AWA Wrestling back on the air

[RedJed 0]

There was some really strange video packages they did promoting AWA on these shows lately as "where the real wrestlers are" and "the original wrestling league" that were some great intentional hilarity. One cheesy as hell video package was finished by Steve Olsonouski doing the most ridiculous finisher I have maybe ever seen, basically an arm drag. Another was Donna Gagne having troubles reading from cue cards while trying to sell the product as superior to the rest.

 

Sadly, the goofy Larry Nelson segments and shit like that were the only good things lately. Oh, and Heyman was on last night's show interrupting Larry Nelson and throwing him off the set. Cuts a hell of a promo on Tommy Rich, of all people, after.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

Yeah, Dangerously was awesome on last night's show. And that ring announcer (not Nelson) looked like he could be Bischoff's sleazier (imagine that) brother.

[RedJed 0]

Yeah, Dangerously was awesome on last night's show. And that ring announcer (not Nelson) looked like he could be Bischoff's sleazier (imagine that) brother.

 

Yeah, I met that ring announcer years after AWA folded, he was announcing for some indy MN fed. I think his name was Mick Karch or something. Nice guy but kind of a goofy dude.

 

Fuck, tonight's show was just great. Larry Nelson going through "AWA ratings and rankings" was hilarious (half of the people Nelson mentioned I had never even seen on the shows so far, especially the women), as was one of most incoherant ramblings I've heard on these old AWA shows so far from Kevin Kelly aka Nailz. Somehow he was trying to prove he was being called by all of the top NFL teams of the time by showing envelopes from them with each team's letterhead. Like that makes him special that he didn't join the NFL or something. At the same time Madusa is standing next to him almost at the verge of cracking up during most of the promo because it was so ridiculous. Moreless your cliche steroid jacked up rambling, like we've seen from guys like Savage, Sid, Warrior, etc in the past.

 

If anyone can find Youtube links to either of these gems tonight, post them as they are worth it.

[RedJed 0]

So they have a main event of the Original Midnight Express versus two guys that don't look familair to me at all.....DJ Peterson and JT Southern? So this was Gagne's yet ANOTHER attempt at recreating their version of the Rockers, Rock N Roll Express, etc? The Top Guns were bad enough, these guys are ten times worse, especially the JT Southern guy. DJ Peterson is an almost move for move copy of Marty Jannetty.

 

Hahaha the ending of this show made me chuckle, that shit match tonight was the MAIN EVENT of the whole mass ESPN taping of that time period. What a horrible match to "wait for." For some reason they then air Nelson telling everyone that its the end of the taping, have a good night, etc.....well for awhile at least until Rod Trongard overpowers the house PA and mentions "we'll be right back"...huh?!!

[MillenniumMan831 0]

Watching this late at night, I thought DJ was Brutus Beefcake circa 1989.

 

Nelson: The winners of the match, JT Souther . . . Yes, I see the phone! And DJ Peterson!

 

Awesome.

 

Larry Nelson just doing his one-take pitches are tremendous. I imagine he had to have been a bitch to deal with.

[RedJed 0]

Watching this late at night, I thought DJ was Brutus Beefcake circa 1989.

 

Nelson: The winners of the match, JT Souther . . . Yes, I see the phone! And DJ Peterson!

 

Awesome.

 

Larry Nelson just doing his one-take pitches are tremendous. I imagine he had to have been a bitch to deal with.

 

I always get the impression when they show him announcing the matches from the Vegas Showboat that he puts on a pretty good buzz through those tapings. So I'm sure that was fun to deal with. His ring announcing gets a little more loose than usual. I know that much.

[cabbageboy 0]

Larry Nelson seems trashed out of his mind on these 1987 shows. Look at his eyes and how drowsy he looks, haha.

 

At this point I almost wish ESPN Classic would start showing some Global. You know you want Barry "The Winner" Horowitz.

[King Kamala 0]

Larry Nelson did in fact have a drug problem back in the 80s and wrote a tell all book about his crazy times in the AWA that I hear is quite entertaining.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

Fuck, this TV Title Tournament is on par w/ any tournament TNA can whip up. A 3ish month 'tournament' with a point system with matches happening at house shows and tv. 5 points for pin/submission, -5 for losing. 2.5 for DQ/CO win, -2.5 for losing. .5 for a draw. Nelson suggested we keep score as the matches go on. I guess he's counting on a lot of AWA groupies to follow them on the road and guess which matches are tournament matches. Nelson says when two guys hit FIFTY points, they will wrestle for the title. Greg Gagne on commentary said plainly whomever had the most points at the end of the tournament would be champ.

 

Just a mess.

 

Oh yeah, Jammin Mitch Snow got 2.5 points for winning by DQ over Larry Z who's 2.5 in the hole. I can't wait to see if they actually update scores week-to-week or just hodge podge it until two wrestlers magically get to 50 points.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah I am baffled by this tourney. Why they didn't just, I dunno, show us a bracket with the dudes on it I have no idea.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

they couldn't count on a roster to stay put...so it would've been a one night tourney

[RedJed 0]

I never noticed the absurdity of what is in essense a trio of a similar idea that explains in part the demise of the AWA. They would do tournaments or "series" like the TV title deal, and around this same time they did something called the Battle Royal champion series or something which had roughly the same rules as the TV tournament, that points accumulate via battle royals "across the country". Both the TV title and Battle Royal series were jokes and then they cap it off by the final nail in the coffin....the Team Challenge Series, which is basically the same fucking dumb idea of a point system, random points awarded here and there, etc, only booked in the most nonsensical and confusing form ever.

 

I think I already said it but if they show the last 6 months before the contract with ESPN expired (basically closing the company in the process) it will be something.

[Zack Malibu 0]

The world awaits the reairing of the Turkey On A Pole match.

 

Re: Nelson. He was absolutely a mess during this period, and admits so in his book (which I have read). Not much in the way of dirt, honestly, but it talked about how the industry swept him up into a whirlwind of booze, drugs, and women.

[RedJed 0]

The world awaits the reairing of the Turkey On A Pole match.

 

Re: Nelson. He was absolutely a mess during this period, and admits so in his book (which I have read). Not much in the way of dirt, honestly, but it talked about how the industry swept him up into a whirlwind of booze, drugs, and women.

 

And the pink studio, and lets not forget Jake Milliman being the star, or at least the last visual, out of the whole Team Challenge Series shit.

 

Did he at least have good stories of the booze, drugs, and women? But yeah you could just tell he was heavily buzzed up on something, or coming off something, during most of this time period in the late 80s.

 

I would love to give the Nelson book a read, didn't even know he had written one.

[Zack Malibu 0]

I haven't read it in years, but I do have a copy around the house somewhere. I know he mentioned the famous "Rockers hire a hooker and get caught with her in the studio" story in it. He also talked about how he randomly turned the crew members of the AWA TV show into characters that he would mention on the air that the audience never saw, until at one show he announced one of them at ringside as a rib, and the guy got a big pop.

 

 

[RedJed 0]

Total side note item here, but ESPN Classic in the states here is bringing back the UWF Power Hour for an hour every Sunday at, I think, 8am. Have no idea if it's just rebroadcasts of the shows they already aired back earlier this year (which nine out of ten of those were fucking hard to sit through), or if they're different. I'll check it out next weekend and let everyone know.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

Nelson - "And in just a little while, we're going to see a two-ring battle royal *shrugs* whatever that is"

 

And Dangerously is exhausting Nelson with his promo. Some awful(ly good) impressions by Paul E.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

I just read Larry Nelson's (AWA Broadcaster) Autobiography and here's some interesting stuff he had to say:

 

Nick Bockwinkel's debuet match was aganist Lou Thesz (Nick was a last second replacement)

 

Hulk Hogan was a cokehead, as was Mean Gene, and they used to do it together in preperation for the marathon interview tapings

 

Road Warrior Hawk raped a 16 year old ring rat at a hotel in Winnepeg

 

The AWA used to have the pool closed off at that Hotel and rats were let in and the place was a virtual orgy

 

The only two people who weren't in on it were Larry Zybysko and Sherri Martel -who spent many nights together dispite Larry Z being married

 

Promoter Wally Karbo had a huge penis and had rats in every town to pleasure him (well into his late 60's +)

 

Shawn Micheals hired a hooker to show up at the interview tapings on Marty Jennedy's birthday....she preceded to blow him off while the camera's rolled... The Gagne's weren't impressed

 

Jerry Sags of the Nasty boyz, was a "goon" for a loan shark and fancied chewing off the ears of those in debt of his boss

 

When Larry Zybysko and his wife got divorced she passed out nude pics of Larry everywhere (Larry ended up marrying a Gagne)

 

Larry Nelson broke kayfabe on one of the AWA's syndicated shows, revealing his real name among other personal things

 

Bruiser Brody was big on cocaine

 

Denver was killed as a town after 3 straight Blackwell vs Brody main events were canceled at the last moment due to one or both men not showing up - and Hansen's no show vs Bockwinkel as well

 

Eric Bishcoff (I know I spelled that wrong) has false teeth, as many of his real teeth were knocked out by bullies at school, who beat him up regularly . That's what made him learn karate

 

The Saito/Patera McDonalds incident was fueled by lots of drugs

 

 

Thanks to me - circa a few years ago

[MillenniumMan831 0]

I started DVRing the shows just for Nelson and Paul E.

 

Hearing Nelson open the show by trying to explain the tag title situation was the real main event in my heart. Also funny that a few weeks ago, Wahoo and Zhukov had a chain match that "didn't settle anything" per Larry. Now that Zhukov has defected to the WWF, it was that very chain match that caused Zhukov to run from the AWA.

[RedJed 0]

Shawn Micheals hired a hooker to show up at the interview tapings on Marty Jennedy's birthday....she preceded to blow him off while the camera's rolled... The Gagne's weren't impressed

 

Larry Nelson broke kayfabe on one of the AWA's syndicated shows, revealing his real name among other personal things

 

The Saito/Patera McDonalds incident was fueled by lots of drugs

 

Can you expand with details on these three items? Especially Nelson breaking kayfabe on one of the shows, and if there is any footage of that (and/or the Jannetty promo where he's being blown off camera, now that would be hilarious to check out)

 

 

[Zack Malibu 0]

While trying to recall the actual details of it, I believe it was for the AWA syndicated show, not the ESPN show, where Nelson broke kayfabe. He basically just said that Larry Shipley (IIRC) was his real name, and how he had children he never saw, etc. It wasn't that he broke kayfabe on the wrestlers or anything.

[cabbageboy 0]

Always enjoy seeing some Memphis action on these AWA shows and it was amusing to see Lawler and Dundee be the first team from the area to win world titles.....over a makeshift Soledad/Sommers tag team?? It was hilarious that the ref counted a pin when Dundee was blatantly not legal at all (he was face in peril forever, finally tagged Lawler).

 

It's interesting to hear Paul E.'s promo setting up his Midnights vs. Lawler/Dundee by mentioning the notorious head shaving in Memphis where Idol/Rich shaved Lawler's head. That stuff would be about 10x better than anything on these AWA shows, but sadly we see none of that footage. It's bizarre hearing Lawler talk about it in the interview with Lance Russell since he mentions Rich, but in the AWA at that point Rich was a face and feuding with the Dangerous Alliance!

[RedJed 0]

While trying to recall the actual details of it, I believe it was for the AWA syndicated show, not the ESPN show, where Nelson broke kayfabe. He basically just said that Larry Shipley (IIRC) was his real name, and how he had children he never saw, etc. It wasn't that he broke kayfabe on the wrestlers or anything.

 

Wow, and did this stuff actually AIR then? That's weird they actually let him just go on like that when it had nothing to do with the show.

 

Regarding Tommy Rich and Heyman's feud in the AWA, I think that was well after Heyman managed him in Memphis when Rich was a heel, in fact I think Heyman started managing in Memphis, initially called Paul Dangerly or something, and Rich was one of his first guys. But since that point, Rich had turned face (and I don't know if he turned while Heyman still managed him in Memphis or if Heyman had left by then, nor for that matter am I sure that Rich turned face when he was still in Memphis) and then they crossed paths in the AWA, and as we saw the other night on the old shows, Heyman starts manages Adrian Adonis, who ends up putting a dress and lipstick on Rich, that was hilarious shit there considering stories of how Rich would essentially swing both ways a bit in the backstage.

 

 

[MillenniumMan831 0]

And to hear Ray Stevens (or maybe it was Greg Gagne, I don't remember) refer to Rich as a man's man in the following studio segment makes it better.

[RedJed 0]

And to hear Ray Stevens (or maybe it was Greg Gagne, I don't remember) refer to Rich as a man's man in the following studio segment makes it better.

 

Haha, yes! God damn, Ray Stevens was just delivering the most blatant verbal diarrhea I've heard in quite some time there.

 

Speaking again of Larry Nelson, they showed a promo done in the backstage of some house show or something the other night on these shows with Dangeously and Adonis, and the guy looked seriously doped up on some serious shit. For us who watch most of these shows, you all should know which one I'm talking about, I hope.

[RedJed 0]

So I'm catching up on these shows by watching the weeks AWA so far in a little mini-marathon here......random thoughts.....

 

Nelson's no selling the idea of a two ring battle royal was great.......I dont know if that was supposed to be a knock on the NWA or what, as I remember seeing plenty of two ring battle royals or a little something called War Games as well. Or else he just didn't care to educate himself on the concept.

 

The commentary madness during Dick Slater's squash was tremendous. First, Trongard calls him Dirty Dick Rheins for some reason as he walks out to the ring, and in joined by someone called Larry Sisowski (sp?) who is one of the most anxious sounding and unconvincing commentators ever.

 

We then go to the next segment....a god awful interview with JT Southern and DJ Peterson, words can't give this justice just how shitty JT Southern was in cutting a promo that really made no sense. He got lost in what he was even talking about and paused in mid sentence for a few moments. Just fucking brutally hilarious, both in how these dolts couldn't talk for shit and looked funny as hell with their totally 80s cliche look.

 

Some super vintage footage from this two ring battle royal, I couldn't decide whether the Ray Stevens of 87 looked more strange than the Ray Stevens of 74 or if it was the other way around. I actually really got into this old stuff, although it would have been nice to have a camera actually filming BOTH rings at once more often. Instead we seemed to just get what was going on in one ring only, and the second ring was hardly filmed at all. WTF?!

 

And speaking of a major WTF, Nelson goes on and on about some Steve Long guy, Elvis Impersonator at the Showboat?! What a way to end a show...Verne did some of the oddest co-promotions with random people who really didn't ever mean anything to anyone.

 

Heyman was just cutting great promos over and over on these shows

 

My head hurt after the explanation of the tag title change, period. Fuckin Nelson was all over the place with that. Curious what the politics was behind Lawler and Dundee at AWA tag team champs in the first place......I never knew they ever gave them the titles. Was this the start of Gagne starting to partner up with Memphis, WCCW, etc? Super Clash 3 happened about a little over a year after the timeline of this show.

 

So what was the deal with Nelson saying an October 30 show was going to be an "ESPN Wrestling Spectacular?" Did ESPN air live house shows from the AWA every so often around this time? I never remembered that. All I remembered was that they solely taped at the Showboat.

 

As soon as I say this, they show a match from an AWA house show of Rich, McDaniel, and Jerry Blackwell against Adonis and the Midnight Express. This may very well be from the show they were hyping up in the segment before, the October 30 show from Wisconsin. Weird. My god, the crowd is fucking dead as shit for this match.

 

That street fight battle royal video package was fanfuckingtastic shit there. It's a "Chicago Battle Royal" that somehow only made it as far as the Showboat in Vegas. Was this just the AWA's copy of the Bunkhouse Stampede? In a huge shocker, Tommy Rich bleeds like crazy.

 

And for no good reason, we get Condrey and Wahoo again later in the same show in another one of these oh so classic TV title "tournament" matches that Nelson only secretly knows about and not the commentators. GASP~Tommy Rich does a run-in. You don't say.

 

Fuckin Wildfire is all over this shit. As well as Adonis and Heyman.

[cabbageboy 0]

I wish they had shown that huge Battle Royale in its entirety since it looked cool as hell. They are willing to show a bunch of crappy squashes and double dip with various guys, but just skim through something cool.

 

I think Lawler and Dundee mostly just won the tag belts to pop the Memphis crowd. Not like that epic makeshift team of Somers/Ustinov had any business with the belts. The AWA had been working with Memphis for years, with Bockwinkel going down to defend a lot vs. Lawler. It wasn't until the AWA got bad business wise that they seriously thought about putting belts on Memphis guys though.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

iirc the dundee/lawler win wasn't authorized by verne

 

memphis also declared the titles vacant for an angle w/ the Midnight Rockers... the AWA never referenced this title change

[cabbageboy 0]

Hell, on the last TV show Verne says that Lawler/Dundee beat the Russians for the belts, but that isn't even true. They beat Ustinov and a makeshift partner Doug Somers (Zukov had defected to the WWF). The truly bizarre aspect of this show is that on the previous show I could swear the bogus Midnights had the belts and were defending them against whoever....and this was BEFORE the match with Lawler and Dundee had even aired!

[MillenniumMan831 0]

You sure are right about that, it was the 6-man tag from the night before.

 

Would it have killed the AWA to tape matches using the same announcers in consecutive matches?

 

For as much as people may or may not dislike Trongard, he had to have been beating his head against the wall commentating w/ some of these shmucks. Verne is shit, Greg is ok, Karch tries but he can be annoying, that local yocal promoter from WI is the pits. No wonder Lee Marshall got a gig, he's Gordon Solie next to these clowns.

 

Kudos to Larry Nelson for combing his hair. I love how he and his guests seem to have no clue which major matches are in which city. "If I get my hands on (heel) in (random city), than I won't stop until they pull me off you!"

 

Dennis Condrey had the world's greatest low blow sell against Wahoo . . . on his tippy-toes w/ his knees flailing in perfect rhythm.

 

Last but not least, Madusa was lookin primo on Wed's show. That fuckin fag Karch was doing everything in his power to get Rod to focus on wrestling and Rod is all "I have to sit through this shit wrestling every goddamn night, so shut your fuckin mouth and let me rub one out to Madusa before the squash starts!" --- Well, he was thinkin it.