YR's Pro Wrestling of the Day

[Stash]

Arn Anderson is the classic example of an athlete that has been considered to be so underrated for so long that he can no longer be considered 'underrated.' However, unlike most athletes you cannot make the argument that he might be 'overrated' because he was so darn good and was the consummate professional in terms of doing his job to near perfection.

Arn was born Marty Lunde and grew up in Georgia as a fan of the Georgia territory. He had a legitimate high school amateur wrestling background and then started working as a pro wrestler mostly in independents in Georgia and Alabama. After wrestling in Mid-South and Continental Wrestling (east Tennessee and Alabama territory), Lunde was brought into the Crockett Promotions as the younger brother of Ole Anderson given his resemblance. Ric Flair recommended him based off seeing him work and talk on the mic and Ole Anderson was already a worked 'cousin' of Flair's.

This turned into Arn being known as 'The Enforcer', the right hand man to Ric Flair. And when Tully Blanchard joined the Andersons and Flair, they formed the greatest stable in pro wrestling history (that was named by Arn)....The Four Horsemen.



What makes Arn so great is that he was the total package as a wrestler. He could work in the ring, he could work the mic, he was a helluva singles wrestler, a great tag wrestler and could work face and still keep continuity in his character.

One of my favorite parts of Arn is that he was very good at comedy in his wrestling. Most 'comedy' wrestlers make their character look like a joke and expose the business. Arn was great at doing things like pointing to his head when he things he outsmarts the face and then when the face is about to start his comeback, calling for a timeout. It's a way to bring some levity to the match while still keeping it serious and not exposing the match.

Here's one of Arn's great carry jobs against incredibly green, but athletic, Tom Magee:



But Arn's interviewing style is what set him apart. He could interview as well as anybody ever has in the business. And I found it interesting that he said that he usually tried to create an interview where he would talk about something that everybody could relate to before making his point.



It's too bad to see that so few wrestlers have been inspired by Arn while they are more inspired by the Sabu's, Jeff Hardy's and Rob Van Dam's of the world. While I can appreciate those wrestlers, a wrestler like Arn could draw money for a promotion for more over the long term and move along storylines and get young wrestlers far better than those wrestlers could.

There was no overly participatory moves in Arn's work.

I mean, who throws a beauty of a spinebuster like AA could?



That's why it was so sad for me when AA had to retire. Sad to see a guy that was so good at what he did and worked so diligently to perfect his craft to have to give it up. Sad to see a guy that was now a shell of his former self. Sad to see a man that willingly taught younger wrestlers and put over countless wrestlers like Tom Magee, Alex Wright, Erik Watts, Johnny B. Badd, Van Hammer, etc. that couldn't lace his shoes. In many ways, Arn personified everything that was great about pro wrestling. And it's too bad that so few have tried to follow the path he blazed for them.











YR

Great stuff as usual!

Arn Anderson is one of my all-time favorites. An unsung hero who never got the credit that I feel his talent truly deserved. The epitome of a team player who not only made a great tag team partner, but as much of a contributor to the greatness of the Horsemen as Ric Flair was.

I know you guys aren't too big into the current product, but I think that the Revival's Scott Dawson is the current day version of the Arn Anderson type. He's on the shelf with an injury right now, but he reminds me of that old school, no nonsense, Enforcer type I've missed.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Great stuff as usual!

Arn Anderson is one of my all-time favorites. An unsung hero who never got the credit that I feel his talent truly deserved. The epitome of a team player who not only made a great tag team partner, but as much of a contributor to the greatness of the Horsemen as Ric Flair was.

I know you guys aren't too big into the current product, but I think that the Revival's Scott Dawson is the current day version of the Arn Anderson type. He's on the shelf with an injury right now, but he reminds me of that old school, no nonsense, Enforcer type I've missed.

I hardly ever watch the current product, so I'm not familiar with Scott Dawson.

The issues I see for anybody in the WWE trying to be as good as some of the greats in the past is that they don't get to wrestle as much and they hardly ever cut a stand-alone promo. That's essentially what great wrestlers do...they wrestle and they cut promos. When you start to get into vignettes and acting...that gets them out of what they do best.

And the final issue is that the WWE is not about the premise that this is real and Wrestler A is trying to beat Wrestler B. Too much about 'the authority' and being held back which gives up the idea that a wrestler actually beats another wrestler thru skill and smarts. Instead it's about who the writers like.

Nothing against the wrestlers, they are just put in an awful position to develop their craft.





YR

 

[Rustinpeace21]

I hardly ever watch the current product, so I'm not familiar with Scott Dawson.

The issues I see for anybody in the WWE trying to be as good as some of the greats in the past is that they don't get to wrestle as much and they hardly ever cut a stand-alone promo. That's essentially what great wrestlers do...they wrestle and they cut promos. When you start to get into vignettes and acting...that gets them out of what they do best.

And the final issue is that the WWE is not about the premise that this is real and Wrestler A is trying to beat Wrestler B. Too much about 'the authority' and being held back which gives up the idea that a wrestler actually beats another wrestler thru skill and smarts. Instead it's about who the writers like.

Nothing against the wrestlers, they are just put in an awful position to develop their craft.





YR

Here's a 2017 arn spinebuster if you haven't seen it. Wwe just had a "starrcade" house show.

 

[Angry Man]

I hardly ever watch the current product, so I'm not familiar with Scott Dawson.

The issues I see for anybody in the WWE trying to be as good as some of the greats in the past is that they don't get to wrestle as much and they hardly ever cut a stand-alone promo. That's essentially what great wrestlers do...they wrestle and they cut promos. When you start to get into vignettes and acting...that gets them out of what they do best.

And the final issue is that the WWE is not about the premise that this is real and Wrestler A is trying to beat Wrestler B. Too much about 'the authority' and being held back which gives up the idea that a wrestler actually beats another wrestler thru skill and smarts. Instead it's about who the writers like.

Nothing against the wrestlers, they are just put in an awful position to develop their craft.





YR

I feel like you would really enjoy the product that NJPW is putting on. If you ever get a chance to watch it watch out for Kazuchika Okada, Tetsuya Naito, Kenny Omega, Kushida, and Tanahashi. Okada is, in my opinion, the best wrestler in the world right now along with Naito and Omega right behind him.

Speaking of WWE, their biggest issue seems to be that wins and loses no longer matter which means that the matches themselves are meaningless. They also devalue their belts by putting them on guys who just a months prior were either 50/50 booked or haven't won a match in months.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

James Mark Cornette grew up a wrestling fan growing up Louisville. His father was 20 years older than his mother and was the Editor-in-Chief at the Louisville Courier. Back in those days that was a very important position in a community as with no internet the local newspaper gave the community its news. And when you’re the head muckity muck of the newspaper you’re basically known as the man that controls the information going into a midsize city like Louisville.


Cornette’s father passed away as a child and that left Jim’s mother as a single mom. Jim then started to watch Dick the Bruiser’s WWA promotion in nearby Indianapolis and became an instant fan. Later on he went to visit the Memphis area with his mother to see family that lived in the area and that’s when he got involved with Christine Jarrett and the ole CWA wrestling promotion that occupied the Memphis territory.


Cornette has a wide ranging influence on pro wrestling. He later got one of those large, eyesore satellite dishes (my family had one as well) so he could catch wrestling around the country. He would watch pro wrestling with his friend Norm ‘Weasel’ Dooley and they came up with the idea of creating a rating system to judge matches. Dooley then went on to create his own pro wrestling newsletter called Weasel’s World that was sent out for distribution and subscribed by a young Dave Meltzer. Meltzer later went on to get a degree in journalism from San Jose State and created the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Despite Meltzer’s education in journalism, his writing style was so eerily similar to the untrained writings of Dooley.


Cornette’s mother because good friends with Jeff Jarrett’s grandmother, Christine Jarrett. Christine Jarrett was the promoter of Memphis wrestling and she brought Jim in to mostly be a photographer back when ringside photography was a big deal in pro wrestling. Cornette’s main desire was to become a wrestling booker, but he soon realized that he would never get that chance until he got involved as a performer. This led to Cornette becoming a heel, rich momma’s boy wrestling manager.





Like most interesting careers in pro wrestling, particularly in those days, Cornette’s career took off immediately in such a short time. He soon was part of a talent trade with Bill Watts in Mid-South wrestling and was making over $100k a year, the equivalent of $250k in today’s money at the age of 21 years old.





It was Mid-South that sparked the greatest draw in the history of tag team wrestling…The Midnight Express versus the Rock-n-Roll Express.


There’s a great story of how this talent trade came about that I cannot post here. But essentially Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler were sent to Mid-South to give an assessment of the promotion and they came back to Watts and their main critique is that the wrestlers did not appeal to the female fans. People forget that in many places in the south, female fans accounted for up to 60% of the audience. To me, it’s the biggest failure in Vince McMahon Jr’s career…while he appealed to children he neglected the female fan and he lost a large part of the customer base in pro wrestling.


Anyway, the formula was great…Ricky and Robert were instant successes with the females and the younger fans while still being over with the regular male fans while Cornette did enough talking for all four men.


In the meantime, you had Ricky Morton who was a 2nd generation wrestler. Robert Gibson, whose older brother Ricky was an excellent worker. You had Bobby Eaton who got into the business when he was in high school and Dennis Condrey (at that time) as one of the best workers in the world. Along with Cornette who was also involved with the business as a teenager. They were passionate about working together and they perfected and revolutionized the craft of tag team wrestling. And I’m amazed that since the MX vs. RnR prime years there has been little in the way of tag teams that have emulated how they worked a tag match.


CONTINUED...

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Cornette and the Midnight Express then left Mid-South for World Class in Texas. But, they never got the opportunity to wrestle The Von Erichs who would have been the next closest thing to wrestling Ricky and Robert. It was a huge missed opportunity and when the Crockett Promotions came calling, the choice was easy for Cornette and MX to make the jump to the Carolinas.


Just as the RnR vs. MX feud got over in Mid-South, it got over even more under Crockett. So much so that the Crockett Promotions would often run 2 shows on the same day with an ‘A Team’ consisting of Dusty, Flair, Magnum, etc. and a ‘B Team’ consisting of the RnR and MX. And the ‘B Team’ was starting to consistently out-draw the ‘A Team.’


Meanwhile, Condrey left the MX due to a contract dispute and they brought in Stan Lane and Big Bubba Rodgers (aka The Big Bossman) and they never missed a beat in terms of being a draw. But, not only could Cornette draw with the RnR Express, he could pretty much draw with anybody as shown with his feud against Dusty Rhodes and Baby Doll.





Of course, one could argue that Dusty was such a tremendous draw that you can’t give Cornette all of the credit. So, here’s Cornette against less popular Ronnie Garvin and even less popular Jimmy Garvin.





By this time, according to Cornette, he was making $250k as a manager per year (the equivalent of making $600k today). He was a hot commodity because he was an instant moneymaker for the company.


The MX then started to rehash their old feud with The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rodgers). While the Fantastics were arguably better in the ring, they didn’t quite have the appeal that Ricky and Robert. It also didn’t help that now Cornette and the MX were starting to get over with some babyface cheers from the crowd. In fact, when the MX beat the Fantastics in Baltimore at the 1988 Great American Bash in a very fast paced, quick match…the majority of the crowd could be heard celebrating MX’s victory.


This was going to lead to, what would have been, an incredible feud where the Midnight Express were turning babyface against the heels Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard.





Unfortunately, Arn and Tully left for the WWF due to a money dispute with the Crockett’s. The feud really never got off its feet, but it showed that Cornette can not only draw money as a heel, but can nicely transition to a babyface if needed.


As the Crockett’s were bought out by Turner, there was not much left for MX and Cornette to feud against. They tried with the weak Dynamic Dudes, but that ended in the infamous match at the Clash of Champions in Troy, NY where MX beat the Dudes by Cornette turning on the Dudes in a heel manner and the fans still celebrating MX’s victory despite it being done in a dastardly fashion.


Eventually, they found a feud for Cornette and the Midnight Express with the ‘Original Midnight Express’ with Dennis Condrey coming back with partner Randy Rose and the young and upcoming manager Paul E. Dangerously…also known as Paul Heyman





While that was a nice feud to start with, the Midnight Express (Lane and Eaton) were not as over as babyfaces as they were at the level of ‘over-ness’ they were as heels. Eventually, Cornette started to live his dream by getting to work on the WCW booking committee with Kevin Sullivan. But, be careful what you wish for as Cornette had to deal with the realities of working for Jim Herd who may go down as the most incompetent person in history of pro wrestling to that point.



CONTINUED

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Cornette has always been a historian of pro wrestling. Not only was he a historian, but he was an incredibly meticulous note taker. Throughout his career he would take detailed notes of where the event was at, the capacity of the venue, how many tickets were actually sold, what the matches were, who won the match and what the finish was and who booked the match. He would preserve his notes for later on so he could use them with his own booking and he became a walking Wikipedia of booking finishes.


As Cornette was fed up with Jim Herd and WCW, he started to travel throughout the south and with his notes he recognized so many smaller towns in the south that were wrestling hotbeds drawing thousands of fans to wrestling cards that were now practically dormant. Places like Washington, North Carolina that had a population of 9,000 people and would draw 5,000+ fans to wrestling matches. Or Pikeville, Kentucky that would do crowds of 5,000+ fans for a town with 8,000 people. Cornette felt there was still a market for that and wanted to go back to the old days of having a territory, much like Jerry Jarrett had a territory with Memphis.


The issue was that he needed money and he figured out that he would need over a million dollars to make a viable territory. In the meantime, Cornette had befriended music producer Rick Rubin. Rubin was a huge wrestling fan himself and gave Cornette the money to create and run Smokey Mountain Wrestling. Because that’s the obvious move here…a Jewish man who grew up in Long Island and created Def Jam records would be the driving financial force of a deep south pro wrestling company.


A lot of people criticize Cornette’s booking as being too old school. I actually think that the way he books feuds, finishes, etc. isn’t the problem. The problem is that he is still more in the old school mindset of character development.


Cornette is still of the mindset that the good looking blonde kid should automatically be a face and the good looking dark haired kid should automatically be the heel. Conversely, the not-so-good looking blond kid should automatically be the heel.


Somebody like Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Sandman (who was a draw in ECW) would never happen in a Cornette promotion because Cornette doesn’t see wrestling characters in that light. And he has a tendency to play things more conservatively than aggressively because he is afraid of hot shotting the promotion.


But, to Cornette’s credit he did a good job of building up Smokey Mountain Wrestling into a darn good and intriguing promotion. Unfortunately, it took too long to develop and by then he had run out of money and struggled to get the promotion on TV.


That led to Cornette getting back more into managing and being a focal point of the promotion, something he didn’t want to do. But, he still had the magic touch on the mic:





Cornette then went onto the WWE as part of the booking committee and being the manager for Yokozuna and Vader.


What I always loved about Cornette was that he understood that he could not keep doing the same exact thing every time he performed. And I really love how Cornette handles this as him trying to prevent Vader from attacking Gorilla Monsoon added more the situation and made Vader look like an uncontrollable monster





After having enough with the WWE, Cornette started running Ohio Valley Wrestling in Louisville with retired wrestler Danny Davis. They ended up developing over 100 future WWE superstars like John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, CM Punk and Bautista. No other development promotion has come close to developing as many future WWE stars as OVW.


And he later went to Ring of Honor where he was the main reason Ring of Honor was bought by Sinclair Broadcasting as he set up the proposal for Sinclair. Now he runs a very successful podcast and makes appearances at special events while selling merchandise and books (which are excellent) from his Web site.


He’s certainly not without controversy, but if you look at the scope of Cornette in the pro wrestling industry as a manager, as Norm Dooley’s friend who inspired the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and a star rating system for matches. As a booker and a developer of talent and getting Ring of Honor to be purchased by a financially successful company like Sinclair Broadcasting…he’s been a major impact on the business.


But for me, it will always be his work as a manager that I admire most. His ability and willingness to NOT try to be cool in the slightest sense. To spit venom when necessary and to make people believe that he was not only a coward, but he was truly evil. And I think I may have heard him only twice trip over his words in a promo. He was pure perfection as a manager.








YR

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Arn Anderson was a solid if not specular performer. He could do it all with top marks given for his mic work. I think his in-ring work was a notch below his mic work. He was a good worker. Not a top of card singles wrestler, but when it came to tag-teams he had few equals.

He was the second most important member of the "Four Horseman".

It was unfortunate his career was relatively short.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Speaking of WWE, their biggest issue seems to be that wins and loses no longer matter which means that the matches themselves are meaningless. They also devalue their belts by putting them on guys who just a months prior were either 50/50 booked or haven't won a match in months.

Another reason I watch little of the current product.

There's just no rhyme or reason to who gets title shots and who wins belts.

Vince & Co. have made it a complete cluster.

They rotate guys through the cycle of "OK, I'm the champ this month... 3 months from now I'm at the bottom of the card... 6 months from now I'm a mid-carder... 9 months from now I'll be contending for the title again."

And then the process starts all over again.

So many of these guys are so damn stale. In the old days they would have been off the roster long ago.

Back then a heel would come in. He'd be on TV a few times whipping jobbers.

Then they'd beat a Dominic DaNucci or a Tony Garea on TV.

At that point they'd start talking crap about the champ and soon they'd have a main eventer in MSG and other high profile arena's in the NE.

If the thought was the rivalry could hold some heat for a while then they would have another string of bouts... Usually up to this point with many inconclusive results.

And then the third string of bouts would occur with the champ usually winning these third bouts by submission, pin or escaping the cage first.

At that point the heel would gradually have bouts that were lower and lower on the card and would eventually be off to another area.

But some heels would be kept longer... Like Patterson or Snuka or Muraco or Valentine and would get the opportunity to wrestle for the next level championship.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Jim Cornette is funnier than heck to listen too.

He constantly says that pro wrestling is a train wreck and isn't coming back any time soon.

There's a certain amount of bitterness in his voice, but he makes a lot of sense.

He understands the business... At least what use to be the business. I give him that.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

I tend to agree with almost all of Cornette's points about modern wrestling. I think where he's mainly bitter is about Vince Russo. I think he can say what he wants about Russo, but his real hatred of Russo is that Russo cost him a lot of money and screwed him over twice. Having said that, I can understand his bitterness towards Russo and fully support his attitude towards him. And his arguments against Russo are pretty much 100% correct. The guy can't write wrestling, is a snake in the grass who cannot tell the truth and sells out wrestlers who perform very dangerous stunts based on his crap booking.

I think he's perfectly correct in stating that pro wrestling does not work best where all of the companies are national companies. It works best when the companies are regional because it allows the fans to attend wrestling shows more often, combined with the TV.

I don't quite agree with Cornette using the term 'serious' in regards to what wrestling needs to be. What it needs to be is more protective of itself. It needs to have wrestlers protecting their character. Protecting it from other wrestlers, bookers and even themselves. It needs to stop exposing themselves. And it needs to realize that comedy in wrestling is vastly overrated as it never draws and only works in very small doses.

One of the reasons why I posted how much Cornette was making, as a *manager*, was to give a comparison of how much wrestlers were making backthen. These days you can't find more than a dozen wrestlers that legitimately make $600k per year and the ones that do make a large chunk off it from merchandise which wasn't readily available back in the day like it is now with the internet. And there are no managers in wrestling making $60k a year (hell, may not be any making $6k a year solely as a manager). And each of those wrestlers today have to do an insane amount of traveling while the wrestlers of Cornette's era were usually home for the 11pm news every night.

So when you're somebody like Cornette, who loved the business so much that he was willing to fly despite being deathly afraid of flying or drive insane lengths to show due to his fear of flying...that saw a business with so many friends that made a great living and didn't have to travel much that is now reduced to where less than 100 wrestlers make a living solely as a pro wrestler and are paid far less for more travel, more injuries and less mainstream respect...only to have modern fans and modern wrestlers tell you that you don't know what you're talking about...you have to wonder what the hell is going on?





YR

 

[timb2]

What do you guys think of real shoots that happened like Lex Luger vs Bruiser Brody where Brody would not sell for Luger?

 

[MichaelWinicki]

What do you guys think of real shoots that happened like Lex Luger vs Bruiser Brody where Brody would not sell for Luger?

I think real "shoots" have been pretty rare... And with good reason. A "shoot" could lead to an injury and a bad situation for all concerned.

I think shoots were more likely or should I say shoot segments in a match more likely during 40's & 50's. Supposedly Lou Thesz had some shoot segments vs. some of the top wrestlers of the period like Gene Kiniski who could protect themselves.

The Brody/Lugar thing wasn't as much a shoot as it was Brody simply not selling for Lugar. I mean Brody didn't do anything to Lugar and Lugar was giving "pro wrestling" punches to Brody and not real punches.

Weird match. And I've heard several give their impressions of what actually happened but I haven't heard what I consider to be the actual reason why Brody quit selling. I guess he took that to the grave.

Part of Brody's shtick was not selling certain opponent maneuvers... But the Lugar thing was going way beyond.

I've read the book on Brody by Larry Matysik. I've heard countless folks talk about the guy, yet I still don't understand him as a person. It's sounds like the guys in the business had or have the same feelings about Brody.

 

[Angry Man]

I think real "shoots" have been pretty rare... And with good reason. A "shoot" could lead to an injury and a bad situation for all concerned.

Shoots still happen. There was one that happened recently at Triplemania (AAA's biggest show. AAA is Mexico's 2nd biggest promotion behind CMLL.) where one of the female wrestlers (Sexy Star) broke another wrestlers (Rosemary) arm for no reason at all. Only good thing to come out of all of that was that she was black balled from working in the US. If I get the time I'd like the write an effort post on how scummy and backwards Mexican wrestling is and how bad AAA is to their wrestlers.

 

[timb2]

Shoots still happen. There was one that happened recently at Triplemania (AAA's biggest show. AAA is Mexico's 2nd biggest promotion behind CMLL.) where one of the female wrestlers (Sexy Star) broke another wrestlers (Rosemary) arm for no reason at all. Only good thing to come out of all of that was that she was black balled from working in the US. If I get the time I'd like the write an effort post on how scummy and backwards Mexican wrestling is and how bad AAA is to their wrestlers.

In this video I think the pretty girl had to retire. The other girl was jealous of her and broke her face.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Great setup for the "Superbowl of Wrestling" in January 1978, which was a 60 minute time-limit draw between NWA Champion Harley Race and WWWF Champion Superstar Billy Graham.

This was back in the time when pro wrestling protected its product and projected it as being real.



As a side note the 60 minute length of the match must have been a real eye-opener for Superstar considering he wasn't use to going anywhere near that length of time for a match in the WWWF.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

What do you guys think of real shoots that happened like Lex Luger vs Bruiser Brody where Brody would not sell for Luger?

I'm not a fan of them where they disrupt the show. I can understand how they sometimes break out. Some pieces of crap like Akira Maede take gross advantage of situations. Others like Ronny Garvin, JBL, etc. still take advantage of their status to beat guys up.

These days they happen way too often on the indy scene because you have two poorly trained wrestlers who were not taught properly to respect the business. There's a match on YouTube between two guys. One guy has a farmer gimmick and his opponent is just potatoing the crap out of him and then the farmer gimmick guy hits him somewhat snug and his opponent complains about it after he just kicked the guy multiple times as hard as he could.

The name of the game is to make it look as realistic as you can, but if you're legitimately hurting people then it's stupid. Ideally you would want to make it look like a million bucks, but touch as light as a feather. I prefer to see more stiff than showing a lot of daylight...but to the point of legitimately hurting/harming somebody repeatedly...there's just no place for it in the business.

As Rip Rogers says...this ain't ballet, sister. But this ain't Russian Roulette either.






YR

 

[Yakuza Rich]

This is the Akira Maede kick that really ticked me off. Mainly because it was a complete suckerpunch(kick).



Maede tried shooting on Andre when Andre was way past his prime. Andre basically no sold his kicks, but couldn't catch up with Maede due to his lack of mobility. Had it been 10 years earlier, Andre would have handled him like a car crusher handles a Miata.




YR

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

This is a great clip, especially when Cornette announces his Mother couldn't be here today because she had to fly to NYC to meet with EF Hutton.


Really miss this forgot how great wrestling used to be, these guys were masters of their craft.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Perhaps the smartest pro wrestler I have ever encountered in the pro wrestling business is Mick Foley. I tell people this all of the time, up until Foley was in the WWE as Mankind, he was notoriously known for knowing every fan's name that ever asked him for an autograph. Despite all of the chair shots, wicked bumps, death matches, etc...he was not only smart, but had a remarkable memory. He may have learned this from one of his idols, Terry Funk. Funk also had an incredible memory that I don't think ever left him.

Back about 15 years ago, I was friendly with now pro wrestling reporter/writer David Bixenspan. Bixenspan was just a teenager and as he got Funk's autograph, Funk told him to 'stay out of trouble.' About 5 years later Bixenspan sees Funk and the two didn't know each other or saw each other and Funk went up to him and said 'did you stay out of trouble like I told you to?'

Foley was the same kind of guy as he would remember my name and knew I lived in Syracuse and knew what college I was going to. And I wasn't the only one, he did this to everybody. And what was cool about Foley...particularly at that time...is he wasn't afraid to have a candid talk about his career and the industry with the fans. This wasn't particularly popular with wrestlers back in the day. And if a wrestler did talk to you, they were usually trying to work you.

But the great thing about Foley was he had the intelligence and he grew up a wrestling fan and turned his intelligence into a 'pro wrestling IQ' to take a mediocre, fat athlete and turn himself into one of the greatest superstars of all time.

Foley was raised in Long Island. He mostly played goalie in lacrosse and was even good enough to play for D-II powerhouse Salisbury State. However, he grew up a pro wrestling fan and in his senior year of high school he decided to give high school freestyle wrestling a shot and he ended up being a starter as the #1 man in the weight class on his team, Kevin Knipfing, went out for the season with an injury. Knipfing went on to be known as Kevin James from King of Queens fame.

Afterward, Foley went up to SUNY Cortland for college and thru a friend of his, enrolled into long time WWWF veteran wrestler Dominic Denucci's pro wrestling school along with Troy Martin (aka Shane Douglas) and Brian Hildebrand (aka Mark Curtis, one of the greatest pro wrestling referees of all time).

After completing his training, Foley got to work right away as a wrestler and picked up this infamous job in a tag match against the British Bulldogs. Foley being green and 'impolite' enough to try and get some offense in resulted in the Dynamite Kid breaking Foley's jaw at the 1:45 mark with a lariat.



From there, Foley developed the gimmick of Cactus Jack Manson. Partially due to his facial resemblance to Charles Manson.

He then worked some Tours in Africa and Australia before working in Memphis and in Texas.

In Texas he developed the flying elbow drop from the apron to the outside. The Texas camera men shot the elbow drop from that floor and it made for an amazing looking move and that pretty much him this debut in WCW.




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