to have a short shelf life because of the numerous attractive women that could come along. Remember, Sunny was still in the WWF at that time and there were clearly as many Sunny fans as Sable fans early on in Sable’s ‘career.’ But, it wasn’t until Luna put Sable over repeatedly that Sable then started to clearly outshine Sunny.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the Sable vs. Luna match at WrestleMania 13. But if you ever catch it, Luna makes Sable look like a million dollars. And that’s what Luna did for Sable…make a no-talent, ingrate a millionaire while never getting the favor in return of winning the WWF Women’s title. And when you think of WrestleMania 13 (Austin vs. Michaels w/Mike Tyson as the ref) that spurred the change in the Monday Night Wrestling Wars as immediately afterward the WWF started beating WCW in the ratings. And whether we like it or not…Sable played a big role in that, but Sable doesn’t become Sable if Luna wasn’t hated, serving as the perfect foil who made Sable look like a talented wrestler when she wasn’t.

One of my favorite stories is that even though Miceli dumped the WWF Women’s belt later on…when she had the title as Alundra Blaze she came to Luna and told her that she would let Luna win the belt and make it look like an accident. Miceli appreciated Vachon’s putting her over all of the time and knew how passionate Luna was about winning the belt. But in the end, Luna convinced Miceli to drop the idea because it wouldn’t be ‘best for business.’

And in the end, Luna never got that title. Sable, who didn’t even care for the belt, ended up suing the WWE for millions of dollars.

But Sable’s victory actually put life into the title again and that was carried on to female wrestlers like Trish Stratus and Lita along with what we see with the woman’s title today.

And the WWE still cannot help but mock Luna:



Every woman that wrestles in the WWE today owes a big debt of gratitude to Luna Vachon. Without her, no woman’s title would exist.






YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

A great hour of prowrestling from Florida in November 1981...



Flair is champ and goes against Pat O'Connor former NWA Heavyweight Champion (who was in his late 50's by this point but still could put out a good match).

Jack Brisco takes on Buzz Sawyer.

The theme of the show is that Jack Brisco is looking to get the championship back from Flair. In actuality Brisco didn't want to have anything to do with another championship run due to the grueling schedule but it made for good prowrestling drama.

If Jack Brisco doesn't get much credit today, then Pat O'Conner gets even less unfortunately.

Pat was a very good champion, who simultaneously held both the NWA and AWA world titles. He was also a stake-holder in the famous St. Louis Wrestling Club with maybe the greatest promoter of all-time in Sam Muchnick– Where he did booking in the late 70's and early 80's.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

With ESPN’s 30 for 30 on Ric Flair coming up, I wanted to do a post on him. However, the difficulty with doing a post on Flair is to try and keep it short and sweet with a wrestler who has had arguably the most incredible career of any pro wrestler in the history of the business.


One of the interesting aspects of Flair is that he was originally trained by Verne Gagne. Flair thought he had to be a massive wrestler in order to make it in the business, so he bulked up to over 300 pounds:

However, he couldn’t make it thru the cardio required to make it thru Verne’s camp, so he had to quit and come back at a much smaller weight. That played a large role in Flair becoming the wrestler he eventually came….a wrestler with such incredible endurance that he was often referred to as The 60 Minute Man.


He was really the perfect person for the NWA World Heavyweight Champion title. He was a heel which meant that the local face from the territory would get that shot at the title and that worked better than having a face champion where the local heel in the territory would get their chance at the title. He also had the ability to get the face over, regardless of their in-ring ability. Thus, he could draw fans to the stadium by his appearance, presentation and mouth on the mic…but then he could boost attendance in the short term, get the face over and the local promotion could play off that to gain more long-term attendance. Here’s one of my favorite examples with Flair coming to Memphis to wrestle Jerry Lawler.





As a wrestler, he certainly borrowed a lot of different things from different wrestlers. The Nature Boy gimmick came from the great, Buddy Rogers. His ‘Flair strut’ came from Jackie Fargo and his ‘Fargo strut.’ And his in-ring style was very reminiscent of Ray ‘The Crippler’ Stevens.’


One of Flair’s strengths was that he added his own little ‘flare’ to the those facets to his character. As the Nature Boy, he was all about the wealth and the women and how the everyday man in the face wasn’t in the same class as him because of his wealth and prestige.


Where Jackie Fargo’s strut was more of a face strut to help amuse the fans, Flair’s strut was done more in a way to display his arrogance towards his face opponent. And while he had that heavy bumping style of Stevens, he was more technical from an offensive standpoint to display his intelligence that comes from his wealthy and prestigious background.


He was the perfect candidate for the NWA World Heavyweight champion because he could carry absolute slugs from territories to great matches. He had the endurance to go Broadway and keep the belt while creating more business for the promotion down the road. And he had the mic skills to draw the ire of the fans

***​

Having said that, it wasn’t like Flair was without his flaws.


For starters, back in the 80’s and 70’s most main event championship matches never aired on TV. The idea was to save them so the fans would pay for a ticket to watch them live. That worked in Flair’s favor because he more or less had a template of styles he would wrestle depending on the wrestler. For the big, powerhouse stiffs, he would wrestle a certain style where he would get almost no offense in, bump around for the wrestler and somehow cheat to come away with a victory.


But as the late 80’s came along, now more main event championship matches were being airead on free TV. And that meant more exposure to Flair matches and if Flair was wrestling Nikita Koloff one week, you would see an almost identical match when he was wrestling Lex Luger 3 months later.


And by the early 90’s, particularly when he was in the WWF, he simply refused to get much of any offense in, regardless of his opponent.





In these situations it actually made the opponent look weaker because after a while the fans started to wonder why Flair was supposdly so great if he could only win by luck and breaking the rules while getting zero offense in.


As a promo, I always preferred the more calm and collected Nature Boy instead of the raving lunatic Nature Boy. Not that the raving lunatic Nature Boy promo was always bad, but it needed to be done when an opponent finally got under Flair’s skin.

***​

As the 90’s came along, it was certainly a different era for Flair. Having been so used to being the heel, now he was the face. And part of the problem was that he felt more comfortable being the heel that he would try to force that down the fans’ throats and they would still want to cheer for him.


His legendary battle against Vader who represented a different type of wrestler…one that preferred stiffness and realism at the risk of hurting and injuring his fellow co-worker showed that Flair could still hang. But, then he eventually had to face the politics of Hogan, whose style was completely outdated and the politics of Eric Bischoff, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall who seemed to resent Flair for his days of being on the booking committee in the late 80’s and early 90’s.


This actually led to more fans favoring Flair…only for Flair to still and try to be the heel that he was simply never going to regain.


As a fan, I wanted to style and profile with the Nature Boy like the rest of the fans. And while he certainly wasn’t without his flaws as a worker or even on the mic, he was able to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of being the long time NWA World Heavyweight Champion. And more importantly, entertaining fans for our four decades.






YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Big Ric Flair fan here...

Fortunately received Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling here in western New York in the late 70's when Flair was probably at his athletic peak.

I think many of his best matches as far as showing offensive skills that were less template driven were when he was US Champion wrestling guys that were more his size like Jimmy Snuka, Greg Valentine, Paul Jones and Ricky Steamboat.

As Rich pointed out his matches as world champ were more "same ole, same ole" with Flair being beaten from pillar to post and somehow winning at the end through the use of leverage of the ropes or a hand-full of tights. But I guess that was part of the era when guys didn't want to lose cleanly.

The guy was a terrific wrestler... Just terrific.

Unfortunately as a father and husband... He was bad. Real bad.

 

[pjtoadie]

Big Ric Flair fan here...

Fortunately received Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling here in western New York in the late 70's when Flair was probably at his athletic peak.

I think many of his best matches as far as showing offensive skills that were less template driven were when he was US Champion wrestling guys that were more his size like Jimmy Snuka, Greg Valentine, Paul Jones and Ricky Steamboat.

As Rich pointed out his matches as world champ were more "same ole, same ole" with Flair being beaten from pillar to post and somehow winning at the end through the use of leverage of the ropes or a hand-full of tights. But I guess that was part of the era when guys didn't want to lose cleanly.

The guy was a terrific wrestler... Just terrific.

Unfortunately as a father and husband... He was bad. Real bad.

His 30 for 30 episode should be a good one.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

His 30 for 30 episode should be a good one.

I give the guy a lot of credit in how quickly he came back from breaking his back in the 1975 plane crash that killed the pilot and put Johnny Valentine in a wheel chair.

 

[Zordon]

damn ric used to be a fatty.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

damn ric used to be a fatty.

That was the "look" for many wrestlers up until Vince's steroid era.

He's 6'1, so 300lbs was too much.

His first "look" when arriving in the Mid-Atlantic area was sort of a Jimmy "Boogie-Woogie" Valiant/"Superstar" Billy Graham look.

It was only a little later on when he adopted the "Nature Boy" persona.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

The Freebirds vs. The Von Erichs was the first feud that drew me into pro wrestling. And I think it was one of the most brilliant feuds in the ways it was set up and the potential drawing power that could come from it.

The Von Erich’s started with the father, Jack Adkisson. Adkisson was a former football player and discus thrower at SMU who later turned to pro wrestling where he became a German **** named Fritz Von Erich. One of the common themes that former World Class wrestlers have discussed is just how stiff they worked in World Class. One old saying is that in World Class you didn’t kick a guy hard enough until there was imprints of his laces on his boots on the man’s skin.

You can tell this came right from Fritz as each of the Von Erichs were known to be stiff, but to get it as good as they gave it. And that’s because Fritz was a helluva stiff worker himself:



And that’s what set the tone for World Class. It was nearly as moveset heavy as Mid South or Crockett Promotions was. It was a lot of brawling, but it was good ole fashioned Texas punches, stomps and kicks that the fans believed in because there was plenty of reason to believe in them.

What most fans don’t realize is that the Freebirds actually first came into World Class as babyfaces. Unfortunately, I cannot find video of the Ric Flair vs. Kerry in a cage match at Christmas Star Wars. But Michael Hayes comes in as the special referee in the match as a friend of The Von Erich’s. And when Hayes has enough of Flair’s antics and decks Flair and Kerry refuses to get a cheap victory, all hell breaks loose and the infamous shot of Terry Gordy slamming the steel cage door on Kerry and that allows Flair to get the victory. And now the heat has shifted from Flair vs. the Von Erich’s to The Freebirds vs. the Von Erich’s.

***​

I think Michael PS Hayes is the most underrated worker on the mic in pro wrestling history. He is easily a top-5 mic worker in the history of pro wrestling in my book. He was flat out incredible as a heel on the mic. He knew how to get himself, Terry Gordy and Buddy Jack Roberts while making you hate them enough that it turned an average babyface into a big babyface.



But what makes Hayes such a great mic worker is that he was great as a babyface as well.



And that’s a big reason why the Freebirds vs. Von Erichs took off. The Freebirds were babyfaces and ‘friends’ of the Von Erich’s. Hayes’ ability to work the mic as a babyface and to get over their friendship with The Von Erich’s. Then when they turned on The Von Erich’s it drew an intense hatred from the fans which Hayes just amplified with his incredible heel mic work.

I honestly believe that Michael Hayes was a better all-around mic worker than The Rock. And I don’t even think it is close.

The problem with Hayes is that he wasn’t not the most willing participant in the ring. I actually liked his in-ring work more than just about any wrestling fan I know. He usually had very good psychology and since he usually played the heel role I would assume he was calling the matches. But even I can concur that Hayes did everything he could to not bump or do anything that might be somewhat painful.

That is what led to the 3-man group for The Freebirds. Michael could bring them into the building, but they need two good workers in Terry Gordy and Buddy Roberts to keep the fans coming back for more.

Buddy gets overlooked, but his importance cannot be understated. Not only could Buddy work really well, but he was the guy that would take the beatings and get pinned. You couldn’t have Terry Gordy lose because of his size and how he added intimidation to The Freebirds. And not only was Hayes not wrestling enough to get beat, but he was considered to be, more or less, the leader of the Freebirds and you always save the babyface beating the leader of the villains for last.

Gordy was an interesting story because he was about 6’5” tall and weighed about 300 pounds. He started wrestling when he was 14 years old and was widely considered one of the greatest big men workers of all time.

Gordy’s purpose was mostly as ‘the muscle’ for the group. But for that time he moved unlike any other big man. Today you would see guys his size do moonsaults and the sort. But that would never be encouraged (especially on those stiff World Class rings) and to see Terry move around like that as well as having these brutal looking power moves was a sight to behold.

And when you take a look at all 3 guys, they were just different enough from each other while carrying their own individual personalities with enough swagger that they made you either hate them or love them.

***​

The Von Erich’s on the other hand were all actual blood brothers. But like The Freebirds, they knew enough about wrestling on how to differentiate each other just enough so they could stand out and each brother could have their own following as well as the group of brothers had their own following.

Jim Cornette would say that Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson had more sex on the way to the ring than most people had in their entire lives. The only wrestlers that I think could compare, if not outshine, were Kerry and Kevin Von Erich. I’ve seen women pass out after touching, kissing or whatever with Kerry Von Erich as he went to the ring.

David was the best worker of the bunch. I had always thought he was the oldest brother, but come to find out that Kevin was the oldest.

David most closely resembled his father and David was very decidingly Texan.



He was also best worker of the bunch. Combine that with his ability on the mic and being so ‘Texan’, he was massively over with the fans.

Kevin didn’t have the personality on the mic, but was a good looking guy and he wrestled barefoot which was just enough to make him intriguing.

And then there was Kerry, the Modern Day Warrior. The heavyweight wrestler with a bodybuilder physique who moved like a junior.

***​

To me, the beauty of the feud was that it set up for all of these different types of matches.

The big one is that it set up for 6 man tag matches. Tag matches and tag teams are great to have on a roster because it’s much easier to have a tag match that tears the house down than it is for a singles match to do so. But when you incorporate the 6 man tag match that makes it even more exciting.

Just like this great match:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QQUU5HpAfE&t=528s

I love how the Freebirds come out to Willie Nelson. I remember telling my friends that The Freebirds didn’t always come out to Lynard Skynard’s Freebird and for decades they never believed me, but now I have proof.

Anyway, I also love how Kevin grabs the mic and says that ‘this isn’t about a war between Texas and Georgia. This is a war between DECENCY AND FILTH!’
None of this pitting one group of fans versus another group of fans. It was about 3, red blooded, decent American men who were brothers against the vile, filthy and deplorable Freebirds.

And from there you could setup regular 2 man tags (usually Buddy and Terry) as well as a variety of singles matches.

Unfortunately, David died. Gary Hart who booked all of the initial stuff left town and World Class wasn’t the same under Ken Mantell’s booking. Then with all of the other subsequent deaths of Gino Hernandez, Mike Von Erich and Bruiser Brody it forever tarnished World Class in Texas.

It’s too bad because not only did World Class have a bright future, but it’s history of incredible wrestling, booking, packed house, the Sportatorium and one of the greatest feuds in the history of the business is now tarnished by tragedy and scandal.

Stick to the good memories, I know I do.







YR

I admit I'm not a Von Erich fan...

I thought their mic skills were weak, their work in the ring "meh" and they had a reputation (probably because their dad owned the territory and there was a certain amount of entitlement) of not putting guys over.

But I'm sorry at the stunning amount of tragedy the family went through... It's incredible when you think about it.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

I admit I'm not a Von Erich fan...

I thought their mic skills were weak, their work in the ring "meh" and they had a reputation (probably because their dad owned the territory and there was a certain amount of entitlement) of not putting guys over.

But I'm sorry at the stunning amount of tragedy the family went through... It's incredible when you think about it.

Back then upper tier wrestlers just didn't put other wrestlers over. Scott Levy tells a story where his gimmick in Florida was to win by countout and then one day Steve Kiern told Levy he was going to job for him and Levy just wanted to say that his gimmick was to win by DQ and Levy was fired for just stating that. That's why you saw a lot of double DQ's or countouts, etc. back then between two upper tier wrestlers. The idea was for them to get their victories over jobbers, build the feud without actually wrestling each other and then meeting a big card.

For the Von Erich's in Texas, they simply were never going to be booked to lose that much...nor should they. They were about as over as I've ever seen anybody which includes Bruno in New York in the 70's. You keep them winning until they need to get a feud over by losing.

The more I watch of Kerry the better of a worker I think he was. He was more athletic than 'artistic' in the ring. Kevin was more or less fun and David was excellent in the ring. The claw was a little annoying at times, but it had so much history behind it with Fritz that I can see why they needed to use it.

But once Gary Hart left as booker, World Class was done for. Ken Mantell was a pretty lousy booker and the tragedies surrounding World Class just exposed his bad booking even worse. I also used to hate the fact they had Bronco Lubich as their primary referee...he was the worst ref I've ever seen in a major territory.





YR

 

[Stash]

With ESPN’s 30 for 30 on Ric Flair coming up, I wanted to do a post on him. However, the difficulty with doing a post on Flair is to try and keep it short and sweet with a wrestler who has had arguably the most incredible career of any pro wrestler in the history of the business.


One of the interesting aspects of Flair is that he was originally trained by Verne Gagne. Flair thought he had to be a massive wrestler in order to make it in the business, so he bulked up to over 300 pounds:

However, he couldn’t make it thru the cardio required to make it thru Verne’s camp, so he had to quit and come back at a much smaller weight. That played a large role in Flair becoming the wrestler he eventually came….a wrestler with such incredible endurance that he was often referred to as The 60 Minute Man.


He was really the perfect person for the NWA World Heavyweight Champion title. He was a heel which meant that the local face from the territory would get that shot at the title and that worked better than having a face champion where the local heel in the territory would get their chance at the title. He also had the ability to get the face over, regardless of their in-ring ability. Thus, he could draw fans to the stadium by his appearance, presentation and mouth on the mic…but then he could boost attendance in the short term, get the face over and the local promotion could play off that to gain more long-term attendance. Here’s one of my favorite examples with Flair coming to Memphis to wrestle Jerry Lawler.





As a wrestler, he certainly borrowed a lot of different things from different wrestlers. The Nature Boy gimmick came from the great, Buddy Rogers. His ‘Flair strut’ came from Jackie Fargo and his ‘Fargo strut.’ And his in-ring style was very reminiscent of Ray ‘The Crippler’ Stevens.’


One of Flair’s strengths was that he added his own little ‘flare’ to the those facets to his character. As the Nature Boy, he was all about the wealth and the women and how the everyday man in the face wasn’t in the same class as him because of his wealth and prestige.


Where Jackie Fargo’s strut was more of a face strut to help amuse the fans, Flair’s strut was done more in a way to display his arrogance towards his face opponent. And while he had that heavy bumping style of Stevens, he was more technical from an offensive standpoint to display his intelligence that comes from his wealthy and prestigious background.


He was the perfect candidate for the NWA World Heavyweight champion because he could carry absolute slugs from territories to great matches. He had the endurance to go Broadway and keep the belt while creating more business for the promotion down the road. And he had the mic skills to draw the ire of the fans

***​

Having said that, it wasn’t like Flair was without his flaws.


For starters, back in the 80’s and 70’s most main event championship matches never aired on TV. The idea was to save them so the fans would pay for a ticket to watch them live. That worked in Flair’s favor because he more or less had a template of styles he would wrestle depending on the wrestler. For the big, powerhouse stiffs, he would wrestle a certain style where he would get almost no offense in, bump around for the wrestler and somehow cheat to come away with a victory.


But as the late 80’s came along, now more main event championship matches were being airead on free TV. And that meant more exposure to Flair matches and if Flair was wrestling Nikita Koloff one week, you would see an almost identical match when he was wrestling Lex Luger 3 months later.


And by the early 90’s, particularly when he was in the WWF, he simply refused to get much of any offense in, regardless of his opponent.





In these situations it actually made the opponent look weaker because after a while the fans started to wonder why Flair was supposdly so great if he could only win by luck and breaking the rules while getting zero offense in.


As a promo, I always preferred the more calm and collected Nature Boy instead of the raving lunatic Nature Boy. Not that the raving lunatic Nature Boy promo was always bad, but it needed to be done when an opponent finally got under Flair’s skin.

***​

As the 90’s came along, it was certainly a different era for Flair. Having been so used to being the heel, now he was the face. And part of the problem was that he felt more comfortable being the heel that he would try to force that down the fans’ throats and they would still want to cheer for him.


His legendary battle against Vader who represented a different type of wrestler…one that preferred stiffness and realism at the risk of hurting and injuring his fellow co-worker showed that Flair could still hang. But, then he eventually had to face the politics of Hogan, whose style was completely outdated and the politics of Eric Bischoff, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall who seemed to resent Flair for his days of being on the booking committee in the late 80’s and early 90’s.


This actually led to more fans favoring Flair…only for Flair to still and try to be the heel that he was simply never going to regain.


As a fan, I wanted to style and profile with the Nature Boy like the rest of the fans. And while he certainly wasn’t without his flaws as a worker or even on the mic, he was able to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of being the long time NWA World Heavyweight Champion. And more importantly, entertaining fans for our four decades.






YR

Ric Flair, the greatest of all time. Far from perfect, and not the greatest in any one particular area, but the greatest combination of everything it takes to be a Pro wrestler.

Nobody ever worked harder or played harder. He didn't just act the part, he lived the part. For better and for worse.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Back then upper tier wrestlers just didn't put other wrestlers over. Scott Levy tells a story where his gimmick in Florida was to win by countout and then one day Steve Kiern told Levy he was going to job for him and Levy just wanted to say that his gimmick was to win by DQ and Levy was fired for just stating that. That's why you saw a lot of double DQ's or countouts, etc. back then between two upper tier wrestlers. The idea was for them to get their victories over jobbers, build the feud without actually wrestling each other and then meeting a big card.

For the Von Erich's in Texas, they simply were never going to be booked to lose that much...nor should they. They were about as over as I've ever seen anybody which includes Bruno in New York in the 70's. You keep them winning until they need to get a feud over by losing.

The more I watch of Kerry the better of a worker I think he was. He was more athletic than 'artistic' in the ring. Kevin was more or less fun and David was excellent in the ring. The claw was a little annoying at times, but it had so much history behind it with Fritz that I can see why they needed to use it.

But once Gary Hart left as booker, World Class was done for. Ken Mantell was a pretty lousy booker and the tragedies surrounding World Class just exposed his bad booking even worse. I also used to hate the fact they had Bronco Lubich as their primary referee...he was the worst ref I've ever seen in a major territory.





YR

Why did Gary Hart leave?