I know I have not upated my site with a personal message in a very long time. I apologize for this. No real excuse other than I have been extremely busy and I am the world's biggest procrastinator. But now I feel the need to explain some recent "news" concerning the King and more or less let everyone hear what happened straight from the horse's mouth, or in this case, the King's mouth. I have been a professional wrestler for over 30 years now and I thought I had seen it all, but this past week someone pulled a "new one" on me. I think most people know that my primary job is as color commentator on WWE's Monday Night Raw TV show on USA network. On that show I wrestle occasionally, but mostly commentate. Aside from that, I still wrestle on a weekly basis in our Tennessee wrestling company, and on various independent shows from time to time. Well, last week, (Friday, June 15, 2007) we had a show at Sam's Town Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. We do shows there on a monthly basis. I wrestled former WWE star, Mr Hughes on the semi-final match, and the final match of the night was a cage match featuring the Assassins, managed by a guy called the "Big Cheese" against Corey Maclin and Birdman Koko B. Ware. After my match was over, I stood in the back and watched the last match from behind the stage curtains. As their match ended, and the "Big Cheese" was on his way back to the stage through the fans, a minor altercation took place and someone said, "that idiot "Cheese" just hit a fan!" I actually didn't see that but I did then see security and a crowd gathering in that area. So as the "Big Cheese" came up the stairs to the stage I proceeded to run out on the stage to make a little "comeback" on the "Cheese" to divert attention from the fracas he had just caused. As I approached him, he begged off in typical bad guy fashion and then I gave him a little kick and then one punch. He took what we call a "bump" by falling backward and attempting to roll his overweight body in a back somersault. He then jumped up and ran off the side of the stage. That was the end of my involvement in the match. After that, both Maclin and Koko made another "comeback" on the "Big Cheese" and chased him to the dressing room, where "Cheese" apparently grabbed his bag and clothes and ran out to his car screaming...."Jerry Lawler hit me too hard! Jerry Lawler was "shooting" on me! I'm out of here!" That was the last anyone saw of the "Big Cheese." At least we thought. The following Wednesday, as I was dressing to go play softball, my phone rang and a friend of mine from WMC TV5 was on the other end. She said, "Have you heard about the charges filed against you down in Mississippi?" When I said, "no," she went on to explain that Tunica, Ms authorities had called the TV station to tell them that "Cheese" had come in and filed assault charges against me and that there was now a warrant out for my arrest. She had to assure me she wasn't joking, and I finally believed her when another TV reporter beeped in with the same information. I found out that "Cheese" filed a complaint and a sworn affidavit that claimed I punched him three times in his face and that it wasn't part of the "script." As I told the TV reporters, if I got arrested every time I punched a manager or wrestler on a wrestling show over my 30 plus year career, I'd be on death row! Koko B. Ware would be the "Birdman" of Alcatraz! Jails around the country would be filled with guilty grapplers! I guess I should go and have Mr Hughes arrested because he hit me about 50 times during our match that night! This whole situation would be laughable if it were not real. I am just shocked that the Mississippi law enforcement people would actually issue a warrant when one wrestler walked in and said that another wrestler, "hit me "too hard" during a wrestling show." Anyway, I am sure there will be more details to come on this unusual incident. Our next event at Sam's Town Casino is scheduled for July 20, at which time the Mississippi authorities claim they will "serve" me. We'll see..... If anyone out there has ever heard of anything similar to this, please let me know. As I said, I've been in this business for over 30 years and this is a first for me! Stay tuned.....
(Credit: Jerry "The King" Lawler)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Jerry "The King" Lawler
Wrestling Media Blog. Pro wrestling blog. WWE, WCW, WCW in Australia, ECW, NWA, interviews, promotions, news and more.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
$uper $lam, by Randy Shemanski - 25th September 2008
Wrestling stars join with local athlete to raise money at North Pocono High School
Rowdy Roddy Piper enjoyed almost unparalleled success as a professional wrestler from the early 1980s through the late 1990s. With his trademark kilt and bagpipes, Piper was one of the most despised, yet most recognizable, wrestlers during the sport's heyday.
Now, at age 54, Piper has slowed down, only doing a few appearances now and then, mainly to help raise money in small communities or for families in need. "I'm just a big marshmallow," he says of his willingness to help those in need.
Piper will join Jerry "The King" Lawler, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and female pro wrestling stars Cherry and Velvet Sky for Moscow Mania, a fundraiser for the North Pocono Athletic Boosters, on Saturday, Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at North Pocono High School.
Former North Pocono football standout A.J. Sabatelle will also step into the ring for one of the eight scheduled bouts. There will also be a Meet & Greet for fans from 5 to 7:30 p.m. to give fans an opportunity to get autographs and pictures with the wrestlers.
While Moscow Mania won't feature all of the glitz and glamour one might see during a *Monday Night RAW* telecast, it will provide a trip down memory lane for wrestling fans in their mid-20s or older, as well as a chance for fans to see local boy Sabatelle in action.
Some fans in the 570 might remember when Hacksaw Jim Duggan fought Andre The Giant at the Scranton CYC (now the Lackawanna Student Union) in the late 1980s as the feature bout on a pro wrestling card. The match was a draw as both wrestlers were counted out after the match spilled out of the ring. But the most memorable moment of the fight for this fan, who was barely old enough to notice girls at the time, was a point early in the match when The Giant screamed at the referee (f-bombs included) after Duggan apparently bit his ear. And you thought Mike Tyson was the only pugilist with an affinity for ear cartilage.
Anyway, back to Moscow Mania.
For Piper, the fundraiser, which is being presented by Northeast Wrestling, represents a chance to step back into the ring and perform, something he rarely does these days.
"I don't know when my last appearance is going to be," Piper told ec by phone from his home just outside Portland, Ore. "I keep saying this is the last one. I lie to my kilt and my boots. Just one more time. They scream at me as I pull them out of my bag. 'You liar.' "
Piper was one of the sport's most recognizable stars when he played foil to arguably the most popular pro wrestler of all time, Hulk Hogan. Despite performing in front of hundreds of thousands and becoming a popular figure worldwide, Piper said he does not miss wrestling.
"Whether I fight in Madison Square Garden again, it would not hurt me," he said. "I wouldn't think about it because I had the honor and privilege of being there so many times that a bit of that thrill is gone. ... I'm old school, I'm an improv guy, I don't know what I'm going to say most of the time. I definitely never knew what I was going to do when I was going to fight, and that doesn't seem to mesh (now). So, I don't enjoy that as much anymore."
But, when a smaller event like Moscow Mania comes up, Piper is often willing to lend a hand.
"(I don't mind helping with) something when just every once in a while you can come in and say hi and it's more a family event," he said. "If it wasn't for these people, I wouldn't have a family."
For Sabatelle, the event is a chance to perform in front of family and friends, while helping to raise money to support athletes who are busting their butts on the same playing fields he competed on before graduating from North Pocono in 2002.
"I'm excited that these stars are going to be here and I get to wrestle in the same place as them in front of my friends ... in the same place I had gym class," he said.
Sabatelle, who lives in Madisonville, decided to get into professional wrestling after his football career ended following college. He went to wrestling school in Whitehall, where he was trained by pro wrestling Hall of Famer Afa, "The Wild Somoan."
Now, he's hoping Saturday's event gives him a chance to open some eyes, as he's still looking for the break that could boost his career into big time pro wrestling.
"It's going to be crazy. It's just really cool that I get to be in the same place as these guys, the same show," Sabatelle said. "It's real exciting for somebody that's trying to get into the business. You hope something might catch somebody's eye that might say something to somebody else. I'd love to go farther with this. That's the whole reason for me (wrestling)."
After spending time passing fliers around the community and trying to get the word out about the fundraiser, Sabatelle's ready for his bout against Brian Anthony. With the local boy and the pro wrestling stars on the schedule, he's hoping it's a successful event.
"I think it's going to be a great show," he said.
Moscow Mania will take place Saturday, Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at North Pocono High School at 701 Church St. in Moscow. Tickets are $15-30 and can be purchased at locations throughout the community or at the door. High school and college students can show their school ID at the door and receive a general admission ticket for only $10. For more info, visit www.northeastwrestling.com
Where to buy tickets
North Pocono High School, Moscow
Bill's Shop Rite, Daleville
Browns A Plus, Dunmore
Battaglia's Sporting Goods, Scranton
Sabatelle's Food Market, Pittston
Tobacco Road Shop, Hamlin
-rshemanski@timesshamrock.com
(Credit: Electric City)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Rowdy Roddy Piper
Wrestling
Rowdy Roddy Piper enjoyed almost unparalleled success as a professional wrestler from the early 1980s through the late 1990s. With his trademark kilt and bagpipes, Piper was one of the most despised, yet most recognizable, wrestlers during the sport's heyday.
Now, at age 54, Piper has slowed down, only doing a few appearances now and then, mainly to help raise money in small communities or for families in need. "I'm just a big marshmallow," he says of his willingness to help those in need.
Piper will join Jerry "The King" Lawler, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and female pro wrestling stars Cherry and Velvet Sky for Moscow Mania, a fundraiser for the North Pocono Athletic Boosters, on Saturday, Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at North Pocono High School.
Former North Pocono football standout A.J. Sabatelle will also step into the ring for one of the eight scheduled bouts. There will also be a Meet & Greet for fans from 5 to 7:30 p.m. to give fans an opportunity to get autographs and pictures with the wrestlers.
While Moscow Mania won't feature all of the glitz and glamour one might see during a *Monday Night RAW* telecast, it will provide a trip down memory lane for wrestling fans in their mid-20s or older, as well as a chance for fans to see local boy Sabatelle in action.
Some fans in the 570 might remember when Hacksaw Jim Duggan fought Andre The Giant at the Scranton CYC (now the Lackawanna Student Union) in the late 1980s as the feature bout on a pro wrestling card. The match was a draw as both wrestlers were counted out after the match spilled out of the ring. But the most memorable moment of the fight for this fan, who was barely old enough to notice girls at the time, was a point early in the match when The Giant screamed at the referee (f-bombs included) after Duggan apparently bit his ear. And you thought Mike Tyson was the only pugilist with an affinity for ear cartilage.
Anyway, back to Moscow Mania.
For Piper, the fundraiser, which is being presented by Northeast Wrestling, represents a chance to step back into the ring and perform, something he rarely does these days.
"I don't know when my last appearance is going to be," Piper told ec by phone from his home just outside Portland, Ore. "I keep saying this is the last one. I lie to my kilt and my boots. Just one more time. They scream at me as I pull them out of my bag. 'You liar.' "
Piper was one of the sport's most recognizable stars when he played foil to arguably the most popular pro wrestler of all time, Hulk Hogan. Despite performing in front of hundreds of thousands and becoming a popular figure worldwide, Piper said he does not miss wrestling.
"Whether I fight in Madison Square Garden again, it would not hurt me," he said. "I wouldn't think about it because I had the honor and privilege of being there so many times that a bit of that thrill is gone. ... I'm old school, I'm an improv guy, I don't know what I'm going to say most of the time. I definitely never knew what I was going to do when I was going to fight, and that doesn't seem to mesh (now). So, I don't enjoy that as much anymore."
But, when a smaller event like Moscow Mania comes up, Piper is often willing to lend a hand.
"(I don't mind helping with) something when just every once in a while you can come in and say hi and it's more a family event," he said. "If it wasn't for these people, I wouldn't have a family."
For Sabatelle, the event is a chance to perform in front of family and friends, while helping to raise money to support athletes who are busting their butts on the same playing fields he competed on before graduating from North Pocono in 2002.
"I'm excited that these stars are going to be here and I get to wrestle in the same place as them in front of my friends ... in the same place I had gym class," he said.
Sabatelle, who lives in Madisonville, decided to get into professional wrestling after his football career ended following college. He went to wrestling school in Whitehall, where he was trained by pro wrestling Hall of Famer Afa, "The Wild Somoan."
Now, he's hoping Saturday's event gives him a chance to open some eyes, as he's still looking for the break that could boost his career into big time pro wrestling.
"It's going to be crazy. It's just really cool that I get to be in the same place as these guys, the same show," Sabatelle said. "It's real exciting for somebody that's trying to get into the business. You hope something might catch somebody's eye that might say something to somebody else. I'd love to go farther with this. That's the whole reason for me (wrestling)."
After spending time passing fliers around the community and trying to get the word out about the fundraiser, Sabatelle's ready for his bout against Brian Anthony. With the local boy and the pro wrestling stars on the schedule, he's hoping it's a successful event.
"I think it's going to be a great show," he said.
Moscow Mania will take place Saturday, Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at North Pocono High School at 701 Church St. in Moscow. Tickets are $15-30 and can be purchased at locations throughout the community or at the door. High school and college students can show their school ID at the door and receive a general admission ticket for only $10. For more info, visit www.northeastwrestling.com
Where to buy tickets
North Pocono High School, Moscow
Bill's Shop Rite, Daleville
Browns A Plus, Dunmore
Battaglia's Sporting Goods, Scranton
Sabatelle's Food Market, Pittston
Tobacco Road Shop, Hamlin
-rshemanski@timesshamrock.com
(Credit: Electric City)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Rowdy Roddy Piper
Wrestling
Monday, September 15, 2008
World Championship Wrestling on DVD
"Ruff Tuff & Real" Available Now!
The documentary plus classic matches 3 DVD set.
The history and memories of World Championship Wrestling in Australia.
Ron Miller, Australian Heavyweight Wrestling Champion from 1975 to 1984, takes us on a journey back to when all these lords of the ring thundered rage and reigned from the top rope Downunder and across the world. Ron travels Australia and the USA to find which friends and foes are still fighting fit from the glory days of wrestling…
Ruff, Tuff and Real” not only relives the “Saturday” television and weekday
stadium bouts, but discovers “where are they now.” We speak with Aussies
Ron Miller, Mario Milano, Steve Rackman, George Barnes, Ex-pat Jack
Claybourne, Announcer Mike Cleary (also Doco Narrator) and Larry O’Dea’s
family. Traveling then to Hawaii, Ron finds King Curtis… then it’s on to Las
Vegas and the Annual Cauliflower Alley Fighters’ Convention, where Ron
Miller tracks down Yankee greats Harley Race, Nick Bockwinkel, Ox Baker,
Red Bastien and wrestling managers, JJ Dillon and ‘Playboy’ Garry Hart.
Exclusive classic TV video and Stadium film footage of the wrestlers interviewed and many greats who have passed on. There are one on one’s for the world titles, tag teams, fighters’ managers who insisted on getting in on the act.
It was reality television decades before the term was coined and it gave the many fans a real kick watching their favourites battle with nothing but their strength and showmanship.
Ron Miller is now in his 60’s, but his memory and love of the great wrestling days is sharp and clear. He can remember the good and frequent press, the camaraderie, the extensive Australian and successful USA Tours and the many injuries.
Made by Australian owned and based Instinct Television, “Ruff Tuff and Real” is a one hour commercial documentary that speaks to a fan audience who want to remember… and a new audience who want to know where the current USA wrestling phenomenon came from. More than just footage of big blokes kicking the hell out of each other, this is a critical, cultural moment in Australia’s lifetime… but mostly, it’s just bloody good entertainment.
(Credit: Ron Miller)
Website
World Championship Wrestling
Media Man Australia Profiles
Ron Miller
The documentary plus classic matches 3 DVD set.
The history and memories of World Championship Wrestling in Australia.
Ron Miller, Australian Heavyweight Wrestling Champion from 1975 to 1984, takes us on a journey back to when all these lords of the ring thundered rage and reigned from the top rope Downunder and across the world. Ron travels Australia and the USA to find which friends and foes are still fighting fit from the glory days of wrestling…
Ruff, Tuff and Real” not only relives the “Saturday” television and weekday
stadium bouts, but discovers “where are they now.” We speak with Aussies
Ron Miller, Mario Milano, Steve Rackman, George Barnes, Ex-pat Jack
Claybourne, Announcer Mike Cleary (also Doco Narrator) and Larry O’Dea’s
family. Traveling then to Hawaii, Ron finds King Curtis… then it’s on to Las
Vegas and the Annual Cauliflower Alley Fighters’ Convention, where Ron
Miller tracks down Yankee greats Harley Race, Nick Bockwinkel, Ox Baker,
Red Bastien and wrestling managers, JJ Dillon and ‘Playboy’ Garry Hart.
Exclusive classic TV video and Stadium film footage of the wrestlers interviewed and many greats who have passed on. There are one on one’s for the world titles, tag teams, fighters’ managers who insisted on getting in on the act.
It was reality television decades before the term was coined and it gave the many fans a real kick watching their favourites battle with nothing but their strength and showmanship.
Ron Miller is now in his 60’s, but his memory and love of the great wrestling days is sharp and clear. He can remember the good and frequent press, the camaraderie, the extensive Australian and successful USA Tours and the many injuries.
Made by Australian owned and based Instinct Television, “Ruff Tuff and Real” is a one hour commercial documentary that speaks to a fan audience who want to remember… and a new audience who want to know where the current USA wrestling phenomenon came from. More than just footage of big blokes kicking the hell out of each other, this is a critical, cultural moment in Australia’s lifetime… but mostly, it’s just bloody good entertainment.
(Credit: Ron Miller)
Website
World Championship Wrestling
Media Man Australia Profiles
Ron Miller
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Wrestler hurt in family feud, by Marlon Walker - Fairfax - 10th September 2008
Raleigh, North Carolina.- A fight between former professional wrestler Ric Flair and his daughter's 22-year-old boyfriend left the 59-year-old Flair bloodied and bruised, police said today.
Neither man was charged by police in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but Flair's daughter, Ashley Elizabeth Fliehr, was charged for resisting police after she became belligerent and kicked an officer.
Neighbours called police on Friday about a fight at an apartment. Officers followed a trail of blood to the wrestler's apartment.
Officers found Flair, whose real name is Richard Fliehr, on a bed in the back room. The boyfriend was in another part of the apartment.
Flair admitted fighting with the boyfriend but said he did not want to press charges, Gunter said.
Flair, known for his platinum blond hair, fur-lined robes and signature ``Wooooo!'' catchphrase, retired earlier this year after a
36-year career. He had wrestled for a number of big-name organisations, including World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment.
He is a 16-time world heavyweight champion and a member of WWE's Hall of Fame.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Ric Flair
Neither man was charged by police in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but Flair's daughter, Ashley Elizabeth Fliehr, was charged for resisting police after she became belligerent and kicked an officer.
Neighbours called police on Friday about a fight at an apartment. Officers followed a trail of blood to the wrestler's apartment.
Officers found Flair, whose real name is Richard Fliehr, on a bed in the back room. The boyfriend was in another part of the apartment.
Flair admitted fighting with the boyfriend but said he did not want to press charges, Gunter said.
Flair, known for his platinum blond hair, fur-lined robes and signature ``Wooooo!'' catchphrase, retired earlier this year after a
36-year career. He had wrestled for a number of big-name organisations, including World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment.
He is a 16-time world heavyweight champion and a member of WWE's Hall of Fame.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Ric Flair
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Premonition, by Jamie Pandaram - The Sydney Morning Herald - 6th September 2008
The ultimate fighting heavyweight championship bout between Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar in November will break pay-per-view subscription records for the, ahem, sport. While Lesnar is a relative newcomer to mixed martial arts (MMA) and boasts an unimpressive 2-1 record - hardly worthy of shot at the title - UFC organisers have wasted no time making him the contender. This is because Lesnar made his name in World Wrestling Entertainment, the scripted pro wrestling saga that dominates pay-per-view subscription figures. Lesnar was not only a three-time WWE champion but one of the show's most impressive athletes before he quit in 2004 to pursue an NFL career. Lesnar has been given a crack at the championship when others may have been more deserving - dollars make sense. Couture (16-8) is the only fighter in history to win the UFC world heavyweight title three times. "There is one goal that I've had since I started training in MMA and that is to capture the title," said Lesnar, who possibly has the biggest trapezius muscles of any human alive.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Brock Lesnar
UFC
MMA
WWE
Foxtel
PPV
Sports Betting
Media Man Australia Profiles
Brock Lesnar
UFC
MMA
WWE
Foxtel
PPV
Sports Betting
Couture Returns to Defend Heavyweight Crown against Lesnar on Nov. 15, by Thomas Gerbasi - 2nd September 2008
If we’ve learned one thing in combat sports, it’s to never say old adage was solidified once again today, as UFC President Dana White announced the November 15th return to the Octagon of heavyweight champion Randy Couture to face Brock Lesnar in the main event of UFC 91 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
The announcement comes after nearly a year of contentious relations between the organization and Couture, who walked away from the UFC in October of 2007 with two fights remaining on his contract. But in August, the heavyweight champion and the organization worked on a renegotiation of his contract that will enable ‘The Natural’ to finish his Hall of Fame career with the UFC.
“We had some problems with Randy, we’ve resolved them all, and he’s always been the heavyweight champion of the UFC,” said White. “It took us some time to get everything straight, but I think we’re all good now and ready to move forward and get Randy back out there fighting again.”
”I think we cleared the air and addressed a lot of the issues, we’re both in a different place, and both the company and myself are trying to move forward,” said Couture. “I think we understand each other, and I certainly would much rather fight in the Octagon than anywhere else. Spending the last year in legal fights is not someplace where I’ve had a very good time. At 45, I can’t sit around in court rooms for very long – I want to fight.”
Couture’s first order of business – taking on the imposing 6-3 ½, 265 pound Lesnar, a former NCAA Division I National Wrestling Champion whose arrival in the UFC earlier this year shook the foundations of the MMA world. Add in the former pro wrestling superstar’s spectacular victory over Heath Herring at UFC 87 in August, and the stage is set for what will most certainly be one of the most highly-anticipated heavyweight title fights in history.
“I haven’t looked at tape yet and studied him,” said Couture of Lesnar. “Obviously, he’s a great big guy, and on the ground or standing, he poses some interesting problems, so I’ve got to go to work and find the answers to those questions.”
“My whole goal coming into this company was to get a shot at the UFC heavyweight title, so for me, this is a great opportunity, one that anybody in my position wouldn’t turn down,” added Lesnar. “Randy poses all kinds of threats, and we’re gonna try to nullify them and try to win the title that night.”
You don’t have to convince White when it comes to the importance of this matchup.
“I can tell you this right now,” said White. “Couture vs Lesnar will be the biggest fight in UFC history.”
And though some might question whether Couture
Click here to find out more!
- 45 years old and more than a year removed from his last fight – will be able to keep up with a younger, faster, and stronger challenger, keep in mind that the Las Vegas resident has made a career of baffling oddsmakers, most recently in March of 2007, when he returned from a year-long retirement to shutout 6 foot 8, 263 pound Tim Sylvia to win the UFC heavyweight crown a record third time.
Couture went on to successfully defend the title with a third round TKO of Gabriel Gonzaga in August of 2007, but two months later, the title was left in limbo, leaving Brazil’s Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to swoop in and take the interim belt by submitting Sylvia in February. Nogueira is scheduled to clash with his fellow Ultimate Fighter 8 coach (and former heavyweight champion) Frank Mir in December, with the winners of these two heavyweight megafights to meet sometime in 2009.
“The winner of the Brock-Randy fight will be the heavyweight champion of the UFC,” said White. “Obviously, the reality show is already in motion, and those two (Nogueira and Mir) are already scheduled to fight, so they’ll fight for the interim (title) and then it will be Champion vs Champion when this thing’s all done. So it’s a pretty interesting little tournament.”
Of course, Lesnar will have something to say about putting a dent in Couture’s fighting plans, and he’ll get his chance to say it on November 15th.
“Things happen in mysterious ways, and I’m fortunate and honored to get in the Octagon with Randy, so it’s very exciting all the way around,” said Lesnar.
As for Couture, it’s been a long, strange trip to get to this point, but suffice to say, he’s happy to put acting, book tours, and speaking engagements on the side for now in order to get back to where he belongs – the Octagon.
Media Man Australia Profiles
UFC
Brock Lesnar
MMA
Las Vegas
WWE
PPV
Main Event
Foxtel
Sports Betting
The announcement comes after nearly a year of contentious relations between the organization and Couture, who walked away from the UFC in October of 2007 with two fights remaining on his contract. But in August, the heavyweight champion and the organization worked on a renegotiation of his contract that will enable ‘The Natural’ to finish his Hall of Fame career with the UFC.
“We had some problems with Randy, we’ve resolved them all, and he’s always been the heavyweight champion of the UFC,” said White. “It took us some time to get everything straight, but I think we’re all good now and ready to move forward and get Randy back out there fighting again.”
”I think we cleared the air and addressed a lot of the issues, we’re both in a different place, and both the company and myself are trying to move forward,” said Couture. “I think we understand each other, and I certainly would much rather fight in the Octagon than anywhere else. Spending the last year in legal fights is not someplace where I’ve had a very good time. At 45, I can’t sit around in court rooms for very long – I want to fight.”
Couture’s first order of business – taking on the imposing 6-3 ½, 265 pound Lesnar, a former NCAA Division I National Wrestling Champion whose arrival in the UFC earlier this year shook the foundations of the MMA world. Add in the former pro wrestling superstar’s spectacular victory over Heath Herring at UFC 87 in August, and the stage is set for what will most certainly be one of the most highly-anticipated heavyweight title fights in history.
“I haven’t looked at tape yet and studied him,” said Couture of Lesnar. “Obviously, he’s a great big guy, and on the ground or standing, he poses some interesting problems, so I’ve got to go to work and find the answers to those questions.”
“My whole goal coming into this company was to get a shot at the UFC heavyweight title, so for me, this is a great opportunity, one that anybody in my position wouldn’t turn down,” added Lesnar. “Randy poses all kinds of threats, and we’re gonna try to nullify them and try to win the title that night.”
You don’t have to convince White when it comes to the importance of this matchup.
“I can tell you this right now,” said White. “Couture vs Lesnar will be the biggest fight in UFC history.”
And though some might question whether Couture
Click here to find out more!
- 45 years old and more than a year removed from his last fight – will be able to keep up with a younger, faster, and stronger challenger, keep in mind that the Las Vegas resident has made a career of baffling oddsmakers, most recently in March of 2007, when he returned from a year-long retirement to shutout 6 foot 8, 263 pound Tim Sylvia to win the UFC heavyweight crown a record third time.
Couture went on to successfully defend the title with a third round TKO of Gabriel Gonzaga in August of 2007, but two months later, the title was left in limbo, leaving Brazil’s Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to swoop in and take the interim belt by submitting Sylvia in February. Nogueira is scheduled to clash with his fellow Ultimate Fighter 8 coach (and former heavyweight champion) Frank Mir in December, with the winners of these two heavyweight megafights to meet sometime in 2009.
“The winner of the Brock-Randy fight will be the heavyweight champion of the UFC,” said White. “Obviously, the reality show is already in motion, and those two (Nogueira and Mir) are already scheduled to fight, so they’ll fight for the interim (title) and then it will be Champion vs Champion when this thing’s all done. So it’s a pretty interesting little tournament.”
Of course, Lesnar will have something to say about putting a dent in Couture’s fighting plans, and he’ll get his chance to say it on November 15th.
“Things happen in mysterious ways, and I’m fortunate and honored to get in the Octagon with Randy, so it’s very exciting all the way around,” said Lesnar.
As for Couture, it’s been a long, strange trip to get to this point, but suffice to say, he’s happy to put acting, book tours, and speaking engagements on the side for now in order to get back to where he belongs – the Octagon.
Media Man Australia Profiles
UFC
Brock Lesnar
MMA
Las Vegas
WWE
PPV
Main Event
Foxtel
Sports Betting
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Gentle Killer leaves ring, by D. D. McNicoll - The Australian - 2nd September 2008
SYDNEYSIDERS who spent any time in Kings Cross in the late 1960s will remember the terrifying sight of Walter Kowalski ambling along the streets. Better known as Killer Kowalski, Walt was a 2m-tall, 125kg professional wrestler from North America who made his home here during the first television boom of the biff and nonsense entertainment. He was one of the biggest stars of the sport, the man fans loved to hate. Kowalski, who got his nickname after accidentally tearing off Yukon Eric's ear during a bout in Montreal in the early '50s, was famed for his dreaded claw hold, a thumb squeeze to his opponent's solar plexus that immediately ended matches. Despite his appearance, Kowalski was a gentle soul whose great love was photography. He died in Everett, Massachusetts, during the weekend, aged 81.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Walter "Killer" Kowalski
Media Man Australia Profiles
Walter "Killer" Kowalski
Wrestling fans won't forget Killer Kowalski, by Terry Brown - Herald Sun - 2nd September 2008
Killer Kowalski - wrestling's boots-and-all bad guy of the 1960s - has gone down fighting.
At 81, Kowalski hung on to life like he had it in his trademark claw hold.
He died in Boston early on Saturday, eight full days after his life support systems were turned off.
Known as a brawler who ripped one opponent's ear off, family and foes remembered him fondly.
Nephew Mark Spulnik, from Sydney, said in a tribute yesterday the 198cm, 127kg Kowalski was a kind and caring person out of the ring: "Having Killer Kowalski as an uncle was definitely cool! School bullies would keep their distance and the young girls wouldn't. How perfect."
Not everyone saw the kind uncle inside Killer Kowalski.
"A few wrestling fans looked upon my uncle as a truly evil person," Mark said.
"They thought it was their duty to wait for him in the parking lot with baseball bats and metal pipes."
Kowalski was born Edward Walter Spulnik in Canada, and wrestled as a pro from 1947 to 1977.
In World Championship Wrestling's heyday -- when 6000 fans would pack Festival Hall each week -- Kowalski was huge.
He wrestled household names such as Mario Milano, Spiros Arion, Mark Lewin Brute Bernard and Skull Murphy. Kowalski was famed for his flying knee drop, but it was his claw hold that made fans' flesh crawl.
In 1967, at the height of his fame, Kowalski put it on TV host Don Lane when an interview turned sour.
The injured Lane missed his next show, but got off lighter than some.
In 1952 Kowalski's size-16 boot grazed, and dislodged, Yukon Eric's cauliflower ear.
"His ear came off, just like you knock a fly across a table," Kowalski recalled.
"It rolled across the ring, glub, glub, glub."
Forced to apologise at the hospital, the pair burst into laughter at the absurdity.
Kowalski was pegged forever as a cruel brute who laughed in his victim's mangled face. But Ron Miller, 66, a clean-fighting Aussie wrestler who tag-teamed with Larry O'Day, remembered Kowalski as a quiet man and a vegetarian.
"He was pretty quiet and very religious," Miller said.
"Killer was an amazing guy -- six foot eight, 28 stone and that name. He was more of a brawler and just kept going, going and going and never ran out of stamina.
"He was almost unstoppable in the ring."
Outside the ring, Kowalski was happy enough to play
the victim.
"Just because I get over-enthused about my work people hate me," he complained in 1961.
"Everywhere I go they throw chairs, newspapers, cigar butts, fruit and anything else they can grab. I have been burned, knifed, blinded by pea shooters . . ."
But if he took it, he could give it too. With so much of wrestling fake, he was asked once about his boots, and whether it hurt when he stomped an opponent.
"No it doesn't hurt at all," he grinned. "I wear special thick soles and it doesn't hurt my foot at all."
For all his faults, he inspired love as well as fear.
Female fans proposed marriage and, finally, two years ago, Kowalski got caught.
He wed Theresa Ferrioli, then 77, on June 19, 2006.
Asked why, he joked: "What can I do? She was pregnant." (Credit: News.com.au)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Killer Kowalski
At 81, Kowalski hung on to life like he had it in his trademark claw hold.
He died in Boston early on Saturday, eight full days after his life support systems were turned off.
Known as a brawler who ripped one opponent's ear off, family and foes remembered him fondly.
Nephew Mark Spulnik, from Sydney, said in a tribute yesterday the 198cm, 127kg Kowalski was a kind and caring person out of the ring: "Having Killer Kowalski as an uncle was definitely cool! School bullies would keep their distance and the young girls wouldn't. How perfect."
Not everyone saw the kind uncle inside Killer Kowalski.
"A few wrestling fans looked upon my uncle as a truly evil person," Mark said.
"They thought it was their duty to wait for him in the parking lot with baseball bats and metal pipes."
Kowalski was born Edward Walter Spulnik in Canada, and wrestled as a pro from 1947 to 1977.
In World Championship Wrestling's heyday -- when 6000 fans would pack Festival Hall each week -- Kowalski was huge.
He wrestled household names such as Mario Milano, Spiros Arion, Mark Lewin Brute Bernard and Skull Murphy. Kowalski was famed for his flying knee drop, but it was his claw hold that made fans' flesh crawl.
In 1967, at the height of his fame, Kowalski put it on TV host Don Lane when an interview turned sour.
The injured Lane missed his next show, but got off lighter than some.
In 1952 Kowalski's size-16 boot grazed, and dislodged, Yukon Eric's cauliflower ear.
"His ear came off, just like you knock a fly across a table," Kowalski recalled.
"It rolled across the ring, glub, glub, glub."
Forced to apologise at the hospital, the pair burst into laughter at the absurdity.
Kowalski was pegged forever as a cruel brute who laughed in his victim's mangled face. But Ron Miller, 66, a clean-fighting Aussie wrestler who tag-teamed with Larry O'Day, remembered Kowalski as a quiet man and a vegetarian.
"He was pretty quiet and very religious," Miller said.
"Killer was an amazing guy -- six foot eight, 28 stone and that name. He was more of a brawler and just kept going, going and going and never ran out of stamina.
"He was almost unstoppable in the ring."
Outside the ring, Kowalski was happy enough to play
the victim.
"Just because I get over-enthused about my work people hate me," he complained in 1961.
"Everywhere I go they throw chairs, newspapers, cigar butts, fruit and anything else they can grab. I have been burned, knifed, blinded by pea shooters . . ."
But if he took it, he could give it too. With so much of wrestling fake, he was asked once about his boots, and whether it hurt when he stomped an opponent.
"No it doesn't hurt at all," he grinned. "I wear special thick soles and it doesn't hurt my foot at all."
For all his faults, he inspired love as well as fear.
Female fans proposed marriage and, finally, two years ago, Kowalski got caught.
He wed Theresa Ferrioli, then 77, on June 19, 2006.
Asked why, he joked: "What can I do? She was pregnant." (Credit: News.com.au)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Killer Kowalski
Wrestling legend Walter 'Killer' Kowalski - News.com.au - 1st September 2008
PRO-WRESTLING pioneer and legend Walter "Killer" Kowalski has died following a heart attack. He was 81.
Kowalski died at Whidden Hospital in Everett, Massachusetts, on Saturday - 12 days after his family decided to take him off life support. He had been in critical condition since his heart attack on August 8, wife Theresa Kowalski said.
An obituary posted at Weir Mac Cuish Family Funeral Home's Web site said Kowalski began his professional career in 1947. His 6-foot-7, 275-pound frame and a brutal wrestling style soon earned him the nickname "Killer."
He became known as a villain after severing part of Yukon Eric's ear during a match in Montreal in 1954. He visited his opponent in the hospital and "the two men began laughing at how silly Eric's bandages looked. The reporter incorrectly printed that Killer was laughing at his victim and soon after, Killer quickly became wrestling's most renowned 'heel,'" according to the Web site.
Kowalski later became famous for various moves, including a stomach vice grip called the Killer Clutch. He retired in 1977, a year after he and Big John Studd captured the WWF Tag Team Championship as The Executioners.
He went on to open a wrestling school in Malden, where he trained many current stars including WWE's Triple H.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Walter "Killer" Kowalski
Kowalski died at Whidden Hospital in Everett, Massachusetts, on Saturday - 12 days after his family decided to take him off life support. He had been in critical condition since his heart attack on August 8, wife Theresa Kowalski said.
An obituary posted at Weir Mac Cuish Family Funeral Home's Web site said Kowalski began his professional career in 1947. His 6-foot-7, 275-pound frame and a brutal wrestling style soon earned him the nickname "Killer."
He became known as a villain after severing part of Yukon Eric's ear during a match in Montreal in 1954. He visited his opponent in the hospital and "the two men began laughing at how silly Eric's bandages looked. The reporter incorrectly printed that Killer was laughing at his victim and soon after, Killer quickly became wrestling's most renowned 'heel,'" according to the Web site.
Kowalski later became famous for various moves, including a stomach vice grip called the Killer Clutch. He retired in 1977, a year after he and Big John Studd captured the WWF Tag Team Championship as The Executioners.
He went on to open a wrestling school in Malden, where he trained many current stars including WWE's Triple H.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Walter "Killer" Kowalski
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Canadian wrestling pioneer Walter (Killer) Kowalski dies at age 81 - The Canadian Press - 31st August 2008
EVERETT, Mass. — Canadian pro wrestling pioneer Walter (Killer) Kowalski died early Saturday from the effects of a massive heart attack. He was 81.
Kowalski died at Whidden Hospital in Everett, 12 days after his family decided to take him off life support. He had been in critical condition in the hospital since his heart attack on Aug. 8, wife Theresa Kowalski said.
"I was right beside him. I put my hand on his chest, I felt his breathing slow down and his heart beat stop," she said. "The doctor said he was brain dead ... I was waiting, hoping somebody could do something.
"We've been together over 10, but we've been married for two years. He was a bachelor all his life. He was a wonderful man, never drank, never smoked and he was a vegetarian for almost 60 years."
An obituary posted at Weir Mac Cuish Family Funeral Home's website said Kowalski began his professional career in 1947 as "Tarzan" Kowalski. His hulking six-foot-seven, 275 pound frame and a brutal wrestling style soon earned him a nickname "Killer."
Kowalski, a native of Windsor, Ont., began to be known as a villain after hurting Yukon Eric during a match in Montreal in 1954.
He visited his opponent in hospital after the match to check up on him and "the two men began laughing at how silly Eric's bandages looked. The reporter incorrectly printed that Killer was laughing at his victim and soon after, Killer quickly became wrestling's most renowned 'heel' or "villain", according to the website.
Kowalski later became famous for various moves, including a stomach vice grip called the "Killer Clutch."
Kowalski retired in 1977, a year after he and Big John Studd captured the WWF World Wrestling Tag Team Championship as members of "The Executioners" team.
He went on to open a wrestling school in Malden. He sold the business in 2003.
Kowalski was inducted into several wrestling halls of fame, including the World Wrestling Federation Hall of Fame and the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum.
A funeral is scheduled at Weir-MacCuish Golden Rule Funeral Home and burial service is set in St. Joseph's Church on Thursday morning.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Walter (Killer) Kowalski
WWE
Wrestling
Kowalski died at Whidden Hospital in Everett, 12 days after his family decided to take him off life support. He had been in critical condition in the hospital since his heart attack on Aug. 8, wife Theresa Kowalski said.
"I was right beside him. I put my hand on his chest, I felt his breathing slow down and his heart beat stop," she said. "The doctor said he was brain dead ... I was waiting, hoping somebody could do something.
"We've been together over 10, but we've been married for two years. He was a bachelor all his life. He was a wonderful man, never drank, never smoked and he was a vegetarian for almost 60 years."
An obituary posted at Weir Mac Cuish Family Funeral Home's website said Kowalski began his professional career in 1947 as "Tarzan" Kowalski. His hulking six-foot-seven, 275 pound frame and a brutal wrestling style soon earned him a nickname "Killer."
Kowalski, a native of Windsor, Ont., began to be known as a villain after hurting Yukon Eric during a match in Montreal in 1954.
He visited his opponent in hospital after the match to check up on him and "the two men began laughing at how silly Eric's bandages looked. The reporter incorrectly printed that Killer was laughing at his victim and soon after, Killer quickly became wrestling's most renowned 'heel' or "villain", according to the website.
Kowalski later became famous for various moves, including a stomach vice grip called the "Killer Clutch."
Kowalski retired in 1977, a year after he and Big John Studd captured the WWF World Wrestling Tag Team Championship as members of "The Executioners" team.
He went on to open a wrestling school in Malden. He sold the business in 2003.
Kowalski was inducted into several wrestling halls of fame, including the World Wrestling Federation Hall of Fame and the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum.
A funeral is scheduled at Weir-MacCuish Golden Rule Funeral Home and burial service is set in St. Joseph's Church on Thursday morning.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Walter (Killer) Kowalski
WWE
Wrestling
Lesnar vs. Couture could be finalized next week
Sources close to the MMA world indicate that a November fight between Brock Lesnar and Randy Couture could be finalized as early as Tuesday of next week.
If a deal can be reached, the fight would likely take place in Portland's Rose Garden.
Sources also say that in a perfect world that the legendary Couture would like to have three more fights before he retires and those fights would all be for the UFC.
Lesnar vs. Couture would be an extremely intriguing match up if contracts can be worked out. One would assume that getting a deal done quickly after the Labor Day holiday would allow both fighters to officially begin their preparation within a few days.
It will also be interesting to see where the betting line starts and ends for this
one if it does happen. This match blows away the previously discussed Lesnar-Kongo fight and should do huge business on PPV. (Credit: JR)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Brock Lesnar
MMA
UFC
Sports Betting
Jim Ross
If a deal can be reached, the fight would likely take place in Portland's Rose Garden.
Sources also say that in a perfect world that the legendary Couture would like to have three more fights before he retires and those fights would all be for the UFC.
Lesnar vs. Couture would be an extremely intriguing match up if contracts can be worked out. One would assume that getting a deal done quickly after the Labor Day holiday would allow both fighters to officially begin their preparation within a few days.
It will also be interesting to see where the betting line starts and ends for this
one if it does happen. This match blows away the previously discussed Lesnar-Kongo fight and should do huge business on PPV. (Credit: JR)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Brock Lesnar
MMA
UFC
Sports Betting
Jim Ross
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wrestling with the past, by Michael Blaney - The Australian Worker - September 2008
Media Man Australia director, Greg Tingle interviewed, and supplying of photographs, for a feature article on the glory days of World Championship Wrestling in Australia in The Australian Worker.
Websites
The Australian Worker
The Australian Workers' Union
Media Man Australia Profiles
Ron Miller
Big Chief Little Wolf
Mario Milano
Websites
The Australian Worker
The Australian Workers' Union
Media Man Australia Profiles
Ron Miller
Big Chief Little Wolf
Mario Milano
Monday, August 25, 2008
Seemed like old times at Fanfest, By Mike Mooneyham - The Post and Courier - 24th August 2008
"The past is not dead; it's not even past." — William Faulkner
I had the same feeling after attending last weekend's NWA Legends Fanfest gathering in Charlotte.
For three days and four nights, wrestling fans were taken back to a time when their childhood heroes once again basked in the spotlight, relating old war stories that only seem to get better with age.
That the years have taken their inevitable toll on these ring warriors didn't seem to matter much to the hundreds of folks who converged from far and wide upon The Hilton hotel, headquarters for the event, just to pay tribute. To this group of loyal, devoted fans, their heroes stood as tall as they ever did, on a pedestal that will never be shaken.
And while time marches on, some things never change.
Rip "The Profile" Hawk, still active at age 78 and a part-time youth wrestling coach in west Texas, closed the bar at least once. The only thing missing was the late Swede Hanson, Hawk's stablemate for many years, at his side.
The 59-year-old "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, who was brought into the Carolinas nearly 35 years ago as Hawk's storyline "nephew," still drew the biggest lines, signing autographs and having pictures taken with fans nonstop for several hours. Flair, who retired as an active performer in March, also commanded the biggest fee: $100 per photo-op and $40 per autograph.
Thunderbolt Patterson, one of the most colorful orators in the history of the business, still cuts one of the longest promos. Ole Anderson, who inducted Patterson into the Hall of Heroes, joked that Patterson would "never shut up" while routinely running over on his interview time during his wrestling days. True to form, Bolt proceeded to cut a riveting 10-minute spiel on Ole, bringing the audience to its feet.
Patterson was no less reserved for a 7 a.m. Sunday worship service he conducted along with "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase. With Bruno Sammartino and Ivan Koloff anxiously waiting in the wings for a 9 a.m. Q&A session in the same location, DiBiase quietly gave a cue to Patterson, who responded, "Jesus doesn't have a time limit." And apparently He didn't, since the doors weren't opened until Bolt had finished laying hands on everyone in attendance.
Mike Jackson, the longtime "Alabama Junior Heavyweight Champion," at age 59 stole the wrestling portion of the event, putting on one of his patented mat clinics against a much younger opponent. Performers like Jackson and George South, who also worked the wrestling show, deserve credit for making many a main-event star look like a million bucks back in the day.
Reid Fliehr (Ric's son) and Dillon Eaton (Bobby's son) were on hand to watch another second-generation wrestler, Richie Steamboat, work one of his first matches as an aspiring pro.
There was a little something for everyone at the three-day convention. Tables of vendors and guest exhibitors were on display throughout the event. The "legends," along with performers with WWE and TNA affiliations, mingled with colleagues and fans alike — at the bar, in the lobby and in conference rooms.
This year's Hall of Heroes honorees were Sandy Scott (inducted by Bob Caudle), Grizzly Smith (inducted by Magnum T.A.), Johnny Weaver (inducted posthumously by Rip Hawk), Thunderbolt Patterson (inducted by Ole Anderson), Paul Jones (inducted by Jack Brisco), Ivan Koloff (inducted by Don Kernodle) and Buddy Roberts (inducted by Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin).
Some, unfortunately, could not attend this year's event.
Smith, who achieved legendary status in this area during the '60s as one half of The Kentuckians tag team with the late Luke Brown, is in declining health and living with relatives in Amarillo, Texas.
"My dad really wanted to be here, but it wasn't one of his better days," said son Sam Houston (Michael Smith), who accepted the award on his father's behalf. "My dad's got fond memories of you all."
The Assassin (Jody Hamilton), who was scheduled to induct Smith, also could not make the trip due to a scheduled knee surgery.
Others, slowed by physical maladies, displayed the same grit and toughness that had served them well during their wrestling careers. "No. 1" Paul Jones, who recently had been confined to a wheelchair and later a walker, is still recovering from prostate cancer and a "chemical malfunction." Ole Anderson, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, now requires assistance to walk. Former Freebird Buddy Roberts speaks from a voice box after having successfully battled throat cancer for more than a decade.
But they remain stalwarts in a profession that demanded much. The love and respect their fans showered them with at the event was proof positive that these ring legends certainly must have done something right all those years ago.
Greg Price, who promoted the event, already has scheduled next year's Fanfest. If you've never been and you're a longtime wrestling fan, especially of the Mid-Atlantic variety, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
To borrow a catch phrase from Thunderbolt Patterson: "You better call somebody!"
--Sonny Fargo, who gained notoriety as Jackie Fargo's crazy brother "Roughhouse" Fargo in Memphis during the '60s and '70s and later as a referee for Jim Crockett Promotions, died Wednesday at the age of 80. Fargo, whose real name was Jack Faggart Sr., passed away at his home in China Grove, N.C.
Fargo, also known as "Nuthouse," was a fan favorite in Tennessee as a wild, unpredictable brawler who real-life brother Jackie Fargo (Henry Faggart) would bring in "from the mental institution" whenever he needed a partner to settle the score with another team. The two held Southern-based tag-team titles on numerous occasions, wresting the belts from such duos as Tojo Yamamoto and Alex Perez, The Interns, and Joe Scarpa and Lester Welch.
--Former world champ Bill Goldberg told Fight Network Radio on Friday that he had begun training for a comeback in pro wrestling. Goldberg said he is looking for a one-shot deal to do another match, but hinted that it would not be with WWE or TNA.
Goldberg's last bout was on March 14, 2004, at Wrestlemania 20 where he defeated Brock Lesnar.
--Old School Championship Wrestling will hold a show today at Weekend's Pub, 428 Redbank Road, Goose Creek. Bell time is 6 p.m.
Former NWA world champ Tommy "Wildfire" Rich, making his second appearance for OSCW, will meet Hanz for the No. 1 contender spot for the IC title. Also scheduled is an elimination match between The Company and Team OSCW involving eight competitors.
For more information, visit www.oscwonline.com or call 743-4800.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wrestling Legends
Wrestling
I had the same feeling after attending last weekend's NWA Legends Fanfest gathering in Charlotte.
For three days and four nights, wrestling fans were taken back to a time when their childhood heroes once again basked in the spotlight, relating old war stories that only seem to get better with age.
That the years have taken their inevitable toll on these ring warriors didn't seem to matter much to the hundreds of folks who converged from far and wide upon The Hilton hotel, headquarters for the event, just to pay tribute. To this group of loyal, devoted fans, their heroes stood as tall as they ever did, on a pedestal that will never be shaken.
And while time marches on, some things never change.
Rip "The Profile" Hawk, still active at age 78 and a part-time youth wrestling coach in west Texas, closed the bar at least once. The only thing missing was the late Swede Hanson, Hawk's stablemate for many years, at his side.
The 59-year-old "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, who was brought into the Carolinas nearly 35 years ago as Hawk's storyline "nephew," still drew the biggest lines, signing autographs and having pictures taken with fans nonstop for several hours. Flair, who retired as an active performer in March, also commanded the biggest fee: $100 per photo-op and $40 per autograph.
Thunderbolt Patterson, one of the most colorful orators in the history of the business, still cuts one of the longest promos. Ole Anderson, who inducted Patterson into the Hall of Heroes, joked that Patterson would "never shut up" while routinely running over on his interview time during his wrestling days. True to form, Bolt proceeded to cut a riveting 10-minute spiel on Ole, bringing the audience to its feet.
Patterson was no less reserved for a 7 a.m. Sunday worship service he conducted along with "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase. With Bruno Sammartino and Ivan Koloff anxiously waiting in the wings for a 9 a.m. Q&A session in the same location, DiBiase quietly gave a cue to Patterson, who responded, "Jesus doesn't have a time limit." And apparently He didn't, since the doors weren't opened until Bolt had finished laying hands on everyone in attendance.
Mike Jackson, the longtime "Alabama Junior Heavyweight Champion," at age 59 stole the wrestling portion of the event, putting on one of his patented mat clinics against a much younger opponent. Performers like Jackson and George South, who also worked the wrestling show, deserve credit for making many a main-event star look like a million bucks back in the day.
Reid Fliehr (Ric's son) and Dillon Eaton (Bobby's son) were on hand to watch another second-generation wrestler, Richie Steamboat, work one of his first matches as an aspiring pro.
There was a little something for everyone at the three-day convention. Tables of vendors and guest exhibitors were on display throughout the event. The "legends," along with performers with WWE and TNA affiliations, mingled with colleagues and fans alike — at the bar, in the lobby and in conference rooms.
This year's Hall of Heroes honorees were Sandy Scott (inducted by Bob Caudle), Grizzly Smith (inducted by Magnum T.A.), Johnny Weaver (inducted posthumously by Rip Hawk), Thunderbolt Patterson (inducted by Ole Anderson), Paul Jones (inducted by Jack Brisco), Ivan Koloff (inducted by Don Kernodle) and Buddy Roberts (inducted by Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin).
Some, unfortunately, could not attend this year's event.
Smith, who achieved legendary status in this area during the '60s as one half of The Kentuckians tag team with the late Luke Brown, is in declining health and living with relatives in Amarillo, Texas.
"My dad really wanted to be here, but it wasn't one of his better days," said son Sam Houston (Michael Smith), who accepted the award on his father's behalf. "My dad's got fond memories of you all."
The Assassin (Jody Hamilton), who was scheduled to induct Smith, also could not make the trip due to a scheduled knee surgery.
Others, slowed by physical maladies, displayed the same grit and toughness that had served them well during their wrestling careers. "No. 1" Paul Jones, who recently had been confined to a wheelchair and later a walker, is still recovering from prostate cancer and a "chemical malfunction." Ole Anderson, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, now requires assistance to walk. Former Freebird Buddy Roberts speaks from a voice box after having successfully battled throat cancer for more than a decade.
But they remain stalwarts in a profession that demanded much. The love and respect their fans showered them with at the event was proof positive that these ring legends certainly must have done something right all those years ago.
Greg Price, who promoted the event, already has scheduled next year's Fanfest. If you've never been and you're a longtime wrestling fan, especially of the Mid-Atlantic variety, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
To borrow a catch phrase from Thunderbolt Patterson: "You better call somebody!"
--Sonny Fargo, who gained notoriety as Jackie Fargo's crazy brother "Roughhouse" Fargo in Memphis during the '60s and '70s and later as a referee for Jim Crockett Promotions, died Wednesday at the age of 80. Fargo, whose real name was Jack Faggart Sr., passed away at his home in China Grove, N.C.
Fargo, also known as "Nuthouse," was a fan favorite in Tennessee as a wild, unpredictable brawler who real-life brother Jackie Fargo (Henry Faggart) would bring in "from the mental institution" whenever he needed a partner to settle the score with another team. The two held Southern-based tag-team titles on numerous occasions, wresting the belts from such duos as Tojo Yamamoto and Alex Perez, The Interns, and Joe Scarpa and Lester Welch.
--Former world champ Bill Goldberg told Fight Network Radio on Friday that he had begun training for a comeback in pro wrestling. Goldberg said he is looking for a one-shot deal to do another match, but hinted that it would not be with WWE or TNA.
Goldberg's last bout was on March 14, 2004, at Wrestlemania 20 where he defeated Brock Lesnar.
--Old School Championship Wrestling will hold a show today at Weekend's Pub, 428 Redbank Road, Goose Creek. Bell time is 6 p.m.
Former NWA world champ Tommy "Wildfire" Rich, making his second appearance for OSCW, will meet Hanz for the No. 1 contender spot for the IC title. Also scheduled is an elimination match between The Company and Team OSCW involving eight competitors.
For more information, visit www.oscwonline.com or call 743-4800.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wrestling Legends
Wrestling
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Lords of the Ring - The Sunday Mail (Sunday Extra) - 16th July 2000
It starts as a sound bite in one corner of the stadium a rhythmic chant invoking the arrival of a man so famous that, just like Madonna, he no longer needs two names.
Goldberg. Goldberg! Goldberg!! They scream as others join, stamping their feet on the bleachers until 10,000 punters are caught in the moment, seduced by the biggest thing to happen to pro wrestling since Hulk Hogan.
Goldberg, a 190cm, 120kg mountain of a man who attacks opponents like the gridiron player he once was, is widely believed to earn tens of thousands of dollars every time he steps into the ring.
And Goldberg along with arch rivals Kevin "Big Sexy" Nash and Jeff Jarrett, is heading our way, as a master promoter Paul Danity brings the World Championship Wrestling juggernaut to Australia.
Well-schooled in the art of taking a punt, Danity is a shrewd operator whose longevity in the promotion game means that he knows exactly what he's doing bring the relatively unknown soap opera that is WCW to Australia.
"This deal has taken nearly two years to stitch up" Danity says.
"The only thing I can compare it to was trying to get the Rolling Stones to Australia."
"But it's worth it and on a personal level, I can't remember the last time I was so excited about bringing an act to Australia."
But why is Danity , a man not usually given to passionate outbursts of enthusiasm, so pumped?
To begin with despite the fact that WCW is a fairly low-profile sport in Australia compared to the giants of football and cricket, Danity's well-oiled research covered Australia's licensee agent for Kevin Nash has sold $10 million of Big Sexy's merchandise in the past 12 months.
Danity believes there is a huge, untapped market for pro wrestling in Australia and there's no doubt WCW is big business - wherever it plays in the world.
Since it was taken over by media mogul Ted Turner in 1988, WCW has become a law unto itself, a multi-million-$-making machine with its monolithic HQ in Atlanta Georgia.
And while Australian fans are conversant with some of the bigger names soon to arrive here, what they probably don't know is how tough it has been for every one of those wrestlers to get here.
The road to WCW fame begins at the Atlanta HQ, where at one time 100 to 150 wrestlers contracts are under contract.
Sharon Sidello (WCW's vice president of international development) is moving into dangerous territory here - there's the fine line between what's real and fake in the ring. WCW is remarkably coy about exactly what goes on in the matches and the wrestlers themselves don't take kindly to the merest suggestion that what they do isn't 100% bonfide.
During a live satellite link-up with GB, JJ and KN last week to promote the upcoming tour, all three wrestlers bristled when asked the big question is wrestling real.
"I'll tell you what." Goldberg growled, "let's you and me get in the ring and I'll show you what's real and what's not."
"I've seen them when they come out of those matches and, yes they're hurting".
They have bruises, they do bleed and they do get injured".
You can't fake falling off the top rope on to a mat with a sickening thud, you can't fake a headlock."
WCW kicks off its four-date Australian tour in Brisbane on Saturday, October 7, at the Entertainment Centre at Boondall.
Tickets go on sale this Friday through Ticketek 131 931.
The Brisbane event will feature GB, SV, KN, JJ and several other big WCW names yet to be announced.
Brisbane is the first place outside the US where filming will take place and be beamed via satellite back to the US as part of WCW's regular programming.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Paul Danity
Ted Turner
Goldberg. Goldberg! Goldberg!! They scream as others join, stamping their feet on the bleachers until 10,000 punters are caught in the moment, seduced by the biggest thing to happen to pro wrestling since Hulk Hogan.
Goldberg, a 190cm, 120kg mountain of a man who attacks opponents like the gridiron player he once was, is widely believed to earn tens of thousands of dollars every time he steps into the ring.
And Goldberg along with arch rivals Kevin "Big Sexy" Nash and Jeff Jarrett, is heading our way, as a master promoter Paul Danity brings the World Championship Wrestling juggernaut to Australia.
Well-schooled in the art of taking a punt, Danity is a shrewd operator whose longevity in the promotion game means that he knows exactly what he's doing bring the relatively unknown soap opera that is WCW to Australia.
"This deal has taken nearly two years to stitch up" Danity says.
"The only thing I can compare it to was trying to get the Rolling Stones to Australia."
"But it's worth it and on a personal level, I can't remember the last time I was so excited about bringing an act to Australia."
But why is Danity , a man not usually given to passionate outbursts of enthusiasm, so pumped?
To begin with despite the fact that WCW is a fairly low-profile sport in Australia compared to the giants of football and cricket, Danity's well-oiled research covered Australia's licensee agent for Kevin Nash has sold $10 million of Big Sexy's merchandise in the past 12 months.
Danity believes there is a huge, untapped market for pro wrestling in Australia and there's no doubt WCW is big business - wherever it plays in the world.
Since it was taken over by media mogul Ted Turner in 1988, WCW has become a law unto itself, a multi-million-$-making machine with its monolithic HQ in Atlanta Georgia.
And while Australian fans are conversant with some of the bigger names soon to arrive here, what they probably don't know is how tough it has been for every one of those wrestlers to get here.
The road to WCW fame begins at the Atlanta HQ, where at one time 100 to 150 wrestlers contracts are under contract.
Sharon Sidello (WCW's vice president of international development) is moving into dangerous territory here - there's the fine line between what's real and fake in the ring. WCW is remarkably coy about exactly what goes on in the matches and the wrestlers themselves don't take kindly to the merest suggestion that what they do isn't 100% bonfide.
During a live satellite link-up with GB, JJ and KN last week to promote the upcoming tour, all three wrestlers bristled when asked the big question is wrestling real.
"I'll tell you what." Goldberg growled, "let's you and me get in the ring and I'll show you what's real and what's not."
"I've seen them when they come out of those matches and, yes they're hurting".
They have bruises, they do bleed and they do get injured".
You can't fake falling off the top rope on to a mat with a sickening thud, you can't fake a headlock."
WCW kicks off its four-date Australian tour in Brisbane on Saturday, October 7, at the Entertainment Centre at Boondall.
Tickets go on sale this Friday through Ticketek 131 931.
The Brisbane event will feature GB, SV, KN, JJ and several other big WCW names yet to be announced.
Brisbane is the first place outside the US where filming will take place and be beamed via satellite back to the US as part of WCW's regular programming.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Paul Danity
Ted Turner
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Boxing: A Cultural History, by Peter Temple - The Sydney Morning Herald - 7th July 2008
From Mesopotamia to Madison Square Garden, boxing has enthralled and outraged.
Author Kasia Boddy
Genre Society/Politics, Sport
Publisher Reaktion Books
Pages 480
RRP $76.0
WHY do people love watching men hit each other?
Boxing is widely out of favour now, frowned upon as a violent anachronism. But this doesn't deter countless millions who watch fighting in all its forms on cable television and the internet, where it ranks second only to pornography.
Porn's appeal is obvious. But is watching men fight just as primary a stimulus? Very likely. People have been engaging in and watching boxing, dressed up as a sport and a form of exercise, for all of recorded history, with images of pugilists dated to ancient Mesopotamia.
The literature on the sport that is not a game is voluminous but few writers have attempted large-scale social histories, probably because everywhere you look, you find traces of boxing. No other non-productive activity has reached so deeply and so widely into society.
Kasia Boddy is no faint-heart. She appears to have tracked down every last reference to boxing in prose, poetry, painting, sculpture, film and video and, betraying no enthusiasm for the sport, manages to mention them all in 478 pages.
Boxing's modern history begins in the mean, gin-sodden cities of early 18th-century England, with the growth in popularity of bare-knuckle, no-holds-barred fighting. The smart money was quick to see commercial potential in providing the spectacle of men beating, gouging, choking and kicking each other senseless. The aristocracy, with little to do except drink, ride, gamble and fornicate, were drawn in, too.
So pervasive was boxing's influence that by 1785, Thomas Jefferson could complain that rich young Virginians sent to England to be educated were learning "drinking, horse racing and boxing". For young men of Lord Byron's class, the louche world of what was called the Fancy - boxing academies, prizefighters' pubs and the London fights - was addictive. Not even his mother's funeral kept Byron from his daily sparring.
And long before any other, boxing was an international sport, holding its first world title fight - for world, read Britain and the US - in 1860. In the posh part of the crowd with the nobles, merchants and rich industrialists were novelists Thackeray and Dickens, two of the dozens of famous British writers, including Hazlitt, attracted to the bloody ring.
Once boxing began to generate big money, the simple setting of men on each other like dogs had to go: capitalism needs order and regularity. Prizefighting had to take on rational characteristics.
Timeless brawls gave way to timed rounds. The square of wood or rope replaced the organic circle. Gloves were introduced, rules were invented, eventually a point-scoring system devised. Training of boxers became the norm and boxing schools sprang up.
Now boxing's ugly side could be assigned to the professionals, broken-faced pugs suffering and inflicting pain and injury for money. Amateur boxing, on the other hand, could be held up as a sport fit for gentlemen and a cleansing tonic for the dangerous youth of England's urban slums.
"They work off their restlessness and get rid of the devil in the gymnasium with the boxing gloves … they become infected with some upper-class ideals … honour and honesty, purity and temperance."
As Boddy suggests in an academic way, part of boxing's attraction for some middle-class do-gooders was the opportunities it provided for close contact with young men wearing only skimpy shorts. Indeed, for many commentators, including Byron's biographer Benita Eisler, the Fancy had more to do with sodomy than athleticism. Boxing was the social lubricant that made it possible for upper-class Englishmen to engage closely with brawny young men from the lower classes.
From early on, many of Western society's preoccupations found their bloody intersection in the square ring. In late 18th-century England, for example, the rise to champion status of the elegant Daniel Mendoza brought into the open the anti-Semitism aimed at London's growing population of Jews from abroad. Mendoza is a pivotal figure in boxing, the man who invented the ducking, weaving, back-pedalling "science" of boxing, who first showed that middleweight brain could beat heavyweight brawn. His fights against Richard Humphries (billed as "the Jew" against "the Gentleman Fighter") were sell-outs, making them, says Boddy, the first boxers "whose careers were successfully marketed in terms of ethnic hostility".
Racial prejudice had similar economic potential. Pitting white against black became another staple of boxing promotion in England and the US (and played well in Australian tent-boxing deep into the 20th century).
Jack Johnson - who won his first title in Australia - was the black champion who first set white America's teeth on edge (by marrying white women, three of them). Boddy records that in Reno the band played a tune called All Coons Look Alike to Me when he entered the ring to fight white Jim Jeffries for the world title in 1910.
From John L. Sullivan on, the US would be the home of prizefighting. And if boxing in England was redolent with social and sexual ambiguity, the distinctive smell in American boxing was always of corruption. (Sullivan's conqueror, Gentleman Jim Corbett, said it was a rare fight he was not offered a bribe to throw.)
As Boddy shows at scholarly length, in American books and plays and paintings and films, boxing came to carry a heavy symbolic freight. The gloves and the ring stood for pride and courage, sacrifice and nobility, salvation and redemption. They also stood for corruption, greed, betrayal, pain and death. No other sport - indeed, perhaps no other human activity - has been so fraught with meaning.
As radio spread in the 1930s, black boxers such as Joe Louis became national figures, inspiring downtrodden black Americans from sea to shining sea. When Louis fought Italy's Primo Carnera, the politics of the old world had arrived: the boxers were represented as Haile Selassie of Ethiopia versus Mussolini.
In 1933, Max Baer wore a Star of David on his trunks when he fought the German Max Schmeling. In 1936, it was Louis's turn to take on the German and the whole world was agog. Schmeling won and was flown home in the Hindenburg airship: an Aryan technological triumph conveying a physically superior Aryan.
But it wasn't over. In 1938, Louis fought Schmeling again, at Yankee Stadium. Now war was in the wind and Joe wasn't black any more. Now he was an American boy fighting a Nazi. And he beat him.
Almost everyone who matters in Western cultural history in the past century enters Boddy's ring. While she occasionally seems blind to the obvious or belabours what the blind can see, such is the overall quality of the job here that she can be forgiven anything.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Boxing
Wrestling
Author Kasia Boddy
Genre Society/Politics, Sport
Publisher Reaktion Books
Pages 480
RRP $76.0
WHY do people love watching men hit each other?
Boxing is widely out of favour now, frowned upon as a violent anachronism. But this doesn't deter countless millions who watch fighting in all its forms on cable television and the internet, where it ranks second only to pornography.
Porn's appeal is obvious. But is watching men fight just as primary a stimulus? Very likely. People have been engaging in and watching boxing, dressed up as a sport and a form of exercise, for all of recorded history, with images of pugilists dated to ancient Mesopotamia.
The literature on the sport that is not a game is voluminous but few writers have attempted large-scale social histories, probably because everywhere you look, you find traces of boxing. No other non-productive activity has reached so deeply and so widely into society.
Kasia Boddy is no faint-heart. She appears to have tracked down every last reference to boxing in prose, poetry, painting, sculpture, film and video and, betraying no enthusiasm for the sport, manages to mention them all in 478 pages.
Boxing's modern history begins in the mean, gin-sodden cities of early 18th-century England, with the growth in popularity of bare-knuckle, no-holds-barred fighting. The smart money was quick to see commercial potential in providing the spectacle of men beating, gouging, choking and kicking each other senseless. The aristocracy, with little to do except drink, ride, gamble and fornicate, were drawn in, too.
So pervasive was boxing's influence that by 1785, Thomas Jefferson could complain that rich young Virginians sent to England to be educated were learning "drinking, horse racing and boxing". For young men of Lord Byron's class, the louche world of what was called the Fancy - boxing academies, prizefighters' pubs and the London fights - was addictive. Not even his mother's funeral kept Byron from his daily sparring.
And long before any other, boxing was an international sport, holding its first world title fight - for world, read Britain and the US - in 1860. In the posh part of the crowd with the nobles, merchants and rich industrialists were novelists Thackeray and Dickens, two of the dozens of famous British writers, including Hazlitt, attracted to the bloody ring.
Once boxing began to generate big money, the simple setting of men on each other like dogs had to go: capitalism needs order and regularity. Prizefighting had to take on rational characteristics.
Timeless brawls gave way to timed rounds. The square of wood or rope replaced the organic circle. Gloves were introduced, rules were invented, eventually a point-scoring system devised. Training of boxers became the norm and boxing schools sprang up.
Now boxing's ugly side could be assigned to the professionals, broken-faced pugs suffering and inflicting pain and injury for money. Amateur boxing, on the other hand, could be held up as a sport fit for gentlemen and a cleansing tonic for the dangerous youth of England's urban slums.
"They work off their restlessness and get rid of the devil in the gymnasium with the boxing gloves … they become infected with some upper-class ideals … honour and honesty, purity and temperance."
As Boddy suggests in an academic way, part of boxing's attraction for some middle-class do-gooders was the opportunities it provided for close contact with young men wearing only skimpy shorts. Indeed, for many commentators, including Byron's biographer Benita Eisler, the Fancy had more to do with sodomy than athleticism. Boxing was the social lubricant that made it possible for upper-class Englishmen to engage closely with brawny young men from the lower classes.
From early on, many of Western society's preoccupations found their bloody intersection in the square ring. In late 18th-century England, for example, the rise to champion status of the elegant Daniel Mendoza brought into the open the anti-Semitism aimed at London's growing population of Jews from abroad. Mendoza is a pivotal figure in boxing, the man who invented the ducking, weaving, back-pedalling "science" of boxing, who first showed that middleweight brain could beat heavyweight brawn. His fights against Richard Humphries (billed as "the Jew" against "the Gentleman Fighter") were sell-outs, making them, says Boddy, the first boxers "whose careers were successfully marketed in terms of ethnic hostility".
Racial prejudice had similar economic potential. Pitting white against black became another staple of boxing promotion in England and the US (and played well in Australian tent-boxing deep into the 20th century).
Jack Johnson - who won his first title in Australia - was the black champion who first set white America's teeth on edge (by marrying white women, three of them). Boddy records that in Reno the band played a tune called All Coons Look Alike to Me when he entered the ring to fight white Jim Jeffries for the world title in 1910.
From John L. Sullivan on, the US would be the home of prizefighting. And if boxing in England was redolent with social and sexual ambiguity, the distinctive smell in American boxing was always of corruption. (Sullivan's conqueror, Gentleman Jim Corbett, said it was a rare fight he was not offered a bribe to throw.)
As Boddy shows at scholarly length, in American books and plays and paintings and films, boxing came to carry a heavy symbolic freight. The gloves and the ring stood for pride and courage, sacrifice and nobility, salvation and redemption. They also stood for corruption, greed, betrayal, pain and death. No other sport - indeed, perhaps no other human activity - has been so fraught with meaning.
As radio spread in the 1930s, black boxers such as Joe Louis became national figures, inspiring downtrodden black Americans from sea to shining sea. When Louis fought Italy's Primo Carnera, the politics of the old world had arrived: the boxers were represented as Haile Selassie of Ethiopia versus Mussolini.
In 1933, Max Baer wore a Star of David on his trunks when he fought the German Max Schmeling. In 1936, it was Louis's turn to take on the German and the whole world was agog. Schmeling won and was flown home in the Hindenburg airship: an Aryan technological triumph conveying a physically superior Aryan.
But it wasn't over. In 1938, Louis fought Schmeling again, at Yankee Stadium. Now war was in the wind and Joe wasn't black any more. Now he was an American boy fighting a Nazi. And he beat him.
Almost everyone who matters in Western cultural history in the past century enters Boddy's ring. While she occasionally seems blind to the obvious or belabours what the blind can see, such is the overall quality of the job here that she can be forgiven anything.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Boxing
Wrestling
Professional wrestling in Australia
Professional wrestling in Australia makes up a small but growing part of Australian culture. Unlike the North American or Japanese products which have large, globally renowned organisations such as World Wrestling Entertainment or New Japan Pro Wrestling with several hundred smaller promotions, Australia has approximately 30 smaller independent circuit promotions which exist in all but two of the states, those being the Northern Territory and Tasmania. Tours from the North American product are regularly sold out in capital cities such as Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.
History
Professional wrestling in Australia first gained distinction in the early 1900s, however there were very few shows promoted. Nonetheless, stars such as Clarence Weber, Jack Carkeek, Clarence Whistler and Georg Hackenschmidt were made. As time went on, the sport's popularity began to grow, particularly in the 1930s as people sought to find relief from The Great Depression.
Throughout the 1940s professional wrestling suffered due to World War II but in the 1950s reached new highs as many stars from overseas were imported and created larger crowds and, in turn, a larger market. Established names such as Lou Thesz, Dr. Jerry Graham and Gorgeous George toured the country during the decade.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Australia established its only major promotion in WCW Australia. WCW had a television deal with the Nine Network, the first in Australia to do so and attracted crowds between 2,000 and 9,000 people on a weekly basis. International stars such as Killer Kowalski, Ray Stevens, Dominic Denucci, Mario Milano, Spiros Arion, Karl Gotch, Bruno Sammartino, Gorilla Monsoon and local stars Ron Miller and Larry O’Dea were all involved with the promotion which grew steadily through the 1960s and was a well known product in the 1970s. However, with the introduction of World Series Cricket, WCW was left with no television deal and was forced to close down in 1978. This sent the Australian market into a large decline. With no access to any product anywhere in the world, the Australian market was almost dead until World Wrestling Entertainment became a prominent figure in professional wrestling in the mid-1980s.
Australia has depended on the North American product since 1985. Hosting tours in 1985 and 1986 kept a solid viewing in the sport through programmes such as Superstars of Wrestling and Saturday Night's Main Event. Small local promotions have tried to take advantage of the popularity of professional wrestling in more recent times, but there has been nothing of note since the demise of World Championship Wrestling in 1978.
However the local scene has been the subject of controversy.
In September 2002, a promotion called PCW presented a show called Carnage, in which two wrestlers faced off in the first-ever barbed-wire match in Australia. The event was billed as a "Great Family Night Out", however before the bout an announcer warned parents to take their children from the Rowville arena if they were upset by blood.
The match saw real blood, fake glass and one contestant setting fire to a chair. The ring ropes were replaced with barbed wire and a bucket of thumb tacks was dumped on the ring floor. Much of the controversy surrounded rumours about the event, suggesting that the outpour of blood was so intense that it 'splattered' onto members of the crowd. Much of this can be attributed to people who had heard about the match giving their take of it on the Internet.
Despite the fact that this event was publicised as having a gory match and the preceding warning, people complained that the match in question was 'too much'. A concerned mother called Melbourne Talkback radio station 3AW, and a wrestler heard this call and also rang in. This resulted in the main media outlets covering the story. For the record, neither of the wrestlers were seriously injured. It also resulted in a police investigation. and a furore within the local Knox City Council.
Individual wrestlers originating in Australia have struggled for the most part to obtain any international recognition. Perhaps the two biggest names when one mentions Australia are the Fabulous Kangaroos - Roy Heffernan and Al Costello. They are the only Australian wrestlers to make it big in the United States and held the WWWF Tag Team Championship, as well as being inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. In more recent times Nathan Jones made two WWE appearances at WrestleMania XIX and at Survivor Series later that same year, making him the only Australian wrestler to ever appear on a WWE pay-per-view event. Jones also appeared on two World Wrestling All-Stars pay-per-views, losing to Jeff Jarrett at WWA: The Inception and to Scott Steiner at WWA: The Eruption. Only two other Australian wrestlers have appeared on any pay-per-view event at all. They are Chuck E. Chaos at WWA: The Eruption who lost to Jerry Lynn, and Mark Mercedes at WWA: The Reckoning who lost to Rick Steiner.
Foreign tours
Shows from North American promotions have been held in Australia as early as 1985 when WWE toured through Melbourne, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide and through Melbourne and Brisbane again in 1986. That was the last Australia saw of a live North American product until WCW did a Nitro and Thunder taping in Melbourne and a Thunder taping in Brisbane and Sydney in 2000.
The next time WWE came to Australia was for the WWE Global Warning Tour in 2002. A crowd of 56,000 packed into Colonial Stadium as well a pay-per-view audience throughout Asia witnessed the first WWE show on Australian soil in 16 years. WWE has visited Australia regularly since Global Warning by touring at least once a year since 2003, with the latest show by the Smackdown & ECW brand's in June 2008 visiting Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle, Adelaide and Melbourne.
Australia also hosted shows presented by World Wrestling All-Stars and various smaller shows have featured overseas talent, but nothing of note.
Television programming
History
Throughout the 1990s, both WCW Monday Nitro and RAW were broadcasted on free-to-air networks but were put in poor timeslots and were subsequently cancelled because of poor ratings. WWE's major pay-per-views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam and Survivor Series) were all shown up until 2001, when every pay-per-view began being shown.
WWE programming returned in 2000 with RAW being shown on Fox Sports on Tuesday nights. SmackDown! followed and was broadcasted on FOX8 Friday nights but was moved to Saturday nights in 2001.
In September 2002 negotiations between FOX8 and WWE fell through and SmackDown! was cancelled. A special NWA-TNA package replaced it in early 2003 but only lasted a year. NWA-TNA pay-per-views were shown once a month throughout 2003 during a time when they were being presented weekly in the United States. WWE pay-per-views were also lost to Main Event in the same deal that cost Australian fans SmackDown. Village Cinemas showed them for a few months until August 2003 when SmackDown! returned on Saturday nights as well as the pay-per-views, starting with SummerSlam. RAW was moved from Fox Sports to FOX8 and was shown on Friday nights. In order to prevent spoiler hunting on the internet, FOX8 moved WWE programming to timeslots closer to their United States air date.
In February 2005, WWE Heat, WWE Velocity and The WWE Experience were added to FOX8 and set up a large wrestling program on Saturdays and Sundays. Despite Heat, Velocity and Experience all being cancelled in the United States the shows continued to be shown in Australia to fulfill contractual obligations. When SmackDown! was moved to Friday nights in the United States, in Australia it remained on Friday afternoons. ECW on Sci Fi began broadcasting in Australia from September 2, 2006 in the place of WWE Velocity on Saturdays and the WWE Fanatic Series began airing in October 2006.
After just over 3 years, TNA made it's return. Beginning with TNA Sacrifice 2006 on May 27, 2006 on tape delay. This continued for 12 months before events started being broadcast live in May 2007. TNA iMPACT! began airing on April 5, 2008 on FOX8. Just on the second week of airing, TNA averaged more viewers than both WWE Smackdown and WWE Raw.
On June 2, 2008 WWE and Channel nine announced that they would be airing WWE Afterburn on nine every Sunday at 1:30 starting on June 15
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-views in Australia are shown on Main Event, the only provider in Australia. Main Event has been broadcasting pay-per-views for both WWE starting in 1999 until the present time (including the Fanatic Series from 2006) and WCW pay-per-views from 1997 until they were bought out in March 2001. Main Event also began broadcasting TNA pay-per-views in May 2006, starting with Sacrifice. One year later, TNA pay per views were lifted from the 13 day tape delay format to a live format. (Credit: Wikipedia).
Media Man Australia Profiles
Foxtel
Network Nine Australia
Wrestling
History
Professional wrestling in Australia first gained distinction in the early 1900s, however there were very few shows promoted. Nonetheless, stars such as Clarence Weber, Jack Carkeek, Clarence Whistler and Georg Hackenschmidt were made. As time went on, the sport's popularity began to grow, particularly in the 1930s as people sought to find relief from The Great Depression.
Throughout the 1940s professional wrestling suffered due to World War II but in the 1950s reached new highs as many stars from overseas were imported and created larger crowds and, in turn, a larger market. Established names such as Lou Thesz, Dr. Jerry Graham and Gorgeous George toured the country during the decade.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Australia established its only major promotion in WCW Australia. WCW had a television deal with the Nine Network, the first in Australia to do so and attracted crowds between 2,000 and 9,000 people on a weekly basis. International stars such as Killer Kowalski, Ray Stevens, Dominic Denucci, Mario Milano, Spiros Arion, Karl Gotch, Bruno Sammartino, Gorilla Monsoon and local stars Ron Miller and Larry O’Dea were all involved with the promotion which grew steadily through the 1960s and was a well known product in the 1970s. However, with the introduction of World Series Cricket, WCW was left with no television deal and was forced to close down in 1978. This sent the Australian market into a large decline. With no access to any product anywhere in the world, the Australian market was almost dead until World Wrestling Entertainment became a prominent figure in professional wrestling in the mid-1980s.
Australia has depended on the North American product since 1985. Hosting tours in 1985 and 1986 kept a solid viewing in the sport through programmes such as Superstars of Wrestling and Saturday Night's Main Event. Small local promotions have tried to take advantage of the popularity of professional wrestling in more recent times, but there has been nothing of note since the demise of World Championship Wrestling in 1978.
However the local scene has been the subject of controversy.
In September 2002, a promotion called PCW presented a show called Carnage, in which two wrestlers faced off in the first-ever barbed-wire match in Australia. The event was billed as a "Great Family Night Out", however before the bout an announcer warned parents to take their children from the Rowville arena if they were upset by blood.
The match saw real blood, fake glass and one contestant setting fire to a chair. The ring ropes were replaced with barbed wire and a bucket of thumb tacks was dumped on the ring floor. Much of the controversy surrounded rumours about the event, suggesting that the outpour of blood was so intense that it 'splattered' onto members of the crowd. Much of this can be attributed to people who had heard about the match giving their take of it on the Internet.
Despite the fact that this event was publicised as having a gory match and the preceding warning, people complained that the match in question was 'too much'. A concerned mother called Melbourne Talkback radio station 3AW, and a wrestler heard this call and also rang in. This resulted in the main media outlets covering the story. For the record, neither of the wrestlers were seriously injured. It also resulted in a police investigation. and a furore within the local Knox City Council.
Individual wrestlers originating in Australia have struggled for the most part to obtain any international recognition. Perhaps the two biggest names when one mentions Australia are the Fabulous Kangaroos - Roy Heffernan and Al Costello. They are the only Australian wrestlers to make it big in the United States and held the WWWF Tag Team Championship, as well as being inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. In more recent times Nathan Jones made two WWE appearances at WrestleMania XIX and at Survivor Series later that same year, making him the only Australian wrestler to ever appear on a WWE pay-per-view event. Jones also appeared on two World Wrestling All-Stars pay-per-views, losing to Jeff Jarrett at WWA: The Inception and to Scott Steiner at WWA: The Eruption. Only two other Australian wrestlers have appeared on any pay-per-view event at all. They are Chuck E. Chaos at WWA: The Eruption who lost to Jerry Lynn, and Mark Mercedes at WWA: The Reckoning who lost to Rick Steiner.
Foreign tours
Shows from North American promotions have been held in Australia as early as 1985 when WWE toured through Melbourne, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide and through Melbourne and Brisbane again in 1986. That was the last Australia saw of a live North American product until WCW did a Nitro and Thunder taping in Melbourne and a Thunder taping in Brisbane and Sydney in 2000.
The next time WWE came to Australia was for the WWE Global Warning Tour in 2002. A crowd of 56,000 packed into Colonial Stadium as well a pay-per-view audience throughout Asia witnessed the first WWE show on Australian soil in 16 years. WWE has visited Australia regularly since Global Warning by touring at least once a year since 2003, with the latest show by the Smackdown & ECW brand's in June 2008 visiting Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle, Adelaide and Melbourne.
Australia also hosted shows presented by World Wrestling All-Stars and various smaller shows have featured overseas talent, but nothing of note.
Television programming
History
Throughout the 1990s, both WCW Monday Nitro and RAW were broadcasted on free-to-air networks but were put in poor timeslots and were subsequently cancelled because of poor ratings. WWE's major pay-per-views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam and Survivor Series) were all shown up until 2001, when every pay-per-view began being shown.
WWE programming returned in 2000 with RAW being shown on Fox Sports on Tuesday nights. SmackDown! followed and was broadcasted on FOX8 Friday nights but was moved to Saturday nights in 2001.
In September 2002 negotiations between FOX8 and WWE fell through and SmackDown! was cancelled. A special NWA-TNA package replaced it in early 2003 but only lasted a year. NWA-TNA pay-per-views were shown once a month throughout 2003 during a time when they were being presented weekly in the United States. WWE pay-per-views were also lost to Main Event in the same deal that cost Australian fans SmackDown. Village Cinemas showed them for a few months until August 2003 when SmackDown! returned on Saturday nights as well as the pay-per-views, starting with SummerSlam. RAW was moved from Fox Sports to FOX8 and was shown on Friday nights. In order to prevent spoiler hunting on the internet, FOX8 moved WWE programming to timeslots closer to their United States air date.
In February 2005, WWE Heat, WWE Velocity and The WWE Experience were added to FOX8 and set up a large wrestling program on Saturdays and Sundays. Despite Heat, Velocity and Experience all being cancelled in the United States the shows continued to be shown in Australia to fulfill contractual obligations. When SmackDown! was moved to Friday nights in the United States, in Australia it remained on Friday afternoons. ECW on Sci Fi began broadcasting in Australia from September 2, 2006 in the place of WWE Velocity on Saturdays and the WWE Fanatic Series began airing in October 2006.
After just over 3 years, TNA made it's return. Beginning with TNA Sacrifice 2006 on May 27, 2006 on tape delay. This continued for 12 months before events started being broadcast live in May 2007. TNA iMPACT! began airing on April 5, 2008 on FOX8. Just on the second week of airing, TNA averaged more viewers than both WWE Smackdown and WWE Raw.
On June 2, 2008 WWE and Channel nine announced that they would be airing WWE Afterburn on nine every Sunday at 1:30 starting on June 15
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-views in Australia are shown on Main Event, the only provider in Australia. Main Event has been broadcasting pay-per-views for both WWE starting in 1999 until the present time (including the Fanatic Series from 2006) and WCW pay-per-views from 1997 until they were bought out in March 2001. Main Event also began broadcasting TNA pay-per-views in May 2006, starting with Sacrifice. One year later, TNA pay per views were lifted from the 13 day tape delay format to a live format. (Credit: Wikipedia).
Media Man Australia Profiles
Foxtel
Network Nine Australia
Wrestling
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Transcript of Bret Hart's Hall of Fame speech
“... The one wrestling hall of fame that captures what he was all about. I look around this room here, and there’s a lot of emotion to me. I’m going to try to stay calm and say what I have to say here. I have some very important things that I want to talk about. I see some really important people in my life and in the wrestling world in the audience here. I see Butch Goering, coming all the way out here from California. Talking to Butch, he worked for my father in the ’60s. He knows what it’s like traveling the roads back then, working for my father. Sometimes it was a thousand miles a day wrestling for wrestling fans just when they started, sort of understood wrestling from television. It was a very unique time, and it was the time when Lou Thesz was just sort of establishing a whole new understanding of wrestling through television. Lou Thesz, what a champion, he was always such a great champion, and he earned that right. You look at Red Baron [Baron von Raschke]. I know my father talked a lot about legends in wrestling, but he always talked about Baron Von Raschke all the time. He was a very, very accomplished NCAA wrestler that got into pro wrestling and was respected by every wrestler that ever worked with him. Whatever the finish was, whatever happened in his matches, he was a legend amongst the wrestlers and the fans.
“I see Bob Leonard, who worked for my father for years taking pictures of wrestlers, capturing and documenting, letting people realize the real art of wrestling, and just to capture the pictures of these young athletes dropkicking and head scissors and wrestling holds, making that magic in still pictures. I think Bob Leonard is a very, very important part of my business. Harley Race, I don’t even know how you start. Harley Race to me is the epitome of pro wrestling. He is not only a great wrestler, I don’t know anyone who would want to mess with Harley in wrestling, the fighting or brawling, the real, that moment of man versus man, to know it. Harley Race, he can do whatever he wants to do with anybody he wants, anytime he wants.
"Then there’s Saito here. I know that he wrestled in Japan, a well-accomplished amateur wrestler, got into pro wrestling, paid his dues for hanging with wrestlers that made mistakes that he wasn’t even a part of, sacrificed to come all the way from Japan to be here. I look at Danny Hodge, he’s one of the most, one of the greatest wrestlers in pro wrestling or amateur wrestling there’s ever been. To be in this room with Danny Hodge is a big, big honor to me. I look at Roddy Piper. I could name a lot of wrestlers that helped me in wrestling, gave me advice — Harley Race — but I don’t think anybody did more for me or helped me more, and helped me make those decisions to get me to where I was than Roddy Piper. To come here, he had to fight cancer, and to be part of this tonight, is just that much more special. It’s my understanding and belief that Roddy Piper came here for the sole reason just to hang out with me, to be part of this event, because it was important to me. That means a lot. I came all the way from Rome to be here.
“I flew in, and it was important from watching the news over in Italy, seeing the flood problems here, and knowing that I would be here in a few days. It would have been a lot easier to shoot home to Calgary and not worry about the floods — I’m not a good swimmer. [crowd laughs] It was important for me to be here. It made me proud to know that I was coming here. Mike Chapman, yeah, I talked to him a couple of years ago. I talked for so long, and I learned so much about wrestling, championships, and Lou Thesz, and how the origin of wrestling started, it was like sitting under the learning tree, just sitting there listening to this guy, digesting, knowing this guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s not full of it. He’s not a B.S.-er. He knows what he’s talking about, he knows these people. He’s talked to Lou Thesz. He knows the history. He knows the transition from pro wrestling and amateur wrestling.
“Now, I’m here because I was a pro wrestler. But I also know, I also know, what it’s like to hang a gold medal around my neck. I know what it’s like to wrestle a one-hour match. I know what it’s like to go full blast for that hour. And to lose, I know what it’s like to lose wrestling match by one point, I’ve been there too. I know what it’s like to snap on a knee brace. I know what it’s like to snap on a world title belt. I also know what it’s like to wrestle in front of 90,000, 100,000 people sometimes, just to have that kind of impact, and to make people — I remember wrestling the British Bulldog in Wembley Stadium, England, and make everybody in that 82,000 wrestling fans, they dismissed all their disbelief about wrestling, and wrestling for 35 minutes became real. It was real.
“There’s an art to that. There’s a science to that. It’s hard work, it’s really hard work. [clears throat, silence for at least 20 seconds.] I don’t want to be too lecturous here. What is a hall of fame? To me, a hall of fame is a place where it’s important to speak the truth, to capture history. When someone tells you they’re holding Karl Gotch’s jockstrap, or whatever it is, there’s the real jockstrap. It had better be real. I think wrestling fans want the truth, and that’s kind of what my point is here. My father was all about wrestling. He loved wrestling. He dedicated his life to wrestling; it wasn’t just about amateur wrestling, it was about pro wrestling for the whole business. It was about feeding families and making something out of nothing. Wrestling used to mean — what I always tried to get people to remember about wrestling was the honor of being a pro wrestler. There’s something about that term, doing the honors for somebody, and knowing that there’s somebody that is going to be the champion, and going to be the guy that carries the load for everybody, and everybody is going to profit by the fact that he’s Lou Thesz, and he makes people believe that wrestling is real, that he’s a real champion. It’s not just the champion, there’s a whole team of wrestlers that make this whole show, make the whole story, it’s not just the cameraman and the referees and the people that let everybody in. It’s more than that. It’s people that dedicate their lives to wrestling.
“I’ve watched wrestling, and been a part of wrestling, since I was 5 years old. I sold programs and made my first 10 cents on wrestling. It’s just something that I’ve had a passion for since I was born. I think it was my calling to be wrestler. If someone had told me when I was 16 years old that I would tour the world, be the champion, and be a hero to kids, and at the same time, to be here, amongst such great amateur wrestlers, the people who were heroes to me when I was 16 years old, people I had the deepest respect for. People like Danny Hodge. I knew all about Danny Hodge when I was 16, I appreciated Danny Hodge even though I’d never met him. But I knew all about him because I respected wrestling. I think my point is, I’m honored to be here. I know this isn’t my place to gripe about stuff, but I have a serious issue with people who write books about wrestling who don’t honor the truth.
“And you, sir, you do not honor the truth of wrestling. Greg Oliver writes these books on wrestling and it’s all made up. It’s not the truth. It’s just baloney, you know. I wrote a book that took seven years, I gave everything I had to write about some of the deepest tragedies, the truth about my life as a wrestler. For someone like this that sits in the room with me to say that on his Web site that my truth is not the truth, it’s just wrong for me to be in the same room as these people. They don’t honor the truth of wrestling.
“When you buy their books, I think you have to look at that and say these people are not telling the truth. They don’t know anything about wrestling. I’ve never seen them in the back. I’ve never seen them in the dressing room. I’ve never seen them at anything to do with wrestling. They don’t know anything at all about my business. They don’t know anything about me. They don’t have any respect for what I do or for anyone else. So I’m going to step aside now, and I just want to say that it’s not right for me to be in the same room as people who don’t do honor and justice to my profession. You either have a choice of leaving, or I will. [Silence. Someone says “get up” or “get out.”]
“I speak the truth about wrestling and I take pride in what I do. [Applause starts slowly but picks up. Sound covers part of the speech.] ... How it was and how it was done, how it should be done. These guys over here, it makes me laugh that Greg Oliver here rated me behind Sky Low Low, as, I think the 13th-greatest Canadian wrestler. I have news for him — he’s wrong. Sky Low Low was a much better wrestler than me, but he was only half the man that I was. But anyway, my point is, you know, I take a lot of pride in what I do. It means a lot to me that people would come here and be part of this, because wrestling was important to me, and I hope it was important for you. But it’s important that people tell the truth.
“When you write about wrestling, you talk about wrestling, especially when you’re among these kind of people, you owe it to tell the truth. If you want to come here and be a charlatan, well, you’re in the wrong place because this is a room filled with legends, and people that paid their dues in wrestling. We want the truth to be told about wrestling. Take your sorry-ass lies about wrestling and how you make it up, and save your books, because they’re not the truth. This is a room filled with truth. Thank you.
[Applause] I’m talking to you, Greg Oliver. Either you go or I go. [Greg Oliver waves goodbye to Hart] Greg Oliver’s going to stay. I’m going to go to my room. [A few fans yell “We want Bret,” smattering of applause, then silence for 20 seconds. Someone says, “Thanks, Bret” and applause starts again.]”
Media Man Australia Profiles
Bret Hart
WWE
Wrestling
“I see Bob Leonard, who worked for my father for years taking pictures of wrestlers, capturing and documenting, letting people realize the real art of wrestling, and just to capture the pictures of these young athletes dropkicking and head scissors and wrestling holds, making that magic in still pictures. I think Bob Leonard is a very, very important part of my business. Harley Race, I don’t even know how you start. Harley Race to me is the epitome of pro wrestling. He is not only a great wrestler, I don’t know anyone who would want to mess with Harley in wrestling, the fighting or brawling, the real, that moment of man versus man, to know it. Harley Race, he can do whatever he wants to do with anybody he wants, anytime he wants.
"Then there’s Saito here. I know that he wrestled in Japan, a well-accomplished amateur wrestler, got into pro wrestling, paid his dues for hanging with wrestlers that made mistakes that he wasn’t even a part of, sacrificed to come all the way from Japan to be here. I look at Danny Hodge, he’s one of the most, one of the greatest wrestlers in pro wrestling or amateur wrestling there’s ever been. To be in this room with Danny Hodge is a big, big honor to me. I look at Roddy Piper. I could name a lot of wrestlers that helped me in wrestling, gave me advice — Harley Race — but I don’t think anybody did more for me or helped me more, and helped me make those decisions to get me to where I was than Roddy Piper. To come here, he had to fight cancer, and to be part of this tonight, is just that much more special. It’s my understanding and belief that Roddy Piper came here for the sole reason just to hang out with me, to be part of this event, because it was important to me. That means a lot. I came all the way from Rome to be here.
“I flew in, and it was important from watching the news over in Italy, seeing the flood problems here, and knowing that I would be here in a few days. It would have been a lot easier to shoot home to Calgary and not worry about the floods — I’m not a good swimmer. [crowd laughs] It was important for me to be here. It made me proud to know that I was coming here. Mike Chapman, yeah, I talked to him a couple of years ago. I talked for so long, and I learned so much about wrestling, championships, and Lou Thesz, and how the origin of wrestling started, it was like sitting under the learning tree, just sitting there listening to this guy, digesting, knowing this guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s not full of it. He’s not a B.S.-er. He knows what he’s talking about, he knows these people. He’s talked to Lou Thesz. He knows the history. He knows the transition from pro wrestling and amateur wrestling.
“Now, I’m here because I was a pro wrestler. But I also know, I also know, what it’s like to hang a gold medal around my neck. I know what it’s like to wrestle a one-hour match. I know what it’s like to go full blast for that hour. And to lose, I know what it’s like to lose wrestling match by one point, I’ve been there too. I know what it’s like to snap on a knee brace. I know what it’s like to snap on a world title belt. I also know what it’s like to wrestle in front of 90,000, 100,000 people sometimes, just to have that kind of impact, and to make people — I remember wrestling the British Bulldog in Wembley Stadium, England, and make everybody in that 82,000 wrestling fans, they dismissed all their disbelief about wrestling, and wrestling for 35 minutes became real. It was real.
“There’s an art to that. There’s a science to that. It’s hard work, it’s really hard work. [clears throat, silence for at least 20 seconds.] I don’t want to be too lecturous here. What is a hall of fame? To me, a hall of fame is a place where it’s important to speak the truth, to capture history. When someone tells you they’re holding Karl Gotch’s jockstrap, or whatever it is, there’s the real jockstrap. It had better be real. I think wrestling fans want the truth, and that’s kind of what my point is here. My father was all about wrestling. He loved wrestling. He dedicated his life to wrestling; it wasn’t just about amateur wrestling, it was about pro wrestling for the whole business. It was about feeding families and making something out of nothing. Wrestling used to mean — what I always tried to get people to remember about wrestling was the honor of being a pro wrestler. There’s something about that term, doing the honors for somebody, and knowing that there’s somebody that is going to be the champion, and going to be the guy that carries the load for everybody, and everybody is going to profit by the fact that he’s Lou Thesz, and he makes people believe that wrestling is real, that he’s a real champion. It’s not just the champion, there’s a whole team of wrestlers that make this whole show, make the whole story, it’s not just the cameraman and the referees and the people that let everybody in. It’s more than that. It’s people that dedicate their lives to wrestling.
“I’ve watched wrestling, and been a part of wrestling, since I was 5 years old. I sold programs and made my first 10 cents on wrestling. It’s just something that I’ve had a passion for since I was born. I think it was my calling to be wrestler. If someone had told me when I was 16 years old that I would tour the world, be the champion, and be a hero to kids, and at the same time, to be here, amongst such great amateur wrestlers, the people who were heroes to me when I was 16 years old, people I had the deepest respect for. People like Danny Hodge. I knew all about Danny Hodge when I was 16, I appreciated Danny Hodge even though I’d never met him. But I knew all about him because I respected wrestling. I think my point is, I’m honored to be here. I know this isn’t my place to gripe about stuff, but I have a serious issue with people who write books about wrestling who don’t honor the truth.
“And you, sir, you do not honor the truth of wrestling. Greg Oliver writes these books on wrestling and it’s all made up. It’s not the truth. It’s just baloney, you know. I wrote a book that took seven years, I gave everything I had to write about some of the deepest tragedies, the truth about my life as a wrestler. For someone like this that sits in the room with me to say that on his Web site that my truth is not the truth, it’s just wrong for me to be in the same room as these people. They don’t honor the truth of wrestling.
“When you buy their books, I think you have to look at that and say these people are not telling the truth. They don’t know anything about wrestling. I’ve never seen them in the back. I’ve never seen them in the dressing room. I’ve never seen them at anything to do with wrestling. They don’t know anything at all about my business. They don’t know anything about me. They don’t have any respect for what I do or for anyone else. So I’m going to step aside now, and I just want to say that it’s not right for me to be in the same room as people who don’t do honor and justice to my profession. You either have a choice of leaving, or I will. [Silence. Someone says “get up” or “get out.”]
“I speak the truth about wrestling and I take pride in what I do. [Applause starts slowly but picks up. Sound covers part of the speech.] ... How it was and how it was done, how it should be done. These guys over here, it makes me laugh that Greg Oliver here rated me behind Sky Low Low, as, I think the 13th-greatest Canadian wrestler. I have news for him — he’s wrong. Sky Low Low was a much better wrestler than me, but he was only half the man that I was. But anyway, my point is, you know, I take a lot of pride in what I do. It means a lot to me that people would come here and be part of this, because wrestling was important to me, and I hope it was important for you. But it’s important that people tell the truth.
“When you write about wrestling, you talk about wrestling, especially when you’re among these kind of people, you owe it to tell the truth. If you want to come here and be a charlatan, well, you’re in the wrong place because this is a room filled with legends, and people that paid their dues in wrestling. We want the truth to be told about wrestling. Take your sorry-ass lies about wrestling and how you make it up, and save your books, because they’re not the truth. This is a room filled with truth. Thank you.
[Applause] I’m talking to you, Greg Oliver. Either you go or I go. [Greg Oliver waves goodbye to Hart] Greg Oliver’s going to stay. I’m going to go to my room. [A few fans yell “We want Bret,” smattering of applause, then silence for 20 seconds. Someone says, “Thanks, Bret” and applause starts again.]”
Media Man Australia Profiles
Bret Hart
WWE
Wrestling
Saturday, June 21, 2008
RIC FLAIR IS COMING TO FANFEST!
*That's right, folks! The one and only "Nature Boy" Ric Flair will
indeed be at this year's NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest in Charlotte,
North Carolina. Flair's appearance is Friday afternoon, August 15
from 1-4 p.m.
I want to thank the folks at MainEventMoments.com for their help with
Ric Flair's appearance here. Flair will be a vendor guest just like we
had Arn Anderson last year. Three hours in a separate area.
We'll be offering to the first 150 people that want it, at $100 per
person, a Photo Op with Flair and his signature on one of your own
items. Like we did last year with Arn, after the Photo Op photos were
taken and before folks got them back, I had Arn sign them as well. I'd
like to do the same thing with Flair, so you'd get your Photo Op 8x10
signed too, it's just much faster if he signs them all at one time
instead of each individual person taking their Photo Op 8x10 back to
him to get it signed. I think this way, we can give folks the
autographed Photo Op 8x10 and another autograph.
Each of the 150 people would pass through Ric's line twice. The first
time, we'll be doing Photo Ops only. Once those are out of the way,
the same 150 people will go back through the line and get your one
item signed.
For those of you wanting extra items signed, it's likely we'll accept
those items at Registration like we've done in the past for extra
items. Pricing has not been determined for extra items at this time.
Right now at http://www.nwalegends.com/2008/ricflair.htm
you are able to purchase your Photo Op/Autograph Combo and secure
your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the Nature Boy! Don't delay,
though. The response has been tremendous so far and I expect these
tickets to sell very quickly.
I want to personally thank each of you. It's evident there's a
tremendous amount of support for one of the all-time great NWA icons.
I thank you for making it possible for him to be with us this year.
Thanks again! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Please make plans now to be with us for 3 HUGE DAYS (and now 4 nights!)
celebrating wrestling tradition!
This will make a great summer vacation!
NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 14-17, 2008
Hilton University Place Hotel; Charlotte, North Carolina
Website
NWA Legends
Media Man Australia Profiles
Ric Flair
Wrestling Legends
WWE
NWA
Wrestling
indeed be at this year's NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest in Charlotte,
North Carolina. Flair's appearance is Friday afternoon, August 15
from 1-4 p.m.
I want to thank the folks at MainEventMoments.com for their help with
Ric Flair's appearance here. Flair will be a vendor guest just like we
had Arn Anderson last year. Three hours in a separate area.
We'll be offering to the first 150 people that want it, at $100 per
person, a Photo Op with Flair and his signature on one of your own
items. Like we did last year with Arn, after the Photo Op photos were
taken and before folks got them back, I had Arn sign them as well. I'd
like to do the same thing with Flair, so you'd get your Photo Op 8x10
signed too, it's just much faster if he signs them all at one time
instead of each individual person taking their Photo Op 8x10 back to
him to get it signed. I think this way, we can give folks the
autographed Photo Op 8x10 and another autograph.
Each of the 150 people would pass through Ric's line twice. The first
time, we'll be doing Photo Ops only. Once those are out of the way,
the same 150 people will go back through the line and get your one
item signed.
For those of you wanting extra items signed, it's likely we'll accept
those items at Registration like we've done in the past for extra
items. Pricing has not been determined for extra items at this time.
Right now at http://www.nwalegends.com/2008/ricflair.htm
you are able to purchase your Photo Op/Autograph Combo and secure
your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the Nature Boy! Don't delay,
though. The response has been tremendous so far and I expect these
tickets to sell very quickly.
I want to personally thank each of you. It's evident there's a
tremendous amount of support for one of the all-time great NWA icons.
I thank you for making it possible for him to be with us this year.
Thanks again! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Please make plans now to be with us for 3 HUGE DAYS (and now 4 nights!)
celebrating wrestling tradition!
This will make a great summer vacation!
NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 14-17, 2008
Hilton University Place Hotel; Charlotte, North Carolina
Website
NWA Legends
Media Man Australia Profiles
Ric Flair
Wrestling Legends
WWE
NWA
Wrestling
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Former World Champs, Dillon & Humperdink Coming To Fanfest!
Bruno Sammartino and Superstar Billy Graham, along with legendary
managers James J. Dillon and Sir Oliver Humperdink, have been added
to the list of featured guests at this summer's NWA Wrestling Legends
Fanfest in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest, three huge days and four nights
featuring dozens of wrestling's legendary heroes and villains and a
bevy of today's top superstars and future legends, returns Thursday
through Sunday, August 14-17 to the Hilton University Place Hotel.
Sammartino and Graham are icons in the sport; both former WWWF world
champions. In addition to signing autographs and taking photos with
fans (including a rare Photo Op of the two together,) the pair will
be featured in a Sunday morning question-and-answer session, sharing
stories about their historic battles and discussing their
larger-than-life careers.
Dillon and Humperdink are two fanfest favorites, both of them having
taken part in our fanfest weekends previously. Both will be in
Charlotte all three days and both will be at our Friday night Hall of
Heroes dinner banquet and awards ceremony.
Other featured legends confirmed thus far include Ole Anderson, The
Assassin, Jack Brisco, Bob Caudle, Chris Cruise, Ted Dibiase, Jimmy
Garvin and Precious, Rip Hawk, Sam Houston, Paul Jones, Ivan Koloff,
Rich Landrum and Grizzly Smith.
VIP All Access Pass holders will have early admission each day, first
access to all autograph signings and photo opportunities, exclusive
admission to three revealing Question-and-Answer sessions, and
ringside seats to the live wrestling matches both Saturday and Sunday
nights! Throw in a free fanfest weekend t-shirt and a VIP All Access
Pass with neck lanyard and you have the VIP hookup!
VIP All Access Passes are just $155 and are on sale now at
http://www.NWALegends.com
Your ticket purchase helps support our efforts to celebrate the
tradition of the National Wrestling Alliance and to honor the heroes
of wrestling's past and present. Thanks for being part of a truly
special weekend. Most folks will tell you it's a remarkable reunion.
Visit our Fanfest Forum online messageboard to join up with other
fanfest attendees, introduce yourself, and join in the discussion as
we get ready for an incredible weekend in Charlotte! Go to
http://www.nwalegends.com/fanfestforum
and join in!
Should you have any questions or comments to share, please feel free
to email us at Info@NWALegends.com
*NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 14-17, 2008
Hilton University Place Hotel; Charlotte, North Carolina
VIP All Access Passes on sale now at http://www.NWALegends.com
*
Please make plans now to be with us for 3 HUGE DAYS (and now 4 nights!)
celebrating wrestling tradition!
This will make a great summer vacation!
NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 14-17, 2008
Hilton University Place Hotel; Charlotte, North Carolina
Website
NWA Legends
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wrestling Legends
NWA
Wrestling
managers James J. Dillon and Sir Oliver Humperdink, have been added
to the list of featured guests at this summer's NWA Wrestling Legends
Fanfest in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest, three huge days and four nights
featuring dozens of wrestling's legendary heroes and villains and a
bevy of today's top superstars and future legends, returns Thursday
through Sunday, August 14-17 to the Hilton University Place Hotel.
Sammartino and Graham are icons in the sport; both former WWWF world
champions. In addition to signing autographs and taking photos with
fans (including a rare Photo Op of the two together,) the pair will
be featured in a Sunday morning question-and-answer session, sharing
stories about their historic battles and discussing their
larger-than-life careers.
Dillon and Humperdink are two fanfest favorites, both of them having
taken part in our fanfest weekends previously. Both will be in
Charlotte all three days and both will be at our Friday night Hall of
Heroes dinner banquet and awards ceremony.
Other featured legends confirmed thus far include Ole Anderson, The
Assassin, Jack Brisco, Bob Caudle, Chris Cruise, Ted Dibiase, Jimmy
Garvin and Precious, Rip Hawk, Sam Houston, Paul Jones, Ivan Koloff,
Rich Landrum and Grizzly Smith.
VIP All Access Pass holders will have early admission each day, first
access to all autograph signings and photo opportunities, exclusive
admission to three revealing Question-and-Answer sessions, and
ringside seats to the live wrestling matches both Saturday and Sunday
nights! Throw in a free fanfest weekend t-shirt and a VIP All Access
Pass with neck lanyard and you have the VIP hookup!
VIP All Access Passes are just $155 and are on sale now at
http://www.NWALegends.com
Your ticket purchase helps support our efforts to celebrate the
tradition of the National Wrestling Alliance and to honor the heroes
of wrestling's past and present. Thanks for being part of a truly
special weekend. Most folks will tell you it's a remarkable reunion.
Visit our Fanfest Forum online messageboard to join up with other
fanfest attendees, introduce yourself, and join in the discussion as
we get ready for an incredible weekend in Charlotte! Go to
http://www.nwalegends.com/fanfestforum
and join in!
Should you have any questions or comments to share, please feel free
to email us at Info@NWALegends.com
*NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 14-17, 2008
Hilton University Place Hotel; Charlotte, North Carolina
VIP All Access Passes on sale now at http://www.NWALegends.com
*
Please make plans now to be with us for 3 HUGE DAYS (and now 4 nights!)
celebrating wrestling tradition!
This will make a great summer vacation!
NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 14-17, 2008
Hilton University Place Hotel; Charlotte, North Carolina
Website
NWA Legends
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wrestling Legends
NWA
Wrestling
Friday, May 09, 2008
Kyle Sandilands gets thrown by wrestler David Wallis - The Daily Telegraph - 8th May 2008
IS David Wallis the most enviable guy in Australia?
The pro wrestler did what so many can only dream of - flooring Kyle Sandilands. Literally.
Wallis, who mixes his grappling with singing, bumped into the omnipresent TV and radio star at the Perth Australian Idol auditions on Tuesday night.
And Idol judge, Big Brother presenter and 2Day FM radio motormouth Sandilands - who is either barmier or braver than we thought - challenged him to a clinch.
Sources say Sumo Sandilands put up a good fight, but was unceremoniously roughed up and pinned to the ground by Wallis, leaving his fellow judges Marcia Hines and Ian "Dicko" Dickson and the crew in hysterics.
Unfortunately, Sandilands' personal bodyguard was downstairs at the time packing bags for the red-eye flight back to Sydney.
The impromptu wrestling match didn't stop Wallis making a good fist of the talent quest. The power ballad-singing sales assistant, 23, who loves listening to John Farnham and Metallica, made it through to the top 100.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wrestling
The pro wrestler did what so many can only dream of - flooring Kyle Sandilands. Literally.
Wallis, who mixes his grappling with singing, bumped into the omnipresent TV and radio star at the Perth Australian Idol auditions on Tuesday night.
And Idol judge, Big Brother presenter and 2Day FM radio motormouth Sandilands - who is either barmier or braver than we thought - challenged him to a clinch.
Sources say Sumo Sandilands put up a good fight, but was unceremoniously roughed up and pinned to the ground by Wallis, leaving his fellow judges Marcia Hines and Ian "Dicko" Dickson and the crew in hysterics.
Unfortunately, Sandilands' personal bodyguard was downstairs at the time packing bags for the red-eye flight back to Sydney.
The impromptu wrestling match didn't stop Wallis making a good fist of the talent quest. The power ballad-singing sales assistant, 23, who loves listening to John Farnham and Metallica, made it through to the top 100.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wrestling
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
UFC: Dana White Says Either Fight Or Go Home, by Garrett Gonzales - Bleacher Report - 21st April 2008
After just learning through Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer newsletter that the UFC was trying to cut down from 200 fighters by about twenty five percent, I noticed today that Kalib Starnes was part of that twenty five percent. Just two days after his decision loss to Nate "The Rock" Quarry at UFC 83, Dana White confirmed with Yahoo! Sports writer Kevin Iole that Starnes needed to "consider a new line of work".
During the three round match-up, Starnes, a native of British Columbia, was being booed by the crowd at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, because of his unwillingness to fight. In the first round, Starnes seemed to be trying to get Quarry to tire by running him around the octagon. But in the second round, his strategy was the same. Quarry would circle and stalk Starnes, trying to get the former TUF Season 3 contestant to mix it up, but to no avail. At the end of the third round, Quarry, frustrated because of Starnes' lack of testicular fortitude, started to mock him. He first pretended as if he was running a race, chasing Starnes around the cage. He then covered up his eyes with his inner right elbow and threw his left arm out as if to pretend he was going to fight him blindly. Starnes didn't take advantage of either ploy and simply continued to backpeddle.
Quarry won the three round decision unanimously, with one judge scoring it 30-24, which meant that either he scored each round 10-8, or that he docked Starnes heavily in the third round for his non-fighting.
Dana White gave $75,000 each to Jonathan Goulet and Kuniyoshi Hironaka for having the best match on the show. Most of the scuttlebutt after the event was about how Starnes had to be fired because of his lack of performance if White was going to put so much importance on having exciting fights. And just like that, it happened.
I believe that the UFC has the power to cut any fighter after a loss. They also could simply not renew an expired contract. I'm not sure which avenue they chose as I don't know Starnes' contract situation, but fighters should've learned a few important lessons based on this.
1. You're only as good as your last win.
2. It's better to lose swinging than to win a boring fight (in case you lose in the future).
3. When you are put on PPV, be entertaining.
But maybe the biggest lesson learned is that it is best to fight hard or risk going home. Kalib Starnes learned the hard way.
Media Man Australia Profiles
UFC
PPV
Wrestling
During the three round match-up, Starnes, a native of British Columbia, was being booed by the crowd at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, because of his unwillingness to fight. In the first round, Starnes seemed to be trying to get Quarry to tire by running him around the octagon. But in the second round, his strategy was the same. Quarry would circle and stalk Starnes, trying to get the former TUF Season 3 contestant to mix it up, but to no avail. At the end of the third round, Quarry, frustrated because of Starnes' lack of testicular fortitude, started to mock him. He first pretended as if he was running a race, chasing Starnes around the cage. He then covered up his eyes with his inner right elbow and threw his left arm out as if to pretend he was going to fight him blindly. Starnes didn't take advantage of either ploy and simply continued to backpeddle.
Quarry won the three round decision unanimously, with one judge scoring it 30-24, which meant that either he scored each round 10-8, or that he docked Starnes heavily in the third round for his non-fighting.
Dana White gave $75,000 each to Jonathan Goulet and Kuniyoshi Hironaka for having the best match on the show. Most of the scuttlebutt after the event was about how Starnes had to be fired because of his lack of performance if White was going to put so much importance on having exciting fights. And just like that, it happened.
I believe that the UFC has the power to cut any fighter after a loss. They also could simply not renew an expired contract. I'm not sure which avenue they chose as I don't know Starnes' contract situation, but fighters should've learned a few important lessons based on this.
1. You're only as good as your last win.
2. It's better to lose swinging than to win a boring fight (in case you lose in the future).
3. When you are put on PPV, be entertaining.
But maybe the biggest lesson learned is that it is best to fight hard or risk going home. Kalib Starnes learned the hard way.
Media Man Australia Profiles
UFC
PPV
Wrestling
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Killer Kowalski in hospital, by Kevin Eck - Baltimore Sun
This entry is for the old-timers (like myself).
Wladek “Killer” Kowalski, one of pro wrestling’s all-time great heels, is recovering in a physical rehabilitation center in Massachusetts after badly injuring his knees in three separate falls, according to a report on wrestlingfigs.com. Kowalski, 81, has been at the rehab facility since April 2 after a two-week stay in the hospital.
The report attributed the news of Kowalski’s condition to wrestling great Bruno Sammartino, a longtime in-ring rival of Kowalski’s who has been in contact with Kowalski’s wife.
Kowalski, a member of the WWE Hall of Fame and The Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame, wrestled from 1947 to 1977. He is most famous for a match in 1954 against Yukon Eric in which Eric’s ear was severed as the result of Kowalski’s kneedrop. Kowalski was a frequent challenger to Sammartino’s WWE title throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
After retiring from wrestling, he opened a wrestling school and trained people such as Triple H, Big John Studd, Chyna and Perry Saturn. In 1976, he and Studd formed a masked tag team known as The Executioners and won the WWE tag-team title.
Kowalski was in WWE — then known as the World Wide Wrestling Federation — when I first started following wrestling when I was 6 and believed it was real. Kowalski, a menacing figure at about 6 feet 7 and 275 pounds, was the only wrestler that actually frightened me. I still remember watching him wrestle Tony Garea at the Baltimore Civic Center around 1974 and believing that Garea might not make it out of the ring alive. I took the “Killer” moniker literally because Kowalski was so good at being bad.
I wish Kowalski well in his recovery.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wladek “Killer” Kowalski
Wrestling
Wladek “Killer” Kowalski, one of pro wrestling’s all-time great heels, is recovering in a physical rehabilitation center in Massachusetts after badly injuring his knees in three separate falls, according to a report on wrestlingfigs.com. Kowalski, 81, has been at the rehab facility since April 2 after a two-week stay in the hospital.
The report attributed the news of Kowalski’s condition to wrestling great Bruno Sammartino, a longtime in-ring rival of Kowalski’s who has been in contact with Kowalski’s wife.
Kowalski, a member of the WWE Hall of Fame and The Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame, wrestled from 1947 to 1977. He is most famous for a match in 1954 against Yukon Eric in which Eric’s ear was severed as the result of Kowalski’s kneedrop. Kowalski was a frequent challenger to Sammartino’s WWE title throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
After retiring from wrestling, he opened a wrestling school and trained people such as Triple H, Big John Studd, Chyna and Perry Saturn. In 1976, he and Studd formed a masked tag team known as The Executioners and won the WWE tag-team title.
Kowalski was in WWE — then known as the World Wide Wrestling Federation — when I first started following wrestling when I was 6 and believed it was real. Kowalski, a menacing figure at about 6 feet 7 and 275 pounds, was the only wrestler that actually frightened me. I still remember watching him wrestle Tony Garea at the Baltimore Civic Center around 1974 and believing that Garea might not make it out of the ring alive. I took the “Killer” moniker literally because Kowalski was so good at being bad.
I wish Kowalski well in his recovery.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wladek “Killer” Kowalski
Wrestling
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Ring Posts - Q&A with Shawn Michaels - Baltimore Sun
Shawn Michaels has earned the monikers “The Showstopper” and “Mr. WrestleMania” for his show-stealing performances on sports entertainment’s biggest stage. On March 30, Michaels will compete in his 15th WrestleMania, but this one is perhaps the most special to him. Michaels will be facing Ric Flair, the man he idolized as a youngster, in a match that very likely will be the final one of Flair’s legendary career.
I spoke briefly with Michaels about the match and his legacy at WrestleMania in a phone interview this afternoon.
You have wrestled Ric Flair before, but can you put into words what it means to you to be facing him at WrestleMania in what could be his final match?
There’s just an emotional thing here for me and for Ric that I think is probably hard for a lot of folks to get a hold of. I’m going in there with a guy that, when I was 16 years old, I sat in front of the TV and I said, “Gosh, I want to be just like him. He embodies everything I want to be. Everything I picture the wrestling life to be, he’s it.” Fast-forward 20-some-odd years later and to be a grown man and be able to call him my friend – we’ve gotten so close with each other in the last several years – and then for him to handpick me to try to get him his greatest moment. I take it so seriously and so personally because of what he’s meant to me in the past and what he means to me now as a friend, and what he’s created in this industry. I know there are so many people that believe he ought to be honored and set apart, and to be the guy that needs to get that done, on the one hand, it’s wonderful. On the other hand, I go, “Gosh, I wish I wouldn’t have been calling myself ‘The Showstopper’ and ‘Mr. WrestleMania’ all these years. I’ve really worked myself into a shoot this time.”
I’ve always gone into WrestleMania, and most of my matches and pay-per-view matches, where no matter what I was feeling on the inside – there have always been nerves and things like that – but I always went in on the outside feeling 7-feet tall and bulletproof. This is the first time that I’m visibly shaken. Can I honor him? Can I do what I really believe he deserves, and can I make it happen for him? Because I want to. There’s a strange emotional thing going on for me that I’ve tried to detach myself from as best I can, but it’s still there. There’s still a part of me that’s 16. Everyone wants me to bring my best, and to do that would mean him leaving this industry forever. Being the guy that did that, and I recognize that there’s a whole show that goes with that, but bittersweet is the only way that I can describe it. There’s an inner conflict going on with me the likes of which I’ve never really had before because there are so many real emotional levels with me. The idea of Ric Flair not being in this industry is something that I don’t even know if I’m prepared for.
I remember a TV match in 1991 or’ 92 that you had with Ric when you were still part of The Rockers. You were a young guy at that point and not yet a singles star. What was it like to work with your idol at that stage of your career?
He had been in the company for a short time and that was our first chance to get to meet each other. That was when I first began to tell him sort of how I felt about him and his impact on my life. At that time I hadn’t become an established anything yet other than a tag-team guy. I think it was one of those things that he had probably heard before and was flattered by. When we went out there, it was business as usual for him. Obviously, me, I was giddy, and it was the fastest eight minutes of my entire life. It wasn’t that long of a match, but it was something at that point in my life that I held very precious. It was like, “Holy cow, I’m in there with ‘The Naitch.’ I’m in there with this guy that I watched.”
The thing that always sort of brings me back to reality is that I’ve got this buddy, Kenny, who was there with me when I was 16 years old watching Ric. And he called me way back then and said, “I can’t believe you wrestled Ric Flair.” And, of course, now to fast-forward so many years later, and we still talk, and he’s like, “Holy cow, Shawn. Can you believe it? He might be having his last match.” There’s still a part of me that I keep tucked away and hidden here in Texas that’s still 16 and chatting with my buddy Kenny about the fact that I’m wrestling Ric Flair at WrestleMania XXIV. I was giddy then. Now, when I talk to Kenny he gets me giddy about it. But the harsh reality is that Ric Flair has always been a part of this business for as long as I can remember. Of all the interest that I’ve ever had in this line of work, he’s been involved in some aspect of it. And the idea of him not being in there – I feel like the old couple that when one of them goes, the other one loses their will to live a little bit. And I really have to wonder, as goofy as it sounds, how much more I’ll want to go on if he’s gone.
I’m in the midst of counting down the Top 20 WrestleMania moments on this blog, and, not surprisingly, you have been involved in several of them. If you had to pick just one, what would be your favorite WrestleMania moment that you were a part of?
Wow. Gosh, that’s always been a hard one for me. I suppose I always have to go back to the ladder match [with Razor Ramon in 1994] because I think that’s the one that sort of put me on the map. That’s the one where people said, “You know what? Thus guy could be a player.” I really have to credit that one for taking me to that next level. I don’t know that any of those other WrestleMania moments would have been possible had I not been in that match.
The plan for the main event at last year’s WrestleMania was John Cena vs. Triple H, but you were inserted in Triple H’s spot after he got hurt. Had he not been injured, what was the plan for you at WrestleMania?
At that time, like every other WrestleMania, there were a couple different ideas. That’s sort of how it’s been with me every year. … The last call I got before Hunter went down was, “Well, we’re thinking about maybe you and King Booker, but we’re also thinking about maybe putting you in the Donald Trump thing. How would you feel about that?” I was like, “Well, Donald Trump and Vince [McMahon] will probably get all the focus and it doesn’t really matter who you put in the match.” Those were the two talked-about scenarios. Just like it was with every other WrestleMania before that, I was like, “That’s fine.” I landed in the main event at WrestleMania XX, which wasn’t really a discussed thing. They brought to me the [Kurt] Angle match years ago. So, things have just slowly gotten better each time. The only one that I’ve ever requested on my own was [with] Vince McMahon, because, for one WrestleMania, I wanted to be in a match where I didn’t have all the pressure of having to tear the house down.
Although it still did.
And I appreciate that, but it’s a lot easier to go in when the sights are set sort of low. Again, that’s when that whole “Showstopper” and “Mr. WrestleMania” thing works against you. I’m at a point in my life now where I don’t know that I enjoy the pressure-cooker as much as I used to. So, I’d love to have a WrestleMania where all the pressure in the world wasn’t upon my shoulders. Apparently it’s not going to happen this year, that’s for sure. I’m looking forward to a day, if it ever comes, when I can maybe be just “plus one other exciting match.”
Media Man Australia Profiles
Shawn Michaels
Ric Flair
WWE
Wrestling
I spoke briefly with Michaels about the match and his legacy at WrestleMania in a phone interview this afternoon.
You have wrestled Ric Flair before, but can you put into words what it means to you to be facing him at WrestleMania in what could be his final match?
There’s just an emotional thing here for me and for Ric that I think is probably hard for a lot of folks to get a hold of. I’m going in there with a guy that, when I was 16 years old, I sat in front of the TV and I said, “Gosh, I want to be just like him. He embodies everything I want to be. Everything I picture the wrestling life to be, he’s it.” Fast-forward 20-some-odd years later and to be a grown man and be able to call him my friend – we’ve gotten so close with each other in the last several years – and then for him to handpick me to try to get him his greatest moment. I take it so seriously and so personally because of what he’s meant to me in the past and what he means to me now as a friend, and what he’s created in this industry. I know there are so many people that believe he ought to be honored and set apart, and to be the guy that needs to get that done, on the one hand, it’s wonderful. On the other hand, I go, “Gosh, I wish I wouldn’t have been calling myself ‘The Showstopper’ and ‘Mr. WrestleMania’ all these years. I’ve really worked myself into a shoot this time.”
I’ve always gone into WrestleMania, and most of my matches and pay-per-view matches, where no matter what I was feeling on the inside – there have always been nerves and things like that – but I always went in on the outside feeling 7-feet tall and bulletproof. This is the first time that I’m visibly shaken. Can I honor him? Can I do what I really believe he deserves, and can I make it happen for him? Because I want to. There’s a strange emotional thing going on for me that I’ve tried to detach myself from as best I can, but it’s still there. There’s still a part of me that’s 16. Everyone wants me to bring my best, and to do that would mean him leaving this industry forever. Being the guy that did that, and I recognize that there’s a whole show that goes with that, but bittersweet is the only way that I can describe it. There’s an inner conflict going on with me the likes of which I’ve never really had before because there are so many real emotional levels with me. The idea of Ric Flair not being in this industry is something that I don’t even know if I’m prepared for.
I remember a TV match in 1991 or’ 92 that you had with Ric when you were still part of The Rockers. You were a young guy at that point and not yet a singles star. What was it like to work with your idol at that stage of your career?
He had been in the company for a short time and that was our first chance to get to meet each other. That was when I first began to tell him sort of how I felt about him and his impact on my life. At that time I hadn’t become an established anything yet other than a tag-team guy. I think it was one of those things that he had probably heard before and was flattered by. When we went out there, it was business as usual for him. Obviously, me, I was giddy, and it was the fastest eight minutes of my entire life. It wasn’t that long of a match, but it was something at that point in my life that I held very precious. It was like, “Holy cow, I’m in there with ‘The Naitch.’ I’m in there with this guy that I watched.”
The thing that always sort of brings me back to reality is that I’ve got this buddy, Kenny, who was there with me when I was 16 years old watching Ric. And he called me way back then and said, “I can’t believe you wrestled Ric Flair.” And, of course, now to fast-forward so many years later, and we still talk, and he’s like, “Holy cow, Shawn. Can you believe it? He might be having his last match.” There’s still a part of me that I keep tucked away and hidden here in Texas that’s still 16 and chatting with my buddy Kenny about the fact that I’m wrestling Ric Flair at WrestleMania XXIV. I was giddy then. Now, when I talk to Kenny he gets me giddy about it. But the harsh reality is that Ric Flair has always been a part of this business for as long as I can remember. Of all the interest that I’ve ever had in this line of work, he’s been involved in some aspect of it. And the idea of him not being in there – I feel like the old couple that when one of them goes, the other one loses their will to live a little bit. And I really have to wonder, as goofy as it sounds, how much more I’ll want to go on if he’s gone.
I’m in the midst of counting down the Top 20 WrestleMania moments on this blog, and, not surprisingly, you have been involved in several of them. If you had to pick just one, what would be your favorite WrestleMania moment that you were a part of?
Wow. Gosh, that’s always been a hard one for me. I suppose I always have to go back to the ladder match [with Razor Ramon in 1994] because I think that’s the one that sort of put me on the map. That’s the one where people said, “You know what? Thus guy could be a player.” I really have to credit that one for taking me to that next level. I don’t know that any of those other WrestleMania moments would have been possible had I not been in that match.
The plan for the main event at last year’s WrestleMania was John Cena vs. Triple H, but you were inserted in Triple H’s spot after he got hurt. Had he not been injured, what was the plan for you at WrestleMania?
At that time, like every other WrestleMania, there were a couple different ideas. That’s sort of how it’s been with me every year. … The last call I got before Hunter went down was, “Well, we’re thinking about maybe you and King Booker, but we’re also thinking about maybe putting you in the Donald Trump thing. How would you feel about that?” I was like, “Well, Donald Trump and Vince [McMahon] will probably get all the focus and it doesn’t really matter who you put in the match.” Those were the two talked-about scenarios. Just like it was with every other WrestleMania before that, I was like, “That’s fine.” I landed in the main event at WrestleMania XX, which wasn’t really a discussed thing. They brought to me the [Kurt] Angle match years ago. So, things have just slowly gotten better each time. The only one that I’ve ever requested on my own was [with] Vince McMahon, because, for one WrestleMania, I wanted to be in a match where I didn’t have all the pressure of having to tear the house down.
Although it still did.
And I appreciate that, but it’s a lot easier to go in when the sights are set sort of low. Again, that’s when that whole “Showstopper” and “Mr. WrestleMania” thing works against you. I’m at a point in my life now where I don’t know that I enjoy the pressure-cooker as much as I used to. So, I’d love to have a WrestleMania where all the pressure in the world wasn’t upon my shoulders. Apparently it’s not going to happen this year, that’s for sure. I’m looking forward to a day, if it ever comes, when I can maybe be just “plus one other exciting match.”
Media Man Australia Profiles
Shawn Michaels
Ric Flair
WWE
Wrestling
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Manager "Playboy" Gary Hart dies at 66, By Mike Mooneyham - Post & Courier - 18th March 2008
Manager "Playboy" Gary Hart dies at 66, By Mike Mooneyham (Credit: Post & Courier)
By Mike Mooneyham
The Post and Courier; Charleston, SC
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
*"Playboy" Gary Hart, one of the most successful managers in pro
wrestling history, passed away Sunday at the age of 66 in Euless,
Texas.
Hart, whose real name was Gary Richard Williams, had just returned
from a wrestling reunion over the weekend in Allentown, Pa., when he
died at his home from an apparent heart attack.
Hart was regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time, and
for a span of nearly 30 years managed such names as The Spoiler,
Bruiser Brody, Great Kabuki, Great Muta, Terry Funk and Abdullah The
Butcher, as well as such tag teams as Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson, and
The Missouri Mauler and Brute Bernard.
Hart also played a pivotal role in some of wrestling's most famous
angles, including the Dusty Rhodes babyface turn in Florida in 1974
when Hart managed the villainous Pak Song, and serving as booker for
a classic 1982 cage match in Dallas that involved Ric Flair, the Von
Erichs and The Freebirds.
Hart, who began his career in 1963 as a wrestler based out of
Chicago, was a major figure in a number of territories throughout the
country. He later turned to a more successful role as a cocky,
well-dressed manager who would do most of the talking for his heel
charges.
His greatest success, though, came as a booker and creative force
during the glory years of the Dallas-based World Class Championship
Wrestling, a position he held from 1979 to 1987. He is credited with
helping create the classic feud between the Von Erichs and The
Freebirds that set the territory on fire.
"I spent a lot of time on the road with Gary Hart," 16-time world
champ Flair said Monday. "He was a big part of that angle and success
(in Texas)."
One of Hart's last major high-profile stints was as leader of the
J-Tex Corporation in the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling in
1989 when he managed a stable that included Muta, Funk, Buzz Sawyer,
Dick Slater and Dragonmaster in a feud with Flair and Sting.
Hart, who had made a name for himself working as a manager for
promoter Jim Barnett in Australia during the late '60s, was brought
into the Carolinas in 1970 at the behest of veteran Mid-Atlantic star
Rip Hawk (Harvey Evers).
"I brought him in right out Australia, and I had to talk like hell
to (promoter) Jim Crockett (Sr.) to get him in here. It all worked
out. It was good for everybody," said Hawk.
"Gary was a great manager," Hawk added. "He always had his brain
working. He could get on the mic and do anything. He knew how to
handle the people and he knew how top control the wrestlers he was
with. He had a lot of good ideas."
Hawk, 77, last saw his former manager last August in Charlotte when
Hart inducted Hawk and late partner Hanson into the NWA Legends Hall
of Heroes.
It was Hart who NWA Legends Fanfest founder Greg Price first talked
to about the Hall of Heroes concept.
"I talked with Gary a bunch about it, and he loved the idea from the
beginning. It was different because they are the true legends, instead
of the legends who are on top now. He loved the idea as far as
honoring Rip and Swede, and the history that he had with them, and
the Crocketts. He always spoke highly of the Crocketts and about how
first-class they were and how well they always treated him. This area
meant a lot to Gary Hart."
Former Mid-South Wrestling owner Cowboy Bill Watts, who called Hart
one of the greatest minds in the business, credits the manager with
helping jump-start his Oklahoma-based territory in the early '70s.
Hart had been sent to Watts by Texas promoter Fritz Von Erich as part
of his commitment to helping an early partnership that included Watts,
Von Erich, Verne Gagne, Danny Hodge and Leroy McGuirk.
"Gary and I just clicked right off," said Watts. "He wore quality
handmade suits and alligator shoes, and that was an era where
managers dressed on the cheap because they always had junk thrown at
them and stuff thrown on them. But Gary had first-class, handmade
suits, like you'd see on a banker, and sharp shoes to go with them.
And he had a way of talking to people that really hit all their hot
buttons, because he could get so down and dirty."
Along with The Spoiler (Don Jardine), "who never really had made any
money before," said Watts, the two popped the territory.
Watts also said Hart worked well with promoters.
"Gary was always extremely flexible in that he knew different ways
to take things that would work out and still protect the man he was
managing, along with his gimmick and longevity. I knew I could go to
him to get ideas about where we wanted to go. And that was huge,
because when you had the burden of booking and running a territory,
sooner or later your mind went dry because you had done everything
and had repeated it. You had to have new ideas."
Hart proved just how valuable he could be while Watts was booking
Florida in the '70s.
"We had billboards around town with Pak Song Nam's army and a bounty
on Dusty Rhodes and Jack Brisco. That's when Dusty Rhodes truly became
'the American Dream' in the feud with Gary and Pak Song. Gary is the
one who positioned that. He was phenomenal. In Georgia, he managed
Dick Slater and Bobby Orton Jr., who were an awesome tag team. He
also managed Maniac Mark Lewin, who was a phenomenal worker and had
that new gimmick, and then he managed Kabuki. And, of course, he was
booking for Fritz when he positioned The Freebirds' feud with the Von
Erich boys. The kids got so hot after that."
"Gary was a dear friend and a stand-up guy," said Watts. "He would
always tell you exactly what he thought. He wouldn't back down from
anybody."
Watts related a story where Hart even stood up to the imposing
Abdullah The Butcher in Atlanta. Watts had asked Abby to do an angle
that the "madman from the Sudan" didn't particularly embrace.
"I was getting ready to can his (behind) when Gary Hart walked
over," said Watts. "Now Gary had no official status. But he walked
over and cussed Abdullah out right to his face in the vernacular of
the ghetto. They had started together under (Detroit promoter) Bert
Ruby years earlier. But Gary told him off and said if he wasn't going
to do things right, get the ---- out of here. I was just shocked that
he would talk to him so strongly, because Gary was never known as a
tough guy. But for somebody like that who didn't have an ax to grind
to come to my support like that, it said a lot."
Hart survived a 1975 plane crash in Tampa that claimed the life of
wrestling star Bobby Shane. The same plane that had been piloted by
Buddy Colt, who was badly injured in the crash, had been flown to
Atlanta to Jacksonville to Tampa by Watts.
"Buddy was a student pilot, and I already had my instrument rating,"
recalled Watts. "I was coming down anyway, so I flew his plane for
him. It was the same plane he crashed later that night in Tampa Bay
where Bobby Shane drowned, and Gary, Buddy and Dennis McCord were
injured. They were lucky to get out alive because they had to swim to
the beach. Gary lost his sight in one eye in that crash."
Hart had joined fellow Texas mat personalities Skandor Akbar (Jim
Wehba) and Bill Irwin over the weekend at a wrestling-themed event in
Pennsylvania. He also had been working on the final touches of an
autobiography, whose working title is "My Life in Wrestling: With a
Little Help from My Friends," that is expected to be published later
this year.
Hart hadn't been home long after being picked up at the airport
Sunday when he collapsed.
"Jason had just gotten to the house, and said his dad was acting
like he was trying to clear his throat. He was shaking real hard, and
he was having the final moments of a heart attack."
"Gary hadn't been sick," added Watts. "He was trying to talk me into
coming to some of these fan deals and meeting him there. He'd call me
about every two weeks, and we'd just talk. He was a great guy."
In recent years Hart had become a regular at fan conventions and
other related nostalgia gatherings, and had provided a major voice in
DVDs about the World Class years.
"From the little time that I was around him, I know he really
enjoyed the fanfests," said Greg Price. "He liked doing that stuff
and being around the fans, reminiscing about wrestling. Gary Hart was
one of the most intriguing men I ever met.
"The times that I got to know him and spend with him just confirmed
whatever I ever though about the guy about how smart he was and how
on top of everything he was. When I watched him manage, he was like
the consummate professional. And when I met him and got to know him,
that just confirmed everything I ever thought about him. He was
probably one of the coolest guys I ever met."
Hart indeed wore many hats. He was booker in charge of the first
Starrcade in Greensboro, N.C., in which Flair won the NWA world title
from Harley Race.
"A lot of people talk about Gary and World Class, but they forget
that he was so much more for so many years before that," said Price.
"He's what WWE now calls creative. He was creative at a time when the
business was much more protected and much more structurally relaxed.
It's completely different from what it is now."
Price says he'll have fond memories of the colorful manager.
"Gary Hart was like the best uncle you could ever have. He was that
'Uncle Gary' to a lot of people. I know Kevin Von Erich still refers
to him as 'Uncle Gary.'"
Hart, who described himself as "a kid from Chicago who worked very
hard to make it in wrestling," will be remembered as someone who
changed the landscape of the wrestling business. Even WWE
acknowledged his contributions to the business in a note on the
company's Web site.
"Gary Hart will live on in the hearts and minds of his friends,
family, and fans and colleagues."
Reach Mike Mooneyham at (843) 937-5517 or
mooneyham@postandcourier.com. For wrestling updates during the week,
call The Post and Courier Info Line at (843) 937-6000, ext. 3090.
Websites
The Post and Courier
NWA Wrestling
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wrestling
By Mike Mooneyham
The Post and Courier; Charleston, SC
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
*"Playboy" Gary Hart, one of the most successful managers in pro
wrestling history, passed away Sunday at the age of 66 in Euless,
Texas.
Hart, whose real name was Gary Richard Williams, had just returned
from a wrestling reunion over the weekend in Allentown, Pa., when he
died at his home from an apparent heart attack.
Hart was regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time, and
for a span of nearly 30 years managed such names as The Spoiler,
Bruiser Brody, Great Kabuki, Great Muta, Terry Funk and Abdullah The
Butcher, as well as such tag teams as Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson, and
The Missouri Mauler and Brute Bernard.
Hart also played a pivotal role in some of wrestling's most famous
angles, including the Dusty Rhodes babyface turn in Florida in 1974
when Hart managed the villainous Pak Song, and serving as booker for
a classic 1982 cage match in Dallas that involved Ric Flair, the Von
Erichs and The Freebirds.
Hart, who began his career in 1963 as a wrestler based out of
Chicago, was a major figure in a number of territories throughout the
country. He later turned to a more successful role as a cocky,
well-dressed manager who would do most of the talking for his heel
charges.
His greatest success, though, came as a booker and creative force
during the glory years of the Dallas-based World Class Championship
Wrestling, a position he held from 1979 to 1987. He is credited with
helping create the classic feud between the Von Erichs and The
Freebirds that set the territory on fire.
"I spent a lot of time on the road with Gary Hart," 16-time world
champ Flair said Monday. "He was a big part of that angle and success
(in Texas)."
One of Hart's last major high-profile stints was as leader of the
J-Tex Corporation in the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling in
1989 when he managed a stable that included Muta, Funk, Buzz Sawyer,
Dick Slater and Dragonmaster in a feud with Flair and Sting.
Hart, who had made a name for himself working as a manager for
promoter Jim Barnett in Australia during the late '60s, was brought
into the Carolinas in 1970 at the behest of veteran Mid-Atlantic star
Rip Hawk (Harvey Evers).
"I brought him in right out Australia, and I had to talk like hell
to (promoter) Jim Crockett (Sr.) to get him in here. It all worked
out. It was good for everybody," said Hawk.
"Gary was a great manager," Hawk added. "He always had his brain
working. He could get on the mic and do anything. He knew how to
handle the people and he knew how top control the wrestlers he was
with. He had a lot of good ideas."
Hawk, 77, last saw his former manager last August in Charlotte when
Hart inducted Hawk and late partner Hanson into the NWA Legends Hall
of Heroes.
It was Hart who NWA Legends Fanfest founder Greg Price first talked
to about the Hall of Heroes concept.
"I talked with Gary a bunch about it, and he loved the idea from the
beginning. It was different because they are the true legends, instead
of the legends who are on top now. He loved the idea as far as
honoring Rip and Swede, and the history that he had with them, and
the Crocketts. He always spoke highly of the Crocketts and about how
first-class they were and how well they always treated him. This area
meant a lot to Gary Hart."
Former Mid-South Wrestling owner Cowboy Bill Watts, who called Hart
one of the greatest minds in the business, credits the manager with
helping jump-start his Oklahoma-based territory in the early '70s.
Hart had been sent to Watts by Texas promoter Fritz Von Erich as part
of his commitment to helping an early partnership that included Watts,
Von Erich, Verne Gagne, Danny Hodge and Leroy McGuirk.
"Gary and I just clicked right off," said Watts. "He wore quality
handmade suits and alligator shoes, and that was an era where
managers dressed on the cheap because they always had junk thrown at
them and stuff thrown on them. But Gary had first-class, handmade
suits, like you'd see on a banker, and sharp shoes to go with them.
And he had a way of talking to people that really hit all their hot
buttons, because he could get so down and dirty."
Along with The Spoiler (Don Jardine), "who never really had made any
money before," said Watts, the two popped the territory.
Watts also said Hart worked well with promoters.
"Gary was always extremely flexible in that he knew different ways
to take things that would work out and still protect the man he was
managing, along with his gimmick and longevity. I knew I could go to
him to get ideas about where we wanted to go. And that was huge,
because when you had the burden of booking and running a territory,
sooner or later your mind went dry because you had done everything
and had repeated it. You had to have new ideas."
Hart proved just how valuable he could be while Watts was booking
Florida in the '70s.
"We had billboards around town with Pak Song Nam's army and a bounty
on Dusty Rhodes and Jack Brisco. That's when Dusty Rhodes truly became
'the American Dream' in the feud with Gary and Pak Song. Gary is the
one who positioned that. He was phenomenal. In Georgia, he managed
Dick Slater and Bobby Orton Jr., who were an awesome tag team. He
also managed Maniac Mark Lewin, who was a phenomenal worker and had
that new gimmick, and then he managed Kabuki. And, of course, he was
booking for Fritz when he positioned The Freebirds' feud with the Von
Erich boys. The kids got so hot after that."
"Gary was a dear friend and a stand-up guy," said Watts. "He would
always tell you exactly what he thought. He wouldn't back down from
anybody."
Watts related a story where Hart even stood up to the imposing
Abdullah The Butcher in Atlanta. Watts had asked Abby to do an angle
that the "madman from the Sudan" didn't particularly embrace.
"I was getting ready to can his (behind) when Gary Hart walked
over," said Watts. "Now Gary had no official status. But he walked
over and cussed Abdullah out right to his face in the vernacular of
the ghetto. They had started together under (Detroit promoter) Bert
Ruby years earlier. But Gary told him off and said if he wasn't going
to do things right, get the ---- out of here. I was just shocked that
he would talk to him so strongly, because Gary was never known as a
tough guy. But for somebody like that who didn't have an ax to grind
to come to my support like that, it said a lot."
Hart survived a 1975 plane crash in Tampa that claimed the life of
wrestling star Bobby Shane. The same plane that had been piloted by
Buddy Colt, who was badly injured in the crash, had been flown to
Atlanta to Jacksonville to Tampa by Watts.
"Buddy was a student pilot, and I already had my instrument rating,"
recalled Watts. "I was coming down anyway, so I flew his plane for
him. It was the same plane he crashed later that night in Tampa Bay
where Bobby Shane drowned, and Gary, Buddy and Dennis McCord were
injured. They were lucky to get out alive because they had to swim to
the beach. Gary lost his sight in one eye in that crash."
Hart had joined fellow Texas mat personalities Skandor Akbar (Jim
Wehba) and Bill Irwin over the weekend at a wrestling-themed event in
Pennsylvania. He also had been working on the final touches of an
autobiography, whose working title is "My Life in Wrestling: With a
Little Help from My Friends," that is expected to be published later
this year.
Hart hadn't been home long after being picked up at the airport
Sunday when he collapsed.
"Jason had just gotten to the house, and said his dad was acting
like he was trying to clear his throat. He was shaking real hard, and
he was having the final moments of a heart attack."
"Gary hadn't been sick," added Watts. "He was trying to talk me into
coming to some of these fan deals and meeting him there. He'd call me
about every two weeks, and we'd just talk. He was a great guy."
In recent years Hart had become a regular at fan conventions and
other related nostalgia gatherings, and had provided a major voice in
DVDs about the World Class years.
"From the little time that I was around him, I know he really
enjoyed the fanfests," said Greg Price. "He liked doing that stuff
and being around the fans, reminiscing about wrestling. Gary Hart was
one of the most intriguing men I ever met.
"The times that I got to know him and spend with him just confirmed
whatever I ever though about the guy about how smart he was and how
on top of everything he was. When I watched him manage, he was like
the consummate professional. And when I met him and got to know him,
that just confirmed everything I ever thought about him. He was
probably one of the coolest guys I ever met."
Hart indeed wore many hats. He was booker in charge of the first
Starrcade in Greensboro, N.C., in which Flair won the NWA world title
from Harley Race.
"A lot of people talk about Gary and World Class, but they forget
that he was so much more for so many years before that," said Price.
"He's what WWE now calls creative. He was creative at a time when the
business was much more protected and much more structurally relaxed.
It's completely different from what it is now."
Price says he'll have fond memories of the colorful manager.
"Gary Hart was like the best uncle you could ever have. He was that
'Uncle Gary' to a lot of people. I know Kevin Von Erich still refers
to him as 'Uncle Gary.'"
Hart, who described himself as "a kid from Chicago who worked very
hard to make it in wrestling," will be remembered as someone who
changed the landscape of the wrestling business. Even WWE
acknowledged his contributions to the business in a note on the
company's Web site.
"Gary Hart will live on in the hearts and minds of his friends,
family, and fans and colleagues."
Reach Mike Mooneyham at (843) 937-5517 or
mooneyham@postandcourier.com. For wrestling updates during the week,
call The Post and Courier Info Line at (843) 937-6000, ext. 3090.
Websites
The Post and Courier
NWA Wrestling
Media Man Australia Profiles
Wrestling
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
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