Bix

http://davidbix.com/?p=25 Rob Naylor co-hosts a Thanksgiving weekend spectacular where we interview one of of the World Tag Team Champions, former World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk! A great show (with them carrying me at times) where Punk discusses his past as an independent wrestler, his matches with John Morrison, burying the hatchet with Teddy Hart, having a bunch of merchandise, and much more, including a hilarious Tony Garea story that includes a fine vocal impersonation. Plus, Punk hands the phone to his good friend François Kevorkian (who may or may not be the same one who mixed for Depeche Mode) for a fascinating and enlightening discussion. Almost 80 minutes of the most (self?-)important Loser Leaves Town Podcast EVER!

Mongolian Mauler had a few matches on Worldwide in '94 when they realized that the previous Disney tapings were a disaster so the show had to exist on a different plane of existence from most of what was going on in WCW. PG-13 did get a tag title shot against the Smoking Gunns on Raw. Doug Gilbert got to be in the Royal Rumble that he won a slot in. They may have run it another year where it didn't come off.

Frenchie Bernard was Andre's friend/caretaker, not Frenchie Martin.

In fairness, maybe the tape was messed up during Gagne-McGraw.

There was an episode of Raw on recently where Monsoon threatened to throw Steve Austin's "ass out of the building". It was both incredibly awesome and incredibly odd to hear Monsoon curse on TV. Who the hell is J.W. Storm? A little investigative journalism led to my finding out that he is former DDP bodyguard MAXX MUSCLE~! and marking out a little. One of his other ring names was Big Juice. Jeff Warner as Maxx Muscle is a Wikipedia-created myth.

Crockett bought the UWF primarily for its syndicated network (Jim Ross had built up a pretty solid roster of affiliates all over the US)...which Watts was paying out the ass for. Crockett paid Watts for the right to pay for his TV slots when he could've just waited for Watts to go out of business and taken them over then.

"While CWF might be one of the lesser known territories" I love the stuff that they throw in to piss people off.

For what it's worth (as a factoid), Freddie Blassie wrestled with one kidney later in his career.

The short version of the history of Dr. Black: He runs the NFL drug testing program and his presence was a big reason why Meltzer et al thought the WWE policy was legit (high steroid failure threshold aside). After the Benoit murders and his talk show appearances where said testosterone was not a steroid, he was viewed as a stooge who looks out for the best interests of whoever's paying him.

HHH's reference to Dr. Black was taken off Smackdown in editing before it ever hit the air. There's something to be said about a promo by the son-in-law being considered over the line enough that it was edited.

London reportedly hated Japan, which led to him signing with WWE, IIRC, because he couldn't supplement his income as well as his peers could if wouldn't do Japanese tours.

I seem to remember the "smoking gun" photo being that their bookshelf had recent Coliseum Videos.

Starting with stuff you can get via completely official and legal means (everything here is also available from Netflix, with some of the Wrestling Gold family of stuff available via "Watch Instantly" streaming): Pick up some Memphis. The TV formatting and wrestling style (lots of great brawls and epic main events) will be easy to get into if you're used to this decade's WWE stuff. Maybe start by picking up the Wrestling Gold DVD set at retail to get started as it's cheap and has a good amount of quality Memphis footage, with alternate commentary by Jim Cornette & Dave Meltzer to give all sorts of fun historical info. Some is edited but it's a good start. I was hooked by seeing some of the same matches on old VHS tapes from the same company. The 2nd box from the same company has 2 Smokey Mountain Wrestling DVDs and some OVW, which is newer ('90s and '00s respectively) wrestling booked by Jim Cornette to have a similar feel to Memphis and Mid-South (and these also have Cornette/Meltzer alternate commentary tracks). Speaking of Mid-South, they have 2 official retail releases available that have some good stuff: http://www.dvdpricesearch.com/cgi-bin/dvdc...p;tmpCart=75547 http://www.dvdpricesearch.com/cgi-bin/dvdc...p;tmpCart=82806 The Watts family sells a lot of Mid-South footage at http://www.universalwrestling.com but they have no compilations besides the retail ones, just a lot of full TV episodes and house show footage, so it's not the best place to start. Oh, and back to Memphis for a second. There's the Andy Kaufman "I'm From Hollywood" documentary that covers the Lawler feud. Though the timeline is messed up at times and they skip a lot, it's a blast to watch. Netflix has the out of print version with "My Breakfast With Blassie" on the B side of the DVD. There's also a solid "Best of the Von Erichs" DVD that's out of print. (All of the commentary has been removed, though) Of course, there are also the various WWE releases of older footage. The Flair sets, Pillman set, Bloodbath set, '80s stars set, and Andre the Giant re-release are a good start. ---------------------------- Now, for the less official means of procuring footage. Memphis is an odd duck. The masters are spread out all over the place and the actual owners don't seem to care about others doing anything with it. There's a lot available from your regular burnt DVD traders/sellers. If you want something a little more structured: Highspots has some releases they've put together that are endorsed by Cory Maclin of the current Memphis wrestling. They're pressed dual layer DVDs (not burnt) and the video quality varies, but there is some good stuff on them. So far, they've released: Classic Memphis Wrestling - 70s Arena Footage Classic Memphis Wrestling - Jerry Lawler vs Andy Kaufman Classic Memphis Wrestling - Strangest Matches and Wildest Brawls For the DVDVR '80s polls, Goodhelmet has put together a big set for the voting process. Full of great stuff and while it's recorded in LP mode to minimize the the number of discs, most of the stuff holds up ok. Enough people are participating that you know you're not being ripped off or anything. Rick at 70s-TV.com has a bunch of stuff, largely consisting of compilations that he's put together. The matches are clipped at times but even when they are, his discs and sets are great overviews. He's sold stuff on eBay for years and is very reliable. Jerry Lawler's website sells older versions of Rick's comps as well as DVD conversions of some of his old home videos.

It was apparently that they thought Americans didn't care about anything that happened internationally, which was worse.

Nippon TV owns most of the pre-split AJPW footage.