Via WWE, there was also the legendary Booker T!
I highly recommend his biography via A&E:
3 Likes
Too bad none of you are old enough to remember my old-time favorites: Whipper Billy Watson, Gene Kiniski, Don Leo Jonathan, Bullinski (aka Frank Shield), Eric Froehlich, Jack Black Lanza, Nick Bockwinkel, Ray Stevens, Pat “Boys Nite Out” Patterson, Dutch Savage, Lou Thesz, Mad Dog Vachon, Johnny Valentine, The Alaskan, Bob Boyer, Archie “The Stomper” Gouldie, Hercules Hernandez, Bulldog Bob Brown, George “Scrap Iron” Gadaski, Gorilla Monsoon, Original Sheik, Bobo Brazil, George “The Animal” Steele. All the greatest freaks of the squared circle.!!!
3 Likes
Don’t forget Haystacks Calhoun!!
1 Like
Or Ox Baker!!!
1 Like
A classic! Even my 23-year-old son knows him. He named his cat Steele after him.
3 Likes
I’m not quite of your vintage, but I do remember The Animal, Hercules Hernandez, and Blackjack Lanza, among others. I remember Gorilla but he was behind the announcer table by the time I saw him.
2 Likes
“Ravishing” Rick Rude! Who could forget the man, the in-ring work, the (in these days cheap) heat?
“I’d just like to tell all you UNWASHED SWEATHOGS in [insert city name here] to stand back so your ladies can see what a real man looks like. I look good and feel even better.” pokes announcer in chest “Play. The. Music.”
3 Likes
Wrestling started for me with Stampede Wrestling, the Alberta based promotion that brought fame to the “Hart Dungeon”.
Keith and Bruce were the stars as a very scrawny Bret Hart climbed the ranks. The Cuban Assassin, variations of Mike Shaw, Gamma Singh, Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy Smith, Junkyard Dog, Bad News Allen, and then towards the end of the promotions run Owen Hart and Chris Jericho.
3 Likes
Of all these as a kid watching some of this stuff on Sunday mornings in the early 1980’s and then not realizing it was all scripted, in the few years before WWF / WWE took off in the early 1980’s, I do remember this guy, for he chose to not ever shave a very hairy back.
There was also the local hero “Dick The Bruiser.” I remember zero of any of the rest of these.
Once Vince McMahon took over from his father, as covered in the Netflix documentary, he went on a rampage to nationalize the entertainment spectacle at the top level, and then in the 1990s Ted Turner came along with WCW to offer some high-profile competition.
3 Likes
We used to go to the matches in Edmonton in the late 60’s at the old Sales Pavilion. Names I remember from back then we’re guys like Dave Ruhl, Gil Hayes, John Foti, Chuck McCracken and tag teams like the Osbourne Bros, the Tolos Bros, the Von Steigers, the Christy’s and many more, but the greatest guy of all was the Stomper, the best heel of all time. He could get the crowd so worked up that they wanted to kill him. His interviews were totally off the hook, he’d be yelling so loud he looked like he was gonna blow a blood vessel.
3 Likes
My absolute favourite Booker T angle was the unlikely tag team he had with Goldust. That was a genuinely touching odd couple story, where Goldust eventually realized he was holding Booker back and told him to go out and succeed on his own.
2 Likes
I didn’t know this guy, but imagine Ric Flair taking him on!?
2 Likes
when i was a kid growing up in calgary, i lived just a half a block down the street from the Hart family. holy sh** those guys were nuts. they had to fix some walls and a few windows on a least a couple occasions.
7 Likes
The Hart Family was using their house as a rasslin’ arena. Patriarch Stu was not only using his home to train his boys but also a profit-centre, training incomers from all over the world.
Lots of decent wrestling talents give huge credit to their early days in Stu Hart’s “Dungeon” for their successes. Chris Benoit (who ended up murdering his family due to a mental disorder) and Chris Jericho were perhaps the two biggest names to emerge - but there were dozens if not hundreds more “graduates”.
3 Likes
yea Stu’s house was pretty big. i was pretty young then, and the Hart boys were all way older than me (at least 10 or so years). they had a lot of parties that cops attended to lol.
2 Likes
One of the Hart boys to a responding officer:
“…and then I had him in a headlock, but we were in training you see, but then he accidentally flung himself head-first into that wall there where you see that big hole, officer, and that’s why he’s sore now, but it was just a training accident, we won’t do it again…”
1 Like
Yeah, their paths never quite intersected in WWE. Rude was on his way out as Flair was coming in. But Rude was a great worker. Dragged good matches out of the talentless ego pile known as the Ultimate Warrior. And had a generational feud with Jake “The Snake” in which he had a picture of Jake’s real-life wife on the butt of his tights.
On a more modern note, the Angle-Benoit matches of the early aughts were things of pure beauty. Benoit has been scrubbed from WWE, and rightly so, given the terrible things he did, but there’s no denying he was liquid magic in the ring. He brought out the best in Angle and vice-versa.
3 Likes
How wrong I was when I first saw Chris Benoit on weekend TV viewings of Stampeder Wrestling from Calgary.
He was fairly small, maybe a tad over 5’8” but he turned into one of the most ferocious and accomplished performers in rasslin’ history - until his mind was corrupted and you know the rest of the story.
Yes, by the time Benoit moved to WWE he finally intersected with the great Kurt Angle - who had a tremendous background in amateur wrestling. Both Benoit and Angle respected the internal codes of wrestling and they brought out the best in one another. WWE had difficulty deciding who to put over and when but in the scheme of things it really didn’t matter - either guy could absorb a random loss and still be mega-over.
4 Likes
As far as Ultimate Warrior concerned, yeah he was a bit of an over-blown egotistical fraud. But he had the look, basically he was slightly smaller, younger version of Hulk Hogan. Of course, Hogan had far more charisma on the stick. Warrior was a one trick pony on the microphone, not much there. But he had the look - a 6’1”, tanned muscleman which catered to the great gay wall in wrestling lore. Benoit would have been disgusted to work a program with Warrior. But he would have because Benoit was a workhorse.
1 Like
I have a vague memory of Jake pulling off Rude’s tights 
. Rude also had a gimmick where he would kiss a lady in the ring picked out from the audience which I think Jake’s wife was involved in.
2 Likes