forsberg_us wrote:

I have no idea what the current crop is like, but back then, most of those guys were really nice.

It's a lot more corporatized, so they're probably friendly because they have to, whereas back in the day they were high as kites and genuinely didn't care.
 

tkihshbt wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

I have no idea what the current crop is like, but back then, most of those guys were really nice.

It's a lot more corporatized, so they're probably friendly because they have to, whereas back in the day they were high as kites and genuinely didn't care.
 

I would have thought they were so jacked up on steroids that no one in the first five rows of the arena was safe.
I was a regular WWWF watcher beginning in the mid-'70s and started going to the house shows with my friends in high school. When McMahon's circuit was still a regional act, there was usually a 4-city rotation - Boston, NYC and Philadelphia were the three regular cities, and the fourth weekend probably consisted of a sub-rotation among Hartford or Providence or Albany or one of the other smaller cities in the Northeast. Portland, Maine, was a frequent stop, I think.
In order to see a belt change hands, you had to go to a house show. And the Heavyweight belt only changed hands at Madison Square Garden. If you went to Boston Garden, you might see the tag team belt and then later the Intercontential belt change hands, but if the Heavyweight champ - almost always Bob Backlund - was on the card, he wasn't dumping his belt in Boston.
It's difficult to explain how chaotic those house shows were. You never, ever drove into Boston in the late '70s, so you had to take the train into North Station. Public transportation is notoriously-abysmal in Boston. Now that we've almost done away with toll takers, the MBTA - the state agency that runs the subway and commuter rail - is the last refuge of Massachusetts' notorious patronage system, so every ne'er-do-well or idiot relative of a state representative or a judge or a state college dean ends up on the MBTA payroll. It's not rapid transit. It's vapid transit. The trains are never on time, the drivers growl at you if they have to make change, the trains themselves are flithy, and there's no pattern to the system. I've been on a train dozens of times that suddenly stops, unloads, and makes you wait for another train on the same track.
Once the train made it, you took your life into your hands walking from the station to the Garden. The old Boston Garden was across the street from a couple of adult movie theaters, and there were always transients around who were staying at the decrepit hotel attached to the stadium.
The Garden itself was a dump that always seemed to have a layer of smoke hovering under the roof, and it was almost routine to see rodents in the stairwells or even occasionally in the seating areas. No air conditioning, and very little heat, so depending on the season, you either sweated a lot, or shivered a lot. And your feet always stuck to the cement floor because of all the dried beer and soda.
As I said, Boston was usually the first stop of the month for the WWWF, and the first few times we went, the place was always packed. Later, we went one time when the house show got bumped to the back end of the month for whatever reason, and only about 5,000 people showed. When we asked one of the ushers why the crowd was so sparse, he said, "Because the people who usually come here for wrestling have already spent their welfare checks for the month."
And the crowd itself was ... um, volatile. As I mentioned, my friends and I used to root for the heels, just to be different, and that induced all sorts of threats and allegations from others in the crowd. There really are people out there who were raised on a diet of lead paint chips and think pro wrestling is a legitimate athletic competition, and you piss them off at your own peril. Fortunately, there were always about a half-dozen of us in our group, and we were all young and reasonably big, so no one really started too much shit with us physically.
I probably went to two dozen house shows before I went off to college, and then I started doing other things. I tried to pick it up again in my 30s, but there wasn't as much wrestling as there was talking. I got sick of Hulk Hogan or Scott Steiner comandeering the microphone for 10 minutes at a time, and my interest drifted off.
There was a regional circuit called Eastern Championship Wrestling out of Philadelphia that I watched pretty regularly for a while in the late '90s, but the show was on at 1 a.m. on Saturday and once I became a father, I couldn't stay up that late anymore.

 

Last edited by artie_fufkin (2/15/2016 6:32 pm)

BALTIMORE (AP) — Officials say a Baltimore-born professional wrestler best known for competing in Extreme Championship Wrestling during the 1990s died from an accidental overdose earlier this month.The Baltimore Sun reports (http://bsun.md/1VlwbF8 ) Baltimore's Chief Medical Examiner Office announced Axl Rotten's cause of death.Police said in a report that 44-year-old Rotten, who was born Brian Knighton, was found unconscious and not breathing Feb. 4 on the bathroom floor of a Linthicum fast-food restaurant.He was pronounced dead at the scene.In a statement after his death, WWE, the wrestling company which owns ECW, extended its condolences to Knighton's family, friends and fans.The newspaper reported in 2005 that Rotten was known "for the extremes he would go to in the ring, including mutilating himself in matches involving barbed wire and broken glass."

Linda was actually crushed in both 2010 and 2012. Nobody really likes the McMahons. I think their son is the most popular among wrestling fans.

I believe Sabu is still kicking around on the indy circuit. He showed up in WWE when ECW was relaunched as a brand in 2006, but did not last long. One of the guys who hammed up the brutality stuff was Abdullah the Butcher. He has hepatitis C now.

There was a rumor about 10 years ago that "Cowboy" Bob Orton, who is rumored to have Hep C, transmitted the disease to Undertaker during a match between Undertaker and Randy Orton. I wouldn't doubt if two-thirds of the guys whose heydays were 30 years ago have Hep C at this point.

Multiple media sources reporting Jay Bruce will end up in Toronto in a three team deal that also iinvolves the Angels.
Brandon Phillips' decision to refuse parole - twice - gets better for him every day.

APIAD wrote:

Im not sure what value Bruce has at this point. I wouldnt take him over pham.

I would.  In a heartbeat.

APIAD wrote:

I acknowledge im sort changing bruce in compare him to pham.  Bruce has good power.  But he is under 30 and had 2 season of .220 average.  Thats unimpressive to me.

He's also had 3 seasons of 30+ HR with 97+ RBI. He's 29, has a team friendly contract with an option, and if I remember correctly plays very good defense (or maybe he just has a very good arm).

His average over the last 2 years has been terrible, but before that he posted 4 seasons as good or better than what we're hoping from Grichuk.  I'd take a chance on fixing him.

Of course, it doesn't really matter. It's pretty unlikely the Reds would trade him to St. Louis.

He is still a red.  Thats like herpes.  It never truely goes away.

Dexter Fowler re-signs with the Cubs.  Heyward back to RF, and Soler and Schwarber will platoon in LF.

Smart move for the cubs likely.  Soler and schwarber will be better in left and id be uncomfortable with heyward in center with those guys flanking him.  It takes away alot of their pop not having both those guys in the lineup.