Pro Wrestling History Thread

Just watched AWA from 1990 on ESPN Classic and it was terrible. No wonder they went out of business.
The announcers were horrible. They went away from the classic play by play guy and retired wrestler. They had 2 guys I never heard of and one guy thought he was Gordon Solie announcing by himself and he never shut up. That left the second guy chiming in with obvious lines like, "The Russian Brute is really a brute"
The only people I recognized was Col. Debeers, Ox Baker(managing) and Brad Rheigens, Eric Bishoff(interviewer), Zybisko and Koloff. I ended up fast forwarding a majority of the show. Larry and Nikita match was not bad, but the ref angle sucked.

 

You are right! By 1990 the AWA was so decimated by the WWF that there really were only really young and green newbies, local "talent" that wouldn't travel much, and really old and past-their-prime wrestlers.

 

They moved some of the Team Challenge matches to an empty arena for "security" purposes.

 

Was watching random matches on youtube and this one just happen to give me a pretty good laugh.

 

Hey! I worked for the AWA in 1992! What are you saying?

 

i talked to Ken Shamrock for about 50 minutes the other night. we talked about his wrestling quite a bit. He discusses his "incest" proposed angle as well as the Nasty Boys. Wrestling starts at about 24:30 mark

 

Cool. Being a huge Ken Shamrock fan, im definitely gonna have to listen to the whole interview when i get the chance. Thanks for posting it.

 

Edouard Carpentier vs Jim Eskew. Just a short match, nothing special, but at around 4:10 Carpentier does his backflip off the top rope and his foot catches & breaks one of the lights above the ring, with some sparks shooting down. Pretty neat sight.

 

In my browsing of the internet, ive come across more pics of WWA World Heavyweight Champions wearing this belt design, and so i thought id post them to add to the pics i already posted of Dick the Bruiser, The Destroyer & Luke Graham.

"Cowboy" Bob Ellis



Toyonobori

This pic of Toyonobori indicates that there was more than one WWA belt of this design, since he's wearing 2 of them (and obviously they have different straps as well). Where as i had figured before that the belt Bruiser & Destroyer were wearing had just been re-strapped by the time Graham had become the champion. Anyway, Toyonobori was recognized as the champion in Japan by JWA after he defeated The Destroyer for the title in December 1964, but he wasn't recognized as such here in the US by the WWA.

 

Pedro Morales



"Killer" Buddy Austin

Note that Austin's wearing the title belt upside down, lol.


Bobo Brazil

Obviously a different color strap, and maybe another different belt of the same design altogether.


Lou Thesz

Bad quality, but the only pic ive found of Thesz with the belt during his 2 week reign with the WWA title.

 

Had to put up another video to dispel a bad rumor.

http://youtu.be/VZdlGDXn2Gs?hd=1

 

Has anyone seen the "turkey on a pole" match that the AWA had in their dying days?

 

Yeah, i seem to remember seeing it years ago.

 

Great info. I am not into te belts like some but your posts are very informative for any fan. Thanks.

 

WO Hall of Fame

Not sure why most capital letters didn't copy correctly.

 

Is that you who wrote & emailed that to Meltzer or is that from someone else? At any rate, i agree 100%.

 

BFD is the man, everyone here needs to get over to Belt Talk if you haven't done so yet.

 

Yeah, it was me. I was watching BFG and was amazed how over Sting was 25 years later. An amazing career that needs recognition, and not the TNA hall. He is in ours, though.
Moolah not in is a joke. She should have been first ballot.

 

Thread lock in 3,2,

 

1.
I think one of the BB's or Danny should start the second one.
Great thread, guys!!!! I learned a lot of stuff that an old timer like me should know.
Thanks!!!!

Can a mod sticky the next one, please?