The Good Old Days

Ham'nd'egger

This thread is only to talk about wrestling in the 80's and early 90's pre Raw and Nitro.

Who here marks out for Big Bossman?

djfitzerjnr

the days of michael cole on superstars on a sunday morning???

Ham'nd'egger

djfitzerjnr wrote: »

the days of michael cole on superstars on a sunday morning???

Note, man; as far as I'm concerned, only Vince McMahon and Jess the Body Ventura present Superstars, with Lord Alfred Hays and the Brother Love show.

D-FENS

Hamndegger wrote: »

Note, man; as far as I'm concerned, only Vince McMahon and Jess the Body Ventura present Superstars, with Lord Alfred Hays and the Brother Love show.

Plus, Michael Cole only started with WWF/E in '97, which were definitely the good old days of the attitude are but not the timeframe Ham'nd'egger has in mind I don't think.

As for the Bossman, I was never a huge fan but he has to go down in history as one of the better big men - quite agile, could string at least a few moves together and had a great gimmick for the time. I mean, in an era were almost every wrestler had a day job as well, what better than a being a cop? or better still, a crooked cop? (OK, moonlighting as a dead undertaker is better, but still a crooked cop's not bad ). He had some very memorable feuds with Hogan and Savage and he was only 25-26 at the time) and later the Heenan Clan. Like a lot of guys who went to WCW, his time there was forgettable, but his 2nd run with Vince in the attitude era as part of the corporation was decent enough, and he reinvented himself somewhat well I thought.
Plus, he holds a victory at Wrestlemania over "Mr. Wrestlemania" himself HBK (You can't say that, can you Nature Boy? )

Vince135792003

Hamndegger wrote: »

Who here marks out for Big Bossman?

Apart from the time he wrote a poem about Big Shows deceased father, I always used to mark out for him.


Actually it was only when I went back and looked at some of the very early WWE ppv's that I realised how much weight he was carrying at the start of his run there. He was a seriously big guy.

Charlie

Papa Shango use to freak the sh1t out of me. I know the character is widely ridulced, but wwe was largely aimed at a younger audience back then, and from that viewpoint I think the character was very effective.

Was a big Macho Man mark. Even though he had his heel swings back then I just loved his style. Best deliverer of a top rope elbow imo (even better than Shawn :eek:)

I don't know how I kept an interest in it back then though, as stories were played out over a very long time (with some on programming we couldn't get) and, unless you had the PPV's you rarely saw the big guns perform. I still loved it nonetheless. So much so, the mammy banned it in our house (the aul fool didn't cop why I went to a particular friends house like clockwork once a week )

Cactus Col

Big Bossman was great! Him and Bull Buchanan should've been kept as a tag team!

Was a big fan of his.

He went through some seriously dodgy stories when he came back though. The whole feeding pepper to Al Snow, and Big Show feud were pretty bad.

The good old days were good, but I do think wrestling is a lot better these days, a much higher standard. Imagine how someone like KoKo Bware would be treated if he debuted today, the IWC would tear him apart! You think cena has it bad!

I stopped watching wrestling in the nineties and only got back into at towards the end of the decade. Probably started watching it properly as the McMahon Helmsley faction took power. But was slowly getting back into it before that, watching smackdown on saturday mornings.

Vince135792003

When I started watching WWF in the late 80's early 90's I rarely saw 2 "stars" going up against each other.

I vaguely remember seeing snippets of big shows but on the whole 99% of the matches I watched were squashes. And to a large extent I didn't care. I loved every good guy under the sun and hated all the bad guys.

It's funny how Hulk Hogan was my favourite wrester at that age but I probably only saw him wrestle a couple of times (. And the other times he appeared on tv, it was to get beat up (to set up his return and match at a ppv) The WWE promotion machine really had me.

Otis Driftwood

Was a big WCW fan in the late 80s early 90s.Every Saturday afternoon around 4 pm on ITV(couldnt afford sky then ).Never missed it.Then the ba$tards started showing it at like 3 am on a Tuesday.:mad:

As for WWF back in the day was always a huge Jake the Snake fan and of course Warrior.

Demolition or LOD would have been my favourite tag team.

Didnt see a whole lot of WWF back then unless I was in my cousins house but every Saturday night me and my bro used to pool our pocket money and rent what ever PPV we could find in the video shop.I remember watching Mania 7(I think)on 1 particular night,Hogan Vs Slaughter when Slaughter browned the Hulkster with a chair and going absolutely bananas watching it.

I couldnt believe what I was seeing.Of course Hulk made the big come back and all was right with the world again.

Good times.

chopperbyrne

nedtheshed wrote: »

I remember watching Mania 7(I think)on 1 particular night,Hogan Vs Slaughter when Slaughter browned the Hulkster with a chair and going absolutely bananas watching it.

Still my favourite match of all time. Wrestling psychology at its finest.

LeoGilly

I loved the Corporation and the Ministry. Must of been early mid 90's.

Ham'nd'egger

D-FENS wrote: »

As for the Bossman, I was never a huge fan but he has to go down in history as one of the better big men - quite agile, could string at least a few moves together and had a great gimmick for the time. I mean, in an era were almost every wrestler had a day job as well, what better than a being a cop? or better still, a crooked cop? (OK, moonlighting as a dead undertaker is better, but still a crooked cop's not bad ). He had some very memorable feuds with Hogan and Savage and he was only 25-26 at the time) and later the Heenan Clan. Like a lot of guys who went to WCW, his time there was forgettable, but his 2nd run with Vince in the attitude era as part of the corporation was decent enough, and he reinvented himself somewhat well I thought.
Plus, he holds a victory at Wrestlemania over "Mr. Wrestlemania" himself HBK (You can't say that, can you Nature Boy? )

One thing I always loved with the Bossman was how he somehow migrated from a cop to a prison guard and nobody noticed. Ahhh, Kayfabe I used to love him cuffing guys to the ropes and beating the **** out of them with his nightstick as Slick distracted the referees, who in my opinion, all looked exactly the same to me. You are right, Vince, he was massive back then and did well to lose weight. I remember, though, his one dud move was his drop kick; they looked woeful.

Odd as it sounds, Bossman;s partner, the One Man Gang is now a screw in real life.

Vince135792003

LeoGilly wrote: »

I loved the Corporation and the Ministry. Must of been early mid 90's.

It was late 90's.

Jsst on Bossman, he must have been pretty young when he got his run on top with Hogan.

chopperbyrne

I also grew up watching squash match television in the 80s and early 90s and it's amazing how we kept watching every week.

Although my friends and I somehow avoided being influenced by face or heel personas. We just picked who we liked and stuck with it whether they were face or heel.

So we were big Rockers fans and then big Michaels and Janetti fans!

Million Dollar Man, the IRS and Mr. Perfect were firm favourites, but so were LOD, Demolition and Bret Hart.

I was a fan of the Macho King Randy Savage and everyone loved Jake The Snake Roberts.

One of my friends loved the Bossman and had a mug with his face and slogan "You're going to serve some hard time punk!"

Obviously having only established stars in matches is a lot better for the viewer, but I remember how EVERYONE in school was talking about how Barry Horrowitz beat Skip of the Body Donnas!

calex71

soooooooooooo many memories , one that jumps out @ me is virgil winning his freedom from ted dibiase and the million dollar champianship , man i hated ted dibiase. was a really racist storyline to but ive always rooted for the underdogs and little guys in the wwe.

Another favorite was brutus the barbor beefcake lol

Ham'nd'egger

Bossman was barely in his 20's when he entered the WWF in 1988, and yet he had years under his belt at that stage!

Somebody mentioned NWA on ITV on Saturdays; it first was run at 1:30AM in the night and this was when I first got to see names I had read about in PWI; Samaon Swat Team, Ric Flair, Cactus Jack (Who I loved 7 years before Socko), Midnight's, Rick Steiner, Sting and Lex Luger. I also used to love the Ding Dongs, the Freebirds, Mike Rotundo (whom I remembered from the US Express), Flyin' Brian Pillman, Wild Bill Irwin, Eddie Gilbert, the Great Muta, The Highway Patrol and Sid Vicious when he was at his peak.

We didn't own a video recorder to I used to stay up on the Tuesday night to watch this show. When the shows began, they ran Power Hour, which was the NWA version of Superstars. Soon though, they settled into a programme (IIRR) called NWA Wordwide, which consisted of matches back to back for the 50 minute shows. Often wrestlers would have matches two and three times on the show and was cut from TV tapings from several arenas, the Cobb County Civic Arena being one of them. I often wondered if the Bossman appeared in this hall! This show was the barest of the bare, running with no interviews whatsoever, the commentary of Lance Russell being enough to get each and every wrestler over. Never mind JR, this man was the best commentator in the game, and that includes the Dean, Gordon Solie !

Ruu_Old

nedtheshed wrote: »

Was a big WCW fan in the late 80s early 90s.Every Saturday afternoon around 4 pm on ITV(couldnt afford sky then ).Never missed it.Then the ba$tards started showing it at like 3 am on a Tuesday.:mad:

As for WWF back in the day was always a huge Jake the Snake fan and of course Warrior.

Demolition or LOD would have been my favourite tag team.

Didnt see a whole lot of WWF back then unless I was in my cousins house but every Saturday night me and my bro used to pool our pocket money and rent what ever PPV we could find in the video shop.I remember watching Mania 7(I think)on 1 particular night,Hogan Vs Slaughter when Slaughter browned the Hulkster with a chair and going absolutely bananas watching it.

I couldnt believe what I was seeing.Of course Hulk made the big come back and all was right with the world again.

Good times.

Same here, the spinning ring. Never forget Vader and Stings many, many battles. Got tapes from my cousins (proper Silvervision) and then got folks to get Sky in for us. Gorilla for the win. LITERALLY!!! Ugh, I REALLY hated Mr.Perfect (R.I.P)when he was Ric Flair's assistant. The Genius, Repo Man and IRS were also on my list. Wrestlemania 8 had that great 8 man tag, The Big Boss Man, Virgil, Sgt. Slaughter, and Jim Duggan VS The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags), Repo Man, and The Mountie

calex71

Ruu wrote: »

Same here, the spinning ring. Never forget Vader and Stings many, many battles. Got tapes from my cousins (proper Silvervision) and then got folks to get Sky in for us. Gorilla for the win. LITERALLY!!! Ugh, I REALLY hated Mr.Perfect (R.I.P)when he was Ric Flair's assistant. The Genius, Repo Man and IRS were also on my list. Wrestlemania 8 had that great 8 man tag, The Big Boss Man, Virgil, Sgt. Slaughter, and Jim Duggan VS The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags), Repo Man, and The Mountie

IRS and the Mounte stop it Ruu , you'll have me in tears with all this nostagia

Vince135792003

Anybody ever use to watch Japaneese wrestling on Eurosport in the early 1990's? There are only 2 things I remember about it:

1. Vader and his awesome entrance
2. Every match to me seemed incredible.


I also remember the WCW show on ITV but only vaguely.

Another think that occurred to me from childhood was an argument I had with another boy in school about the Legion of Doom. I'd say we were both about 8 and I thought Animal was better than Hawk.

And if anyone has ever seen much of LOD you'll know why I an 8 year old would think that! Hawk generally would be the guy that would get beaten on in every big tag match they did in the WWF while Animal would make the hot tag and do all his power manouvers.


We also used to play Royal Rumble on the grass in school. Obviously the "thrown over the top rope" stipulation had to be altered so it was changed into the person whose feet got thrown onto the concrete. I was a small kid so generally I'd be one of the first to be eliminated but I had a large friend who would play the Andre the Giant role where everybody would have to team up to get him out!

Ruu_Old

I can remember that big mask thing (not the straps, huge thing that went over his head and shoulders) that Vader had when he came out and he could move in that ring! Very good technical wrestler as well, knew all the moves.

Ham'nd'egger

Vince, I used to love their shows; Gordon Solie and SIR Oliver Humperdink. They had some awesome matches on their shows and some great talent used to show up.

Vince135792003

Hamndegger wrote: »

Vince, I used to love their shows; Gordon Solie and SIR Oliver Humperdink. They had some awesome matches on their shows and some great talent used to show up.

Did they do the Eurosport or WCW commentary?

Ham'nd'egger

Vince135792003 wrote: »

Did they do the Eurosport or WCW commentary?

The shows weren't anything to do with WCW, Vince. They used to defend the International Wrestling Grand Prix (IWGP) titles on the shows; I guess that the commentary was dubbed over for foreign audiences depending on who they got; we were lucky enough to get Solie and Sir Oliver Solie used to work for NWA and did some shows for WCW in it's fledgling days of Z Man and Johnny B Badd.

Johnny B Badd, now there was a gimmick!:p

Vince135792003

Hamndegger wrote: »

The shows weren't anything to do with WCW, Vince. They used to defend the International Wrestling Grand Prix (IWGP) titles on the shows; I guess that the commentary was dubbed over for foreign audiences depending on who they got; we were lucky enough to get Solie and Sir Oliver Solie used to work for NWA and did some shows for WCW in it's fledgling days of Z Man and Johnny B Badd.

Johnny B Badd, now there was a gimmick!:p

I meant were you talking about the commentators for WCW/NWA on ITV or the wrestling on Eurosport.

It's nice to know I got the chance to listen to Gordon Solie even if I didn't know it until now!

Otis Driftwood

Ruu wrote: »

I can remember that big mask thing (not the straps, huge thing that went over his head and shoulders) that Vader had when he came out and he could move in that ring! Very good technical wrestler as well, knew all the moves.

Remember when he hit the moonsault on Stinger.Jesse and Shivone were on about for weeks.

It looked awesome and he was one of my faves.

Will always remember when he totally squashed Marcus Alexander (buff) Bagwell and Sting came out to make the save.

That was an awesome fued.

Ham'nd'egger

Vince135792003 wrote: »

I meant were you talking about the commentators for WCW/NWA on ITV or the wrestling on Eurosport.

It's nice to know I got the chance to listen to Gordon Solie even if I didn't know it until now!

Solie is looked upon as the greatest commentator of all time; I'm glad you got to hear him calling quality matches.

As I remember it, the NWA team would have been Lance Russell, Gordon Solie, Jim Ross early on depending on what match they showed, though once it was levelled out, Lance was the sole lead. Tony Schivane would have come in as they went into 1991 and WCW settled into him and JR before JR went to work with WWF. By this stage, Eric Bishoff would have also joined the fray. As an aside, commentators would have worn penguins or sport blazers as standard uniform, complete with promotion logo on the pocket; how smart!

Do you remember when they got Roddy Piper in as color on WWF TV shows?

Vince135792003

Hamndegger wrote: »

Do you remember when they got Roddy Piper in as color on WWF TV shows?

I wouldn't have seen any of the main shows he commented on back then I don't think. At least, I don't remember anyway.

I bought most of the shows on dvd from back then though. He was a mile a minute for 3 hours doing commentary. I particularly liked him, Hennan and Monsoon at Summerslam '91. Just alot of fun.

Otis Driftwood

The chemistry between Heenan and Monsoon was awesome.IMO the Brain was the best on the mike ever.

nacho libre

"and it's the powerbomb and its all over"

For me it wasn't so much what Gordon said during a match it was his delivery. Those he did come up with some memorable phrases.
I enoyed JR's speech about him at the HOF

nacho libre

Ruu wrote: »

I can remember that big mask thing (not the straps, huge thing that went over his head and shoulders) that Vader had when he came out and he could move in that ring! Very good technical wrestler as well, knew all the moves.

Indeed.
I remember watching at the time thinking how the hell can a guy this big do some of these moves.

Roar

for fans of the big boss man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKbRMEV9_YI

you'll be servin hard time! ha ha pure unadulterated cheese.. i remember buying that album on tape and wearing it out

can beat the pure cheesyness of bret hart's love song on that!

Dr_MaSoN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqBXiutHeP0&feature=related

so many memories for me there


Stil remember Hart spitting on Vince when he called Hebner to ring the bell against HBK...stil not a great fan of vince til this day :mad:

Ham'nd'egger

Roar wrote: »

for fans of the big boss man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKbRMEV9_YI

you'll be servin hard time! ha ha pure unadulterated cheese.. i remember buying that album on tape and wearing it out

can beat the pure cheesyness of bret hart's love song on that!

lol I still prefer the Mountie; now he was Law and Order

tdv

nedtheshed wrote: »

The chemistry between Heenan and Monsoon was awesome.IMO the Brain was the best on the mike ever.

Yeah Bobby was awsome. Made the crap matches you didnt care about worth while watching.


Bobby Is God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx4OD3kkvTQ

Vince135792003

An update on Heenan from the observer:

Bobby Heenan has returned home after spending several months in the hospital following reconstructive jaw surgery, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. He was previously placed in a medically induced coma following the surgery to help with the healing. He is still unable to speak.