Professional wrestling thread

The AWA was so bad, just embarrassing. No original ideas, no intelligent thought.

My sister -- who hated wrestling -- once walked into the den when I was watching some Greg Gagne/Jim Brunzell vs. Ken Patera/Crusher Blackwell tag match. I was a teenager at the time, just a big geek. She took one look at Gagne and said, "That guy is a wrestler? You have a better body."

Then daddy Verne put him in fatigues. Oy vey.

That was almost as bad as when Gagne beat Bockwinkel in his retirement match. He quits the sport and just gives Bockwinkel the belt. No tournament, no nothing. Terminally stoooopid booking.

 

Without Verne, there might not be a lot of the wrestlers you do like. I'll give you that Verne wasn't the best promoter and that Greg Gagne was always one blading away from needing a serious blood tranfusion, but c'mon. AWA was cool, well before the dying days of the late 80s.

 

Say what you want about Verne, but he didn't make David Arquette a champion.

 

I gotta agree with Claws up above, the AWA had some great days, especially in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s. In fact, their business was booming with a young Hulk Hogan running wild. The biggest mistake Verne Gagne ever made was not locking up the Hulkster. However, Verne was soooooo old school, I believe that while Hogan would've thrived in the AWA and lit up the midwest territories, he may never have broken out on a national scale like he did when he was with WWF/E.

But personally, I enjoy solid wrestling and believable storylines, and AWA did just that for a long time. And you can't ignore how many future superstars emerged from there. It may have been a distant third to the Big 3 but it was still one of the Big 3 for a reason.

 

I gotta stand up for the AWA also.

Dweebs like Greg Gagne aside, the AWA did a great job developing talent and bringing a believable product to the Midwest. I grew up watching it on Sunday mornings, then would follow up by watching WWF Superstars of Wrestling.

Even as an impressionable little guy, the AWA always struck me -- like the NWA -- as how pro wrestling SHOULD have been. The WWF? Not so much.

 

Two things:

1) I just sat down and watching Ring of Honor's ''Unified" DVD from their recent show in England. Wow. The tag team match between the Briscos and Austin Aries/Roderick Strong was an amazing display of tag team wrestling. I didn't realize how much I had missed a good tag team match until I saw this one. And the main event between "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson and Niguel McGuiness was simply amazing. One of the best matches I have ever seen. It had everything. Great scientific work, unbelievable brutality (McGuiness bleeds and you won't believe how it happens) and the crowd in England was on fire. Go out of your way to see this match. It will remind you why you became a wrestling fan. It also shows how way off base WWE is in what they think gets a wrestling fan fired up. It's so simple, yet Vince, Stephanie and the rest of the McBoobs make it so difficult.

2) I'm a member of PWTorrents.com. For those of you not familiar with torrent sites, it's basically a file-sharing site. This one focuses solely on wrestling/mixed martial arts. They offer an amazingly wide variety of wrestling. There are files you can download from the 40s, all the way to last night's TNA Impact show. The the site is offering signups right now and I highly recommend it. All they ask is that you leave your torrent program open after you've downloaded so others can leech off you. It improves your rating and helps speed up downloads. I was a torrent idiot before, but it really is simple.
If you're interested, go to http://special.pwtorrents.net/. If you have any questions feel free to PM me or post it here.

 

Thanks for the backup GS and Norman. AWA was my introduction to pro wrestling and I'll be damned if I'm going to let others rip on it. Every wrestling organization has its faults -- some more than others -- but what made pro wrestling great back in the day (and yes, I realize it'll never be that way again, although ROH tries very hard) was the territory system. If you wanted Midwest, you had AWA and Wrestling at the Chase. In the South, you had Southwest, World Class, Memphis, Florida, Georgia and the Southeast stuff. Out west there was Portland, California was a hotbed (especially with Blassie/John Tolos and the Mexican wrestlers) and the East Coast with the WWWF (Vince Sr.) and the Mid-Atlantic regions and the whole NWA concept that it was great to see it all.

Vince Jr. might have taken it nationwide, but he KILLED pro wrestling by being greedy instead of being part of something that was worthwhile to those respective territories. Sure, they have OVW in Louisville and Deep South in Georgia now, but c'mon. Talk about too little, too late. If WWE was going national, why not have a WWE agreement with each territory instead of raiding all the talent. Verne, at the time, wasn't willing to give in and I don't blame him. A lot of guys rip him NOW, but what would they have been if not for him showing them the ropes (or better yet, the barn!). Verne's recent induction into the WWE Hall of Fame was painful to see because of his sketchy health, but it was sadder because Verne was surrounded by people at that ceremony that he helped make into stars and yet they're also the ones who bit the hand that fed them.

 

Bravo Claws, bravo.

I loved the old territory system, if for no other reason than it gave you fresh faces every six months or so. Instead of yet another Von Erichs vs. Devastation Inc. angle, you got the Flair and the Horsemen rolling into town for a couple of months to challenge the good guys.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.

"And that's all the people need to know..."

Gotta love The Baron...

 

Did anyone watch TNA's Impact last night... they had a 2-hour show to commemorate their new Thursday 9 pm time slot.

It was really good. I woulda loved to have been a fly on the wall in WWE HQ today.

 

Saw bits and pieces of TNA's show last night and caught some of it online at tnawrestling.com the Joe-Angle confrontation at the end hopefuly doesn't mean we know who'll go over, but I think it's looking more clear to me who will be going over now.

One question regarding Genesis PPV: Is Rhino not on the card at all? Will he be Roode's surprise opponent? They have wrestled each other in a Rhino vs. Roode and Scott D'Amore bout on a PPV before

 

Another item from wwe.com: WWE Hall of Famer “Rowdy” Roddy Piper has been hospitalized in Oregon for surgery after being sent home from WWE’s tour of the United Kingdom. Piper’s original diagnosis was kidney stones, however, sources close to the situation say the former World Tag Team Champion’s surgery may be a result of disc problems.

Due to Piper's injury, he will not participate at Survivor Series; Ric Flair's team will now include a Legend to be named.

I'm thinking they'll put Hacksaw Duggan in the spot, but maybe Ricky Steamboat? Or, how about BARON VON RASCHKE?!!