Professional wrestling thread

Gordon Solie was wrestling's Walter Cronkite.

Georgia Championship Wrestling on TBS on Saturdays was a must-watch.

 

Best match seen live: Benoit-Billy Gunn at Armageddon 2000 (it's either that or the Sting-Vampiro match from about a year before wCw folded)

Best match seen televised (taking to account I'm under 30 and haven't seen a lot of the material from the old territory days): Benoit vs. Angle at a WrestleMania

 

Gordon Solie was insufferable.

 

Agree with Smasher. Solie might be the "man" to most fans, but his voice really bugs me.

 

Not sure if he's tried to buy the title, but he might be able to buy some publicity ;D


On the favorite match question, one of those old MSG shows sticks in my mind for a TV match. Amazingly, it was a cage match between two of the worst guys ever -- Hogan and the Big Boss Man.
The Boss Man was on the outside of the cage when Hogan climbed up and caught him. Hogan then superplexed him back into the ring, from the top of the cage. Maybe not in the same class as Snuka's leap, but still pretty damn impressive. Especially for two guys that weren't known for that sort of thing.

I also remember being incredibly geeked for the WWF title tournament at Wrestlemania IV. We had one of those old-school cable boxes with the switches, where you could hear what was going on and see through the squiggles every 30 seconds or so. I must have watched at least half of that show that way, taking the occasional break to run downstairs and see Flair-Sting on Clash of the Champions -- squiggle-free, thanks to TBS.

 

Of course we all know wrestling is scripted. But I was reading an interview with Piper recently and he mentioned he lost part of his hearing in that ear from the dog-collar match he had with Valentine.

They used to have the entire match on YouTube, but I can't find it now. Must have been copyright infringement or something.

 

WWE likely has it on a DVD already or it will be when the Piper DVD is released (soon, I think).

 

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I thought he was more interesting than the grapplers. The announcer of an old-school wrestling program could make or break a story line with the right words, the right tone of voice. He was the master.

 

We had it pretty good rasslin' wise here in Toronto when I was a younger.

We got Maple Leaf Wrestling on the Hamilton station which always had greats like The Sheik, Lord Athol Layton, Don Leo Jonathan and Billy Red Lyons, All Star Wrestling from Vancouver with the legendary Ron Morrier behind the mike (and later Ed Karl) which featured youngsters like Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine and great vets like Gene Kiniski and All Star Wrestling from Montreal which is where I saw Andre The Giant, Dino Bravo, Edouard Carpentier and others. Later we got the AWA featuring Mean Gene Okerlund at ringside and loads of greats like Bockwinkel, Heenan, the High Flyers and the immortal East West Connection, Mid-Atlantic and NWA and Stampede from Calgary. Good fucking times there.

And Frank Tunney - brother of Jack, later the WWF's "President" or "Commisioner" or whatever - ran cards twice a month at Maple Leaf Gardens for ages.

 

As much as I really want to watch TNA on a continuous basis, Mike Tenay and Don West are going to prevent me from doing that.

They are as bad as putting Todd Petengill and Mark Madden together behind the mike.

 

Man, I always loved it when he'd make a run through WCCW country and blow that mist into one of the Von Erichs' faces.

 

One of my co-workers brought up an excellent point.
Why the hell is Mike Tenay ALWAYS wearing a tuxedo?
What a geek.