You take a very wealthy investor with strong connections to the legitimate sports world and have him start a wrestling promotion. Have that wealthy investor offer guaranteed contracts to wrestlers regardless of how good or bad a show does at the gate. Offer to fully pay those wrestlers all of their food and lodging expenses. Now take that promotion and expand it nationally to compete with the status quo. Does any of this sound familiar? Continue reading
Brian Damage, Tom Casola, Lowlife Louie Ramos and Amerigo Diehl
Originally, I was just going to keep this solely for pro wrestlers who made appearances on television shows like sitcoms and dramas. The thing is, there have been so many memorable appearances by wrestlers on other forms of TV like talk shows, game shows etc…I have decided to expand it a bit. I’ll leave it up to each contributor to decide what particular TV shows helped a wrestler stand out. Continue reading
Brian Damage
Today we head back to December 1987 and to the WWF’s Slammy Awards. Billed as the 37th, it wasn’t, it was a show that lives long in the memory. A classic it was not but certainly an entertaining romp of an evening. Continue reading
Brian Damage
From the 80s through to the 00s, ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund was a prominent face of wrestling TV. From his time in the American Wrestling Association through to the WWF then WCW, Okerlund would interview all of the stars. Today on the blog, we look at the life and times of ‘Mean’ Gene. Continue reading
Brian Damage
Throughout the history of pro wrestling bookers and promoters have always tried to come up with new, creative and innovative ideas to generate interest in their product. Some ideas have not only succeeded but flourished. Others were DOA from the get-go. Then there are those ideas which initially were innovative but for various reasons, faded away. Those are the focus of this latest series of posts titled ‘Great Ideas That Didn’t Last’. This latest piece focuses in on the rise, the fall and then the rise and yet another fall for Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling (GFW). Continue reading
Brian Damage
After the infamous ‘Montreal Screwjob’, Owen Hart took a brief hiatus from the WWE before returning at the final ‘In Your House’ PPV of 1997. When he returned, he became known as the ‘Lone Hart’ or ‘The Black Hart’ as he flew solo without his Hart Foundation comrades. Today we take a look at that run as the ‘The Black Hart’. Continue reading
Brian Damage
We all know Dustin Runnels as the WWE’s iconic character known as ‘Goldust.’ For over 20 years, with a break in between here and there, Dustin has perfectly portrayed the bizarre Goldust. While Dustin is known most for his work as Goldust, it wasn’t his first stint with the WWF/E and that’s the focus of today’s piece. Continue reading
Heel turns are a normal part of the business of professional wrestling. Think back to some of the greatest heel turns of all time. Which ones stand out to you? Was it Hulk Hogan joining the New World Order? Rocky Maivia joining the Nation of Domination? Barry Windham joining the Four Horsemen? All solid heel turns indeed, but what about one that took place in the WWWF back in 1980 and that’s today’s topic. Continue reading
Brian Damage
This is the 125th installment of the ‘Wrestling with Sin‘ series. A group of stories that delves into the darker, underbelly of pro wrestling. Many of the stories involve such subjects as sex, drugs, greed and in some cases even murder! As with every single story in the Sin series, I do not condone or condemn the alleged participants. We simply retell their stories by researching interviews, newspapers, magazines and various other sources of media. Continue reading
