How does one become a fan of pro wrestling? I'm sure each person's story is different. They turned on the tv one day, came across it while they were channel surfing and got into it. Maybe someone gave yopu a tape...something inspired you to become a fan, and stay a fan. I'm not sure my story here is any different from your usual fan, but I find it to be very interesting, especially since I'm not a guy who was born in the Northeast where it's was known as traditional WWF Territory, or down south where it was traditional NWA territory. Being born and raised in Chicago, where it was once traditional AWA and Bob Luce territory, and seeing how things changed in this part of the country. Is what adds to the interesting aspect of how I became a fan, and even more, stayed a fan and became even more facinated by it.
I was almost 11 years old when my late grandfather Max took me to what was once known in the Chicago area as the 'shrie' for professional wrestling, the place was called the International Ampitheatre. There, and the Hammond Civic Center in Hammond Indiana were the places for us. Bob Luce ran both buildings for years and years and Verne Gagne Ran AWA shows at the Ampitheatre. They had a working asgreement of sorts because talent went between both companies and appeared on each company's shows at these two buildings.
I had no idea what my grandfather was up to bringing me here, we came a month before for the Ringling Brothers Circus so when i asked, My grandfather said it was a 'different' kind of circus. I had never seen pro wrestling before and my grandfather did watch it every week, and my late grandmother Florence, on my mother's side(Max was on my father's side) was into it big time, but I had never seen it up until this night at the Ampitheatre.
I vaguely remember the show but what caught my attention that night was this kinda fat guy, wearing a rainbow color shirt kind of dancing in the middle of the ring. When I asked my grandfather who that was, he said "That's the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes".
Now you know one look at Dusty Rhodes, he doesn't look anything like an 'american dream'. He was teaming with The Crusher against Ray'the crippler' Stevens and Nick Bockwinkel. The Crusher's way of brawling and Dusty's 'bionic elbow' and 'flip flop and fly' got me intriqued. The fans got into the match and I didn't know then that our town was considered a 'wrestling capital', and that the great Ampitheatre was the place to go in this area. Bob Luce in another part of the building had set up a 'professional wrestling hall of fame' which featured so many great legends of the past back then. Unlike the WWE's 'Hall of Fame' which is nothing...but a ploy for Wrestlemania every year and nothing else.
A few days later we all go over to Grampa Max's place out in Lincolnwood, Illinois(just outside chicago) and wrestling was on when we got there. So I sat and watched, waiting to see if this Dusty Rhodes and Crusher guy would be on the show. The Crusher came on for an interview and he was wearing sunglasses and had a cigar and he was talking about how he and Dusty beat Stevens and Bockwinkel, and how he went 'up and down' Halsted Street, doing what he used to do when he was 16, tossing guys out of his father's tavern, he said he did that on halsted Street and when he comes back he said what later I found out was his trademark "we're gonna murder the bums'.
That hooked me alittle and after seeing a match with the clawmaster Baron Von Rashke, Dusty came on for an interview and I remembered him sayin g when he comes back to Chicago.."We're nopt gonna talk about it, we're no0t gonna look for it, we gona get down..and do it, jack"! I was on the edge of my seat yelling, "YEAH"! So hence..I became a fan of professional wrestling.
At that time Wrestling was on one of two different spanish stations, WCIU channel 26 and channel 44. Bob Luce had switched his show back and forth between them two stations and AWA was on on channel 26 every sunday morning at 10..sometimes Bob Luce's show came on right after the AWA show, and for a short time they actually ran the same time on both the spanish channels, so I had to switch back and forth between the channels..Channel 26 later on added a 'lucha libre' show on monday nights that featured matches from the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. That show was all spanish except for the american wrestlers who did promos. Early days of Roddy Piper, Andre The Giant, Chavo Guerrero Sr. were on that show but I had my preference which was AWA and Bob Luce. Seeing the early days of Bobby heenan as a manager was awesome and seeing him get so pissed on promos it seemed so convincing, especially when he was yelling at Sam Manacker on Luce's show. It was on Luce's show that I got to see Bobo Brazil, Pepper Gomez, Ox Baker, Sailor Art Thomas, Ernie Ladd. These are the guys that most current fans would go 'who'? Not knowing the path their talents laid out for current stars to be on. AWA later on had Heenan, The Crusher, Mad Dog Vachon, Rashke, Ken Patera, Blackjack Lanza, Jerry'crusher' Blackwell, the highflyers. Again, legends most current fans wouldn't know, nor, have any appreciation for because these guys, didn't have to rely on a 'knuckle shuffle' or a 'you can't see me' to get over. These legends had it and didn't need non wrestling people to script interviews for them. They got over on their own, which is something alot of wrestlers these days just don't the capability to do.
Jim Ross I heard say this on acouple different dvds I have. He said "There wouldn't have been an NWO, wouldn't have been a DX and there damn sure wouldn't have been a four horsemen had it not been for...". Well you know what? Jim Ross is right but he's wrong. In a piece I'm gonna do next called "Cutting Thrtu the Bullshit". I'm gonna go thru some of these WWE DVDs and cut thru the bullshit..that the WWE spins in their recreating history they didn't create themselves..Before there were the Freebirds, DX, Horsemen, there was the Bobby Heenan Family running roughshot thru the AWA and Luce's WWA. Heenan had AWA world champion Nick Bockwinkel, the Blackjacks, Big Bad Bobby Duncum, Ken Patera. Heenan also managed the Valiant Brothers in Luce's company. Something you won't hear on any of McMahon's DVDs because he didn't create something that was great in a company he had no association with.
Heenan's family always got a ton of heat and I remember when Heenan himself took Buck Zumholfe's boombox and smashed it against a ringpost several times, destroying it. Jump the tag team champs the highflyers, always promised for great heat, and those angles lead to the match ups you'd see on the house shows, so you had an actual 'reason' to go to them, unlike today when matches are announced and changed willy nilly and nobody seems to care.
I remember when Dick The Bruiser took on Bruiser Brody, that was like 'the feud' at one time, much like later when the crusher took on Blackwell over use of the name 'crusher'. As much as I liked the bruiser and crusher, something about brody really appealed to me, but it seemed like he was in and out so fast, and the fact that 'silent wall' of never acknowledging on tv when a wrestler left the company I always found to be really annoying. Where'd Dusty go? How come Crusher's gone? Where'd Bobby Heenan go? None of that was ever acknowledged when they left and Apter mags were the only thing I had to find out. Blackjacks leave, Patera and Blackwell team up, Heenan goes and Adnan al kassie comes in. Jesse Ventura and Adrian Adonis show up, the east west connection. The changes some I liked and disliked because I got used to certain favorites always being there and now they were gone. Billy Robinson was one I always liked and they had teased a heel turn on him once. I wished they had followed thru on it. Jumbo Tsuruta, Mr. Saito added that international feeling to the AWA, Tito Santana came in and alot of the landscape of what I had liked had changed.
The monday night Lucha show got cancelled off of channel 26, Luce lost tv on channel 44, but then, midnight on sunday nights came...southwest champsionship wrestling, from san antonio texas. I found out where Brody went bercause they debuted with him beating up on Tank patton after an in ring interview. a young shawn michaels was interviewed and I got introduced to guys like Bob Sweetan, Eric Embry, Lord Johnathon Boyd, the sheepherders facing the road warriors. Wahoo Mcdaniel, Kevin Sullivan..This was at that time the roughest style of wrestling I had ever seen and got right into it the first time I saw it. World Class debuted on a saturday night at 5pm on an independent station. I just happened to0 catch the listing in the tv guide that came with the sunday paper, it just said 'wrestling' and I thought it was a typo as wrestling was never on this channel..When I saw it debut.. The first two weeks of it, had no commentary whatsoever. and saw Brody there as well..Funny how I had thought at the time "this guy sure gets around'. It was my first exposure to the Von Erichs, the one man gang, and man did terry gordy become a favorite for me. I found myself rooting for the bad guy brawlers like Gordy. Killer Tim Brooks I actually liked and the weird threesome team of him, One Man Gang and Maniac Mark Lewin, managed by Gary Hart, was such a motley crew of guys, being the world six man tag champs, Great Kabuki spitting green mist. Sunshine...what I was missing with AWA and Luce was slowly being filled with these new shows.
Then..on WFLD channel 32..one saturday morning came..."WWF Superstars". The debut show showed Hulk Hogan, who was in the AWA as I remembered and always came 'this close' to becoming AWA world champion, defeat the Iron Shiek to become WWF Champion. hell of a way to debut in Chicago. At the time I thought 'whoa...how's this gonna go when we all consider Bockwinkel as the real world champion here". Third week of World Class Wrestling and commentary finally was added to the show and Bill Mercer said "I think it's time we welcome the fans of Chicago to World Class Championship Wrestling". Brody vs Gordy was one of them matches where it was hard for me to root for cause I liked both. and One Man Gang claiming to come from 'Halsted street in Chicago', made me the instant fan, so he and Brody going at it made it another tough to root for match. But that's the kind of stuff that made me really love being a fan.
When the AWA stopped running shows at the Ampitheatre and started running the newly built rosemont horizon. I started going there as it was safter to go there than to the ampitheatre. el train ride to jefferson park station where there's a huge bus terminal, take a bus that goes to and from the horizon. I did that when i went to the Horizon to see my very first rock concert...which..believe it or not..was Styx..Paradise Theatre tour...Bruiser Brody came in managed by Al Kassie...Abdullah The Butcher came in managed by Al Kassie, they did this angle on tv where they attacked Jerry Blackwell because he eliminated Brody to wion a battle royal...I got to see Brody vs Blackwell at the Horizon..another one of those tough to root for matches but then something happened.....I was ringside for a lights out match between the two and I saw Blackwell 'blade' himself. That was the night the 'mark' in me got a clue that pro wrestling wasn't real....
That had a profound effect on me to where I actually stopped watching it for a few months. I don't know what it was like for other fans who had the reality hit them but for me at the time, it was big. I didn't watch any wrestling show for a few months, it was a hard hit to take.
A few months later it was a saturday morning and channel surfing I came across the WWF Superstars show. Boy...what a few months of not watching can do, so much had changed during that time. Dusty Rhodes, my all time favorite wrestler, was doing skits on WWF tv? "You can't beat my prices, but you sure can, beat my meat". LOL! The vids I thought were pretty cool...seeing him come to the ring wearing yellow polka dots, wasn't. I was like, what the fuck happened here? Where went the dusty rhodes I grew up watching, the three time world champ, three time bunkhouse stampede champ..all flushed for... polka dots?
Barry Windham was there again only this time as the widowmaker, Dick Slater doing the rebel gimmick, how weird that was to see. it's too bad they only had a once in awhile match between Slater and Jake Roberts, especially since they had an awesome feud in Watt's promotion. The NWA became WCW, Lex Luger was the world champ with Harley Race as his manager, and Mr. Hughes as a bodyguard? World Class became USWA and even the AWA was weird. I didn't mind Larry Zybysko as AWA World Champion, actually I came to like him in that spot, alot. Seeing guys like Muraco, Nikita Koloff come into the AWA was definetely weird but seeing Muraco there was cool to me. Then Slater left the WWF and came in to the AWA to help Curt Hennig, but he didn't stay long which was a shame, then..Tully Blanchard came, that I was hopped up for, sure it was fake, but I got right into it again seeing Blanchard come into my 'home' promotion. I was so hoping for him to get a run with the AWA International tv title. That would've been a natural seeing as he was well known for being the NWA world tv champ.
But...Nope, he and Bert Prentice high tailed it out as fast as they came in. The team of Ken Patera and Scott Norton though was a highlight. Still seeing Mr. Saito there was cool too. While the whole landscape changed..there were them little things that kept me a fan. But the early 90's had me not as enthusiastic as a fan as I once was. I'd watch but the same passion wasn't there, only in spurts did it come, like when Arn Anderson and Barry Windham were going at it when Barry was NWA Champ. Eddie Gilbert in GWF on ESPN was good as I was quite entertained by his heel promos. seeing 'brother love' there as 'the expert'. and then you'd have a rare decent matchup like Bad News brown vs the patriot which since I was a fan of Bad News, was a highlight. On the flip side seeing Scotty Flamingo go from that to Johnny Polo in WWF wasn't such a great highlight. JBL being a poor man's stan hansen. the lamer stuff kept that lack of real passion level at an all time high....I wound up getting married and after acouple years I talked her into a move from Chicago, to New Hampshire. There was a woman who lived there I was trading tapes with and my now exwife and I were talking about where to move. She said no to texas, no way to seattle, hell no to arizona and georgia wasn't even an option. New Hampshire though, was the one place she liked as she wanted to go Salem, Mass. plus no state tax in NH was another draw as well as Marie's endorsement of how nice it was compared to the drive by shooting neighborhood we were living in. After the move I found we had IWCCW on a local station there. It was different to see that again as they were on tv in Chicago on sportschannel for only acouple weeks(along with the NAWA that had Tommy Dreamer, Joey Styles and Tony Atlas, who was doing that and, IWCCW).
But really, unlike chicago which at one time or another had a variety of wrestling shows, New Hampshire was quite limited. So I just started trading more and more for tapes. Get as much old southwest stuff as I could, someone had said "If you like Southwest get some old Georgia stuff. I did and whoa baby, what was I missing with the old georgia championship wrestling. seeing the tommy rich/buzz sawyer feud going. one tape had sawyer vs paul orndorff which to me, was an awesome match. Dusty w/George 'the animal' steele,old freebird stuff, watching the breakup and then reuniting of hayes and gordy, watching gordy team w/snuka, and this one tape had something I later jammed Joey Styles on in print because he had said on ECW tv that Tommy Dreamer was the only one to ever get his shoulder up after being hit with the Superfly splash. I had a match on tape where Kevin Von Erich did it first. Much like again when Styles flopped when he said 'witness the first ever meeting between Terry Bam Bam Gordy and Bam Bam Bigelow". Hmm, I already did, and it wasn't on an ECW show, it was on a show of windy city wrestling at the Ampitheatre. I always liked calling claims like that, nobody else was doing it in print at the time so when I became a sheet writer, it became one of those 'natural' things to do.
Keeping me a fan was and still is hard. thankfully Smokey Mountain Wrestling and the old ECW came along. SMW was all the old school style stuff I loved, and ECW...whoa...seeing ultraclash 93 with Hansen & Terry Funk vs Abdullah the butcher and Kevin Sullivan was indeed, a fan's dream match if you loved that brawling kind of style. the public enemy were my fave tag team there, then beniot and malenko came right up there as well. in SMW the Dirty White Boy was the man for me. his feud with Jake Roberts kept me so excited as a fan. DWB's match vs Terry Gordy to me was better than most people panned it as. Those same people though praised Gordy in his match vs Raven a few months later in ECW. Considering what Gordy had gone thru health wise I openly said in print, "Let's see how you'd be after you're in a coma like he was". Funny how when I challenged them detracters (I sent them the column personally), they suddenly had nothing to say...Imagine that.
working on the indy scene was for me a great recharge of batteries. seeing the headliners of old with stars up and coming was the best of both worlds. both in Sousa's AWF and WWA New England. EWA was a total recharge as I've said in other articles I've written. Get into a burn out and want to just say f it, when the time came to come to the EWA and the product just blasted me awake from my burnout slumber, it was great for the fan in me, and lousy for thje relationship I was in while going thru a divorce...some free advice..if you're going thru a divorce, don't jump right into another relationship, rebound shit like that might be great for the sex part, but if you're with an emotional fuck up, it's a total strain on your sanity, take it from someone who knows.
these days I only watch old stuff on youtube or my old tapes/dvds. I'll catch a show of TNA once in awhile, I'm one of the customers who are 'wrong' according to the WWE so I've kept my word for over a year that I'd never spend another watching their programming. If I'm so wrong according to them then they don't need to try getting me to buy their PPV's or watch their rpoduct. I'll read about it and shake my head knowing they always prove me right. I know what I like and if a promotion can't come thru with what I like, why bother ivesting in them. TNA has more times than not come thru though at other times they've done some real head scratching things that make no sense.
Now with Hulk Hogan and Bischoff in TNA and from what I saw of the show they did against RAW, it does seem like they're to recreate the Nitro days. WWE is no different since they bring back bret hart and have him in an angle against shawn michaels over an angle that McMahon has redone in various ways over and over that it's one of the lamest ever now. From what I read about RAW it's like McMahon forgot the formula that whipped his ass for, how many weeks? If TNA can keep Russo at bay, they may have a shot at kicking McMahon's ass again, which is something fans, especially the ones that WWE has forgot, would like to see again.
You now know what made me a fan...
