Shawn Michaels' wrestling topic

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Hey guys, I picked up the Hogan 4 disc set today, hopefully it is good. I was watching an Owen Hart match the other day and just thought of this: what do you think would have happened with Owen's career had he not died? How long would he have wrestled, and do you think he would have got a major push? Just bored and curious.
 
[quote name='SIUfan']Hey guys, I picked up the Hogan 4 disc set today, hopefully it is good. I was watching an Owen Hart match the other day and just thought of this: what do you think would have happened with Owen's career had he not died? How long would he have wrestled, and do you think he would have got a major push? Just bored and curious.[/quote]

He would've continued to be in the WWE and try to surpass Bret's legacy and never do so. He would've never been world champ. He would've made a great one, though.
 
Owen was set to win the IC belt the night he died, and honestly, that's about as big a push as he ever would have gotten, as he was planning to retire and become either a fireman or teacher after wrestling.
 
Kevin Nash's extended cut promo is just great. Even better than the one they showed on TV. Hopefully he puts some people over and they keep him on TV.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']He's never done it before. Why start this late into your career?[/QUOTE]

I know, but I can't see TNA constantly trotting him out slandering the X-division with no payoff. Granted the division is down big time with the three major players gone, but the X-division is too big of a draw to constantly let it get shit on.


If he does not job, if he beats the shit out of Lethal and Dutt for the stupid shit for the past couple of months I will be happy.
 
PART 5 of the Scott Hall Torch talk Interview

Wade Keller: What are your thoughts on Sid?

Scott Hall: I am a huge fan of Sid’s. He’s money. I mean, some guys are better performers and this and that, but they can’t draw a dime. But Sid’s box office, and anybody disagrees and I’d like to talk to ‘em. He’s money. Sid knows how to do his part. He’s a star. Let me put it this way. Sid’s a star.

Keller: How about Dean Douglas? Shane Douglas?

Hall: No comment… I think he’s a great seasoned professional and he’s paid his dues and he’s earned everything he’s got. How’s that?

Keller: Very politically correct. How about Louie Spicolli?

Hall: I had a lot of love for Louie. I tried to give him a break. He was one of my young boys. I had him lined up. He was gonna be on a pay-per-view against Zbyszko. Me and Kev did some sweet stuff with Louie. Me and Kev would be walking to the ring for a tag match. Louie wasn’t NWO, but he would wear an Outsiders shirt. It was so hilarious because we’d walk into the ring. Kev would look back. How could you get mad at Louie with those chubby cheeks and stuff? Kev would look back and say, “You’re boy!” But I mean, we lost him too soon. He’s one more guy we lost. But Louie was a wasted career. He don’t want to get negative. I have a lot of love for Louie. I’m glad I was able to help him a little bit. I think he’s great.

Keller: Steve Austin was just beginning his WWF run as you gave your notice to jump to WCW. Did you interact with him at all then or previously in WCW, and did you see in him early on that he had the chance to become the star he became?

Hall: No. Austin never got his break until the NWO got hot. That’s when Vince turned him anti-establishment, you know? Gee, how original, right? Turn your guys against the company.

Keller: I know you had some personal and professional issues with him later on, but did you see something in him worth featuring?

Hall: Well, I actually had to call Vince and talk to him because there were some rumors going around that I wasn’t intense enough on my heat on Austin in my last run there. So I called Vince and said, “You know, what? Let Kev (Nash) wrestle him. I’ll stand on the outside. Obviously you’ve seen me work.” Vince has got to understand this. For one thing, I’m way prettier than that mother fucker. I’m in way better shape than him. My shit looks better than him. I’m a bigger star than him. And he’s flippin’ people off. He’s cussing. And he’s the good guy? I said, “I’m having a real hard time being the heel.” Almost every time we went out, they chanted NWO. When I was fuckin’ beatin’ his ass in Toronto, they started a faint Razor chant and Austin panicked so fuckn’, I shoulda’ just went ahead and went with the Razor chant. He panicked so fuckin’ bad, I had to go ahead and tell him, “Okay, come back, come back on me.” Ohhh, you mark. They’ll cheer you now. But at the same time, I was going through a real personal hard time, and so was he. I didn’t have my best matches with Steve. And Steve didn’t have his best matches with me. Steve is one of the biggest stars in our business. We just crossed paths at the wrong time. I would really love to wrestle Steve in the future. I don’t mean any disrespect to him. He’s a super-talented guy. I mean, now he’s making movies and all kinds of shit. When we crossed paths, it was a bad time, that’s all.

Keller: When you were in the WWF, did you have a chance to interact much with Shane or Stephanie McMahon?

Hall: I met her. I knew Shane when he was a young punk kid. He used to be a mark for Razor. Of course, you meet the family. What are you gong to do? If your boss owned a construction company, you’d say hi to his wife, hi to his kid. So of course I met them. I didn’t really know ‘em. They didn’t have any stroke back then.

Keller: Was there an attitude that those two probably would have stroke some day and they were almost royalty in terms of having to watch yourself around them?

Hall: No. You know what? Vince broke them in kinda pretty much similar to how his father broke him in. They had to break in kinda old school. Shane used to set up rings, just like Vince set up rings. Which is probably good for you, right? I remember one time I was talking to Shane. Shane’s a pretty damn good athlete. One time he jumped off the thing on the table and all that. I said, “Shane, don’t you miss the rush of the crowd?” He said, “Raze, I get the same rush working in the office.” That’s pretty cool, right. You gotta remember, both of them kids been to college.

Keller: It was 11 years ago yesterday that the first Monday Nitro aired.

Hall: Let me ask you this. Do you remember the openings of the first Monday night shows. I was all over that son of a bitch, wasn’t I? Curt Hennig worked in the office then. They’d show WWE going against my body, then WWF going across my body. Curt Hennig, who worked in the studio, told me, “That’s not by accident.” Because I wasn’t Vince’s main guy, but I was his main guy, you know what I mean? I wasn’t the highest paid guy. I could never figure that out about Vince. I always felt that when I gave my notice to Vince, we broke up at the prom. I never failed his drug tests the whole time I worked there. Then I gave my six weeks notice. Guess what? The next day I was dirty for marijuana. The test was six weeks old. Normally you get the results in two or three weeks. Then, what was even worse, I’m at the arena. Shawn (Michaels) and Kev, their flights are delayed, they’re in Europe. So they’re moving Razor up on the card at some spot show. So Tony Garea comes to me and he says, “Hey, you gotta call the doctor.” I laughed and said, “Oh boy! I guess they got my letter.” So I called the doctor, Dr. DiPasquali, and his wife answers and said he wasn’t there, but he’d be back later. So I’m sitting down, lacing my boots up, sitting next to Taker. Tony Garea comes up and says, “What are you doin’?” I said, “I’m getting dressed, man.” He goes, “Did you call the doctor?” I said, “He’s not home.” He goes, “They want you to leave the building.” We had this whole chain of command, so I asked him, “You’re telling me I’ve come up dirty on a test without talking to the doctor? How do I know he ain’t gonna tell me I have fuckin’ high blood pressure, kidney disease, some kind of shit like that? You’re telling me I failed the test?” I remember Taker went (to Garea): “Why don’t you just push him out the door.” So I walked out through the crowd where they could see me and Tony was out there. I pointed at Tony and said, “I would love to wrestle for you people, but this guy right here won’t let me wrestle.” Then I fuckin’ just left. Then Vince called me and wanted me to work for free - well, for two-hundred a night - for six weeks.

Keller: That was a neat policy for him. His rationale was, well, we don’t want to punish the fans for the mistakes of the wrestlers.

Hall: It used to be a thousand dollar fine. All of a sudden he was giving me six weeks off.

Keller: The timing of it made a total mockery of the drug tests, which he tried to proclaim was straight on the up and up.

Hall: It was like I stood him up at the prom. Like I’ve always said, I’ve never had that good of a relationship with Vince. Vince knew that I knew, and I actually feel like I threaten Vince a little bit because I’m pretty fuckin’ smart.

Keller: When word came out that Monday Nitro would be starting, did you look at it as something that would be interesting, a start of a Monday Night War? Or did you guys in the WWF not take it seriously because even though they had Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, WCW couldn’t possibly compete with the WWF head-to-head? What was your reaction as a wrestler when you heard the news?

Hall: Well, as a wrestler, of course you think, “Wow, this is great because it’s more wrestling.” You always have to consider that. Like I said before, I like to give the audience a chance to decide. I always said change the channel if you don’t like what we got. Vince had us so busy, we didn’t watch their show. You’re so busy working and then driving to the next town, you can’t watch Nitro.

Keller: Had you watched WCW at all to see what Hogan was up to?

Hall: I barely watched our show and I didn’t watch any of WCW.

Keller: When Nitro came on, was there any kind of a buzz about how Vince started getting concerned about the fact that he had competition that was actually drawing ratings that were either the same or better than Raw a lot of weeks.

Hall: I never knew anything about the ratings, and Vince never sold it. All we did was start putting more main events on free TV. Instead of putting hype on, we started stepping up our free programming.

Keller: Vince argued at the time that that was really going to hurt the PPV business by putting main events on TV.

Hall: He was right.

Keller: Yet even with so much being given away on free TV during the Monday Night Wars, that led to a huge wrestling boom that a lot of people profited from and a lot more fans started watching as a result. How do you reconcile the idea that giving away pay-per-view main events hurt when buyrates went up.

Hall: I don’t know. Sounds like somebody owes me money. I think it was a great thing. I am very, very satisfied to have been a part of it. I don’t know that it’s ever going to happen again because there’s no challenger. Right now, TNA is not a challenger to the throne. With some help they could be, but I don’t know. I’d like to go over the books during that time. There was merchandise and pay-per-view buys, business was red-hot.

Keller: Did you care at all when Lex Luger jumped without giving notice? Was that frowned upon by you guys?

Hall: I don’t know about that, but remember the big Lex Express? The bus tour? Well, what I think happened is they turned Lex babyface and they turned Razor babyface at the same time, but you know what was so funny, and what I’ve always said, like I told you before, let the people decide. That’s why I like live audiences. They tell you right away instant feedback. The Lex Express was a manufactured thing. Then they had Razor out there. The fans could start to tell that Luger was the company man and Razor wasn’t. So I almost got that underdog sympathy.

Keller: During that time, Vince started making fun of Ted Turner and he was claiming that Turner was using predatory practices against him. Did you have sympathy for Vince given his background when he crushed Starrcade with the Survivor Series in 1987?

Hall: I actually thought it was kind of tacky. The whole thing. Why bring it up? I think you should spend your assets promoting your company.

Keller: What initiated your contact with Eric Bischoff and WCW? Was it your agent Barry Bloom? Was it a fellow wrestler?

Hall: It was Kid (Sean Waltman). Kid was out in Cali and he was the one getting ready to make a move. He introduced me to Barry Bloom and it just went from there. I remember asking Kid, “How interested are they in you? Well, fuck, how interested are they in me?” I said, “Let me get this right? You get days off, too?” Vince was working us 250 dates a year.

Keller: Did Barry negotiate for you or did you talk to Bischoff?

Hall: Barry did the whole thing.

Keller: When did you first start talking to Eric about how you’d be introduced?

Hall: Not until I was signed, sealed, and delivered. Eric picked me up at the airport in Atlanta in his Jaguar, drove me to Macon, and I did my first appearance the day after my contract expired for Vince. Then I did my first Nitro.

Keller: Did you have any input into how the Outsiders would be introduced?

Hall: Well, the one thing, Kev always laughs when I say this because I always qualified every statement with this: There’d be a room of us sitting around. Hulk had creative control, you see. He didn’t have to do nothin’ he didn’t want to; it was in his contract. So we’d be sitting around and I’d go, “Look, I’ll do whatever you want because you’re my boss and I need this big, high-paying contract. But if it was up to me, and it’s not, I think we should do this.” I would lay shit out. The one thing is, when you get in the meeting room with four or five top guys and they’re talking over an angle, it only takes two or three guys to turn the tide. If one guy goes, “I think we should do this.” If I got Kev saying ,”That sounds good to me,” then Hulk is not going to want to get heat with me and Kev - or he might if he disagrees. But we always protected Hulk. We said, “Nobody gets to Hulk. Me and Kev will bump. Nobody gets to Hulk.” What we did was what Curt Hennig taught me, what Kevin Sullivan taught me, what Dusty Rhodes taught me, what Barry Windham taught me. We did business. We tried to sell fuckin’ tickets. We tried to make the people scream so they would tune in next week. That was always my sole purpose. I never was in it for the whole ego thing. Don’t get me wrong, bro. I loved being on TV. It don’t hurt to have people scream your name. Don’t get me wrong. I dig it. But I always felt I was one of the most unselfish people in the business. I did jobs for people and got in trouble for doing it. I don’t know, did that answer your question?

Keller: How involved were you even before Hogan was part of the picture with the Outsiders in formulating what you did on TV during those first appearances where you planted the seed in fans’ minds that you may or may not still be with the WWF?

Hall: The New World Order was Eric Bischoff’s idea. If you watch the Bash at the Beach, by the time Hogan’s done doing his interview, he calling it “New World Organization, brother.” He already forgot the fuckin’ slogan. It was Eric’s idea. You gotta give him all the props. He thought of somethin’ different. T-shirts sold like crazy. Because they were cool. You could wear that, like, in a bar. Instead of wearing a t-shirt around with Austin’s face on it, you could wear NWO.

Keller: That original first appearance on Nitro, you’re saying you didn’t know what you’d be doing until that day or the day before?

Hall: I didn’t know til I got there.

Keller: What was your first reaction to how you’d be debuting?

Hall: It was Larry Zbyszko’s idea for me to come through the audience because Larry Zbyszko said, “You know what? Nobody has ever walked through the audience in the middle of the match. The other boys are going to stop wrestling when they see you. They’re going to wonder what the fuck you’re doing there.” That was Zbyszko’s idea. I thought it was great. Because otherwise, what do you do? Walk down the aisle? Why wouldn’t the other guys beat you up. Zbyszko said, “Come through the crowd. Everybody’s gonna know who you are. They’re going to wonder what the fuck are you doing here?” That’s why I looked at them (Bischoff and Zbyszko) and said, “You guys got the night off. Take off.” I said what was scripted for me to say. That was it.

Keller: At any point, did you have any regrets over how you were portrayed, or did it take off so well, that this was a dream opportunity for you. You got to be yourself.

Hall: The only thing I regretted was Eric often insisted that that night in Macon he wanted me to precondition the crowd and go out and do a heel interview telling the fans they suck, blah blah blah, then walk through the crowd. If I could go back in time, I would have just came through the crowd. Because it doesn’t matter. Let ‘em cheer. I was coming off Vince’s TV as a babyface. It doesn’t matter. Let them cheer. Because then they’re calling their friends saying, “Are you watching this?!” If I could go back in time, I would have done it that way, but whatever.
 
Ok, so here's what I got, the Gamebridge lets me hook up some old ass VCR I got and pull video onto the computer. I got about 9 tapes, all 3 hours or so filled with rasslin from the late 80's early 90's. I just watched when the Twin Towers (Big Boss Man and Akeem) take on the mega Powers (Hogan and Savage). It's the set up for Wrestlemania 5 when Hogan fought Savage for the belt. Lots of drama back stage and in the ring. Really good stuff, problem is, the tapes are so old that there's some lines on the video and I don't know if there's any way to clean it up a bit, keeping in mind I just have a lap top I wonder if there's a program to, I dunno, "wash" the video and tighten up the picture a bit.

I'm uploading an interaction between Monsoon and Heenan onto youtube right now, mainly because you see Heenan being funny and Monsoon hits him with a "WILL YOU STOP", God, I miss those guys.

I got like an hour or two before I gotta go to work so between finding good stuff from them and uploading I may only get one or two more clips up but I'll post 'em here so you can check it out.

Unless those commie bastards at YouTube take 'em down for some BS copyright bull shit.
 
[quote name='JimmieMac']I just watched when the Twin Towers (Big Boss Man and Akeem) take on the mega Powers (Hogan and Savage). It's the set up for Wrestlemania 5 when Hogan fought Savage for the belt. Lots of drama back stage and in the ring. [/QUOTE]

'sat the one where Elizabeth gets knocked offa the stretcher backstage, with Hogan getting his ass handed to him by Savage? Scalpels and shit flyin' everywhere, and the clip ends with Hogan on his knees holding a prone Elizabeth in his arms?

Cliche, but a damned good setup.

I wonder if it's true about Macho Man being persona non grata at the WWF; I'd love to see a Savage DVD set.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']'sat the one where Elizabeth gets knocked offa the stretcher backstage, with Hogan getting his ass handed to him by Savage? Scalpels and shit flyin' everywhere, and the clip ends with Hogan on his knees holding a prone Elizabeth in his arms?

Cliche, but a damned good setup.

I wonder if it's true about Macho Man being persona non grata at the WWF; I'd love to see a Savage DVD set.[/quote]

Yeah, Savage bumps Liz, she's back stage doing the streacher job and Hogan stays with her till she regains conciousness, leaving Savage alone in the ring. After the match, Brutis tires to keep Savage from beating the both of them with the belt.

Really really good set up for the biggest PPV of the year.
 
I remember when i was a kid, i was so torn when the Mega Powers broke up. Macho Man and Hogan were my favorites, but i remember when i rented the video i couldn't watch the match cause i didn't want to see either one lose.
 
[quote name='Demolition Man']Some news and videos directly from TNA's website....


RAVEN TO GUEST ON FRIDAY'S "ROZ AND FEZ SHOW" ON SIRIUS RADIO
Raven will be special in-studio guest on Friday's broadcast of the "Ron and Fez Show" on Sirius radio. Raven will be discussing the Monster's Ball Match this Sunday at "Bound For Glory", among other topics. The Ron and Fez show can be heard each weekday from noon until 3PM ET, with encores at Midnight ET.[/QUOTE]

:rofl: Wow, you think they would know where they are sending their talent.

"ROZ AND FEZ" are on XM not Sirius
 
[quote name='Zenithian Legend']So... is Jericho going to TNA? I bet Matt Hardy is still feeling sick he didn't go there. I mean, here he is over a year since his return (right?) and he's off on SD working a program with Greg Helms. Not to mention it's taken him this long to win any gold, and when he does it's a belt with less value than the Women's Title. Jeff takes 3 years off to iron out his drug problems, comes back and has the IC title within 2 months. Just shows you who the favored Hardy brother is, was, and always will be.[/quote]

Hardy's still too heavy to be a cruiserweight, so his feud with Helms is just a 'hometown pride' thing. It seems like a program that both of them are happy working though, and hopefully it'll help elevate both guys further up the card (ha ha ha... right...).
 
[quote name='CaseyRyback']Kevin Nash's extended cut promo is just great. Even better than the one they showed on TV. Hopefully he puts some people over and they keep him on TV.[/QUOTE]

I like the pair of Nash and Shelly, they play off each great. I would like to see Nash be like a manager to Shelly or something like that.

And out of boredom, I'm posting the possible match of the year candidate.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1282438626249664605&q=dragon+gate&hl=en
 
[quote name='Midnite']I like the pair of Nash and Shelly, they play off each great. I would like to see Nash be like a manager to Shelly or something like that.[/quote]

Then they could ditch Johnny Devine, that guy's just dead weight for TNA.
 
IGN's got Mysterio & Kid Kash's entrances up on Xbox360.ign.com(Torrie's entrance for the 360 version was added today). Strangely, the PS2 version's entrances are not up.
 
NormanSmiley.gif
 
That was one hell of an I Quit match. Easily the best match on TV this week so far, although the Regal/Taylor tag is a close second due to how unique it was. "It was either Big Dick Johnson or Dusty Rhodes is makin' a comeback." - I love JBL, and good lord is the Miz ever awesomely lame. "Last time I saw somethine like that, I had to pull out my black MX, and lost 50%.".
 
[quote name='JaytheGamefan']That was one hell of an I Quit match. Easily the best match on TV this week so far, although the Regal/Taylor tag is a close second due to how unique it was.[/QUOTE]

Even though I hate the storyline these matches revolve around, they have been really good and it is nice to see that Chavo is finally getting a strong push.

edit: Someone please break Miz's jaw. I will send whoever does a thank you card.
 
Point 1. - How did I miss part 4 of the Scott Hall interview? Is there a place that the whole interview is posted? I want to re-read parts 1-3 (and find 4), without digging through all of our old topics. That Hall interview was kickass up to part 3, and for some reason I thought that was the end...

Point 2. - I also remember the MegaPowers vs the Twin Towers. That was a confusing match for me as a kid. I didn't understand how The One Man Gang could suddenly become Akeem "The African Dream" it made no sense to me, still doesn't today actually.

Point 3. - Excellent clip of Heenan & Monsoon. I've been reading Bobby's 2nd book on the airplane trips, great book, and he says that Monsoon was his bestfriend. I had no idea just how close those two really were. Very sad that Monsoon passed away while he was still fairly young.
 
If you want to read the whole Torch Talk, you can just buy a Torch newsletter subscription for like $7 a month. The Figire Four Weekly also costs that much online. Here's their review of the original Heroes of World Class DVD, which I'm posting here so more people can get an idea of what to expect when the DVD comes out in stores -
Brian Harrison’s Heroes of World Class documentary (righttherepictures.com) is a fascinating look at one of the most incredible wrestling eras in history, an era the likes which we’ll never see again due to how wrestling and the world in general has changed. It is the story of a territory that caught fire like few territories ever have, a territory which exploded to the point where its top stars were as popular in the area as only the biggest rock stars and teen idols. And it is the story of how those people eventually succumbed to the pressures that have killed so many mainstream rock stars and teen idols over the years; being too young to cope with the profound excesses that come with such fame.

Everyone has heard of King Tut’s curse; when Tut’s burial chamber was opened, of the 26 people present 6 were dead within ten years. This curse pales in comparison to the alleged Von Erich curse, which doesn’t sound so alleged when you actually watch this documentary. I’m not sure how many were on the active roster, but of those who worked for World Class at the peak, 18 are now dead. It was pretty telling when the entire three-hour documentary was built around interviews with less than a half-dozen different people from the glory period.

There are some historically inaccuracies, but I can let them slide because they consist almost entirely of statements made by the figures interviewed, and human beings make mistakes. If someone interviewed me for a documentary of my life, I guarantee there would be more inaccuracies than all of the people on this documentary put together, and I’d be telling what I thought was the truth. To me, it didn’t matter too much because I could look at the footage, listen to the screaming girls, look at the stats, and realize that exaggerations aside, this was still one incredible story.

In the end, to me this is not the story of World Class or Texas wrestling or even the whole Von Erich family; it is the story of Kevin Adkisson, the artist formerly known as Kevin Von Erich, the last surviving Von Erich who despite being married for twenty five years with four children still struggles every day with the pain of what he has endured. I’m pretty sure this is the first time he’s ever opened up like this in a public forum, and you can’t take your eyes off of him. He has suffered such unimaginable hardships and admits that these are things you never recover from, yet he still looks back fondly on the period and defends his father, the man who was giving Kerry steroids while he was still in high school, the man who exploited the deaths of his children and worked his own heart attack to try to boost business, the man who near the end of his life told Kevin that he didn’t have the guts to kill himself and then later threatened to kill him with the same gun Kerry had used to take his own life. Early on, Kevin explained that Fritz’s father was a sheriff in Texas, a diabolical figure who used to hang people and whip them as they were tied to trees, and who took young Fritz around at age 13 and had him fight other little kids for cash. Kevin made it very clear that he felt horrible for what had happened to his father growing up, and perhaps the reason he was so quick to forgive was because he understands how profound tragedy can shape a man’s life.


David Manning, who during the glory days was the most popular referee there had ever been, opened up the documentary saying in order to have a great story, you had to have a beginning, a middle and an ending. And they started at the beginning with clips of the legendary Sportatorium in Dallas. I always knew that place was a dump, but good God it was an even bigger dump than I could have ever imagined. But like the famed Bingo Hall years later, it didn’t matter; this dump was the home of the Von Erichs.

Gary Hart talked about how patriarch Fritz (born Jack Barton Adkisson on August 16, 1929) wasn’t easy to wrestle. Adkisson broke in after training with Stu Hart and was a huge star by the mid-50s. He started out as a Nazi, the evil FRITZ VON ERICH, and then in the early 70s he took on the family man persona. He started promoting in Dallas in the early 1960s. Kevin said the thing with this family was that you always knew who was Fritz’s favorite, who was number two, who was number three, etc. Kerry was always number one, and Kevin said he was fine being number two. He said Fritz was always very hard on David. But it wasn’t an abusive family, he argued.

They cut to the heyday. Manager Gary Hart explained how the NWA worked back in the 70s and 80s. You had the main booking office and all the different groups around the world that worked to try to get dates with certain folks, obviously the NWA World Heavyweight Champion being the most important. It wasn’t mentioned in the documentary, but Hart is in the midst of writing a book about his life, which could be very interesting.

They filmed in Ft. Worth on Monday nights. It aired on Saturday nights at 11:00 PM and soon went up on the satellite. Chris Adams, in an interview taped before his death with RF Video, talked about how he’d heard how hot this Texas territory was. Hart said his deal was for every 1,000 fans he got above the 4,500 average, he got $100. Mickey Grant and Bill Mercer (who in another life was a very respected mainstream reporter, but ended up garnering his most fame with World Class) claimed they approached Fritz with this idea about shooting pro-wrestling in a whole different manner, more sports-oriented. The meeting went well but Fritz never called them back. So years later they pitched it to another station manager (Channel 39 in Dallas) who told them they could shoot a pilot. Mickey said he came up with a lot of ideas from watching the movie Rocky.

The pilot airdate was November 15, 1981. Fritz did color commentary for the show. It aired on – seriously – the Christian Broadcasting Network. This was the whole image of Fritz’s handsome Von Erich sons — clean-cut, drug-free young Christian boys fighting the good fight against the bad guys. In the end, this ultimately made the downfall even more shocking. Everyone put over Bill Mercer as the best announcer of all time. Obviously he won’t be remembered as such historically, but he was very good. Marc Lowrence said he didn’t want to do the ring announcing gig but he agreed to six dates because he needed the money. He said they all treated him well and were good people, so he told them if they wanted anything else to call him. So they called and said they wanted him back permanently. The rest is history.

It was hilarious watching the high-level technology of 1981. They had microphones that could get you close to the action and SLOW MOTION. Gary Hart said promotions needed new blood, and the blood started with Kevin Von Erich and moved on to David, Kerry and then Mike. They showed clips of Kevin working, and my God did he ever stiff the hell out of people. David was the biggest star of them all, traveling to different territories all around the world and being groomed for an eventual run as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion (a title Fritz was also in the running for during his heyday, but which was constantly denied him because at the time the NWA didn’t want their champions to be “gimmick workers”; I believe this is one of the main reasons he switched to the family man persona, but even that didn’t work). Kerry, however, had the look none of the others had, with the long flowing God-like mullet and juiced-up physique. He attracted the women like nobody else perhaps before or since.

In 1982, Fritz decided to retire and bring in more new faces, including Chris Adams. Adams was doing topes and such in the early 80s. They showed clips of him challenging Jimmy Garvin, and holy crap did Garvin have the greatest mullet I’ve ever seen. Garvin refused to accept, so a few weeks later the MASKED AVENGER beat the crap out of him and superkicked him for the pin, and the place just went absolutely nuts when he unmasked (as, of course, Adams). Adams was an incredible worker. I was SO born in the wrong era.

They ran down all the great heels of the era, since, as Hart (the ultimate evil heel manager) noted, half the success of the era could be attributed to the great villains the Von Erichs feuded with. This, of course, was the perfect segue into the Fabulous Freebirds era. If I had watched all of this growing up the Freebirds would have been on my first Observer Hall of Fame ballot.

The feud exploded on December 25, 1982 at Reunion Arena in Dallas. Basically, Hayes, who the fans had chosen as a guest referee for the match (they were babyfaces at the time), tried to convince Kerry to pin Flair and win the NWA Title after Hayes had knocked him out. Kerry, the upstanding Christian lad, refused to win in such a manner. Hayes, outraged, stormed out of the cage. Kerry went after him, and as he stuck his head out of the cage door Terry Gordy slammed it on him. That finish happens in virtually every cage match today and means nothing. But in 1982 it meant everything, and business went absolutely through the roof for the next several years.

Even during the boom period, they only moved from four employees to eight. The show began to get syndicated throughout the US, then throughout the world. They were super huge in Israel, for example (the joke was that wars would stop for an hour every week while the Middle East watched the show). Of course, this was 20 years ago so a lot of the claims were a bit exaggerated. It’s amazing looking back at what a corny crew of dingbats Devastation Incorporated was (Kimala, SUPER DESTROYERS, Missing Link, etc.), but did the people ever believe it.

They talked about how Ric Flair and Harley Race came through Dallas during their respective title reigns. Hart said Flair, as champion, took home 10% of the gates. I’m not sure if that’s completely true but I know the percentage was extremely good (particularly compared to the PPV cuts and such that guys get today). Anyway, the point is that it’s amazing how much money Ric Flair made in his career and how little he’s got these days due to insane amounts of spending. SAVE YOUR MONEY KID.

The Von Erich vs. Freebirds feud continued throughout 1983; stip matches, singles matches, matches for the Six-Man titles, etc. Bruiser Brody came in during this period and became a huge star. I haven’t seen a lot of Brody, but it was clear watching this that if he hadn’t died he’d have had a good run with Hogan in the WWF, and probably would have played a pretty good role in the Monday Night Wars. He also would have been a huge star if he’d happened to come along today. Also, unlike Flair, he saved his money, always carrying cans of tuna and pork and beans.

Mike Von Eric debuted in 1983. Pretty much everyone agreed that he really didn’t have the passion for wrestling and did it because I guess that’s what he was supposed to do as a Von Erich brother. Clips aired from a number of major matches, including David vs. Kimala, Kevin vs. Akbar, etc. Whenever the bad guys got heat on a Von Erich and the rest of the brothers made the save it was a reaction unlike anything you’d ever hear nowadays. I don’t even have anything to really compare it to in wrestling. It was legitimately a rock star reaction, where you wouldn’t be surprised to see teenage girls weeping and fainting.

They showed a deal which I can only describe as a whacky lucha skit where Jimmy Garvin had to serve as valet for David. Garvin showed up in a TOWN CAR~!, and it actually got better from there if you can believe that. David made him dig post holes and move bales of hay and wash his dog, and if Garvin wasn’t going fast enough David would fire a warning shot with his shotgun. This was THE best thing I’ve ever seen.

And then on February 10th, 1984 David died. Manning got the call: “This is Joe Higuchi, All Japan Pro Wrestling. David Von Erich, dead.” They wanted to call David’s wife and break the news. Manning said no, he’d handle it. At the time, Fritz was having a new house built so he and his wife were living in a mobile home. Manning drove out there, pulled in, knocked on the door, and as soon as he opened the door Fritz just said, “Which one?” Fritz didn’t start to cry, he just kept looking back towards the bedroom where his wife Doris was sleeping. He wanted to know if it was true and if there were any other details, and Manning said he’d go to Edum and try to find out more information. He did, and was told All Japan officials had found David in his room sprawled across the bed as if he was trying to get to the phone. Manning went back and Doris was there waiting for him. She wanted to know if the whole deal was a mistake and he had to tell her no. Kevin said he got the call an hour before daybreak.

Kerry and David had filmed a match on February 3rd and the show aired a few days after the death. Afterwards, they did a cut-in announcing that David had died following a match in Japan (meaning the claim was that he’d died due to injuries suffered in the bout). Manning insisted that David had passed away as a result of heart failure due to acute enteritis, and despite the fact that there had been persistent drug rumors, “the autopsy doesn’t lie” (the autopsy did note, however, that David had high levels of painkillers in his system). Manning said he was even more certain of this after talking to Brody, who was the first to find David’s body. This wasn’t mentioned in the documentary, but Brody always told others that he’d flushed drugs down the toilet after finding David dead.

February 18th, 1984 was the David Von Erich tribute show, a forerunner to the Owen Hart and Eddy Guerrero tribute shows WWE would produce years later. They didn’t break kayfabe, but the heels gave their thoughts and said good things about David. Manning said they were expecting 500 people for the funeral, but over 4,000 showed up. After that, they had to drive to Grove Cemetery, and to their surprise there was a motorcycle cop or squad car blocking every single highway entrance all the way to the graveyard. Exaggerations or not, David’s death legitimately became a giant deal in Texas (although not immediately — it took a few days). Manning said the show had to go on and there were reporters everywhere asking questions and main events that needed to be booked, and this might have helped Fritz get through all this.

Hart noted that up until that point there had never been a hint of scandal in World Class. Everyone pretty much agreed that the death took the heart out of the show. It was pretty clear watching Kevin’s interview that once David died, he was mentally finished. He admitted that he’d never gotten over it.

This, of course, all led to the famous Ric Flair vs. Kerry World Title match at Texas Stadium. Fritz was pretty much setting it up in the aftermath of David’s death, noting on TV that David wanted nothing in this world more than the World title, and now the question was which of the remaining brothers would win it for him. I didn’t see Flair/Kerry when it first took place, but I saw it many, many years later, and what a scene it was when Von Erich won that belt. Flair, of course, regained the title three weeks later in Japan.

The big feuds at that point involved Devastation Inc. feuding with both the Von Erichs and the Freebirds. The Freebirds were still heels but basically were being cheered against everyone they faced except the Von Erichs. Chris Adams, formerly a huge babyface, joined Devastation Inc. and started his major feud against Kevin.

In the mid-80s Gino Hernandez hit the scene and hit it big. He was a pretty boy that the guys in the crowd would see and say, “I could kick that guy’s ass.” He drove fancy cars and wore expensive watches and had a killer feathered mullet. He and Adams teamed up to become the number one heel foil for the Von Erichs throughout 1985. Jim Cornette – who looked 12 at the time – came in with the Midnight Express, and of course the Fantastics showed up as well. There was some incredible talent during this period. Mike ended up with a shoulder injury and as they were working on it, he somehow contracted toxic shock syndrome. His temperature hit 106 and the family was called in to say their goodbyes. Kevin said they prayed and prayed and prayed and he survived, but unfortunately he suffered major brain damage. He was never the same. Fritz decided they needed another Von Erich. Everyone was against it but Fritz said, “Majority rules!” and that meant they were overruled. So they found a pretty-boy bodybuilder and named him Lance, and there was your new Von Erich. This was the first and last we ever heard of Lance Von Erich in this documentary, and that should tell you everything you need to know.

In October of 1985, Kerry & Kevin beat Adams & Hernandez in a double hair vs. hair match, the finish of which whipped the crowd into a boom-era frenzy. And then on January 30th, 1986, Hernandez, 29, was found dead. “The limelight caught him,” Hart said. “Gino loved the cocaine.” Manning said shortly before his death Gino had come by and asked to borrow a gun. Manning wanted to know why and Gino said he’d been having all sorts of troubles lately. Manning said Gino had a coke bowl right there in his apartment. “It was no secret to any of us that Gino had a drug problem,” he said. Hart said he’d approached him asking him why he was doing all of this, and Gino said, “Gary, you know I’m like that old dog. I’ve had all I can take but not all I want.” So Hart left and told him to call in a few days with his upcoming dates. Then the phone call came. Killer Tim Brooks called Hart crying and said they’d found Gino dead in the apartment from a cocaine overdose. Manning speculated that there was more, saying Gino was scared the entire last week of his life, and even though he always locked the deadbolt in his apartment, ALWAYS, the day he was found dead it wasn’t locked. He said they found three times the amount of coke in his system that it would take a person to OD. “I think it was foul play.”

World Class pulled out of the NWA in 1986 after Jim Crockett decided to go national. Therefore, Ken Mantell decided they were going to go worldwide, and the holder of the American belt, Rick Rude, was named the new WCWA World Champion. They began touring all over the world, from St. Louis to San Antonio to Israel. Fritz then made the decision that it would be better if they downscaled and concentrated on Texas. Others in the organization thought they should try to challenge Vince McMahon. Hart warned Fritz that a new era was starting, and sure enough the other smaller promotions started to go under.

In 1986, Mantell left for Bill Watts’ UWF. Manning took over. That same year, Kerry was in a horrible motorcycle accident that basically tore half his foot off, and missed a year and a half of action. When he returned, the fact that he’d had part of his foot amputated was a major secret in wrestling (though people figured something was up when he went swimming and showered with the boot on), not revealed publicly until a famous match with Colonel DeBeers where DeBeers grabbed him by the foot to keep him from beating a countout and the boot and foot both came off.

In April of 1987, Mike’s toxic shock syndrome issues were catching up to him. They’d already rushed him back to the ring in practically a criminal move. One day he came up missing. They had a meeting and Gary said his understanding was that they’d already found the suicide note. But there was a big show coming up. Hart said the media didn’t know about it, but the note also didn’t say where the deed was done. Turns out he took a sleeping bag, some beer and some pills up to the river and said goodbye. Kevin basically attributed his suicide to the brain damage. This lead to the David and Mike Von Erich Memorial of Champions show at Texas Stadium. This show drew 4,900, down from the 43,000 the David Von Erich show drew a few years earlier. Gary noted that what it had taken eight years to build up was now being destroyed in two or three. Everyone had different theories as to why. Of course, the most obvious of them was the fact that everyone was dying.

“We had had some key deaths with the Von Erichs,” Mark Lowrence noted.

Fritz pulled out at this point, but the promotion kept running. It was down to Kevin, Chris and Kerry. “Kerry had a drug problem,” Kevin said. For the next few years they tried to restore the promotion to its former glory, but that failed. Ultimately the company was sold to Jerry Jarrett, who renamed it the United States Wrestling Association. They totally began glossing over things and it was clear that this was the point where Harrison as a fan had quickly started losing interest.

In 1998 Brody was murdered in Puerto Rico. Mantell said he wasn’t there, but he’d heard from friends that Brody had an issue with a referee down there. Gary Hart, who was particularly angry, said Brody was “stabbed by a bunch of thugs, left laying on the dressing room floor.” Mantell said Brody went to shower and “this guy” was hiding behind the wall and jumped out and cut him. He said the guy who did it never went to jail and still worked in the office, and was appalled that there were friends of Brody who went back to Puerto Rico and continued to work for the company.

What really happened was that on July 16th, 1988, Brody was working for Carlos Colon’s World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico. After his match with Abdullah the Butcher he ran into promoter/wrestler Jose Gonzalez backstage. The two had issues stemming from their time working together in New York. Gonzalez had a towel over his arm and said he needed to talk to Brody about something. They went into the shower, there was a scream, and Brody stumbled out bleeding from a stab wound in the stomach. He’d broken his arm earlier in the year and was therefore taking large amounts of aspirin, which thinned his blood. It took the ambulance 30 minutes to arrive, and he died in the hospital of blood loss during this second of two surgeries. The case went to trial and Gonzalez (who had gone home after the stabbing, changed his clothes, and returned to the building, all the while acting like nothing had happened) was the only one to testify. He claimed self defense and got off. The rest of the wrestlers got notifications in the mail inviting them to come to court and testify; however, for whatever reason they got them AFTER (some as long as two weeks after) the verdict was handed down. Gonzalez still works for IWA (WWC’s main rival on the island) today, which in the last few years has promoted Bruiser Brody Memorial Shows.

In 1991, Chris, 21, shot himself to death. Manning said when he was young his asthma medicine stunted his growth, and as the smallest Von Erich, the one who was supposed to carry the family name into the 21st century according to PWI Magazine, he was just under too much pressure. The story I heard, and I cannot confirm this but after watching this documentary I cannot deny the possibility, is that the diminutive Chris was prescribed Human Growth Hormone when he was growing up and Kerry, who wanted it for a bodybuilding stack, gave Chris steroids to bulk him up in exchange for the GH. On February 18, 1993 Kerry, 33, shot himself. He was on a ten-year probation for forging prescriptions, and in 1992 was indicted on cocaine possession charges. Kevin claimed Kerry called him that day and told him he was going to kill himself. He immediately called his mother who hid all the guns. Fritz was outside paving and hadn’t gotten the message, and Kerry got to him and asked to borrow a gun to go out hunting. Hours later, when he hadn’t returned, Fritz went looking for him and found the body in a thicket. Manning said that in his wildest dreams he never could have imagined that Kerry would have killed himself, and concluded that it must have been the drugs. He said most people had no idea what a suicide did to a family; they spent the rest of their lives thinking maybe it was their fault. He said you could sum it up best by what Kevin said in the days following Kerry’s death. “Once I had five brothers. Now I’m not even a brother.”

In 1997 Fritz was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Kevin said the thing you had to keep in mind was that Fritz had brain cancer, so a lot of the strange things he said and did near the end had to be attributed to that. “He was not himself.” One day, Kevin said, his father told him: “You’d kill yourself too if you had the guts. But you don’t have the guts your brothers had.” Kevin said no, it took guts to stay alive, the easy way was to kill yourself. At another point, Fritz pulled a .44 on him, the same .44 that Kerry had used to kill himself. “I would bring this rage out of him, because he’d lost his sons.” He insisted that his father was a good man, and that nobody should take any of this the wrong way. He said when Fritz was pointing the gun at him, “I looked in his eyes and I thought, ‘He’s pointing a gun at me, but he’s dad.’ But then I looked into his eyes and thought, ‘Dad’s not home.’”

On September 10, 1997 Fritz died of the cancer at the age of 68. Chris Adams was later murdered after a drunken fight with long-time friend William Parnell (Adams, who’d had a number of major violent issues while drinking, went crazy while they were roughhousing and was trying to gouge out his eye, and Parnell shot him in self-defense). Hart said he went into a deep depression after this one because Chris had tried to call him two or three times the previous week and he just hadn’t returned the calls. “I always returned his calls, and that night I didn’t. And a few days later, Chris was gone.”

They listed the 18 men that had died since 1982: David Von Erich (drugs), Mike Von Erich (suicide), Gino Hernandez (overdose); Bruiser Brody (homicide), Chris Von Erich (suicide), Magic Dragon (plane crash); Scott Irwin (cancer), Tojo Yamamoto (suicide), Frank Dalton (“unknown”, though I believe it was a stroke), DJ Peterson (truck accident), Killer Karl Krupp (heart attack), Kerry Von Erich (suicide), Ralph Pulley (AIDS), Mike Davis (heart failure), Jeff Raitz (heart failure), Joe LeDuc (diabetes), Jeep Swenson (heart failure), Rick Rude (drugs), Terry Gordy (heart failure), Billy Travis (heart failure), Junkyard Dog (car accident), Chris Adams (murdered). A number of these deaths could be linked to drug use, particularly the heart failures.

Manning said one day he was in an airport and someone noted that he was on TV. He looked up, and he was the only one on screen still alive.

On February 10, 2003, Kevin visited the Sportatorium one last time before it was completely torn down. This was fascinating as he walked through the place, talking about where the guys came out, where the best place to watch the matches without being seen was, where “things got ugly”, where he sold cotton candy as a little kid, etc. In some ways, to me this was the most amazing part of the whole documentary. All that was left was a broken down building, ready to be demolished, and the one remaining Von Erich was walking through talking about his memories of a time that was bigger than it’s almost possible to imagine and was now nothing but memories, and almost all of the guys that made it what it was are gone. It was like an old man talking about a great bygone era of the 1940s or 1950s, but it amazingly went down in the mid-80s. It hit you hard that no matter how big something gets, no matter how popular, everything passes, and sometimes it passes very hard and very fast.

“Kind of sad, really,” Kevin said.

He said after 9/11 he was interviewed by several radio stations in New York. They all asked him how to deal with grief. “Like I’m an expert,” he said dryly. “And I’d tell them the bad thing about grief is it doesn’t get better. It gets worse. You just learn to deal with it, really. It’s like, as far as I’m concerned, David’s just died. It’s just so — so final. It’s almost too hard a blow for a man to take but we take it and go on, because that’s our job in life, to keep going. And I want to tell you, there were no brothers closer than I was to my brothers. None in the world.

“A lot of people feel sorry for me. They say, ‘Man, I’m sure sorry for your loss.’ And I love them for feeling like that, but the truth of it is you shouldn’t feel sorry for me. I mean, it was a good – I had a darn good time. You know, it had a bad ending, but boy we had a good time. I can only be grateful for the good time I did have, really.”
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Has there ever been a buried alive match without Taker in it?

I know they had that casket match a long time ago, with I believe... HHH vs Mideon & Viscera as they stood in for Taker, but that was about it.

I want to see more specialty matches that Taker inspired held between some of the other wrestlers.
 
[quote name='Zenithian Legend']Has there ever been a buried alive match without Taker in it?

I know they had that casket match a long time ago, with I believe... HHH vs Mideon & Viscera as they stood in for Taker, but that was about it.

I want to see more specialty matches that Taker inspired held between some of the other wrestlers.[/quote]

Buried Alive match- nope, they've all involved him. Here's the matches:

Mankind vs. Taker- Buried Alive In Your House
Stone Cold vs. Taker- Rock Bottom In Your House
Mr. McMahon vs. Taker- Survivor Series '03

Strangely though, each time, he's lost and his character's been revamped.

As for that casket match, that was the Smackdown before Unforgiven '99. Mideon & Viscera took his place since he was taking time off for surgery on his knee. It was SD where Triple H has 6 matches and had to win 3 to get a title match at the PPV.

As for specialty matches, it's much like Kane, all 3 Inferno matches involved him.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Apparently Corporal Kirchner died today. [/quote]

Seems WWE.com fucked up, the guy's still alive. Apparently it was a mix up, cause they had the wrong name.
 
Just a friendly programming reminder to those who missed TNA Impact this Thursday and to those who want to rewatch the amazing Kurt Angle/Samoa Joe brawl at the end of the show that TNA Impact will be on today at 6 PM Eastern/5 PM Central on Spike TV.

Back to your normal Shawn Michaels' wrestling topic already in progress.....
 
I'm more excited about WRESTLING RETURNINGS TO SATURDAYS AT 6 PM... for one week than I am about the BFG hype show, which had better do a good job, because Impact sold Genesis more than BFG. Angle-Joe will be main eventing Genesis, and the Kirchner death wasn't a WWE fuck-up - the guy claimed to people that he was Kirchner, and WWE pulled the story from their site after being contacted by his mother that it wasn't true.
 
[quote name='neocisco']If anybody missed Impact the replay will be on Saturday at 6p, NOT 11p. Just a friendly programming reminder.[/quote]

[quote name='Demolition Man']Just a friendly programming reminder to those who missed TNA Impact this Thursday and to those who want to rewatch the amazing Kurt Angle/Samoa Joe brawl at the end of the show that TNA Impact will be on today at 6 PM Eastern/5 PM Central on Spike TV.

Back to your normal Shawn Michaels' wrestling topic already in progress.....[/quote]

Hey! Get your own gimmick!;)
 
[quote name='Demolition Man']TNA Road For Glory is on right now on Spike TV.[/quote]

I'll have to tape it. I'm watching Trinity Blood now and Bleach afterwards. Thanks for the heads up though. :)
 
[quote name='OzCatter']Angle's wife went into labor today, but he's gonna have his own autograph signing tomorrow, and will be at the show[/QUOTE]

That's really great of him to do that for the fans.

Any word on the birth of the child?
 
Ah, dammit. WWE mentioned on Raw A.M. & seems WWE.com that K-Fed is going to be at Raw. :bomb: Keep that crap off our TV.

Also, expect Joey Mercury to be coming back soon. Seems he's out of rehab, cause he was on OVW's show last night. Still looks the same, except for getting a haircut(think of the haircut Kid Kash has). Weird watching that, cause Beth Phoenix was also on there(guess WWE still thinks she needs some practice), but it was weird. They have a women's title, but all it is is a WWE Women's Title only with the WWE gone and jewels and some black crap on the main plate.

Oh and before Psicosis was let go, WWE was going to bring him back and repackage him. If you think Muhammed Hassan & Cryme Tyme are bad, read this:

Prior to his termination, Psicosis was told that he was going to be brought back to WWE with a new gimmick. WWE officials asked him to grow a moustache like a stereotypical Mexican Revolution general from a century ago(like Pancho Villa) and he would come to the ring with gun belt.
Click to expand...

Now just watch, they have Super Crazy do that.
 
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