Pro Wrestling History Thread

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In 1978 an outlaw promotion was born called International Championship Wrestling. It was based in Lexington Kentucky. The promotion was owned and operated by Angelo Poffo, the father of Randy savage and Lanny Poffo. It's first world champion was Lanny who traded the title over the years with Randy. In it's brief existence it made waves that changed wrestling forever (ok, maybe I'm stretching a little but who cares.)
In it's brief history they managed to piss off a lot of the wrestling establishment including Ron Fuller's promotion, Nick Gulas's NWA territory and most famously Jerry Jarrett's promotion based in Memphis. In a promotional war the ICW would often belittle Jarretts promotion and it's wrestlers, most notably Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee. The theme was that the ICW was real and Lawler and Dundee and the rest were fake. The main instigator was Randy Savage with backing from shooter Bob Roop.
The war started to really heat up and it was a scary time for the wrestlers on both sides who were treating this like a gang war and were in fear for their safety and their lives. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE- NOT A STORYLINE. Wrestlers from both sides started to carry guns and knives with them for protection.
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A brief interlude--- whenever I watch Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, I always thing of this story when they have the rivalry and street fight with the other stations.
 
The bad blood reached its apex when Randy Savage crossed paths with Superstar Bill Dundee one night. Savage immediately got into Dundee's face and threatened him with violent ferocity. Dundee proceeded to pull a gun and threatened to shoot Savage. Savage immediately reacted and easily subdued Dundee and wrestled the gun off of Dundee. Savage then proceeded to beat Bill Dundee with his own gun within an inch or two of his life. Savage puncuated the beating by breaking Dundee's jaw with the gun.
Word soon got out about this incident because the ICW let everyone know that Savage beat the hell out of the number two star of the Jarrett promotion.
The promotional war continued but the ICW was destined to lose. The reason? Jarrett had a king up his sleeve and everywhere else for that matter. In those days you weren't going to beat Jerry "The King" Lawler at anything in part of the country.
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With Angelo getting older and the promotion not going that well, the elder Poffo called to his enemy for help. Poffo worked out a deal with Jerry Jarrett that would keep his son working and make him a few bucks.
Later some would call it a merger, and in some ways it was. The deal was that the ICW was going to fold and talent from that promotion would now work for Jarrett. The beautiful thing was that the fans were unaware of this new agreement.
One day Randy Savage showed up unannounced ot the Memphis tapings and attempted to take over the King's realm. To the fans, this was shocking. Every week he would come in, "uninvited" and unwelcome. each week the "outsider" would come in and disrupt the Memphis show calling out the CWA wrestlers, including Lawler.
The ensuing war with Lawler "made" Savage and shortly thereafter The WWF signed him because of urging from George Scott (the man who told Ric Flair that he was the new Nature Boy.)
The rest is macho history.
 
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flow,

This look familiar?

 
Also, something that may come as shocking to many fans... Pro wrestling has been fake from nearly day one. Fake may be too strong of a word... How about pre-determined endings?

In the days of the post Civil War USA, there was pro wrestling. It didn't have huge arenas to make money from, so the money came from gambling. The wrestlers' handlers would hustle to make bets on their man. The wrestlers rarely had actual shoots (AKA legitimate contests) in public. They would have them in the gym, behind closed doors. Why would a wrestler put his livelyhood on the line in a contest when they could pre-determine the outcome and both come out richer?

The old newspapers would have articles claiming that a match was a hippodrome, meaning essentially, it was for show/entertainment.

Also, there were very few true "hookers" in the sport. There were more shooters, guys with some wrestling background (like, say, Lesnar or Angle today). Most of the wrestlers were journeymen. Journeymen had charisma, sometimes could make a match look good, were good sellers, but they didn't have a wrestling background and darned sure couldn't hook an out of line opponent. Buddy Rogers, Gorgeous George, Dusty Rhodes... All journeymen.

So take this knowledge and look at some old matches. Very few of the old matches of the early 1900s to the mid-1920s were shoots. Extremely very few. Londos was too small to be legit. Someone like Stanislaus Zybzco (sp?) would have crushed Londos like a grape in a legit contest. Yet Londos was THE MAN because he sold out wherever he went.

Londos wrestled a match in his home country of Greece. 105 thousand people watched live. This was way before TV, folks. He filled arenas in New York, St. Louis, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He never gave up a fall, yet he still managed to make his opponent stay strong in defeat. He was an amazing talent.
 
SprawlanStall said:
It still frustrates me that LOD never seemed booked to their potential in the WWE. Kind of crazy to think Heath Slater and Gabriel whoever have the same amount or more tag title runs.
Click to expand...

It really hit home for me when I was re-watching the Tag Match at Armageddon when Jeff Hardy destroyed Joey Mercury's face when they say MNM had MORE tag titles than the Hardys did... it showed how little those belts meant at that point.



And I never got to see LOD or the Steiners as teams...:icon_sad:



Big Burly said:
Also, something that may come as shocking to many fans... Pro wrestling has been fake from nearly day one. Fake may be too strong of a word... How about pre-determined endings?
Click to expand...

My grandpa was an usher in a Minneapolis arena and a theater house in the 1950s and saw many wrestling shows and saw the guys practicing with each other and discussing what they were gonna do before the match.

Just, back then, most were former amateur wrestlers.
 
In Minneapolis? Maybe they were mostly amateur wrestlers. Minneapolis was run by Tony Stecher, who was the brother and manager to Joe Stecher, one of the all-time greats in the sport. Joe had some mental stability issues, but he was one of the best in the ring.

Tony ran Minneapolis for a long time. I could see him trying to keep his area fairly pure with more shooters. Even so, he was the one who pushed for Bronko Nagurski to be World Champ. Nagurski was a famous pro football player from the Chicago Bears. He wrestled in his off seasons for Stecher in Minnesota. He was built slowly over several off-seasons from football. I have seen some footage of him wrestling, and he was very believable as a pro wrestler. Today he would look like a shooter compared to most "action soap-opera stars."

Unfortunately, Bronko wasn't a big draw away from Minnesota, so the title was switched to guess who?




.... little Jimmy Londos!
 
I'm glad this thread came up.

I'm doing a research paper and was trying to find out who, and what year the sunset flip was performed first. Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
The name of Tommy Rich came up before when discussing the Road Warriors, and I couldn't help but think about how winning the NWA title was the worst thing to ever happen to him. Tommy was a young upstart who Barnett was going to push(probably had a crush on him), so out of nowhere they do a hotshot title change with him and Harley for six days?

Where was Tommy supposed to go after that? He wasn't going to travel from territory to territory the way the NWA champ was supposed to as he didn't want to, so its not like he was going to see the belt any time soon again. I mean who goes from being the NWA Champion(pre-Crockett monopoly) to working the middle of the card in Memphis? It totally killed anything for Tommy, because there was nowhere for him to go but down.

You combine that with the fact that year after year you could see him get more and more out of shape, and he became a joke and it was kinda like "THIS guy was the world champion? THIS guy beat Harley Race? What?"
 
It's true Bomber, I never saw a dime in Tommy Rich, but then again I saw him when he was shit. I was born in 78 and started watching WTBS programming in early 1985. By the time I ever saw the guy, he was a bucket of shit and looked like the proverbial "skinny fat guy". I couldn't understand why he was a big deal and former champion, even if my grandfather spoke highly of his war with Buzz Sawyer.
 
Southern wrestling never really was based on physique though. Look at Dusty, Wrestling II, Rich and so on. I guess they drew the line when George Gulas was pushed to the moon by his dad in TN. (of course, Gulas was maybe the worst pushed wrestler of all time, though.)
I am not a fan of Tommy Rich but in the very early 80's almost no one was hotter. WTBS made him a national star. Terry Funk always said that he knew the territories were doomed when fans in Amarillo asked why he wasn't fighting Tommy Rich (imagine, fans thinking Terry was afraid of Tommy!!!!!)
 
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Tommy was the center of the altercation where Wahoo shot Dick Slater, btw. (by accident.)
 
Big Burly said:
In Minneapolis? Maybe they were mostly amateur wrestlers. Minneapolis was run by Tony Stecher, who was the brother and manager to Joe Stecher, one of the all-time greats in the sport. Joe had some mental stability issues, but he was one of the best in the ring.

Tony ran Minneapolis for a long time. I could see him trying to keep his area fairly pure with more shooters. Even so, he was the one who pushed for Bronko Nagurski to be World Champ. Nagurski was a famous pro football player from the Chicago Bears. He wrestled in his off seasons for Stecher in Minnesota. He was built slowly over several off-seasons from football. I have seen some footage of him wrestling, and he was very believable as a pro wrestler. Today he would look like a shooter compared to most "action soap-opera stars."

Unfortunately, Bronko wasn't a big draw away from Minnesota, so the title was switched to guess who?




.... little Jimmy Londos!
Click to expand...

A lot of the guys were apparently amateur wrestlers from the U of M back then.

Also, this isn't history but it's kinda cool, my dad got to meet Andre in Japan once .
 
Well, look at what the Minnesota area turned into... The AWA. Owned by Verne Gagne. It remained an area where the guys with legit wrestling backgrounds were pushed more.

Verne, Brad Rheingans, and Billy Robinson trained a shitload of wrestlers back in the 60s and 70s.
 
I never saw the appeal of Tommy Rich. He wasn't handsome. He was skinny but had a lot of baby fat when he was young. He was okay in the ring and on the mic, but nothing overly special to me. I hated all of the crowd's cheerleader chants for Rich... "Fire up Tommy Rich, fire up HEY!"

Gawddammit that shit drove me nuts as a kid!

It's funny to hear that Barnett may have had a crush on Tommy Rich. THAT would make some sense as to why he got such a great push.

Yes, Rich's bloody feud with Buzz Sawyer was great stuff. Mostly because of Sawyer.
 
Tooth and Nail said:
I was like 9...I really do not remember. All I remember is my friends and their dads were bigger fans than I was, and they collected wrestling magazines that featured stories about all different territories etc...I was primarily into the WWF. I didn't even really know who the Road Warriors were until I saw them live and then I was an instant fan.

The bear was either part of the local circuit (a circus maybe) or maybe they toured him in....who knows. It was a feature attraction though on the card along with the midget that looked like Mr T. lol
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The Destroyer wrestled a bear

Tracy Smothers wrestled a bear as well
 
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